That going forth on the road, a-seeking new life, is characteristic. At times one would think half Russia is on the road. Utility has been flung aside, the chances of gain have been passed over, the so-called duty to work and fulfil your place in the state has been flung to the winds, and the Russian is out on the dusty road, wearing out his boots, thinking, trudging, praying, recognising—finding what his soul desires. That is not morbidity, but a noble form of life. And many promise themselves wholly to God and enter monasteries or convents, and there find happiness, the bright ray of destiny they sought with their eyes in a dark world. Every morning, noon, and night Praise God! says Theocrite —that is not a morbid life, though a life of denial. It does not mean that every one who would live well should enter a monastery or a convent, it only means that some one whose soul craved such a life has found his way. How we have suffered in England from the difficulty of giving one’s soul to God in that way. Those who would have been monks and sisters have had to give themselves in other ways. There are thousands of other ways. Every one who is living well has found a way. The way meant renunciation, hardship, sorrow—but not morbid sorrow, the sorrow which leaves you as you were, as the cloud of gnats wailing by the tree and the stream leave the tree, leave the stream, just as they were, just what they were. The differentiation between morbid sorrow and real sorrow, between self-laceration and the tribulation that comes of destiny, is important if we would understand aright what the Russian means by the “Religion of Suffering.” The religion of suffering, of which so much is said, is a term easily misunderstood, meaning differently in the mouths of different people. The political propagandist holds that the Russian people are melancholy because their institutions are so bad, and that the religion of suffering is the religion of revolution, a growing resentment against the government. The morbid Russian will say that the religion of suffering is the knowledge of the truth that _only_ in suffering and near to death can you understand anything about life. He will deny that anything else can teach you. The peasant pilgrim will interpret it as the religion of taking to the road and bearing the cross; being a beggar for Christ’s sake; refusing a lift on the road to the Sepulchre, holding that where Christ walked it is not for them to ride.