The obstructions to European influences were removed, and all joined hands in an effort to devise means of bringing the whole people up to a higher standard of intelligence and well-being.

Russia was going to be regenerated.

Men, in a rapture of enthusiasm and with tears, embraced each other on the streets.

One wrote: "The heart trembles with joy.

Russia is like a stranded ship which the captain and the crew are powerless to move; now there is to be a rising tide of national life which will raise and float it." Such was the prevailing public sentiment in 1861, when Emperor Alexander affixed his name to the measure which was going to make it forever glorious--the emancipation of over twenty-three million human beings from serfdom.