literature. In him was concentrated the penitence of the best of noble literati whose consciousness had been first troubled by the evils of serfdom and by the condition of the rightless mass, the noble writers who had sworn Hannibal's oath against slavery. When he left college he declared in a somewhat pompous speech that he was going to the village to devote his life to the welfare of the seven hundred beings entrusted to him by God. Tolstoy's whole life was a challenge to the Russian noblemen to make good to the people the wrongs of centuries. It was in 1887 that Tolstoy had occasion to investigate the depths of vice in a Moscow lodging house where hundreds of the submerged find shelThe city, which he had never loved, became to him a nightmare. "Back to the village, to the muzhik," was his cry.

ter.

Civilization is founded on the poverty of masses. Individual wealth is legalized robbery, he taught. If the muzhik, whom he idealized, is purer and more moral than we, then we must become more like him, even outwardly. Tolstoy's view of life is that God is not in might but in right; that the foundation of life is the moral consciousness of brotherhood and equality, as dictated by love, and not in any juridical, contractual rights. He preaches the negation of culture as a thing of lies and depravity, and depravity, according to Tolstoy, is living at somebody else's cost. The only knowledge man needs is the knowledge of good and evil. He preached the flight from the growing cities, the return to the soil and the farm. He strove to merge with the people and to fight all official life. and hermitages and mountain nooks, a flight from faith and religion as an obligation, from work as a duty, a flight of the human "ego" from the Church, the State and the market place.

He urged the flight to forests

In his determination not to resist evil he is as fanatical as the proud Niconian dissenter who proffered his right cheek when his left was smitten, and went to the scaffold rejoicing in the thought that his slayers perished in putting him to death. He preached non-resistance to evil, but he boycotted the State and taught that war, trade, private ownership and authority were all undisguised evils, and while one might not resist, one should not obey.

In the person of Tolstoy the penitent nobility speaks its last word in Russian literature. The movement towards the people, which taught the nobleman that personal happiness in the face of a wretched peasantry is immoral, and stimulated heroism and love of martyrdom in his heart, simply petered out because of a lack of actual community of ideals and aspirations with the peasantry. The clever men and women who buried themselves in the villages as teachers, peasant doctors, workers, failed to establish a common ground with the "people;" they always remained strangers, "educated" intruders from "above," whose efforts were resented by those whom they were intended to benefit.

Though not a nobleman, the latest Russian writer to acknowledge in despair that in "going below" among the people the educated classes of Russia have suffered moral and intellectual shipwreck, is Leonid Andreyev. Russian literature and Russian intellectual life are now undergoing the depressing realization that in spite of all endeavors, in spite of sacrifices and devotion, the intelligent revolutionaries have failed to establish any point of contact with the miserable and poor. Just as the "back to the soil' movement ended in a crash and a fizzle, the Russian "intelligents" now pass through a period of a distressing moral "Katzenjammer." In his "Darkness," a work published in December, 1907, Andreyev paints a gloomily realistic picture of a revolutionary idealist, who on the eve of the execution of an important terrorist mission for the benefit of the "people" is thrown into surroundings of utter depravity. While at first loathingly repelling the moral lepers, he begins to realize that it is a "disgrace to be good;" that he cannot come among the masses patronizingly, as a "good one," but must become a leper himself. The conclusion is a horrible one, but it is advanced by Andreyev as the answer to the torturing query of the Russian intelligent struggler for liberty: "Why have we not won the people?" and the answer is that they have never been "of" the people.

But now the nobility of Russia has ceased to be a factor in Russian literature. Other movements, other influences are at work moulding and fashioning it into new, but still original

forms. Literature itself has now ceased to be an art in Russia, and has become a weapon.

II. LEONID ANDREYEV'S "JUDAS ISCARIOT”

"The Gospel of Judas" might have been an appropriate title for Leonid Andreyev's striking book, "Judas Iscariot and the Others." The Russian novelist, bold in the choice of his hero, becomes daring in the treatment of the subject. Judas occupies so unique a niche in the picture gallery of the world's villains, and his memory is weighted with an opprobrium so universal, that one is almost inclined to resent an attempt to interpret his character or to search for other than sordid motives of the great Betrayal. It was the fate of Judas to go down to history, his memory linked with an unparalleled misdeed, his personality contrasting with the matchless character of the Son of Man.

