steeped in the psychology of Tsarism and of the Orthodox faith. He was a sly, malignant and narrow-minded man, who persecuted all new or fresh currents of thought in the Church or in society. He made a name and a career for himself by spreading the faith among the natives of Altai, whom he first intoxicated with alcohol and then baptized while they were unconscious. After the Tomsk massacre he was rapidly advanced in the Church hierarchy, became Archbishop and after some years a member of the Synod, the council of the Orthodox Church, finally progressing to the post of Metropolitan of Moscow. While he held this highest position in the Church, he incurred the displeasure of the Tsarina during the World War through associating himself with other high ecclesiastical dignitaries in a plot to demand from the Tsar the divorcing of his consort, who had brought upon herself the disapproval and hatred of some of the influential members of the Russian aristocracy.
In this bloody manner, such as was manifested at Tomsk and was contrary to all the accepted standards of modern society, the organizations belonging to the Union of the Russian Nation prosecuted their aims in the name of Tsar, Faith and Country. In answer, the revolutionary and liberal groups acted in a manner very little different; for the Russian psychology of destruction here held the upper hand as well.
These liberals and revolutionists realized that the forces of the intelligentsia and of the workers in the towns were not sufficienty strong to compel the Government and the Tsar to make a complete change in favour of an effective parliamentary control, and soon sensed the fact that they should have to thrust into the whirlpool of political struggle that great element of strength which could not be overpowered by an army faithful to the Tsar
