Note 14 — Chapter LI · LAKE KHANKA TO THE COAST.

I would take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to the Religious Tract Society of London and its colleagues in Russia for the gracious way in which the Committee has always accepted my offers of service, and for the kind manner in which I have been trusted to act in concert with their local agents as seemed best on the occasion. Not a little of my success (if it may be so called), especially in Russia, has been traceable to this; and my holiday distribution of more than 100,000 of their publications, I hope, I shall always remember with gratitude and pleasure. An extensive work is done in Russia by the Religious Tract Society. About 1,000,000 tracts were sold from 1875 to 1878 which is an indirect testimony that we hold more truth in common with the Russian Church than many are aware of. In Russia, as is well known, every book, every pamphlet, every leaflet, before it can be published and circulated, must receive the approval of the censor; and if the doctrine of what is printed, whether political or religious, be objectionable, its publication is forbidden. Further, it is pretty well known what kind of doctrine, and what kind only, the Committee of the Religious Tract Society approves. Hence, if these two things be put together, and it be remembered that tens of thousands of tracts are circulated in the empire which the Committee approves, and to which the Synod does not object, then surely it is pretty clear that the Russians and ourselves have in religious matters a great deal of common ground.