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18 (2) GOOD NEWS Vol. 3

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REVOLUTION AND
RELIGION IN RUSSIA
(Continued from Page 1)

turies in Egypt, under the Pharohs),
the Russian people for four long cen-
turies were enslaved. For four cen-
turies they had no civic government of
their own. The Russian princes had to
go to the capital and the dwelling places
of the ruling Tartar "Khans" and bring
in their gifts; they had to bend down
and render obesiance to the Tartar
princes.

In those dark hours, to whom should
the Russian people turn but to that God
whom they knew so dimly? Although
in their hearts they were heathen, and
very little troubled by the experience of
trouble, and somehow in those four dark
centuries, those light streaks were
warm within the tissues of the "religious
feeling," the feeling after God. The
people turned towards God and prayed
as they understood.

I have visited some of the large mon-
esteries in Russia, and there have been
shown, with lighted candle in my hand,
the subterranean passages where the
monks used to worship, and strive,
through a great deal of self-sacrifice
and all kinds of ascetic experiences for
holiness. Some of the monks made lit-
tle holes in the rocks down below the
earth, and there they would lie and
spend many years of their lives. Others
sometimes would ask to be buried in the
earth, half of their bodies covered, until
they died of thirst, and hunger, and ex-
posure to all kinds of deprivations.
There has been one great, long, awful
striving on the part of the people of
Russia for something better. Why was
this so? I guess you who have truly come
to the Lord understand this. It was the
great burden of sin upon ther con-
science.

The Russian people know what sin is.
I have never seen such repentance as
among the Russian people. In our
school, the Russian Bible Institute, in
the city of Philadelphia, where the
Lord has given me about one hundred
bright Russian men and women stu-
dents, preparing the Lord's work in
Russia, when they gathered together,
and we were lying upon our faces be-
fore the Lord, I wish you had heard
their repentance for their past life. The
Russian man sins deeply, but he also
repents deeply, and he understands what
"repentance" means.

Do you know, one of the greatest dan-
gers in your Protestant churches in this
country is that many of them have for-
gotten what it is to have conviction for
sin. In many places I have found they
wanted to receive members into their
churches as easily as possible, with lit-
tle conviction of sin, and they imagine
that there should be some kind of a
made-up joy in the mind of the Chris-
tian, without first of all experiencing the
bitterness of Calvary. Among the Rus-
sian people, this very feeling of sin, this
very degradation, made them dwarfted
and undeveloped in those things which
had been putting more than the yoke of
the Tartar upon the heads of the nation.
It was their awful abysmal sin, and that
very sin made them turn to God. They
wanted, they waited, they longed for
something better.

Now this is practically the first time
a man has stood in your presence after
the Russian revolution, with a definite
call for missionary effort among that
people. The Russian people are not bet-
ter than they used to be before they
were made free. They were under the
burden of sin before, but we were not
allowed to bring them relief. If we did
we were imprisoned and sent to Siberia,
flogged, or beaten almost to death.

One of our dear brothers was stand-
ing up before his congregation in the
southern part of Russia about four years

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and it would be one of the most awful
crimes if you folks in America, enjoying
the blessings you are having, would sit
down quietly and say, "It is none of our
business."

However, this is hardly the place to
say that, for I believe if any people be-
lieve it is their business to reach the
dying millions, it must be the Moody
Church in Chicago, and that is why I
have come here with great anticipation
and great hope; and because the Spirit
of God constrains me to do so, my de-
sire is to present to you the great need
of my people.

In regard to this revolution, some peo-
ple might say, "What about this revolu-
tion? What about the deposition of the
Czar? What part did you Christian peo-
ple in Russia have in the matter of
starting this revolution?"

I would answer in a two-fold manner:
first, nothing; secondly, everything. We,
as Christians in Russia, always have be-
lieved in honoring and respecting our
government, whatsoever it be. The only
weapon we had against a bad ruler was
to pray for him, to bring him before
God; so that when the revolution broke
out, so far as I know, our Christian
people were just as quiet as they could
be. Many times, when visiting a ruler,
the Russian Prime Minister, or other
officials, I told them, "We evangelical
people in Russia are the most loyal sub-
jects of his Majesty, the Czar." I spoke
the truth.

