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10 the growing force of the "heretics" who met in Michael Ratushni's house to read the Gospels and sing "extraordinary verses." He could do nothing with them, he reported, for they declared that they did not believe in pastors. "The meetings still continue," he wrote later, "but I can find no fault with their treatment of the icons, as each family has its icon in the proper place, and shows the proper reverence to it." It may be gathered from this that the early Stundists did not at first altogether break with the rites of the Greek Church. Icon worship, the use of the sign of the Cross, yearly confessions, were still outwardly observed, although no one knew better than the revolted peasants that all these things were idolatrous, and that adhesion to their use was dissimulation and humiliating to themselves. Some of the reports from the village priests, men altogether ignorant of the true inwardness of what was going on, are amusing, as well as instructive. One Orthodox divine is shocked that twice a week the schismatics drink only milk, a statement altogether devoid of foundation; another states that these Stundists call one another "brother" and "sister," even when not related by blood; a third is disgusted that every one in their meetings sings—women as well as men. Much indignation is expended on the fact that the Stundists have no respect for the 103 holy days of the Church, and that, instead of enjoying themselves at the village drink shops and spending their evenings in dancing, as became Orthodox peasants, the Stundists ploughed their fields and threshed out their corn on these days, and spent their evenings reading, or teaching their children to read. It was remarked, even as early as 1867, that as soon as a peasant became affected with the new spirit that was abroad, his first thought was to learn to read. Probably at the time of which we are speaking not five per cent, of the Russian peasants could read and write. It may be safely said, however, that