“If we had had to do with only this one figure which had made its way on the field of religious superstition and which has thriven, thanks to an exalted spirit of mysticism, a state of mind which, though not perhaps bordering on insanity, is yet not quite normal, then we should have said nothing. We might have regretted the fact; we might even have wept over it, but we would not have spoken about it. “But unfortunately this figure is not standing alone. Behind it there is a whole crew, strong and varied, unscrupulous and grasping, which is taking advantage of its position and of the talents of persuasion which it may possess. Amongst this crew there are to be found journalists in want of copy, shady business men, adventurers of every kind and sort. It is they who are the moving spirits in all this sad history, it is they who inspire it, they who tell it what it is to do. They constitute a kind of commercial enterprise, and they understand how to play their game in the most clever manner. “Before such a spectacle it is our duty to cry out as loud as we can that one ought to beware of all those people, and that the church--our church, and the country--our country, find themselves in imminent danger, because no revolution and no anti-Christian propaganda have ever done them more harm than the events which are daily taking place under our eyes for the last twelve months.” Two years later, in 1914, a few weeks before the breaking out of the present war, another deputy, this time a clergyman, Father Filonenko, spoke about Rasputin in the Duma, and did so in the following strong terms: “As a faithful and devoted son of our Holy Orthodox Church, I consider it my painful duty to mention once more what has already been discussed here, by so many orators better than myself, and to recur to a subject which is at present talked of at the corner of every street, in every town and in every village, no matter how distant and how far from any civilised centre in our vast Empire. We find ourselves compelled to look upon this unexplainable influence of a common adventurer, belonging to the worst type of those sectarians, whom until now we have known by the name of Khlystys, and despised accordingly. We are obliged to reckon with this influence of a man upon whom all the sane elements in our society look with contempt.” On that same day another deputy belonging to the group of Ultra-Conservatives, Prince Mansyreff, also spoke about Rasputin, with perhaps even more energy than any one had ever done before in the Duma. Said the Prince: