Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/294

Rh inclined them to belief in metempsychosis. This doctrine of an ever-renewing presence of the Saviour was seized upon and advocated to his own advantage by Kapoustine, the most distinguished of their leaders, a man of genius, originality, and eloquence, who ruled like a prophet of old in Israel. He taught that Christ is born again in every believer, that God is in every one. When God descended into Jesus, as Christ, He chose Him because Jesus' soul was the purest and most perfect of human souls, and being favored by God above all human souls, it had, from generation to generation, animated new bodies, always retaining, by God's will, a remembrance of its former condition, and every man in whom it resided was conscious that Jesus' soul was within him. In the early days it lived in the persons of the popes and heads of the Church, who were, for this reason, universally acknowledged, but later the Church fell into error, and this divinely appointed chief was thrust aside by human passions and ambition; his place usurped, he wandered away, unrecognized by all save a chosen few, but always existing. "Thus," said he, "Sylvan Kolisnikov, whom the older among you knew, was Jesus, but now, as truly as the heaven is above me and the earth under my feet, I am the true Jesus Christ your Lord!" and his followers fell down and worshipped him.

He introduced among them the principle of community of goods, and under his firm and sagacious direction they rapidly increased in numbers and prosperity, their villages along the Molotchnaya river were named after the Christian virtues, as Terpenie (Patience), Bogdanovka (The Gift of God), Troïtchatka (The Trinity), Novospasskaya (The New Salvation), etc.; in 1833 they counted about four thousand inhabitants. A small number