Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/257

242 consequences of the ferocious doctrine that "when a child is conceived, its soul comes not from God the Creator, but from the Devil."

No community, of steadily increasing numbers, could, while professing such abominable principles, remain united. Many sects seceded from the main body to adopt more rational views of the married state, hardly advancing, however, beyond an authorized concubinage; the weaker brethren, called "Novozsheny," or the "Remarrying," were driven forth from the fold with contumely and insult; the rigid apostles of celibacy, condoners of libertinism, severed all intercourse with them, and would neither sit at the same table nor sleep under the same roof.

Under the modifying influences of time and civilization these demoralizing and horrible doctrines, relics of a barbarous age, are no longer openly espoused. At Praobrajenski, the ancient stronghold of radical Dissent, they are rejected, and that they have ever been advocated, is indignantly denied. While there is ample evidence of the contrary in the past, their repudiation at the present day is indicative of the moral regeneration in progress.

Unhappily the purification of the empire is not complete, and the strange, unnatural heresies of the old Feodocians still retain their hold upon a few extreme sects, who find recruits among the most abject of the population. The most numerous of these deluded fanatics are thie "Stranniki," or "Wanderers," also called the "Begouni," or "Fugitives," who assume, themselves, the name of "Pilgrims." Belief in the actual personal reign of Antichrist, and in the bodily presence of Satan upon earth, is the base and corner-stone of their doctrine.

This sect sprang into existence during a spasmodic re-