f each individual. The revelation of
divine truth, once attained, supersedes specific moral injunctions;
ceremonies and systems, even, of religion, become indifferent to the
mind illuminated by the sacred idea. A higher degree is the perfect
conception or ecstatic vision of the Deity;--the highest-reserved
only for the prophetic few--a real immediate union with his essence.
Here, it will be seen, are four steps or stages, each of which has
its sacred manual or appropriate system of teaching. In the hieratic
system, of which Schamyl is the head, the divisions seem to correspond
pretty nearly with this arrangement, as follows:--

The _first_ includes the mass of the armed people; whose zeal it
promotes by strict religious and moral injunctions enjoining purity of
life, exact regard to the ritual of the Koran, teaching pilgrimages,
fasting, ablutions; the duty of implacable war against the Infidel,
the sin of enduring his tyranny.

The _second_ is composed of those, who, in virtue of striving upward
to a higher Divine intelligence, are elevated above ceremonial
religion. Of these the _Murids_ (_seekers_ or _strugglers_,) are
formed: a body of religious warriors attached to the Imam, whose
courage in battle, raised to a kind of frenzy, despises numbers and
laughs at death. To accept quarter, or to fly from the Infidel, is
forbidden to this class.

The _third_ includes the more perfect acolytes, who are presumed to
have risen to the ecstatic view of the Deity. These are the elect,
whom the Imam makes _Naibs_ or vice-regents,--invested with nearly
absolute power in his absence.

The _fourth_, or highest, implying entire union with the Divine
essence, is held by Schamyl alone. In virtue of this elevation and
spiritual endowment, the Imam, as an immediate organ of the Supreme
Will, is himself the source of all law to his followers, unerring,
impeccable; to question or disobey his behests is a sin against
religion, as well as a political crime. It may be seen what advantage
this system must have given to Schamyl in his conflict with the
Russians. The doctrine of the indifference of sects and forms enabled
him to unite the divided followers of Omar and of Ali, in a region
where both abound, and where the schism had formerly been one of
the most effectual instruments of the enemy. The belief in a Divine
mission and spiritual powers sustains his adherents in all reverses;
while it invites to defection from the Russian side tho