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270 an indelible impression upon the Russian popular mind, and there are sects, obscure and little known, akin to the larger mystic bodies, still convinced that he was the true Messiah, who is to come again, and which worship before his image. His memory, and that of Peter III., who is confounded with Selivanov, are held in profound reverence by the Skoptsi, and portraits of the three replace among them the holy pictures of the Orthodox. They have other typical emblems of their faith, and chief among them are representations of King David dancing before the ark, and of the crucifixion, with the figure of a monk upon the cross instead of that of the Saviour.

Notwithstanding their precautions, the Skoptsi are betrayed by their pale, sallow complexion, their scanty beard, shrill voice, effeminate, peculiar gait, and hesitating, wavering look. They are numerous among the money-changers of the large towns; like the Jews, they have a marked predilection for pursuits that involve the handling of coin. Their probity and their financial skill are universally recognized; they possess, in a high degree, the practical spirit of the Great Russian, and the mercantile instincts of the Raskolnik; their eagerness for gain, and their success in its acquisition, are proverbial. To amass wealth is their engrossing preoccupation; severed from family ties and affections, passionless, not tempted as other men are, old before their time, they devote a life-long energy to the accumulation of property with keen, calculating, systematic perseverance. They are untiring in the propagation of their belief, and the lavish expenditure of the wealth they delight in acquiring accounts for the wide diffusion of their repulsive doctrines.

Imprisonment and exile are insufficient to repress their