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 THE STUNDISTS. CHAPTER I. BEGINNINGS.

far from the banks of the Boug river, on the softly-undulating steppes of the fertile province of Kherson, stands the insignificant Russian village of Osnova, a collection of low, white cottages, with little farmyards around them, and beyond and on all sides illimitable plains of waving wheat. There are numerous villages not far away, all like Osnova in appearance, with the same people, the same low huts and dirty haggards, and oceans of corn surrounding them, but none so famous, none so interesting to the student of religious history, for here, exactly thirty-five years ago, a great movement first saw the light, a mighty movement that may perhaps revolutionise the whole of the religious and social life of ninety millions of people.

The origin and first beginnings of this movement, which eventually acquired the name of Stundism, are involved in a good deal of uncertainty; but sufficient is known to enable us to form a tolerably accurate notion of the causes which led up to the greatest religious revolt of modern times. These are two-fold—one cause, the utter