rosperity, the masses seem, in the day of adversity, to be returning
to it. Further developments may, of course, take place in almost any
direction, but we may rest assured of one thing--that no changes of
government, however drastic, will ever succeed in stamping out the
mystical religious strain which is so deeply embedded in the soul of
the Russian people.

PART II

THE SALVATION OF THE WEALTHY

A. RELIGION AND ECONOMY

CHAPTER I

THE MORMONS, OR LATTER-DAY SAINTS

In the American of the United States there exist two distinctly opposed
natures: the one positive and practical, the other inclined to
mysticism. The two do not clash, but live, on the contrary, on
perfectly good terms with one another. This strange co-existence of
reality and vision is explained by the origin of the race.

The American is, to a very great extent, a descendant of rigorous
Puritanism. The English, who preponderated in numbers over the other
elements of the European immigration into North America, never forgot
that they had been the comrades of Penn or of other militant
sectarians, and never lost the habit of keeping the Bible, the ledger,
and the cash-book side by side. They remained deeply attached to their
religion, which they looked upon as a social lever, although for many
of them their faith did not go beyond a conviction of the immanence of
the supernatural in human life. Thus it was that their spirits were
often dominated by a belief in miracles, all the more easily because
their intellectual culture was not always as highly developed as their
business ability, and consequently the clever manufacturers of
religious wonders were able to reap incredible harvests among them.

There is perhaps no country where the seed sown by propagandists
springs up more rapidly, where an idea thrown to the winds finds more
surely a fertile soil in which to grow. A convinced and resolute man,
knowing how to influence crowds by authoritative words, gestures and
promises, can always be certain of attracting numerous followers. In
America the conditions are without doubt propitious for the founders of
new religions.

I

How is a new religion started in the United States? Joe Smith wakes up
one morning with the thought that the hour has come for him to perform
miracles, that he is called thereto by the Divine Will, that the
existence and the secret hiding-place of a new Bible printed on sheets
of gold have been revealed to