BIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIRS

THE EMPRESS MARIE OF RUSSIA AND HER TIMES. BY VLADIMIR POLIAKOFF. Thornton Butterworth. 215.

THE REIGN OF RASPUTIN. By M. V. RODZIANKO. Philpot. THE OVERBURY MYSTERY. BY HIS HONOUR JUDGE PARRY. (Benn.) 7s. 6d.

12s. 6d.
Fisher Unwin

The story of the Empress Marie of Russia reads like a romance. It was a sad day for the young Princess when in the interests of Imperial Politics she was called from her unpretentious and almost democratic kingdom to the ominous splendour of the Russian Court. Alexander II. was anxious to improve his relations with England. The heir-apparent, Nicholas, was of marriageable age, and a Danish marriage seemed a safe move in that interest. The Princess Dagmar was everything that the most exacting monarch could have wished as a daughter-in-law, while Nicholas was not merely handsome, but intellectually gifted, and beloved by the Russian people. A love match on both sides, nothing seemed wanting for its happy fulfilment; but cruel fate intervened, an illness-the result of an accident as a boy-suddenly developed and death forbade the banns. In his last moments he declared that his great sorrow was not to be able to give Dagmar the happiness she deserved, and he asked his brother Alexander to take his place. The Czar was opposed to the idea, but the two young people considered themselves bound by the wish of the dying man, and in 1866 the marriage took place.

Such an alliance hardly promised a marriage of affection, yet it became one. The marriage had been arranged as one of duty, but in a few months the young Princess had gained her husband's affection which she retained to the end, and in time learned to love the young Prince, who in spite of his limitations had many of the virtues of his defects. Her husband had none of the brilliancy of his brother, and unfortunately, as he had not been regarded as a future ruler, his education had been neglected. Trained for the Army, his interests were confined to his military duties, and he had all the obstinacy which sometimes goes with a slow-moving intelligence. Yet he had many fine qualities, a great sense of justice and a full appreciation of the responsibilities of his great position. As the successor of Alexander ÏÎ., the liberal and popular Emperor-an agreeable picture of whom may be found by the curious in Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad-who had emancipated the serfs, his position seemed assured: but there was trouble seething.

In order to carry his great reform through, concessions had to be made to the land owners, which burdened the State with debt and resulted in leaving in their possession the largest and most fruitful tracts of land. Sudden reforms on this scale are apt to please no one. A fair adjustment is sure to be resented. Those who get, want more, and the victims nurse a sullen sense of wrong. Nor were things going well abroad. The Russian-Turkish war was unpopular, and the unfortunate Czar found himself attacked by all parties in the State for opposite but converging reasons. The result was universal unrest, which played into the hands of the Nihilists, who murdered their victim the very morning he had signed a decree giving a liberal constitution to his people.

Apologists for despotism are fond of praising its efficiency. If the author of this book is to be believed, the murder-gang in Russia at that time was limited to a few hundred fanatics who could easily have been suppressed except for the crass

incompetence of the secret police. The assassination was not merely a crime, it was an irreparable blunder. It made for ever impossible the intimate relations which had existed between the sovereign and his people, and left nothing in its place. If the new Czar had continued the policy of his father, the history of Russia might have been different. The magnanimity of such an act would have made a special appeal to an emotional people, and there was a strong feeling in the country against the action of the extremists. The new ruler hesitated and gave way-and one of those opportunities was lost which might have saved a dynasty.

A proclamation was issued in which was stated his determination to rule Russia as an autocrat. It meant fighting the Revolutionaries single-handed. For his own safety the most elaborate precautions became essential. He hardly appeared in public and lived what was practically the life of a prisoner, with the prison gates between himself and his people. He died in his bed after a reign of material prosperity,

but whilst he lived, day and night he went in fear of his life. Of an essentially calm nature, he did not allow that fear to deflect him from what he considered to be his duty.

In 1887, the Imperial family attended a commemoration service for Alexander II. On the route of their carriage, several young men were arrested with bombs in their possession. Those arrested were hanged :

Among them was a student, Alexander Uljanoff. His brother Vladimir was a boy in College when this happened. He vowed he would take revenge. He did so, for the history of the Russian Revolution knows him under the name of Lenin.

