Time after time, and by cautious degrees, Velia fetched the Bibles and hymn-books hidden in the roof of the hut in the forest, and distributed them among the Stundist children, who were as truly orphans as if their parents were really dead. Some of them had been so young when they were taken away that the remembrance of their parents perished in a few months. But most of them had been present when the carts carried off their weeping mothers, and nothing could ever efface the memory of that scene from their hearts. There was still a root of the Stundist heresy left in Knishi. Yarina, the daughter-in-law of Okhrim, had been most touched and shocked by the banishment of the inoffensive Stundists. She had married, some years before, Panass, Okhrim's only son, who had proved an unkind and neglectful husband. But he was dead, and left her with an only child, a girl. At Father Cyril's urgent request, she had adopted two of the Stundist children to bring up with her little daughter. Secretly she was attaching herself to the Stundist faith, but she did not dare to avow it, for the sake of her child. Besides, Father Cyril's character, and the sermons he preached, still attracted her to the Orthodox Church. The mental sufferings of Father Cyril during the persecution were greater and deeper than words could tell. He believed it to be mischievous as well as unchristian. The utmost limit of persecution he could find in Christ's teaching, was, "Let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." This did not open the door to imprisonment, flogging, deprivation of civil rights, and exile. For how did Christ deal with the outcast classes? His own dealings with the publicans were full of forbearance and sympathy. He had visited them in their houses, and ate with them publicly. He had not driven away the heathen woman who besought Him to heal her daughter; or refused to see the Greeks, who came to Philip, saying, "Sir, we would see Jesus." Nay, when the disciples wished to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans who refused to receive them into their town, He rebuked them, saying, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man hath not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." The utmost that could have been permitted by the law of Christ, was to leave the heretics alone. "Let them be as publicans and heathens." Father Cyril could not himself think of the Stundists as heathens. He mourned over their separation from the Church, and believed they were mistaken in withdrawing from it. But he could not shut his eyes to their sobriety and integrity, their loyal submission to every law that did not go against their conscience, their faith and charity; and, more than all, their surrender of everything that makes life pleasant to man for the sake of their religious faith. He could not trust his own people to show equal devotion to their Church under similar circumstances.