wer with the avowed intention of
liberating the serfs, which intention he carried out, and paid for with
his own life in due time. Russia had been the only country to stand
aloof on the slave question, thus branding herself in two worlds
as still uncivilized. The young Czar knew that such a position was
untenable. "Without the serf the Russian Empire must crumble away," his
advisers told him. "With the serf she cannot endure," he answered And
twenty-two millions of men were set free. In this act he stood almost
alone; for hardly a single minister was with him heart and soul, though
many obeyed him loyally enough against their own convictions. Many
honestly thought that this must be the end of the Russian Empire.

It is hard to go against the advice of those near at hand; for their
point of view must always appear to be the same as one's own, while
counsel from afar comes as the word of one who is looking at things from
another stand-point, and may thus be more easily mistaken.

Alexander II., called suddenly to reign over one-tenth part of the human
race, men of different breed and color, of the three great contending
religions and a hundred minor churches, was himself a nervous,
impressionable man, suffering from ill-health, bowed down with the
weight of his great responsibility. His father died in his arms,
broken-hearted, bequeathing him an empire invaded by the armies of five
European nations, hated of all the world, despised of all mankind. Even
to-day there is a sinister sound in the very name of Russian. Men turn
to look twice at one who comes from that stupendous empire. It is said
that an hereditary melancholy broods beneath the weightiest earthly
crown. History tells that none wearing it has ever reached a hale old
age. Soldiers still hearty, still wearing the sword they have carried
through half a dozen campaigns, bow to-day in the Winter Palace before
their sovereign, having taken the oath of allegiance to four successive
Czars.

Half in, half out of Europe, Alexander II. awoke with his own hand the
great nation still wrapped in the sleep of the Middle Ages, only to
find that he had stirred a slumbering power whose movements were soon
to prove beyond control. He poured out education like water upon the
surface of a vast field full of hidden seed, which must inevitably
spring up wheat or tares--a bountiful harvest of good or a terrific
growth of evil. He made reading and writing compulsory to the whole of