ABSTRACT
The russian student Czerniakoff, who in the course of time had become my friend and teacher, came to me one day shortly before Passover and said that he was leaving for a large town where a number of his friends from home were studying. But he could not tell me where that was. Then, having made me promise to say nothing about it, he explained to me that he belonged to a society, a group of friends, who had made it their task to educate the people of Russia and lessen their sufferings. To this organization belonged not only poor, simple people—such as workers from the towns and peasants—but also great scholars and writers and students and professors as well; and many of them were languishing in prisons or had been exiled to Siberia. Some had escaped and now lived abroad and continued their work from there. They printed books and pamphlets and newspapers, which told the truth about the czarist tyranny and taught men how to fight it; and they found means to smuggle these into Russia.
