Again it is true that in America this Slavic peasant population is awakened to its racial and historic heritage, and that feeling may be so artificially fostered by patriotism and religious organizations as to hinder a normal process of assimilation. The Slav, by virtue of being among the most numerous of our new citizens, has a right to demand that the rest of us should know him; for by knowing him, we shall learn to respect him, appreciate the good qualities of his race and help him to overcome tendencies which hinder his full development. We must give the Slav a full chance to know us, the best of us and the best in us--he usually knows the worst. He must have our best interpreted to him in rational terms and ways, and not have it forced upon him by law or by a custom to which he yields but which he cannot understand. I have described the Slav's quality as brittle; perhaps stubborn would be better. You can lead him to the water and can also compel him to drink; but he will stop drinking when you are not looking, and "kick" besides. On the other hand, once he understands and endorses an ideal, he will be loyal to it; stubbornly loyal. Inasmuch as I believe that America's best possessions are those ideals which spring from its religious convictions, ideals inherited from its Judaic and Christian ancestry, I also believe that its effort should be to interpret them to the Slav in practical terms of fellowship and service. How far from these ideals or how near to them the Slav is, I have attempted to show in the next chapter; and to make the task of interpretation easier, I have put the more important Slavic groups with which we have to deal, in their own historic setting. This will, I trust, stimulate in the further study of these people who are worth knowing for what they have suffered, for what they have done and for what they are. XV THE SLAV IN HISTORIC CHRISTIANITY When the sword of Rome, the ideals of Athens and the faith of Judea strove for the mastery of the world, the Slavs were still unknown to history. Upon the middle European plain, along the Don, the Dnieper and the Vistula they lived a semi-nomadic life, at war only with bear, elk and boar, and at peace with the dominant races in the west of Europe which scarcely knew of their existence. Very early in the Christian era, the transition from nomadic to agricultural life took place, and they became so identified with the soil that some of the agricultural terms they used have been embodied in other European languages. The facts that the Slavs inhabited the eastern portions of Europe to its very edge, that Christian civilization was imposed upon them by Byzantine and Roman influences, when both were struggling for the mastery of the Christian world, and that the territory they inhabited became their battle-ground--had great and lasting effect, not only upon their political history but upon their religious life and their national character.