I remember before the war broke out
I was in the office of the Minister of
War. I had a petition to offer. They
were trying to forbid us to go from
place to place. I was ordered not to
preach in any place but my own pulpit,
and no one else was to come to preach
in my pulpit. They were very much up-
set because many people were getting
saved wherever the evangalist traveled
throughout the Russian Empire. I went to
plead on this and other matters. I ar-
rived early in the morning. The audi-
ence room of the Minister of War was
crowded full of generals and all kinds
of high personages and petitioners, many
of them in uniform, with swords by
their side.

One after another was called in. I
awaited my turn. Finally the room was
almost empty. I had been five hours
waiting for the gracious reception, and
could not understand it. Many times
before that it had been enough for me
to call up the office on the telephone, or
even sometimes the home of the Prime
Minister, for his wife attended my
meetings, and I was able to get the audi-
ence in a short time, while other people
had to wait for two months; and now I
could not understand what was the
trouble.

By and by the War Minister came out.
Few petitioners were left, and they
were all lined up, I among them. He
went to the third, the fourth, and I was
waiting for my turn. At last I stood be-
fore him, not trembling, because I have
never been accustomed to tremble since
I trembled before the Lord. If you
tremble before the Lord you will not
tremble before men or devils, but if you
do not tremble before the Lord, you will
tremble when a cat or a rabbit runs
across your path. I stood there, very
humbly, and said, "Your High Excel-
lency, I have a petition to make," and
presented my paper. "Nothing doing!
Nothing doing!" he said, "I will not do
it."

He became very angry with me, as if
he had seen some terrible enemy of his.
I understood then that he had been in-
cited, of course, by the priests or some
other reactionary agency. I had waited
five or six hours, was exhausted, and
had been praying the whole time, and
expected some leniency on the part of
his Excellency. He practically took me
by the collar and said, "You go through
that door and don't come back," and I
went.

Some of you may have had some un-
pleasant experiences and know how I
felt. I went out stirred up, out into the
street, and kind of a human resentment

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He said, "Father, forgive them, for they
do not know what they are doing." So
instead of asking for God to punish the
War Minister, I said, "Lord, bless him,
forgive him, open his eyes, and bring an
awakening to Russia that there will be
no more persecution."

"All Things Work Together for
Good"

I did not know at that time that this
prayer would be answered so quickly. I
did not know that after the darkest of
nights the morning would come, such a
bright one, but, praise God, it has come.
I was sent out of my country, and
instead of going to Siberia was allowed
to come to this land, and said goodbye
to my church, a party of my friends, my
family and others, my secretaries and
associate pastors standing at the station
as my train was about to pull out one
midnight, with gendarmes walking on
each side, suspecting something danger-
ous was out there. When the last bell (a bell
on the station rings three times before
the train pulls out), rang, they stood
waving their white handkerchiefs. I
heard the goodbye once more from the
lips of my dear wife and friends and I
was left practically to myself, leaning
against a window in the darkness of
the night, hastening toward the borders
of Sweden—to what I did not know.

Then I felt the presence of one that
sticketh closer than a brother, a sister,
wife or children, there by my side, and
knew that He was carrying the heavier
end of the cross. He seemed to put His
hand on my shoulder and to say,
"Be of good cheer, I am with thee, and
when thou passeth through the waters
they shall not overflow thee, and through
the fires they will not consume thee; but
go ahead, I will hold thy hand," and I
went.

Never once could I suspecct that things
would be changed so remarkably. Never
once could I expect that in three years
such a change would come for my be-
loved country. Never once could I
guess that the very priests who incited
my banishment were committing one of
the greatest boons and blessings for Rus-
sia that even angels could not devise, for
I could never, in Russia in perfrect free-
dom, all these three years since the war
has been going on, have accomplished
by God's grace and under the guidance
of the Spirit of God one thousanth
part of the blessing I have seen through
this banishment.

Let me give you a piece of advice. Don't
be troubled about circumstances. Be
troubled about yourself. You get right
with God, and by the Spirit of God, and
by the Blood of the Lamb right with
God, and never mind if you have to
make your bed in hell, you will awake in
Paradise. You cannot keep in hell when
you are right with God. You cannot
keep in Siberia if you are right with
God, and so the Lord is working won-
derfully.

