CHUSCH AND WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3024, 10 March 1917, Page 14

CHUSCH AND WAR

THli RUSSIAN CHRIST DOSTOIEVSKY'S WRITINGS The following striking article entitled "Tho ]iiissian Christ" is contributed to tho "Christian "World" by the llev. It. H. Coats:— Thoso who dosiro to trace some of the deeper currents of Russian thought and feeling at tho present time would do well to study the writings of Dostoievsky, especially. "Crime and Punishment" and "Tho Brothers Karamazov." Crowning tho great series of Russian' novelists, Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenie, and Tolstoy, yet rising in spiritual grandeur abovo them all, Dostoievsky is generally acclaimed by his own countrymen as the best modern interpreter of the Russian soul in its rude vigour, its mysticism, its naive unwoijdliness, its boundless •compassion, its readiness to forgive, its imquestioning faith in God. j The background of Dostoievsky's world-view is dark and sombre. Most of his principal characters are sots, idiots, epileptics, murderers, and profligates. Behind all, and working through all, is tlio' mystery of iniquity, that loatlrtftmo, sinister, cruel power, oF evil present in the world which no subtle reasoning can quite explain, and which one of the critics of Dostoievsky lias defined as "the metaphysically obsceno." Yet at tho heart of the mystery lies a core of beauty and gentleness and lovo. 'Jliis carcass of corruption somehow produces honey of exceeding sweetness. Tho old lewd grossness and abhorred bestiality of tlio world nevertheless travail to bring forth the miracle of a new humanity, shiningly prophetic of the still fairer creation that is yet to be. I Already our barren scientific era is coming to an end; a new, creative, spiritual era for the race is about to dawn.l

The most attractive characteristic of Dostoievsky is his spiritual tenderness. Mr. Maurice Baring lias said of him that lib has written "the most precious words of pity beard in the 'svorld since the Gospels were written." Hft oven adds, "Supposing tho Gospel, ci John were annihilated and lost for <?vor to us, although nothing could replaco it, Dostoievsky's works conltl go nearer to replacing it than any other books written by any oilier inaii." And this spiritual tenderness is no mere soothing anodyne laid mi tho wounds of humanity by a sympathetic heart. If is something spontaneously generated within lifq itself by its experience of tho tragedies of suffering and sin. Even in its most sordid aspects the ground stuff of is fundamentally spiritual. Cruelty, misery, obscenity, and insanity are γ-ondrously wrought on by an essential grace in life, which somehow transfigures and redeems them into good.

Of special interest to us, because of representative significance, is the attitude of Dostoievsky to Jesus Christ. "I beliove," he writes, "there is nothing lovelier, deeper, moro sympathetic, more rational, moro human, and more perfect than the Saviour. I say to myself that not only is there aio one elso like him, but that there could bo none. I would oven say more: if anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with tho truth." In another of bis books be refers to the Crucifixion, and says, "Looking at such a picture, one conceives of nature in tho shape of an immense, merciless, dumb beast, or more correctly—much more correctly, though it seems strange—in tho form of a huge machine of the most modern construction, which, dull and insensible, has aimlessly clutched, crushed, and swallowed up a great priceless Being, a Being worth all its nature and its laws, worth the whole earth, which was perhaps created solely for tho advent of that Being."

By the attitude men adopt towards this Being may be determined the fate of nations. When Dostoievsky compared analytically the Russian civilisation% with the German, it seemed to him that the difference ran back ultimately to questions of religious faith. Russia believes passionately iu a Godnian, the incarnate Christ; Germany believes cynically, at heart, only in a man-God, tho superman of Nietzsche. And these two arc for ever contrary to one another. The results appear in. the bloody battlefields of to-day. It is not only opposing armies that are locked together in the niost conflict. AVhat wo are witnessing now Ms a dire wrestling between, the Russian and the German soul.

It was the profound faith of Dostoievsky that his country was destined, in tho providence of God, to inaugurate a now era of spiritual quickening for mankind. The Russian Michael is your modern Christopher, bearer of the Christ that is to be. In a speech delivered at Moscovr in 1880, on the occasion of the unveiling of a memorial to Pushkin, Dostoievsky said, "In the long run I am convinced we shall understand that to be a real Russian must signify simply this: to strive towards bringing about a solution and an end to European conflicts; to show to Europe a vftiy of escape from its anguisVin the Russian soul, which is universal and all-embracing; to instil into her a brotherly love for all men as brothers, and in the end perhans to utter the great and final word of universal harmony, the fraternity and lasting concord of all peoples according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

.Such arc the spiritual aims of Panslavism to-flny. Such urn tlis ideals which are being consciously nr unconsciously pursued by the great nation which we behold moving, with such strong ami confident and mighty strides, on the path of its appointed d/'stiny. When we contemplate the rapid and sure advance of that fascinating people, so different from our own in race, in history, in ecclesiastical tradition ; when we watch it fighting, toiling, praying its way to assured victory, convinced that _ the- # next great advent of tho Messiah will take place in Russia,- what limits can we pface to ;'is future influence and pnu-'v? England and Russia are in many things comnlemeutarv to one another. With us religion tends; to become ethical, practical, moderately intellectual, but always profoundly suspicious of anything mystical or emotional, as tending to sentimentality mid snwrstition. Tlu°sinn religion, on the other hand, is not inlpllectu.il. neither is it verT ethical. Abnvp all thinis i> is mystical, emotional, highly ceremonial, t/iychiii;; the people's lives at every noinr. inculcating a naive unnnnstioninp fa'.t'n in the fatherly live of Go'l. nnd a spirit of generous, fofwiping !<;••'; nf ir.™ ir, one another. Perhaps, in the providence of Oorl. it mnv !v : oil" ivsnlfc of the present allinnce of the i-ro nations, that all that is host in rnnrnilv rartpji, matter-of-fiiot Fye.bnr]. and -Ti +lnt i"s lin.st in rr.v.if.ier>l'v -'cvilion!"! :ir:.l 1;o]v Uhss'si. sbiiM , hlnnd +o W tlier : ,n or,r-brondly-ilowiiir;, f-->rt.ilifing ■stra.ijn. nml that everything shall live ivbitber that rivrr floweth. The well-known furniture firm Messrs. Kiipli Tiros, i* siwi'tiy going out <t); busijii'S!i. Tim pai tiiOi's >ir>- coin;; iiire caiiip, kihl ii\ ;:(>iijfi|i;'-iic..y Oioir liisli-tld«.-i furniture will bo disposed of at a sale cm[iiuiiciiijr on Jii'niia.v, March 12. J&clusivo liiu-lioSiiny and oik furniture, in iiimdsome il/signs, can be secured at ii::s sale, ami full particulars are notified in our ddvertUii;!.' columns. Messrs. ICiipli Urns. , m:f--.uli3linient U situated at 139 Willie Street.