He understood the diseases which from
time to time swept over their villages. No cold was too intense for him
to brave should they be in distress. He asked no money, and he gave
none. But they lived on his charity, and they were wise enough to know
it.
What wonder if these poor wretches loved the man whom they could see and
hear above the God who manifested himself to them in no way! The
orthodox priests of their villages had no money to spend on their
parishioners. On the contrary, they asked for money to keep the churches
in repair. What wonder, then, if these poor ignorant, helpless peasants
would listen to no priest; for the priest could not explain to them why
it was that God sent a four-month-long winter which cut them off from
the rest of the world behind impassable barriers of snow; that God sent
them droughts in the summer so that there was no crop of rye; that God
scourged them with dread and horrible disease!
It is almost impossible for us to realize, in these days of a lamentably
cheap press and a cheaper literature, the mental condition of men and
women who have no education, no newspaper, no news of the world, no
communication with the universe. To them the mystery of the Moscow
doctor was as incomprehensible as to us is the Deity. They were so near
to the animals that Paul could not succeed in teaching them that disease
and death followed on the heels of dirt and neglect.
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