s claim to
antiquity does so with least reason.

The principle of the Raskol, which sometimes runs out into the wildest
dreams of mysticism, is essentially realistic. Under this materialistic
_cultus_, however, there lurks a sort of idealism, of coarse
spiritualism. Religious vagaries, with all their absurdities, always
have a lofty, sometimes even a sublime, side. It would be wrong to fancy
that there is nothing but ignorant superstition in the Starovere's
scrupulous attachment to his ancestral worship. The vulgar heresy is, in
fact, only an overdone ritualism, whose logic lands it in absurdity. The
Old Believer's reverence for the letter comes from his belief that
letter and spirit are indissolubly united, and that the forms of
religion are as needful as its essence. Religion is to him, both as
regards forms and dogmas, a whole, all whose parts hang together; and no
human hand can touch this masterpiece of Providence without blemishing
it. There is an occult sense in every word and in every rite. He cannot
believe that any ceremony or formula of the Church is void of meaning or
of efficacy. Divine service has nothing in it merely accessory,
indifferent or unmeaning. Holy things are holy throughout: in the
worship of the Lord everything is deep and full of mystery; and it is
blasphemy to change anything or to withhold from it its proper
veneration. The Starovere, of course, cannot formulate his doctrine, but
if he could, religion would appear, according to his view, a sort of
completed and adequate representation of the supernatural world. His
simple logic exacts from all public worship an absolute perfection which
it is impossible to realize. Looked at in this light, the Old Believer
who marched to the stake for the sign of the cross, and sacrificed his
tongue rather than chant another Hallelujah, grows highly respectable.
From this standing-point the Russian schism is essentially religious:
its mistake, so to speak, is the excess of religion. Symbolism is the
principle of its formalism, or rather the Raskol is symbolism run into a
heresy. This gives it originality and value in sectarian history. To
these extravagant ritualists ceremonies are not simply the garb of
religion: they are its flesh and blood, in whose absence dogma is but a
lifeless skeleton. Thus, the Raskol is the direct opposite of ordinary
Protestantism, which by its very nature sets small store by outward
ceremonies, regarding them as needless ornamen