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Rh even then, not one Stundist in a hundred was ignorant of reading and writing. It was this desire for enlightenment that came in for so much suspicion and dislike from the village popes. They felt that their power, already waning, would altogether vanish before the fresh, healthful spirit of inquiry, as soon as their so-long-deluded flocks began to ask themselves whether the things that are are the things that ought to be. Our chief sources of information on what happened during the sixties and seventies are derived from these reports of the clergy. Of course, we must read between the lines, making all due allowance for the bitterness and bigotry of the writers. We gather, however, the positive information that in 1867, the number of dissenters in Kherson was rapidly increasing, and that open alarm was expressed by the authorities at the power and progress of the Stundist movement. In a moment of panic the arrest of Ratushni and his brother was ordered. Their incarceration was of short duration, but it was the first of a long and increasing series of abominable acts against these harmless and inoffensive men.

And now steps on the scene one of the most remarkable figures concerned in shaping and organising the great revolt. Karl Bonekemper was the son of the Pastor Bonekemper, about whose work in Rohrbach we have already some information. He had commenced life intending to devote himself to a mercantile career in Russia, but as he grew older ambition led him to seek his fortunes in America. At Smyrna he embarked for New York. In a great storm at sea he felt his mind led towards heavenly things, and determined that on his arrival in the New World he would devote himself to the service of his Master. This he faithfully carried out. After careful training in an American theological school he entered on ministerial work in a small town in the State of Pennsylvania,