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Rh the right of self-organization and government, with authority to manage their property and affairs free from clerical or official supervision; they had each a corporate seal, a treasury, their own laws and regulations, administered by a council or governing body almost totally without control.

Around these centres the Raskolniks gathered in great numbers, building houses, establishing shops and factories, until these once deserted suburbs were transformed into flourishing and populous districts. Thus within the ancient capital, the stronghold of Orthodoxy, despised and persecuted followers of a proscribed creed finally secured foothold, and found safe refuge under the ægis of government protection.

From these headquarters their influence radiated forth over the whole land; they created subsidiary branches, subject to the central authority, and gathered in abundant wealth from gifts and bequests; at the height of their prosperity they were said to have had in their treasuries the enormous sum of ten millions of roubles (about £1,300,000). Their leaders, combining to a remarkable degree worldly shrewdness with religious enthusiasm, made these establishments, not merely centres for the propagation of their doctrines, but also centres of trade, of manufactures, and of commerce. They offered, not only a home for their destitute and suffering brethren, but a refuge for all fugitives, outlaws, deserters, and wanderers, who, under pretence of religious sympathy, claimed protection and succor, and in this motley army of followers they found cheap and willing tools, ignorant but zealous emissaries. During the tolerant reigns of Catherine II. and Alexander I. these institutions had