ward both the others, and the same relation among the Old Ceremonialists, Pashkovians, Shakers, and members of all religions, that the very manifestedness of the offence at first seems perplexing. You say to yourself: “It cannot be so simple and yet that people should not see that when two statements mutually negate each other, neither the one nor the other can have the one truth which faith must have. There must be something wrong wrong in it. There must be some explanation.” I was sure there was, and I tried to find that explanation, and read everything I could in regard to this matter and took counsel with everybody I could. I received no explanation except the one which makes the Súmski hussars think that the first regiment in the world is that of the Súmski hussars, while the yellow hussars think that the first regiment in the world is that of the yellow hussars. The clerical persons of all different creeds, their best representatives, told me nothing but that they believed that they had the truth, while the others were in error, and that all they could do was to pray for the others. I went to see archimandrites, bishops, hermits, ascetics, and asked them, and not one of them made even an attempt at explaining that offensive state of affairs. Only one of them explained everything to me, but he explained it in such a way that I did not ask others after that.
I have said that for every unbeliever who turns toward religion (all our young generation is subject to making this search), this appears as the first question: Why is the truth not in Lutheranism, not in Catholicism, but in Orthodoxy? He is taught in the gymnasium, and he cannot help knowing—what the peasants do not know—that a Protestant or Catholic professes in the same way the one truth of his own religion. Historical proofs, which by each religion are bent in its favour, are insufficient. Is it not possible, I said, to look at the teaching from a more elevated point, so that from the height of the
