Highway of Sorrow

Highway of sorrow at the close of the nineteenth century by Hesba Stretton
Highway of Sorrow $8.95 from Keepers of the Faith
*****
The Stundists were Russian reformers who came out of the Russian Orthodox church. They were nearly all of the peasant class, and without upper class people to wield their influence, the Stundists' sufferings were more severe. In this book we read of Paul and Halya, two young people who expect to marry. When Paul becomes convinced that Russian orthodoxy is a dead religion, and that reverence of icons and praying of saints is wrong, the two are separated. We follow the sufferings and martyrdom of Loukyan, who led many of the Stundists to a surer faith in the Lord Jesus. The Stundists were treated as heretics, and as less than human in spite of their kindness to all. The doctrine of the Stundists seems similar to that of the Anabaptists. At the end of the book, Paul and Halya are married, and marching to Siberia with a crowd of other convicts; some are guilty of disagreeing with the government, others have heinous crimes to their record, and others only wanted to worship God simply in sincerity and truth.

The book is a good novel and taught me about the Stundists, of whom I had never heard. There is heartbreak throughout the book, but then that is common in life, and those of us who do not experience it are blessed beyond measure. Read "Highway of Sorrow", and learn a little of what others have suffered for the name of Christ.