for truth. Christ continues to suffer in us even
now when we do not live in accordance with the behests and spirit of his
teaching. The whole teaching of the Doukhobors is penetrated with the
Gospel spirit of love. Worshipping God in the spirit, they affirm that
the outward Church and all that is performed in it and concerns it has
no importance for them. The Church is where two or three are gathered
together, i.e. united in the name of Christ. They pray inwardly at all
times; on fixed days they assemble for prayer-meetings, at which they
greet each other fraternally with low bows, thereby acknowledging every
man as a bearer of the Divine Spirit. Their teaching is founded on
tradition, which is called among them the "Book of Life," because it
lives in their memory and hearts. It consists of sacred songs or chants,
partly composed independently, partly formed out of the contents of the
Bible, which, however, has evidently been gathered by them orally, as
until quite lately they were almost entirely illiterate and did not
possess any written book. They found alike their mutual relations and
their relations to other people--and not only to people, but to all
living creatures--exclusively on love, and therefore they hold all
people equal and brethren. They extend this idea of equality also to the
government authorities, obedience to whom they do not consider binding
upon them in those cases when the demands of these authorities are in
conflict with their conscience; while in all that does not infringe what
they regard as the will of God they willingly fulfil the desire of the
authorities. They consider killing, violence, and in general all
relations to living beings not based on love as opposed to their
conscience and to the will of God. They are industrious and abstemious
in their lives, and when living up to the standard of their faith they
present one of the nearest approaches to the realization of the
Christian ideal which have ever been attained. In many ways they have
thus a close resemblance to the Quakers or Society of Friends. For these
beliefs and practices the Doukhobors long endured cruel persecution.
Under Nicholas I., in the years 1840 and 1850, the Doukhobors, who on
religious grounds refused to participate in military service, were all
banished from the government of Tauris--whither they had been previously
transported from various parts of Russia by Alexander I.--to
Transcaucasia, near the Turkish frontier. B