influence of anti-Christ, and it was there that God appeared to him, and said, "Truth and divinity dwell in your own conscience. Neither drink nor marry. Those among you who are already married should live as brothers and sisters."

Women were held in high esteem by the "sons of God," being venerated as "mothers or nieces of the Saviour."

CHAPTER VII

THE TOLSTOYANS

The numerous admirers of Count Tolstoi will find in his writings some derivations, whether conscious or unconscious, from the principles elaborated by many of the Russian sects. The doctrine of non-resistance, or inaction, the abolition of the army, vegetarianism, the defiance of law, and of dogmatic Christianity, together with many other conceptions which either scandalised or enraptured his readers, were already widespread among the Russian peasantry; though Tolstoi was able to give them new forms of expression and an original, if disquieting, philosophic basis.

But even as the products of the earth which we consume return to earth again, so do ideas and doctrines ever return to the source from which they sprang. A great reformer usually gathers his ideas from his environment, until, transformed by the workings of his brain, they react once more upon those to whom they actually owed their origin.

Renan has traced very accurately the evolution of a religious leader, and Tolstoi passed through all its logical phases, only stopping short of the martyrdom necessary ere he could enter the ranks of the prophets.

Imbued with the hopes and dreams that flourished all around him, he began, at a ripe age and in full possession of his faculties, to express his philosophy in poetic and alluring parables, the hostility of the government having only served to fire his enthusiasms and embitter his individual opinions. After first declaring that the masters of men are their equals, he taught later on that they are their persecutors, and finally, in old age, arrived at the conclusion that all who rule or direct others are simply criminals!

"You are not at all obliged to fulfil your duties," he wrote, in the Life and Death of Drojine, 1895, dedicated to a Tolstoyan martyr. "You could, if you wished, find another occupation, so that you would no longer have to tyrannise over men. . . . You men of power, emperors and kings, you are not Christians, and it is time you renounced the name as well as the moral code upon which you depend in order to dominate others."

It would be difficult to give a complete list either of the beliefs of the Tolstoyans, or of their colonies, in many of which members of the highest aristocracy were to be found.

"We have in Russia tens of thousands of men who have refused to swear allegiance to the new Tsar," wrote Tolstoi, a couple of years before his death, "and who consider military service merely a school for murder."

We have no right to doubt his word—but did Tolstoi know all his followers? Like all who have scattered seed, he was not in a position to count it. But however that may be, he transformed the highest aspirations of man's soul into a noble philosophy of human progress, and attracted the uneducated as well as the cultured classes by his genuine desire for equality and justice.

Early in June, 1895, several hundreds of verigintzi (members of a sect named after Veregine, their leader) came from the south of Russia to the Karsk district. The government's suspicions were aroused, and at Karsk the pilgrims were stopped, and punished for having attempted to emigrate without special permission. Inquiries showed that all were Tolstoyans, who practised the doctrine of non-resistance to evil on a large scale. For their co-religionists in Elisabethpol suddenly refused to bear arms, and nine soldiers also belonging to the sect repeated without ceasing that "our heavenly Father has forbidden us to kill our fellowmen." Those who were in the reserve sent in their papers, saying that they wished to have nothing more to do with the army.

One section of the verigintzi especially distinguished themselves by the zeal with which they practised the Tolstoyan doctrines. They reverenced their leader under the name of "General Tolstoi," gave up sugar as well as meat, drank only tea and ate only bread. They were called "the fasters," and their gentleness became proverbial. In the village of Orlovka they were exposed to most cruel outrages, the inhabitants having been stirred up against them by the priests and officials. They were spat upon, flogged, and generally ill-treated, but never ceased to pray, "O God, help us to bear our misery." Their meekness at last melted the hearts of their persecutors, who, becoming infected by their religious ardour, went down on their knees before those whom they had struck with whips a few minutes before.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANS

The Slavonic atmosphere exhales an intense longing for the ideal and for heaven. Often a kind of religious ecstasy seems to sweep over the whole length and breadth of the Russian territories, and Tolstoi's celebrated doctrines reflected the dreamy soul of the moujik and the teachings of many Russian martyrs. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that it is only the peasants buried in the depths of the country who provide favourable soil for the culture of the religious bacillus. It is the same with all classes—merchants, peasants, labourers and aristocrats.

The working-classes, especially those of the large towns, usually offer more resistance to the influence of religious fanatics, but in Petrograd and Moscow they are apt to follow the general current. Lack of space forbids us to study in all their picturesque details the birth and growth of religious sects in these surroundings. We must confine ourselves to one of the more recent manifestations—that of the mysterious "spiritual Christians."

In 1893, a man named Michael Raboff arrived in St. Petersburg. Peasant by birth, carpenter by trade, he immediately began to preach the tenets of his "spiritual Christianity." He became suspect, and with his friend Nicholas Komiakoff was deported to a far-distant neighbourhood; but in spite of this his seed began to bear fruit, for the entire district where he and Komiakoff were sent to work was soon won over to the new religion. The director himself, his wife, and all his workmen embraced it, and though the workshops were closed by the police, the various members distributed themselves throughout the town and continued to spread Raboff's "message." Borykin, the master-carpenter, took employment under a certain Grigorieff, and succeeded in converting all his fellow-workers. Finally Grigorieff's house was turned into a church for the new sect, and an illiterate woman named Vassilisa became their prophetess. Under the influence of the general excitement, she would fall into trances and give extravagant and incomprehensible discourses, while her listeners laughed, danced and wept ecstatically. By degrees the ceremonial grew more complex, and took forms worthy of a cult of unbalanced minds.

At the time when the police tried to disperse the sect it possessed a quite considerable number of adherents; but it died out in May, 1895, scarcely two years after its commencement.

The "spiritual Christians" called themselves brothers and sisters, and gave to Raboff the name of grandfather, and to the woman Vassilisa that of mother. They considered themselves "spiritual Christians" because they lived according to the spirit of Christianity. For the rest, their doctrine was innocent enough, and, but for certain extravagances and some dangerous dogmas borrowed from other sects, their diffusion among the