378. Слово при отпевании тела действительного тайного советника 1-го класса графа Александра Сергеевича Строганова

(Said in the Kazan Cathedral Church, October 3 days; printed separately in 1811 twice.) You will go to your fathers in peace, and be raised better in your old age (Gen. 15:15). You are leaving in peace, famous husband, but can we see you off in peace? When one of the great pillars that adorn the Throne and support the classes of the people is crushed before us, our eye and heart involuntarily fall with it. You are retiring in old age better, and perhaps you found it too long, hastening towards an ageless life; but how short does it now seem to those who rested under your canopy, grew under your gray hairs, lived your life! Moving towards eternity, you do not lose anything in time, since your deeds follow you; but everyone who knows you loses you the more, the longer you belonged to their heart. What, however, should you do, you lamenting listeners? The rain of tears will not revive the grain, which is now “sown into corruption,” but which “will rise in incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:42) under the unevening sun, and we must not be like those who have no consolation, having no hope. The spirit in God of the deceased husband will be offended if others look at his death with less generosity than he does at his own, and the Church, giving such solemn honors to the earth that is passing into the earth, wants the death of her children to be a subject not so much of fear or sadness as of pious attention. She places their peaceful coffins before us, as monuments of the grace that preserved them in the world, and as indicators of the path along which they flow, may they be comprehended. Who, besides the Lord of life and death, could promise Abraham: “You will go to your father in peace, and be nourished in a good old age” (Gen. 15:15)? And how, if not by active faith, could he achieve the fulfillment of the promise? Is there any other predestination for such events today? Let us therefore, at this silent tomb, give glory to the God of the living, Who gives peace and long life to faith and virtue as a guarantee of immortality and bliss. Let us, in the image of Elisha, pour this Gospel salt into the source of sorrow, so that he will be healed into joy (2 Kings 2:21). A man is born under a menacing sky. Conceived in iniquities, condemned to death before birth, placed in conflict with all nature, taking revenge on its master for subjugating itself to vanity, having in the mind a leader who is most blind in the greatest dangers, in the heart of a friend who often betrays, in the conscience of a judge whose vigilance is terrible for sensuality, and sleep for the spirit - what is a poor stranger of the earth if not an ulcerated warrior, forced at the same time to fight both external enemies and internal weakness? What are the feats without God that he undertakes for happiness, if not the efforts of a paralytic who wants to rise up? What are his earthly pleasures if not deceptive medicines that temporarily silence an incurable disease, and which become less effective the more often they are used? Happy if, amid these disastrous experiences, he finally feels that there is no safety on earth without reconciliation with heaven! Faith pours healing balm onto the wounds opened by self-knowledge. She assures us that God only gives us over to deserved suffering, so that we recognize the need for his help and cleave to his mercy: she hides us from the gaze of his justice under the robe of Christ’s merits; clothes our weakness and violence in God's power and God's wisdom and, urging us to high activity according to the intentions of God's love, adds that “who... did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all; A Christian imbued with such heavenly influences desires without self-interest, acts without self-reliance, submits without grumbling: and, seeing over his head not darkness or a sword, but the hand of the Lord covering and instructing him, he is strong in exploits, not despairing in falls, in dangers “like a lion who trusts” (Prov. 28:1). For him, punishments turn into trials and suffering into merits; where curses are sown, he reaps blessings. The same faith that reconciles with God, turning its face to people, becomes a virtue and serves as the most faithful intercessor of peace with others. Human societies are established for the mutual benefit and preservation of the members; but passions often present in them spectacles of discord and mutual destruction. Envy is hostile to dignity; curiosity tries to suppress merit; selfishness fights with right; security supported by force is overthrown by another overwhelming force; an alliance based on benefits is destroyed by the slightest imbalance; hearts united by passion are separated by inconstancy: one pious virtue can be placed as the basis of such agreement that would resist all destructive forces, or better yet, there is no agreement, in whatever basis it is at least not hidden. With it, if a person does not get rid of the anxiety of having enemies, then at least he will not have the torment of being an enemy; if he finds the worst opponents, then the most reliable champions; if the whole world rises up against him, then God’s providence will remain on his side and will arrange everything for his good. He is “Israel”, who “has been strengthened... with God, and will be strong with men” (Gen. 32:28). But filled with a living feeling of God’s goodness and actively affirmed in His love, can an ascetic of faith and virtue remain at enmity with himself? Having made peace with You, God of the heart, he says, I make peace with myself in Your presence; amid constant vigilance in the performance of my duties, I will rest calmly in your providence; devotion to your guidance is my safety. “In peace together I will sleep and rest, as you, Lord... have given me hope” (Ps. 4:9). Hope does not disgrace, O hearers, and the Lord, whose essential promises are spiritual and eternal, also utters His blessings in temporal and external things to the hearing and appreciation of the world. If He “delights his beloved, lest malice change their mind, or flattery deceive their soul” (Wis. 4:11), then he “plants them in his house, that they may prosper in the courts...” of him, “multiply in old age,” and with their prosperity “proclaim that the Lord our God is righteous” (Ps. 91:14-16). If he allows them to be persecuted and oppressed, so that, like aromas that are washed away, the stench of fragrances spreads further, and in order to show that their true reward is not on earth; sometimes he shows them at the height of earthly happiness and glory, so that the world does not think that they are forgotten. This very world, although the everlasting enemy of virtue, but which does not dare to attack it otherwise than under its own guise, is sometimes so amazed by “the light of it that is enlightened before men” that it too is forced to appear to “glorify its Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16), and, placing