Sometimes people come to me and say,
"Pastor Fetler, what should we do?
This is such a bad experience, and there
is this trouble and that."

I just put a finger over their heart
and say, "Isn't there some trouble there
in your heart? If there is no trouble
in your heart, go ahead. The lions may
roar around you, and bears, and wolves,
and gendarmes and secret police, but
never mind if you are right with God.
Go ahead. Go ahead."

I stand before you tonight as a wit-
ness of the wonderful grace of God.
Through all these years of my humble
ministry in Russia, and these three years
of my alienation from my native land, I
have learned simply that there is one
head of the Church of Jesus Christ, He
Himself, and that we simply have to be
in His way, to be following Him, and
caring for nothing. Let me just show
you in one or two ways what the Lord
has done.

Some of you know the story already.
One of the blessings that I got was be-
fore I came to this country. I had the
privilege of reaching a great number of

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and New Testament could be sent into
the prison camps. The work began be-
fore war was declared on Germany. I
got into communication with the State
Department at Washington, and they
graciously consented to send our mail
through diplomatic channels to the U.
S. ambassador in Berlin, and through
him into the hands of our field com-
mittee

First of all, we translated some tracts
and put them in type. We made brass
plates so that they could be printed over
there. One of the first sermons pub-
lished was "Fact, Faith, Feeling," by F.
B. Meyer, the second, "Safety, Satisfac-
tion and Enjoyment," by Geo. Cutting,
and the third, "Hell," by Dr. Torrey.
Some of my friends in New York of the
New Theology type said, " 'Hell?' Don't
send that tract!" They thought there
was no such thing in existence. I said,
That is the very thing I want to send.
We Russians believe in heaven and hell;
we want to know how to get out of hell
and get to heaven."

To our disappointment, I received let-
ters that these brass plates never
reached our friends on the other side.
Some of the authorities evidently
thought we were trying to camouflage
way to smuggle bass into their coun-
try, and the plates were confiscated.
"Necessity is the mother of invention,"
and instead of making copper plates, we
made paper plates, which of course can-
not be made into cannon balls, and sent
these paper mache plates by first class
mail to Sweden, and our Swedish com-
mittee got them safely into the hands of
our printers. As a result, millions of
copies of tracts have been printed, and
spread among the Russian war prison-
ers, and great have been the results.

A Harvest Coming

I am glad that the Moody Church was
back of this work almost from the be-
ginning, not without a good deal of
merit to my "little friend with the big
heart," Woolley. When I was here
about eighteen months ago, friends gave
money to publish a sermon by D. L.
Moody, and one by your present pastor.
I published a sermon by Moody, on "Re-
pentance and Restitution," and a tract
by Paul Rader on "Naaman, the Great
Syrian General." My wife translated
them both into the Russian language,
and many thousands of copies have been
printed on those two subjects with the
money which the Moody Church friends
gave.

You might ask, "Well, what is the re-
sult?" Sometimes we are not allowed to
see results immediately, and sometimes
we see them fairly soon. The latter has
been the case with this work. I do not
believe D. L. Moody ever preached a
sermon before any American or English
congregation which has given more
blessings than those two sermons which
we sent to the two million war prison-
ers.

In one of the larger camps, where I
think there are perhaps ten to fifteen
thousand Russians together in Germany,
fourteen Russian Christians got together.
Some of the Russian Christians had
been called to war. Sometimes I
wondered why they were called, and
then I found that the Lord wanted to
have some evangelists among the troops.
These fourteen were from many differ-
ent places, but they got together and
started a prayer meeting, and Bible read-
ing. Then they got our tracts. Not
many months went by, when, instead of
fourteen believers, there were in that
camp, as my reports tell me, 618 con-
verted men. They organized a "Moody
Church" in Germany, found there minia-
ture "Paul Rader" and elected him pas-
tor, and probably they also found a Rus-
sian "Woolley." Now they are going
ahead, and I do not know how many
more believers there are, for my report
is five or six months old. I would not
be surprised, however, if there were a
thousand Russian converts already.

Now this is not the end of the story,
because when the war is over, and the
Russian soldiers return to their native.

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