It is mistakenly looked upon as a universal law of nature, the law of the necessary decomposition of component parts into elements. Or the transition from one form of existence to another, from life with a gross material body to life without a body. This transition is completely painless, not preceded by any agony. A person retains full self-consciousness all the time. He clearly feels that his end is approaching, but he awaits this end not only without fear, with complete calm, but even with joy; he experiences a feeling similar to the languor that comes after a hard day's work, when he begins to feel very sleepy... The decomposition of the body after such a death is not at all the same as that of an unnatural death. There is putrefaction, accompanied by a well-known corpse odor. In a short time, the corpse turns into a fetid mass teeming with worms. These phenomena are absent here. There are no cadaveric stains on the body. There is no heavy smell, on the contrary, sometimes a fragrant perfume is strongly heard. The very process of decomposition sometimes drags on for hundreds of years.

The unnatural death of a person can be likened to an unripe grain. It adheres to the shell, which has to be torn off with difficulty. If the seed were endowed with the human faculty of feeling, it would experience the same torments that man experiences at the moment of the separation of the soul from the body at an unnatural death.

Natural death is like the hearing of a fully ripe seed, which separates itself from the shell without hindrance and hastens to fall into the ground.

Christ trampled on unnatural death as the cause of all human torments in his later life. Christianity calls people to save themselves from this unnatural death, it really saves them, gives them the opportunity to achieve a natural death, that is, a free and joyful transition to another form of existence, to another life.

And from sin, and from curse, and from death, people are saved by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that the hierarchy is endowed with this power, and we argue only about which hierarchy, the Old Believers or the Orthodox. We argue endlessly, without result. This dispute did not begin today or yesterday. Let us settle this question in the same way as the dispute of those carpenters whom I mentioned at the beginning was resolved. Now we know what Christianity saves people from. Go and save people. If you are able to do this, it means that you have the power of God, and your hierarchy is grace-filled. And then we only have to shake hands with each other in order to take up joint work more together, for the great cause of revival and renewal of people. If you cannot and see those who are saved with us, do not be obstinate: come to us... And missionary conversations, as not reaching the goal and only developing the passion of empty verbal debate, I close from this very day...

* * *

In every language, there are many words that mean objects that once existed, but now have disappeared, gone out of everyday life. People do not throw these words out of the lexicon, they keep them as a legacy from previous generations. Not seeing the object that once denoted this word, which has now lost its meaning, people form a hypothetical image of that object on the basis of this or that data, and depending on how the object is reproduced, they interpret the word in one way or another. But now, rummaging through the dust of archaeological excavations, a person finds the object itself. He looks at him with bewilderment and involuntarily exclaims: "So this is the very thing... and I thought..." And it seems strange to a person how he really had the right to think so...

In such bewilderment sat the listeners of the missionary conversation. Vladyka had long finished his speech and stepped down from the pulpit, and silence continued to reign in the hall. No one moved. The same thought flashed through everyone's mind: "So this is the very thing... and we thought..." And all those who were thinking, following the ellipsis, hastened to sort out their thoughts and involuntarily asked themselves what reason they really had to think differently than this.

Only the former flophouse residents did not think. What perplexed others was as clear as daylight to them. Vladyka briefly said what had been explained to them at length for years. Vladyka called people to the path on which they, the lodging houses, had long since set out. They had already been saved from hell, and although sin had not yet been completely destroyed in them, they had already seen that its power had fallen, that darkness was weakening, and everything was seen ahead. Joy fills their hearts. And they wanted to tell their joy to everyone.

Father Gerasim and Father Pavel sensed the mood of their flock and rose from their seats. The flock surrounded their pastors. And they became one heart and one soul. And this soul was stirred by one powerful feeling. Like a river in high water, it overflowed its banks, made its way out, and spilled over the hall like a sea of harmonious, majestic sounds.

"The lawful canopy has passed, having come with grace..." - sang the church dogmatist in an old tune. Their voices grew stronger, their singing became more audible, and to the rhythm of this singing their breasts heaved higher and higher, their eyes lit up with brilliance, their faces brightened.

The audience looked with amazement at these people, who so firmly and confidently sang about the grace that had come, and they felt that grace had really come to them... And the same perplexed thought rushed through everyone's head: "So this is the very thing..." And the sounds poured and expanded, filled the hall, burst out through the windows and boldly entered the battle with the restless noise of shrill voices boldly rising from the shopping street. Passers-by stopped when they heard the singing, and listened curiously to the song of the reborn people; And in this song they heard something familiar, close to their hearts. The soul was seized by a vague longing for something long forgotten, lost...

* * *

"How so?" Does Vladyka close the conversations? The missionary asked his mentor embarrassedly, finding him among the crowd leaving the hall.