ously looked for the reappearance of
Antichrist--and Antichrist appeared!

* A list of well-authenticated cases is given by Nilski,
"Semeinaya zhizn v russkom Raskole," St. Petersburg, 1869;
part I., pp. 55-57. The number of these self-immolators
certainly amounted to many thousands.

The man in whom the people recognised the incarnate spirit of evil was
no other than Peter the Great.

From the Nonconformist point of view, Peter had very strong claims to be
considered Antichrist. He had none of the staid, pious demeanour of the
old Tsars, and showed no respect for many things which were venerated
by the people. He ate, drank, and habitually associated with heretics,
spoke their language, wore their costume, chose from among them his most
intimate friends, and favoured them more than his own people. Imagine
the horror and commotion which would be produced among pious Catholics
if the Pope should some day appear in the costume of the Grand Turk, and
should choose Pashas as his chief counsellors! The horror which Peter's
conduct produced among a large section of his subjects was not less
great. They could not explain it otherwise than by supposing him to
be the Devil in disguise, and they saw in all his important measures
convincing proofs of his Satanic origin. The newly invented census, or
"revision," was a profane "numbering of the people," and an attempt to
enrol in the service of Beelzebub those whose names were written in the
Lamb's Book of Life. The new title of Imperator was explained to mean
something very diabolical. The passport bearing the Imperial arms was
the seal of Antichrist. The order to shave the beard was an attempt to
disfigure "the image of God," after which man had been created, and by
which Christ would recognise His own at the Last Day. The change in
the calendar, by which New Year's Day was transferred from September
to January, was the destruction of "the years of our Lord," and the
introduction of the years of Satan in their place. Of the ingenious
arguments by which these theses were supported, I may quote one by
way of illustration. The world, it was explained, could not have been
created in January as the new calendar seemed to indicate, because
apples are not ripe at that season, and consequently Eve could not have
been tempted in the way described!*

* I found this ingenious argument in one of the polemical
treatises of the Old Believers.

These ideas reg