Therefore the Czar was told to receive the deputation, and he did so. The deputation bowed down to the earth before the Czar, who said: “_Good day, my children._ I have summoned you to hear my words, and to communicate them to your companions. The recent unfortunate events were _the inevitable results of your own lawless actions_. Those who induced you to address this petition to me desire to see you revolt against me and my government.” After a few more words of the same complacent character, this representative of God on earth said to the delegation: “I am convinced of _the innocence of the workingmen_, and believe that _they_ are well disposed toward me. I WILL PARDON THOSE TRANSGRESSORS. RETURN AGAIN TO YOUR WORK. MAY GOD ASSIST YOU.” The history of the world has so many revolting passages that I cannot say that this Russian episode surpasses others, but when the head of a great Christian government tunes his tongue to the formula of Divine Right which was current during the Dark Ages, and gives us a dash of medievalism, to be reported by a special correspondent in the daily newspapers, there is something so anomalous about the situation that it makes a peculiar impression of its own. At least 2,000 of this emperor’s “children” had been butchered in cold blood for the high crime of wishing to present a petition to him for shorter hours of labor and a more liberal recognition of their status as human beings. “May God assist you,” says the Czar—leaving it to the benighted minds of these untutored workmen to find out how it is that God is going to assist them, when the representative of God on earth shoots them down by the thousand, tramples them beneath the hoofs of Cossack horses, slashes them with Cossack sabers, pierces them with Cossack lances, lashes them with Cossack scourges, and sends them bleeding and howling back to their hopeless homes and miserable lives, for no offense other than the wish to kneel at his feet and pray for better treatment. * * * * * “I FORGIVE YOU!” says the Czar. _Forgives them for what?_ For being denied the right to petition the throne, for being driven back into serfdom, for being hacked and slashed and trampled and bullet-riddled by the hireling savages of a barbarian government! “_As the Great Father above forgives, so I, your Little Father, forgives._” Amen. Let the whimpering wretch who nurses a saber-slashed head recover in peace. _He is pardoned for having been Cossacked._ Let the father who drags his lifeless daughter from under the hoofs of the warhorse go weep over her in comfort—he and she are _forgiven for having dared to hope for mercy from the Czar_. And the nameless dead who went forth that Sabbath morning, following the heroic priest whose baton was the Cross of Christ—went forth in the glow of lofty purpose and pathetic hope, and whose bodies are now feeding the fishes of the Neva—let them also rest in peace—_their Little Father has forgiven them_.