Phillipsburg Herald

first saw him he was addressing a meeting of workingmen. He began in a low, mumbling voice, vibrant with power and force. Before he had completed his first phrase you could feel the magnetic spark entering your soul that would hold you until the last syllable fell from his lips. Those workingmen whose cause he has made his life's effort sat and listened to him with glowing eyes and beating pulses, and their passions rose with his. In many ways he is a born agitator.

"His hold over the people has been a source of fear and alarm to the nobles, for his hand stretches out over the entire empire. I have heard him talk in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and in both places he is followed and worshiped blindly. So great an influence has he obtained over the Russian people that none of those in power have dared to harm him. And their fear of him has increased from year to year. Were he not a man of such dominant will and such mighty influence over the minds of his followers, he would have been a member of the Siberian chain gang many years ago. But they have feared him and always will fear him.

"It is not at all strange he escaped in Sunday's frightful massacre. No soldier would wittingly fire upon a priest or upon one who held in his hand a crucifix or an icon. Then this man is beginning to have an ever-increasing influence over the soldiery and this is the greatest fear of the Russian government, for he may soon gain the same tremendous power as a leader with the troops."