the ex-Czar.... 'May I ask your actual estimate of creatures like Rasputin?' I ventured.... 'Our Rasputin was a hardened criminal beyond a doubt until his conversion by Father Zaborovsky, the good Rector at the Theological Academy at Tomsk,' the ex-Czar replied.... 'He would have made an excellent subject for investigation by Lombroso, by Havelock Ellis or other eminent criminologists ... but I believed the man was sincere in his repentance and accepted him as a sort of text for other sinners to point a way toward regeneration.... The higher Rasputin rose, the greater his fame became, the more impressive would be his textual example to other aspiring souls,--even a criminal should not be denied the consolation of hope where crime is the result of ignorance or misdirected patriotism.... If I sinned in pardoning a sinner then sin must be an unpardonable crime!... Nathan treated David as I treated Rasputin, although both were guilty of the same offense.... He was grossly illiterate,--the only schooling he ever got was in the Monastery Abalaksky and what he acquired from the lips of monks while making his rounds as a barefoot pilgrim from place to place.... His claims of having _visions_ I ascribed to his empty stomach, although others gave credence to the nonsense.... Alice at first abhorred him; finally she began to regard him as a rare specimen in self-hypnosis who was worth studying to learn how far the fascinations of self-delusion were capable of deluding and swaying stronger wills and more cultivated minds.... We both learned, by observing him, that an ignorant mujik, like an egotistical Minister, if granted the semblance of authority for any length of time, will demoralize the finest organization in the world.... That was the lesson both Alice and I acquired from Rasputin.... And I am accepting Rasputin as a standard to estimate what will happen when men of his type and origin attempt the government of the world.... Without education, with no experience in governing even the smallest unit of society, unfamiliar with the trend of history, ignorant of military and commercial strategy, building their philosophy of life and their science of administration upon some isolated text, they will overturn the whole structure of civilization by arrogating to themselves the supernatural privileges and persuasiveness of the Voice of God!... The prospects are not inviting.... There are Rasputins in all the chancellories of Europe.... You have them in North and South America,--some educated, others like Marat and Danton, while some are simple Cagliostros who deceive the people and themselves.... If they were only Gideons instead of Joshuas their strategy might be reassuring,--but they are merely Rasputins and Papuses, after all!... Against all laws of nature they will try to triumph by commanding the heavenly and mundane bodies to stand still until they readjust the motions of civilized society to some dissolving and ruinous invention