equally original in religion and politics, in art and literature, a civilization which is rapidly assimilating all the best elements of Western culture.
II. Russia Stands for Essential Christianity
Superficial publicists have identified Russia with Nihilism, and especially with that Nihilist type impersonated in the character of the Atheist Revolutionist Bazarov in Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons." As a matter of fact, Revolutionary Atheism is an entirely German importation. In no other country has the Christian religion struck deeper root than in Russia. The typical Russian believes not in the gospel according to St. Marx, but in the gospel according to St. Mark. Orthodoxy, the pravos slavie of the Slavophiles, has been one of the three factors of Russian nationality. As the Prussians are certainly to-day the least religious people in Europe, the Russians are probably the most religious. As I pointed out in a previous chapter, in the Russian language the same word Krestianine means both "peasant" and "Christian." Even unsympathetic observers like Mr. Wells have been profoundly
