The deputies, who resided in St. Petersburg and did a great deal of lobbying, frequently managed in their intercourse with the officials to ferret out these "designs" of the authorities and to communicate their findings secretly to the Kahal leaders in the provinces. At the same time they endeavored of their own accord to avert the danger by personal negotiations with the leading officials. While reporting on the one hand to the Kahals, the deputies on the other hand transmitted to Golitzin, the Minister of Ecclesiastic Affairs, the petitions of the Kahals and their complaints against the local administration. The deputies were thus reduced, by the force of circumstances, to mere go-betweens in Jewish matters. In exercising this function, some of them, Sonnenberg in particular, were indefatigable. They tried the patience of the high officials with their petitions and representations, and on one occasion Sonnenberg was even deprived of his post of deputy for "impertinent conduct towards the authorities." The bureaucracy of St. Petersburg began to resent these endless solicitations and this constant meddling with their plans. Gradually the deputies themselves lost heart, having realized their impotence in grappling with the rising wave of reaction. Some of them left St. Petersburg altogether. The downfall of Golitzin's Ministry of Ecclesiastic Affairs, which had been undermined by the ultra-reactionary Arakcheyev party,[272] involved, as a natural consequence, the downfall of the curious Jewish representation affiliated with it. Golitzin's successor as Minister of Public Instruction, the obscurantist Shishkov, made representations to the Tzar concerning the necessity of abolishing the institution of Jewish deputies, "numerous instances having demonstrated that their stay here is not only unnecessary and useless but even very harmful, inasmuch as, under the pretext of working for the public interest, they collect money from the Jews for no purpose, and prematurely advertise the decisions and even the intentions of the Government." In 1825 the "Deputation of the Jewish People" was abolished. Thus ended an organization beautifully conceived, but mutilated in execution, one that might well have served as a substitute for Jewish communal representation, and might have softened the _régime_ of caprice and blighting patronage which ate deeper and deeper into the vitals of Russian politics. 2. CHRISTIANIZING ENDEAVORS