No cold was too intense for him to brave should they be in distress.

He asked no money, and he gave none.

But they lived on his charity, and they were wise enough to know it.
What wonder if these poor wretches loved the man whom they could see and hear above the God who manifested himself to them in no way! The orthodox priests of their villages had no money to spend on their parishioners.

On the contrary, they asked for money to keep the churches in repair.

What wonder, then, if these poor ignorant, helpless peasants would listen to no priest; for the priest could not explain to them why it was that God sent a four-month-long winter which cut them off from the rest of the world behind impassable barriers of snow; that God sent them droughts in the summer so that there was no crop of rye; that God scourged them with dread and horrible disease! It is almost impossible for us to realize, in these days of a lamentably cheap press and a cheaper literature, the mental condition of men and women who have no education, no newspaper, no news of the world, no communication with the universe.