I will end by telling two stories which exemplify the common sense which lies at the root of the Russian peasant’s religion. The first story happened at Kharbin. It was Easter, and the soldiers wanted Mass said for them. There were two priests. One priest had been engaged by some officers and the second priest was drunk. A soldier was relating these facts, and some asked: “Well, did you have to go without your Mass?” “Oh, no,” said the soldier, “we went to the priest who was drunk and we pulled him out of bed, and we said: ‘Say Mass, you devil’ (and a lot more uncomplimentary expressions), and he said Mass.” This story shows that the soldiers regarded the priest partly as an instrument to say Mass and partly as a man. They differentiated between the two, and the instrument had to perform its divine office whatever happened to the man, whose good or bad qualities had nothing to do with the case. This seems to me gloriously sensible. The second story happened somewhere down in this government. A Socialist arrived in a village to convert the inhabitants to Socialism. He wanted to prove that all men were equal and that the Government authorities had no right to their authority. Consequently he thought he would begin by disproving the existence of God, because if he proved that there was no God, it would naturally follow that there should be no Emperor and no policemen. So he took a holy image, and said: “There is no God, and I will prove it immediately. I will spit upon this image and break it to bits, and if there is a God he will send fire from heaven and kill me, and if there is no God nothing will happen to me at all.” Then he took the image and spat upon it and broke it to bits, and he said to the peasants: “You see God has not killed me.” “No,” said the peasants, “God has not killed you, but we will,” and they killed him. And thus an act was committed which was one of common sense or of mysticism. II A CONVERSATION WITH A LANDOWNER