ew doctrine was given to me by an intelligent
Molokan, who had formerly been a peasant and was now a trader, as I sat
one evening in his house in Novo-usensk, the chief town of the district
in which Alexandrof-Hai is situated. It seemed to me that the author
of this ingenious attempt to conciliate Christianity with extreme
Utilitarianism must be an educated man in disguise. This conviction I
communicated to my host, but he did not agree with me.

"No, I think not," he replied; "in fact, I am sure he is a peasant,
and I strongly suspect he was at some time a soldier. He has not much
learning, but he has a wonderful gift of talking; never have I heard any
one speak like him. He would have talked over the whole village, had it
not been for an old man who was more than a match for him. And then
he went to Orloff-Hai and there he did talk the people over." What he
really did in this latter place I never could clearly ascertain. Report
said that he founded a communistic association, of which he was himself
president and treasurer, and converted the members to an extraordinary
theory of prophetic succession, invented apparently for his own sensual
gratification. For further information my host advised me to apply
either to the prophet himself, who was at that time confined in the
gaol on a charge of using a forged passport, or to one of his friends, a
certain Mr. I----, who lived in the town. As it was a difficult
matter to gain admittance to the prisoner, and I had little time at my
disposal, I adopted the latter alternative.

Mr. I---- was himself a somewhat curious character. He had been a
student in Moscow, and in consequence of some youthful indiscretions
during the University disturbances had been exiled to this place.
After waiting in vain some years for a release, he gave up the idea of
entering one of the learned professions, married a peasant girl, rented
a piece of land, bought a pair of camels, and settled down as a small
farmer.* He had a great deal to tell about the prophet.

* Here for the first time I saw camels used for agricultural
purposes. When yoked to a small four-wheeled cart, the
"ships of the desert" seemed decidedly out of place.

Grigorief, it seemed, was really simply a Russian peasant, but he had
been from his youth upwards one of those restless people who can never
long work in harness. Where his native place was, and why he left it,
he never divulged, for reasons best known to