Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/160

 CHAPTER XX

OME years ago all Russia was aroused by the news which spread of a sinister sect of "self-incendiaries." At their head were the brothers Rakitsky, who had come to Russia from the Balkans. They worked in the southern provinces of Russia, particularly in the province of Yekaterinoslav, and succeeded in gathering round them a considerable number, over five hundred followers.

Their tenets were simple: Antichrist has descended upon earth and is sowing seeds of sin, which bring forth every year larger and ever more terrible crops. The people are sinking in the morass of evil. Nothing can save them but men's own, voluntarily given, blood of sacrifice. Or, in other words, it was a sect of suicides, demanding of its professors the termination of their own lives for the good of others.

This unhealthy propaganda lasted for a good many years. The authorities had no knowledge of it till a score of men, with one of the brothers Rakitsky at their head, amid chanting pious songs, set fire to the farmhouse in which they were congregated and perished in the flames.