The one relief in the grim tension of the Imperial existence was the personal charm of the Empress Marie. A devoted wife, she is shewn as far as possible exercising a mitigating influence in the policy of repression; and her influence over her son, Nicholas II., was undoubtedly in the best interests of himself and his country. This study of her personality is written by one who is described "as a leading political writer and belonging to a family who have played an important part in Russia for several generations." His facts are said to be based on original documents made accessible by the Revolution. It is a tragic story. During her husband's life, the Empress had gained the respect and affection of his Ministers. After the accession of Nicholas 11., they kept her well-informed as to political events. It seems clear that she was opposed to the disastrous Japanese adventure. General Kouropatkin was Minister for War at the time, and writes in his diary:

Marie Feodorovna shares my views. She understands the danger to Russia if our whole attention is concentrated in the Far East.

As the sister of Queen Alexandra, her sympathies were always on the side of England, and after the unfortunate marriage of Nicholas, her attitude was a prolonged protest against the German policy of his wife, and the sinister influence of Rasputin. When the revolution broke out, the dowager Empress was in the Crimea. The sailors of the Black Sea fleet mutinied and the unfortunate Empress became a prisoner in her castle. A vivid account is given of her life;

She lived in a not too large room which was divided in half by a screen-several sailors were always on guard on one side of it.

Sixty sailors formed the guard. Their leader treated his prisoners with rudeness and even brutality. The Bolsheviks thought him an ardent Red. Yet he "turned out later to be quite a decent fellow." At last the German advance forced the Bolsheviks to evacuate the Crimea. It is stated that they determined to kill the Imperial family and actually sent some troops to this end, but the brutal jailor armed his sailors

and defeated the attempt. The empress through all remained calm and confident that no one would raise a hand against her. That she survived was undoubtedly due to her courage and personal popularity. In the end the British and French troops occupied the peninsula and she was rescued by an English man-of-war.

The amazing story of Rasputin is fully dealt with in the Memoirs of the late M. V. Rodzianko. It is so incredible that the evidence should be weighed with caution. M. Rodzianko was in a position to know. An original member of the Dumas, he was shortly after elected President and remained in that position until the revolution of 1917. Belonging to an old noble family, he had held an important position at the Imperial Court. He was a personal friend of the English Ambassador and did admirable work during the War. Such a witness cannot be lightly disregarded and his testimony establishes beyond question the vileness of the man. In this book, circumstantial accounts are given of his interviews with Nicholas II., in order to induce him to get rid of Rasputin. It is clear the man, like so many religious charlatans, had a magnetic influence over people of weak character. His position was also strengthened by the support of politicians and a certain class of Russian society who found in his influence a method of increasing their power at Court.

If the Crown could have clearly seen there was but one opinion about Rasputin, the mischief might have been scotched. As it was, the Rasputin party further estranged the bewildered Emperor from his people. The unfortunate Nicholas is presented as a kindly, weak man cast for a rôle which a super-man would hardly have sustained. As the Dowager Empress told Rodzianko :

I hear you intend to speak to the Emperor about Rasputin. Do not do so. Unfortunately he will not believe you. .. he is so pure of heart that he does not believe in evil. Susceptible to good advice, he had an open mind, but a mind he could not shut, and it was too often closed for him by his wife.

The book is very fair to that unhappy victim of fate. An ill-educated, neurotic woman, she inevitably became a mystic, that easy refuge for the weak-minded. Rasputin's power was consolidated by her persuasion that his presence was essential to the welfare of her invalid son. Scandalous stories were noised abroad, and found a credulous audience in a disaffected and ignorant population. With her nationality, an absence of German sympathy would have been unnatural, but that she was biassed during the war by any such feeling, the author repudiates as " a wicked idea " which after full investigation by the provisional government "must be rejected once and for all." He writes:

That the Empress Alexandra Feodovna may have thought a separate peace with Germany would have served Russia's interests better than a prolongation of the war, is certainly possible, but has never been actually established. Still less has anyone the right to speak of "treason" to the Allied cause on the part of Nicholas II. He sealed his loyalty to his pledge by dying a martyr's death.

If he had been a worse man he might have been a better ruler, and the relentless march of one of the greatest tragedies of all history is made clearer by these two volumes. His Honour Judge Parry continues his indefatigable researches into crime. He does it so well that to even those who find the paths of crime lead only to the grave of interest, he is always readable. In The Overbury Mystery he had an excellent topic for treatment, of which it is necessary to say he makes the best use. It is described by his publishers as " essentially a case for a jury," and the reading public will no doubt be unanimous in their verdict that they have been well entertained for their money.

CHARTRES BIRON

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY

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THE IMPASSIBILITY OF GOD.
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THE FAITH AND PRACTICE OF THE QUAKERS. By RUFUS M. JONES. Methuen.

