In an appendix to the above-quoted article appears a statement "from a responsible British source in Siberia" to the effect that "a strong religious movement has begun among the laity and clergy of the Russian Church. . . . The _moujiks_ are convinced that Lenin is Anti-Christ;" and an urgent appeal for Russian Testaments and Bibles to be sent from England, the writer having been told by a prominent ecclesiastic that "Russian Bibles are now almost unprocurable."
Thus, having long revolted from orthodoxy in the day of its material prosperity, the masses seem, in the day of adversity, to be returning to it. Further developments may, of course, take place in almost any direction, but we may rest assured of one thing--that no changes of government, however drastic, will ever succeed in stamping out the mystical religious strain which is so deeply embedded in the soul of the Russian people.
In the American of the United States there exist two distinctly opposed natures: the one positive and practical, the other inclined to mysticism. The two do not clash, but live, on the contrary, on perfectly good terms with one another. This strange co-existence of reality and vision is explained by the origin of the race.
The American is, to a very great extent, a descendant of rigorous Puritanism. The English, who preponderated in numbers over the other elements of the European immigration into North America, never forgot that they had been the comrades of Penn or of other militant sectarians, and never lost the habit of keeping the Bible, the ledger, and the cash-book side by side. They remained deeply attached to their religion, which they looked upon as a social lever, although for many of them their faith did not go beyond a conviction of the immanence of the supernatural in human life. Thus it was that their spirits were often dominated by a belief in miracles, all the more easily because their intellectual culture was not always as highly developed as their business ability, and consequently the clever manufacturers of religious wonders were able to reap incredible harvests among them.
There is perhaps no country where the seed sown by propagandists springs up more rapidly, where an idea thrown to the winds finds more surely a fertile soil in which to grow. A convinced and resolute man, knowing how to influence crowds by authoritative words, gestures and promises, can always be certain of attracting numerous followers. In America the conditions are without doubt propitious for the founders of new religions.