Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/229

214 ization, and will introduce greater changes and modifications in the character and principles of the Raskol.

The healthy development which might have been expected from its habit of free inquiry, and from the freedom accorded to individual opinion, has been effectually hampered, not only by actual want of education, but also by the cramping and restricted nature of the few studies permitted.

The Raskolniks were, and are, strongly opposed to all modern, and especially to all foreign, ideas; their ears are closed to what they deem new-fangled notions, whether of domestic or foreign origin, as being tainted with impiety and heresy; they rest content with their ancient Slavonic literature, with the Scriptures, with old devotional books; they deliberately shut themselves up in a world of their own, fenced about by inveterate prejudices; they turn round and round within a narrow circle, the bounds of which their thoughts, however unrestrained therein, may never pass. Here lies the essential difference between Russian Raskol and German Protestantism: the one is sectional, narrow-minded, bigoted, jealous, and pharasaical; the other is universal, whole-souled, liberal, generous, and tolerant.

A geographical and ethnological chart of the Raskol would show it to be very unevenly distributed over the land. It flourishes best among the most energetic and vigorous of the population, in and around the ancient cities, among the peasants of the North, the miners of the Ural, the pioneers of Siberia, and the Cossacks of the Southeast. It is indigenous to Great Russia, and while its adherents are found in other provinces throughout the whole empire, amid Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant communities, they are generally colonists from Great Russia, who live apart from their neighbors,