smaller villages, a salary equivalent to about forty pounds a year from the diocesan funds, which are under the administration of the Holy Synod; and besides this, he is continually receiving marriage, birth and funeral fees, and on every religious holiday contributions of food and money from the peasants. The village priest does next to nothing, and is perhaps the best paid man in the whole village. Nor does he seem to enter much into the lives of the peasants or help them in illness or distress. At the same time, men like these independent peasants in a communal state do not seem to stand in much need of priestly parental care on the social side. The commercial element is strong in the religion of a Siberian village. So long as the priest discharges his priestly functions the people are satisfied, while the priest is not disposed to do more than the work for which he is paid. The essentially material way in which they look upon each other's functions is rather characteristic of Russian society, and also, I think, of other Eastern countries.
I remember one evening sitting with some peasants outside their house, in company also with our Caucasian servant. The latter was in a facetious mood, and as the conversation turned on the subject of priests he said, "What do they care about you peasants, and your wants? All they care about is singing prayers which neither you nor they understand. The chief chant they sing is: 'Give us more money.'" There was a general titter all round among the Siberians at the southerner's caustic joke, and it was very evident that they all agreed more or less with his remarks.
Even as far away, therefore, as in the remote
