“You have invented this faith yourself,” he said. “It has nothing in common with Christianity. You Russians are all revolutionaries. Your priests do not teach you the principal thing, the love and fear of God and of His divine wisdom and might. Your attitude towards God is quite unceremonious. You make conditions and contracts with Him as if He were a simple mortal. You have not advanced far beyond the ideas of your fellow-countrymen the Samoyedes, who first make sacrifices to their wooden gods and then beat them if they do not grant their prayers. When you Russians think you are passing from Orthodoxy to Catholicism, you are actually passing from paganism to Christianity.” “And where did you get the notion,” he asked on another occasion, “that Christ promised His followers happiness in this life? On the contrary, Christ said repeatedly, ‘_My kingdom is not of this world._’ And, indeed, how could He reign here, among the pitiful creatures who people this earth, worms that strive only for empty, worldly pleasures, and cannot raise their eyes to the stars? Were He to appear anew among them, with His mild humility and saintliness, would the vulgar mind understand Him? No; our present-day Christians would laugh Him to scorn, and though they would not, perhaps, lead Him to Golgotha, they would certainly turn away with a mocking smile. The kingdom of Christ is indeed beyond the grave, in another and more perfect world, to be attained only by purified souls who, already during their lifetime, have renounced earthly joys, and, by means of meditation, fasting, and prayer, have conquered the body, and their lower natures. Great joy and happiness awaits them in Heaven, and it is thither, my daughter, that your hopes must be directed. It is in the Kingdom of the Future that you must expect justice, and not in this vain world, from which but few will succeed in saving their souls.” The priest spoke with enthusiasm. His face shone with the light of inspiration. It was as though his eyes already saw the bliss of Christ’s kingdom and those Heavenly joys of which he was so firmly convinced. His words made a great impression on Irene. Until that time, she had never thought much about the future life. “Why trouble oneself,” her common sense had argued, “about something that no one has ever seen? What must be, will be, and premature curiosity is useless.”