Rather would I drown in the Dvina than a drop of the baptismal water should touch my forehead.

To be forced to kneel before the hideous images, to kiss the cross,--sooner would I rush out to the mob that was passing, and let them tear my vitals out.
To forswear the One God, to bow before idols,--rather would I be seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin.

I was only a little girl, and not very brave; little pains made me ill, and I cried.

But there was no pain that I would not bear--no, none--rather than submit to baptism.
Every Jewish child had that feeling.

There were stories by the dozen of Jewish boys who were kidnapped by the Czar's agents and brought up in Gentile families, till they were old enough to enter the army, where they served till forty years of age; and all those years the priests tried, by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept baptism, but in vain.