its weapon at its feet, leaves it to carry out its brilliant course without stumbling. This is how the famous Bolyarin Count Alexander, whom we escorted into eternity, ended his earthly course. Virtue was the solid foundation of his peace and love with his neighbors, in family and civil relations; faith opened up peace in him with God and with himself on his deathbed; why the happiness that accompanied him to the grave was not so much a gift of an unknown fate, but rather a visible blessing of Providence. Being the father of the family, he revealed in him, so to speak, all the treasures of a tender heart and, with his love, forming from him a single body, he was his only soul. His meekness established his sincerity and freedom, and to establish order he needed no other force than his example. In his household he saw not slaves, but people; he considered them entrusted to himself not so much for his services as for the creation of their prosperity, and freedom was ready for those who were able to take advantage of it. The same spirit of love for mankind, extending beyond the boundaries of government, everywhere embraced need and poverty so that, according to his feelings, every poor person had the right to its abundance, every orphan was included in the circle of his family (Gen. 18). He loved hospitality as a virtue that God himself once honored with his visit; and his house, being a repository of ancient domestic rites, could also be a school of ancient family virtues. And when he entered the field of merit and glory, no matter what forms his activity for the public good and zeal for the Throne took under the direct waves of the Scepter! Advocate for an alliance between the famous Powers of Europe, a member of the Tsar's Court, an employee of the high government classes, a patron of the sciences and the arts! - But who will I tell this to? The Fatherland knows a son who lived for the Fatherland. You know, pupils and lovers of free arts, with what tirelessness he brought your society to this flourishing state in which he left it; with what attention he encouraged your labors with patronage and representation at the Throne; with what pleasure he discovered the infancy of genius and with what paternal care he raised it; how willingly he sacrificed his property to your education, so that his servant did not know what his right hand was doing; how, at the very edge of the grave, he was still concerned about fulfilling his beneficent intentions for you! You know, venerable host of nobility, with what dignity he represented you in his person: the nine three years during which he was your leader by your election - what an unforgettable monument of trust and righteous respect for his rules! What another bright sign of undimmed loyalty to the Throne - to see five scepter-bearers on it, one after another, and to acquire and maintain the favor of each! Finally, seventy-seven years of peace—what a continuous flow of heavenly blessings! This, listeners, would be enough for the glory of the son of the Fatherland; but God wanted to reveal in him the son of the Church with the same brilliance, in order to inspire the witnesses of his prosperity that the true blessing of the world requires more than civil virtues. So, the Monarch, whose heart is in the hand of God, having undertaken to create a church worthy of his reign to the Creator of the world, found him worthy to be the first follower of his piety. At this election, he felt that Providence was pleased to seal his deeds with this sacred service, and with reverent submission he began a great feat in such years that not many have the good fortune to complete. His cheerful spirit strained the remaining strength of his exhausted nature and, exhausting them for this God-pleasing work, he limited all his desires to seeing it accomplished. It was then that the ripest fruits were collected in the garden he cultivated; the most perfect works of domestic artists are brought to the Creator of all perfection, as the rich beginnings of national abundance and education; the fine arts, these delicate products of luxury, were ennobled and sanctified by working in piety; and thus it was actively preached to lovers of the elegant that truly sound taste should be directed not to the delight of the imagination alone, but to the food of the spirit. When his ten-year labor was crowned, when the Church, in the presence of God’s anointed, called the Lord to the village prepared for him, and his glory, with a mysterious influx, overshadowed this now sacred place, here stood the consoled zealot of this glory and offered his life as a grateful sacrifice for the majestic service he had offered at the same time to both the heavenly and earthly King. “Now,” he cried secretly with Simeon, and this feeling repeatedly poured out from his soul, “now do you let your servant go, O Master, in peace” (Luke 2:29). My wishes, my premonitions were fulfilled; I am ready to surrender into Your hands the life that I wanted to have only for my neighbors and for You, Giver of Life! God heard his prayer - and kept him here for several days only to show us him on his deathbed. The deathbed is the testing stone of a past life; a person deposits on it what he seemed to be, and remains what he was: it was on him that this man had to withstand the final test of faith and devotion to Providence. An illness comes and says to him, like the prophet Hezekiah: “Organize your house, for you are dying and will not live” (Is. 38:1); but he does not “cry” like Hezekiah (Is. 38:3), although he is no less confident in the truth of this prophecy. The flesh faints, but the spirit does not waver. He makes orders that must be carried out after his death with such indifference, as if he were instituting a friendly supper, and the only consolation that he requires at this time is the fulfillment of the last Christian duties, which is often removed from the sick by untimely sensitivity. If anything could disturb the deep silence of his soul, then these were the tender feelings of his parents; but he, giving his last blessing to his worthy son, surrendered with him to the goodness of the Heavenly Father; he entrusted him not so much with his name, wealth and fame, but with his example, merits and virtues, and gave him the most important lesson with the calm of his last minutes. His last will was that even after his death he would appear to the Lord in this very church, in which he received the first premonition of death, in order from his very tomb to still cry to him: “Now you release your servant, Master, according to your word 911 in peace.” And behold, he is before Your face, O Lord of life and immortality! You heeded his prayer for his temporary departure; remember also ours about his eternal rest in you. Grant him in Your light and truth to see Your salvation, which he saw here in the mirror and fortune-telling. And to console those who mourn about him, preserve his famous name in his worthy offspring. Amen. These words are not in the 2nd department. ed. You might be interested in: