GOVERNING RUSSIA'S PROVINCES 241inquired about their past studles, their families, their interests, needs,
and desires. After a pleasant and very friendly conversation, Speransky
gave them some expense money and had them driven to the seminary in
his own carriage. As long as they remained at the seminary, Speransky
regularly inquired about their progress and welfare; occasionally he
invited them to his house, and eventually offered them entry to govern-
ment service. Some of them, including the narrator of the story, ac-
cepted the offer and stayed as Speransky's loyal assistants.^1
As might have been expected, Speransky was on friendly and cloSe
terms with the Bishop of Penza, Aaron. In the Bishop, the Governor
found an intelligent and educated prelate with whom he could discuss
the theological and philosophical problems which, as we know, inter-
ested him deeply. After he had completed the initial task of putting the
provincial administration into good working order, philosophical and
theological studies and dissussions took the uppermost place in
Speransky's daily occupations. They helped to break the dreary routine
of public life and to avoid unnecessary social functions. Apart from
the personal and intellectual reasons, Speransky was in close contact
with the Bishop also because of his concern for the local ecclesiastical
institutions, like the seminary, the cathedral church, and the like. As
governor, Speransky took the lead in organizing local branches of the
Bible Society, an activity which had the enthusiastic support of the
Emperor and of the Minister for Religious and School Affairs, Prince
A. N. Golitsyn. Many contemporaries and subsequent historians have
condemned Speransky's participation in a movement which became,
it is true, closely connected with political reaction and cultural ob-
scurantism. 2 Speransky was accused of hypocrisy and flattery, for his
work on behalf of the Bible Society was viewed merely as a device for
winning the good graces of Alexander. Such an opinion, however, does
injustice to Speransky, for it ignores ,completely the sinceri.ty and in-
tensity of his own religious preoccupations along similar lines. We know
that all aspects of religious experience and striving for a deeper and
purer Christian way of life were always present in his mind. They
constituted, so to speak, the permanent substratum of his spiritual and
intellectual make-up. His own religious outlook stressed the importance
of close familiarity with the Scriptures. The stated purpose of the
Bible Society was to spread knowledge of the Scriptures; it therefore
1 Troitskii, "Speranskii v Penze," Russkaia Starina, 112 (1902), pp. 342-344.
2 Letter of Prince P. A. Viazemskii to Alexander Turgenev. 4 April 1819 from
Warsaw: " ... but this interlude in Penza and Bible circles have dragged into the
crowd this man [i.e. Speranskii] whom I would have liked to see as giant."
Ostafevskii Arkhiv kniazei Viazemskikh, I (St. Pbg. 1899), p. 212.