PRIEST. And how are the people to be guided—without any really definite truth?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That's what is terrible! Each one of us has to save his own soul, and has to do God's work himself, but instead of that we busy ourselves saving other people and teaching them. And what do we teach them? We teach them now, at the end of the nineteenth century, that God created the world in six days, then caused a flood, and put all the animals in an ark, and all the rest of the horrors and nonsense of the Old Testament. And then that Christ ordered everyone to be baptized with water; and we make them believe in all the absurdity and meanness of an Atonement essential to salvation; and then that he rose up into the heavens which do not really exist, and there sat down at the right hand of the Father. We have got used to all this, but really it is dreadful! A child, fresh and ready to receive all that is good and true, asks us what the world is, and what its laws are; and we, instead of revealing to him the teaching of love and truth that has been given to us, carefully ram into his head all sorts of horrible absurdities and meannesses, ascribing them all to God. Is that not terrible? It is as great a crime as man can commit. And we—you and your Church—do this! Forgive me!
PRIEST. Yes, if one looks at Christ's teaching from a rationalistic point of view, it is so.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Whichever way one looks, it is so. [Pause].
Enter Alexándra Ivánovna. Priest bows to take his leave.
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. Good-bye, Father. He will lead you astray. Don't you listen to him.
PRIEST. No. Search the Scriptures! The matter is too important, as a matter of fact, to be—let's say—neglected. [Exit].
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. Really, Nicholas, you have no pity on him! Though he is a priest, he is still only a boy, and can have no firm convictions or settled views.…
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Give him time to settle down and petrify in falsehood? No! Why should I? Besides, he is a good, sincere man.
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. But what will become of him if he believes you?