Andreyev advances an amazingly ingenious hypothesis as a solution of the mystery surrounding Judas; and if his story, which must be taken account of both as regards the marvellously accurate psychological analysis and the overpowering beauty of style, fails to carry absolute conviction, it will command the closest attention of the student and the layman alike.

His story of Judas would be considered a significant production if it were merely for the masterly manner in which he borrows various allusions from the sacred writings in support of his theme. In the explanation and elucidation of these and his conclusions he is thoroughly revolutionary. As to style, he most happily assimilates the tone of the Evangelical narratives.

There is no doubt that to very many Andreyev's attempt will seem an almost sacrilegious assault upon established beliefs, and it certainly will rudely shock preconceived notions. His amazing arraignment of the disciples will be disagreeably felt. But no one will fail to note that the great heart of the artist through the entire narrative throbs passionate "Hosannahs!" to Crucified Truth.

In Andreyev's story Jesus is warned against Judas as a

dangerous character. Neither the righteous nor the sinners had a good word for that hideously repulsive Judean. "Thieves have friends and robbers have comrades and liars have wives who love them, but Judas mocked alike the good and the bad." The disciples had a foreboding of evil when they learned of Judas's desire to be near them. No one had noticed his first appearance among them, ingratiating, stealthy, and unobtrusive. But Jesus did not heed the warnings of his followers. "With that spirit of lofty contradiction which drew Him irresistibly to the rejected and unloved He accepted him decisively and included him among His chosen ones.'

Though the disciples did not receive him cordially, in the course of time they became accustomed to him and to his phenomenal ugliness. The Master entrusted him with the treasure box and the household cares. He bought the food and the raiment, he distributed alms and made arrangements for lodging during their wanderings; and he fulfilled his task skillfully, though he lied constantly. He freely admitted that he was a liar, but affirmed that everybody else lied also, and even more than he.

A number of incidents serve to reveal the evil nature of Judas and bring about a change in the Master's manner to the new disciple. Judas has no faith in man, and whenever the disciples approach a new village he prophesies an evil reception. Generally his predictions prove unfounded, but on one occasion when the villagers accuse the disciples of theft and pursue them, Judas feels very proud of his foresight and boasts. On another occasion Judas "saves" the Master. A crowd of villagers are pursuing the disciples and Judas throws himself against them frenziedly, and so eloquently pleads that both his Teacher and his disciples, including himself, are rogues, vagabonds and mountebanks that their very disgust disarms the pursuers, for they do not consider them worthy of an honest man's chastisement. Needless to say Judas's intervention does not merit the Master's praise.

Peter discovers Judas in the theft of a few coins and drags him to the Master. Jesus listens to the accuser in silence and does not answer him. Peter in anger leaves the Teacher's presence.

But John enters, and when he returns to his fellows, pale and humbled, the beloved disciple announces:

"The Master says Judas may take all the money he wants. No one is to keep count of it. He is our brother and the money is his as well as ours. He may take what he wants, without asking. And you, Peter, greatly offended against your brother." After this episode the disciples treat Judas with more consideration. Even John deigns to address him occasionally.

"And how thinkest thou, Judas," he says condescendingly, "Who will it be, Peter or I, who shall sit next to Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven?"

"Thou, I think."

When Peter puts the same question to him, Judas gives him the same answer. The question of primacy soon becomes the subject of a heated discussion, and the disciples call upon Judas to settle it. "Now, Judas, tell us, who will sit nearest to Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven?"

"I," slowly and gravely remarks Judas. And beating his breast with his bony fingers, Iscariot solemnly and sternly repeats: "I. I shall be nearest to Jesus.'

"Jesus was speaking and the disciples listened in silence. Motionless like a statue, Mary sat at His feet and gazed with head thrown back into His face. John had moved close to the Teacher, so as to touch the hem of His garment without disturbing Him, and having done so was perfectly still. And Peter's breath came loud and heavy, in unison with the words of Jesus. "The Iscariot stopped at the threshold, and having measured the listeners with a glance of contempt, concentrated the fire of his eyes upon Jesus. And while he gazed, all around him was growing dim, as if swallowed up in gloom and silence; Jesus only with uplifted hand shone out of the darkness. And now He too seemed to float in the air, as if diffused into luminous mist such as hangs over the lake in the splendor of the dying moon. And His tender words sounded somewhere in the distance, afar off and sweet. Gazing at the vision, drinking in the gentle melody of those sweet and distant sounds, Judas gripped his whole soul with claws of iron and in its fathomless gloom began to shape