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Rh sects foreign to the Raskol, one feature is common to them all—disregard of form and ceremony, of tradition and authority. They proclaim contempt for the letter of the law, but pretend to cling to its essence; they boast the possession of spiritual religion, pure and undefiled. Freed from all trammels, independent of all control, exercising full liberty of opinion, they pursue their ratiocinations to their logical but, frequently, extravagant and absurd conclusions.

The original sources from which these various creeds arose cannot be accurately determined; they must be sought beyond the limits of the Russian race, both in the West and in the East, and are Oriental as well as European. Of these sects some are tinged with the forgotten Christian heresies of the first centuries, others are blindly groping in and about the theories which form the subject of modern thought and inquiry. Many, which appear to exhibit results emanating from contact with the west of Europe, are, from this possible historic affiliation, and a certain assimilation in their teachings, collectively designated by native authors as Russian Quakerism. But the term is not exact; their doctrines are too varied, too peculiar, notwithstanding some points of accord, for so comprehensive a classification. Others might, with more propriety, be called Gnostic; they present a curious mixture of realism and mysticism, of pagan and Christian ideas, and offer such strange analogies with notable heresies of the early Church that Russian writers have revived for them the ancient names, as, for instance, the "Montani," so called, probably, from the "Montanists," heretics of the third century, who, like their modern prototypes, "maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophecy."

They all proclaim the spiritual nature of their belief,