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196 their ambitious ends. The Old Believers were, and are still, upholders of ancient usages, as well as of ancient creeds; they are old Russians, Slavophiles, in the fullest sense, Asiatic, Oriental in their opposition to change or progress; they still look back to the days of their fathers as the golden age, and see no hope nor encouragement in what the future may have to offer. This spirit, which has always been a characteristic of the Russian people generally, has, nurtured and fostered by religious enthusiasm, been one of the strongest influences against which modern civilization, aided by government support, has had to contend. It explains in some degree the crude revolutionary movements which have at times temporarily disturbed the empire. Ignorant and fanatical opposition to authority has frequently led to impatience of all control, political or moral, and given rise to the wildest theories of socialism and communism.

There is a liberal and democratic tendency in the Raskol, notwithstanding its stationary and reactionary character. It sprang into existence not long after the establishment of serfdom; its lowly origin won for it early unconscious sympathy among an enslaved population, to whom it appealed the more strongly from its rejection by their masters. The people, in their material condition, were but little better than the beasts of the field, and the aspirations natural to the heart of man found solace in the prospect of spiritual independence. Their souls, if not their bodies, were their own; and, in the sphere of religious belief, they unwittingly found the opportunity for self-assertion which raised them in their own estimation, and enabled them, in some degree, to realize the dignity of their manhood. Doctrines, to which they were already inclined, met with more hearty response from being at variance with those of their supe-