"I came to intercede for my poor parishioners," he said gently, "those unhappy parents who are to be deprived of their young children. Some of them are scarcely out of their mothers' arms, and still require a mother's care in childish maladies. Only a mother's patience is strong enough to bear them through the first seven years. A child's heart is capable of great sorrows, and its spirit is quickly broken if it is sent among strangers, and separated from all it has known from its birth." "Ah!" said Father Paissy, with a deep breath, which sounded almost like a sigh. Father Cyril went on, encouraged. "The unfortunate people who have left our holy Church," he continued, "are most affectionate parents. It is their universal practice to treat their little ones with the utmost tenderness. They look upon their children as entrusted to their care by God Himself. True, that may be an error, but it is their belief. The children never hear uncivil words; they never see a drunken person in their homes. Think, your reverence, what it must be to children so carefully reared to be distributed among the houses of peasants who are ignorant and degraded by vodka-drinking. There would be great difficulty in finding suitable homes for them with our Orthodox peasants." "You seem to think very highly of your heretics," said Father Paissy in a scoffing tone. Father Cyril felt that he had forgotten himself. "I grieve over their heresy night and day," he answered earnestly; "it makes my life in Knishi a burden to me. I never had this trouble to encounter before. But oh, believe me, harsh measures will never bring them back to us, above all, not such a measure as this! Every father, every mother worthy of the name, will cry out against it. I assure your reverence, I was gaining some influence over them; I have seen two or three steal in at the church door to listen to my sermons. Let me plead their cause to you. Do you, with your powerful influence, get this terrible order rescinded. The Stundists will bless you, and it will add greatly to my influence in the parish." "Do you forget the children's immortal souls?" asked Father Paissy. "Is their salvation of no moment?" "Alas!" cried Father Cyril. "If salvation means to be saved from sin, I must confess that these poor straying heretics have advanced farther along the path of salvation than our superstitious, half-pagan Orthodox peasants. I am striving my utmost to teach and raise them, but only a parish priest can know how deeply they are sunk in degradation and drunkenness." "I can do nothing for you," said Father Paissy in a chilling voice; "the consistory has issued the order, and it must remain as it is. It must also be obeyed promptly, Father Cyril."