Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/157

Rh They were the owners of the exchange offices, small bankers, who formed almost a separate caste.

They are all "skoptsy," confessors of a special sect, which taught that mankind should exist as long as human society contained men who would, of their own free will, deprive themselves of the capability of perpetuating their race. And so long Antichrist would not be able to descend upon the earth.

They call themselves the "white doves," which means the innocent. Some become "skoptsy" in their infancy, others at a mature age. In families which have belonged to this sect for centuries, there always must be a "white dove." And if no member of the family consents to become one, then with complete dis* regard of expense, the "skoptsy" persuades some outsider to enter the sect and to receive the "seal of the white dove."

The police and the courts in Russia have paid very keen attention to these activities which were severely punished, although the perpetuation of "geldings" within traditionally sectarian families was tolerated.

The provinces of Yaroslav and Kostroma, from which all these rich bankers with yellow and faded faces came, were for centuries the seat of this sect.

The religious origins of the sect are unknown to me, but I am bound to say that in the most ascetic Orthodox monasteries there exists a sinister, mediæval custom of receiving "the great seal," when the friar sub-