Peter, having subdued the ignorant and barbarous clerical orders, dared to venture to educate them, and so ran the risk of making them a power in the State--but he believed that he was strong enough to take this risk. In the few monasteries which remained he had philosophy and theology taught; though this theology was only a survival of the age of barbarity from which Peter had rescued his country. A credible witness assured the writer that he had been present at a public debate, where the question was whether the use of tobacco was a sin; the proposer argued that it was lawful to intoxicate oneself with brandy, but not to smoke, because the Holy Scriptures say that, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” The monks were not content with the reform. Scarcely had the Czar set up printing-presses than they made use of them to abuse him. They called him Antichrist, because he had the men’s beards cut off, and because post-mortem dissection was practised in his academy. But another monk, who wanted to make his fortune, wrote refuting this argument, and proving that Peter was not Antichrist because the number 666 was not included in his name! The author of the libel was broken on the wheel, and his opponent made Bishop of Rezan. The Reformer of Russia carried a law which puts to shame many a civilized state; by this law no member of the civil service, no “bourgeois” with an established position, and no minor, might enter a monastery. Peter quite grasped the importance of not allowing useful subjects to take up idleness as a profession, nor those who had not yet command of the least part of their fortune to renounce liberty for ever. The Czar not only, after the example of the Turkish Sultans, subjected the Church to the State, but, by a greater stroke of policy, he destroyed a band of troops like the Janissaries; and that which the Ottoman Emperors failed to do, he succeeded in very rapidly; he disbanded the Russian Janissaries, called Strelitz, who had dominated the Czars. This band, feared rather by its masters than its neighbours, consisted of about 30,000 infantry, half stationed at Moscow, and the other half at various points on the frontier; a member of the Strelitz only drew pay at the rate of four roubles a year, but privileges and abuses amply made up for this. Peter at first formed a band of mercenaries, in which he had himself enrolled, and was not too proud to begin as drummer-boy, so much were the people in need of good example. He became officer by degrees, made new regiments from time to time, and at last, finding himself at the head of disciplined troops, broke up the Strelitz, who were afraid to disobey him.