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T

HE most important of the theological volumes in the above list is certainly the book of essays by Baron von Hügel: for in it we are constantly reminded of the purpose and the excuse of religion and religious organizations. The great danger of institutions is that, once they are established, a very large body of men and women have an interest in keeping them up, even though they may not be any longer serving the purpose for which they were made. And the Christian Church is no exception to this rule. Even those who believe in its divine origin will not dispute the fact that there is in it a very large proportion of human workmanship; and the history of the Church is very largely a history of a continuous conflict between the conservatives and the reformers. Of the reformers Wyclif has always been a puzzle: and I do not think that Dr. Workman's book resolves that puzzle. Wyclif was a scholastic, and in none of his writings does he show any real sign of departure from scholastic methods of thought. It is known by most people, for instance, that he objected to the doctrine of transubstantiation; but it is not so generally known that his alternatives to that doctrine are at least as repugnant to modern philosophy or science. Dr. Workman's critical biography is an admirable and impartial study, not only of Wyclif's life, but of medieval theology; it will disappoint those readers who come to expecting from a Methodist divine a laudatory account of the " first Reformation," but it will be welcomed by all serious students of the growth of religion in England.

it

Wyclif's real significance was not in his contributions to formal theology but in his realization that religion was suffering from its professors, that man was misusing and misinterpreting divine things. Against this misuse and that misinterpreting, true religion has had no such powerful advocate in our times as Friedrich von Hügel. Those unacquainted with his thought could not do better than begin with this volume where many of his most pregnant opinions are expressed as forcibly as, and more popularly than, in his previous books. Baron von Hügel's great talent was for that reconciliation of apparent opposites which is the task not only of religion but of any other way of life. The artist has precisely the same difficulties in reconciling perfect freedom with obedience to rule, has the same maddening fight with stubborn material in which he must express his inspiration. Von Hügel saw that the truth could only be held not by compromise, nor even by comprehension, but by a recognition of the fact that the religion of the spirit and the religion of the institution do not need reconciliation, but are really only two aspects of the same truth, two modes of expression, both of which are normally necessary to the religious man's life. The best essay is, perhaps, that on Suffering and God in which von Hügel treats philosophically the subject which Mr. Mozley treats historically it is a pity that Mr. Mozley's book was written before von Hügel's volume was published, for this essay is by far the most sympathetic presentation of the orthodox view that there is compassio but not passio in God.

The reading of these two books and of the four volumes in the new series The Faiths forces us once more to consider what exactly it is men of to-day ask from their religions, how the churches can supply any needs that are really felt, and not adequately supplied from other sources. The answer to the first question is that a religion has entirely failed in its most potent purpose if it does not succeed in creating a need. That is where so many modern efforts to re-state, re-interpret, or re-construct will always fail: for they are too often attempts to satisfy irrelevant desires, even idle and essentially frivolous desires in men. It is the business of a church to make men want God, not to decorate or prune the idea of God so that men may find Him as easy to get on with as some popular parson. It would not be fair to say that this is Dr. Gardner's object; but there is in his writing, as in that of too many academic modernists, a hint of an anxiety to make God feel quite at home in a University lecture-room, or even in the Deanery of St. Paul's. Dr. Gardner is, however, inspired by a real passion for truth, though we may think he attaches too much importance to the way truth is expressed. His book and Dr. Selbie's are largely historical; and on its theological side Dr. Selbie's is very disappointing. The chapter devoted to modern developments is mainly on church order, and Dr. Selbie nowhere discusses the situation created by the Free Catholic movement, by which it has become possible for a church holding Catholic doctrine and using Catholic liturgy and devotions to remain within the Congregational body. Dr. Jones' book on the Friends, and Dr. Lacey's on Anglo-Catholicism are far more satisfactory, and also fulfil more adequately the hopes raised by the name of the series-they are really concerned not with policy nor with criticism, but with faith and its expression. Dr. Jones' book is a beautiful exposition of the present position and the past work of a body of Christians which has exercised an influence entirely out of proportion to its numbers-there are now only 150,000 Quakers throughout the world, of which 120,000 are in the United States. Nothing, however, that Dr. Jones says makes me revise my opinion that the Society of Friends is a "religion" in the sense in which that word is used of the Benedictine or the Dominican orders; a man need not abandon the Catholic Church to be a Quaker; and in some ways, for instance in freedom from encumbrance of possessions, he may be a more complete Quaker out of the society than in it. Dr.