e Patriarch, taxed the clergy, and partially
suppressed monasteries, decreeing that no one should enter them under
fifty years of age; yea, he even decreed universal toleration of
religion, except to the Jesuits, whom he hated, as did William III. and
Frederic II. He caused the Bible to be translated into the Slavonic
language, and freely circulated it. And he prosecuted these reforms
while he was meditating, or was engaged in, great military enterprises.

I approach now the great external event of Peter's life, his war with
Charles XII., brought about in part by his eagerness to get a seaport on
the Baltic, and in part by the mad ambition of the Swedish king,
determined to play the part of Alexander. The aggressive party in this
war, however, was Peter. He was resolved to take part of the Swedish
territories for mercantile and maritime purposes; so he invaded Sweden
with sixty thousand men. Charles, whose military genius was not
appreciated by the Czar, had only eight thousand troops to oppose the
invasion; but they were veterans, and fought on the defensive, and had
right on their side. This latter is a greater thing in war than is
generally supposed; for although war is in our own times a mechanism in
a great measure, still moral considerations underlie even physical
forces, and give a sort of courage which is hard to resist. The result
of this invasion was the battle of Narva, when Peter was disgracefully
beaten, as he ought to have been. But he bore his defeat complacently.
He is reported as saying that he knew the Swedes would have the
advantage at first, but that they would teach him how to beat them at
last. I doubt this. I do not believe a general ever went into battle
with a vastly overwhelming force when he did not expect victory. But the
great victory won by Charles (a mere stripling king, scarcely nineteen)
turned his head. Never was there a more intoxicated hero. He turned his
victorious army upon Poland, dethroned the king, invaded Saxony, and
prepared to invade Russia with an army of eighty thousand troops. His
cool adversary, who since his defeat at Narva had been prosecuting his
reforms and reorganizing his army and building a navy, was more of a
wily statesman than a successful general. He retreated before Charles,
avoided battles, tempted him in the pursuit to dreary and sparsely
inhabited districts, decoyed him into provinces remote from his base of
supplies; so that at the approach of winter Charles