Guided by the idea that millions of plain working people realised the sense of life, and found it in life itself, which they considered as the accomplishment of “the will of the Creator of the universe,” he accepted the simple creed of the masses of the Russian peasants, even though his mind was reluctant to do so, and followed with them the rites of the Greek Orthodox Church. There was a limit, however, to such a concession, and there were beliefs which he positively could not accept. He felt that when he was, for instance, solemnly declaring during the mass, before communion, that he took the latter in the literal sense of the words--not figuratively--he was affirming something which he could not say in full conscience. Besides, he soon made the acquaintance of the Non-conformist peasants, Sutyáeff and Bondaryóff, whom he deeply respected, and he saw, from his intercourse with them, that by joining the Greek Orthodox Church he was lending a hand to all its abominable prosecutions of the Non-conformists--that he was a party to the hatred which all Churches profess towards each other. Consequently, he undertook a complete study of Christianity, irrespective of the teachings of the different churches, including a careful revision of the translations of the gospels, with the intention of finding out what was the real meaning of the Great Teacher’s precepts, and what had been added to it by his followers. In a remarkable, most elaborate work (_Criticism of Dogmatic Theology_), he demonstrated how fundamentally the interpretations of the Churches differed from what was in his opinion the true sense of the words of the Christ. And then he worked out, quite independently, an interpretation of the Christian teaching which is quite similar to the interpretations that have been given to it by all the great popular movements--in the ninth century in Armenia,--later on by Wycliff, and by the early Anabaptists, such as Hans Denck,[19] laying, however, like the Quakers, especial stress on the doctrine of non-resistance. HIS INTERPRETATION OF THE CHRISTIAN TEACHING