he Blagotchinny, and--"

"I beg your pardon, who is the Blagotchinny?"

"The Blagotchinny is a parish priest who is in direct relations with
the Consistory of the Province, and who is supposed to exercise a strict
supervision over all the other parish priests of his district. He acts
as the spy of the Consistory, which is filled with greedy, shameless
officials, deaf to any one who does not come provided with a handful of
roubles. The Bishop may be a good, well-intentioned man, but he always
sees and acts through these worthless subordinates. Besides this, the
Bishops and heads of monasteries, who monopolise the higher places in
the ecclesiastical Administration, all belong to the Black Clergy--that
is to say, they are all monks--and consequently cannot understand our
wants. How can they, on whom celibacy is imposed by the rules of the
Church, understand the position of a parish priest who has to bring up
a family and to struggle with domestic cares of every kind? What they do
is to take all the comfortable places for themselves, and leave us all
the hard work. The monasteries are rich enough, and you see how poor we
are. Perhaps you have heard that the parish priests extort money from
the peasants--refusing to perform the rites of baptism or burial until
a considerable sum has been paid. It is only too true, but who is to
blame? The priest must live and bring up his family, and you cannot
imagine the humiliations to which he has to submit in order to gain a
scanty pittance. I know it by experience. When I make the periodical
visitation I can see that the peasants grudge every handful of rye and
every egg that they give me. I can overbear their sneers as I go away,
and I know they have many sayings such as--'The priest takes from the
living and from the dead.' Many of them fasten their doors, pretending
to be away from home, and do not even take the precaution of keeping
silent till I am out of hearing."

"You surprise me," I said, in reply to the last part of this long
tirade; "I have always heard that the Russians are a very religious
people--at least the lower classes."

"So they are; but the peasantry are poor and heavily taxed. They set
great importance on the sacraments, and observe rigorously the fasts,
which comprise nearly a half of the year; but they show very little
respect for their priests, who are almost as poor as themselves."

"But I do not see clearly how you propose to remedy this state of
things.