ce to
say that they habitually act up to it. If the Government has sometimes
attempted to convert alien races, the motive has always been political,
and the efforts have never awakened much sympathy among the people at
large, or even among the clergy. In like manner the missionary societies
which have sometimes been formed in imitation of the Western nations
have never received much popular support. Thus with regard to aliens
this peculiar theory has led to very extensive religious toleration.
With regard to the Russians themselves the theory has had a very
different effect. If in the nature of things the Tartar is a Mahometan,
the Pole a Roman Catholic, and the German a Protestant, it is equally in
the nature of things that the Russian should be a member of the Orthodox
Church. On this point the written law and public opinion are in perfect
accord. If an Orthodox Russian becomes a Roman Catholic or a Protestant,
he is amenable to the criminal law, and is at the same time condemned by
public opinion as an apostate and renegade--almost as a traitor.

As to the future of these heretical sects it is impossible to speak
with confidence. The more gross and fantastic will probably disappear
as primary education spreads among the people; but the Protestant sects
seem to possess much more vitality. For the present, at least, they are
rapidly spreading. I have seen large villages where, according to the
testimony of the inhabitants, there was not a single heretic fifteen
years before, and where one-half of the population had already become
Molokanye; and this change, be it remarked, had taken place without any
propagandist organisation. The civil and ecclesiastical authorities were
well aware of the existence of the movement, but they were powerless
to prevent it. The few efforts which they made were without effect, or
worse than useless. Among the Stundisti corporal punishment was tried as
an antidote--without the concurrence, it is to be hoped, of the central
authorities--and to the Molokanye of the province of Samara a learned
monk was sent in the hope of converting them from their errors by
reason and eloquence. What effect the birch-twigs had on the religious
convictions of the Stundisti I have not been able to ascertain, but I
assume that they were not very efficacious, for according to the latest
accounts the numbers of the sect are increasing. Of the mission in the
province of Samara I happen to know more, and can state o