APPENDIX I
Letter from Peter Verigin to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna[1]
May the Lord God preserve thy soul in this life, as well as in the future age, Sister Alexandra.
I, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, am living in the testimony and glad tidings of His truth. I am in exile since the year 1886, from the Spirit-Wrestlers' Community of Trans-Caucassia. The word "Spirit-Wrestler" should be understood thus: that we in the spirit and with our soul profess God (see,—the Gospel; the meeting of Christ with the Samaritan woman at the well).
I implore thee, sister in Christ the Lord, Alexandra, pray thy husband Nicholas to spare the Spirit-Wrestlers in the Caucasus from persecution. It is to thee that I address myself, because I think thy heart is more turned towards the Lord God. And there are at this moment more women and children suffering: hundreds of husbands and parents are confined in prisons, and thousands of families are dispersed in the native villages, where the authorities incite the population to behave coarsely with them. This falls specially heavily upon the Christian women! Lately they have been putting women and children into prisons.
The fault on our part is that we, as far as it is possible to
- ↑ This letter has on two occasions been placed in the hands of Court ladies, who have near access to the person of the Empress, but it is unknown to us whether it was, by them, transmitted to the Empress.—(Ed.)
