Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/302

Rh "earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is" (Deut. x., 14); and that "the seed of the righteous shall inherit the earth" (Psa. xxv., 13). He thereupon founded a sect and preached the doctrine that enfranchised serfs were entitled to the land by right, without payment and without rent. Elsewhere equal distribution of land was advocated as ordained by Scripture, and peasants refused to pay taxes, on the plea of revelations from St. John and St. Varvara in the seventh heaven; that the promised days had come when "God should wipe away all tears from their eyes," and the "former things bad passed away" (Rev. xxi., 4).

Similar misconception of the emancipation led to opposition all over the empire to the new regulations regarding the tenure of land, and the peasant evinced a comprehension of his material interests as keen as it was unfounded, and as strong as was his reverence for divine injunctions.

Movements of this nature, however, which invariably assume a religious guise, need only police interference for their suppression, but they are, in their form of manifestation, indicative of the inveterate habit of the Russian peasant to connect every event with religion.

The sects that have come to light within the last few years are generally radical in both their political and moral aspect.

They may be generically classed under the two heads already specified, as either mystical or rationalistic, and whereas formerly the first named were the more prolific and prosperous, at present the latter are the more numerous and important. The recent manifestations are comparatively petty and obscure, limited in their extent