the house of one of them, with the articles neces-
sary for a few months' stay; and when I was
going to leave I asked the landlady how to dis-
pose of the furniture.
"How much do you want
for it?" asked she. I named the price for each
article. "I shall take them at those prices,"
answered she, without any attempt at haggling.
The second affair is still more characteristic. I
had lived five weeks with my host, Athanas
Gavrilevitch Orloff, the owner of the two flour-
mills mentioned above. Our agreement was that
I was to pay three rubles a week for board and
lodging; it, however, happened that I was, by va-
rious misunderstandings with my banker, nearly
without money, and had not paid Orloff anything
until my departure, and he knew that I had then
only twenty-five rubles. In consequence of this
situation the following dialogue took place:

The evening before my departure I said, "Here are twenty-five rubles, take fifteen and return me

ten."

ter; ferocious domestic despotism and the vices engendered by it, are constantly to be witnessed. The flow of the Malakani's life, on the contrary, is so still and even that Europeans, accustomed to hurry and turmoil, can not imagine it. Work performed without haste, and yet steadily, and in willing coöperation with all the members of the family; instruction of the children by their parents, prayers, psalm-singing, colloquies on religious subjects, reading of the Bible, and congregational assemblies, constitute the Malakani's whole existence. Their religious exercises, showing none of the enthusiasm and the self-consciousness which appear to us essential to sectarian piety, are for them inexhaustible sources of quiet enjoyment.

The Malakan religion exceeds all other religions in the want of established outward marks, and is therefore not easy to describe. It certainly bears some trace of the sources from which it sprang-that is to say, of the influence of two older sects the one originated by the teaching of English Quakers in Moscow, the other Judaiz

Ath. Gavr. "I have not time just now."
Thereupon in the morning:
I. “Here are twenty-five rubles, take fifteen and ing. But since the foundation of Malakanism a

return me ten."

The Malakani's family life moves in the same patriarchal form as that of the other peasants. Not only the unmarried children, but also the married sons and their sons and unmarried daughters are under the progenitor's roof and rule. But while this organization is in other Russian peasant families a source of brutal and capricious despotism, and of endless quarrels and heartburnings, it is in the Malakani's home ideally harmonious. Its principal traits here are the zeal of the paterfamilias to fulfill his duties with dignity and with equal justice and affection toward the whole household; his family's loving reverence for him; the high position of his wife; the total equality between daughters and sons-in spite of the harsh treatment of the female sex under the Russian law -and the absolutely free choice of partners in matrimony. The contrasts between the Malakani and the other peasants become still more striking when we enter into the details of their daily lives. The delight of the other peasants is the squalid, tumultuous dram-shop; in their homes, bestiality, noise, and filth; a coarse show of opulence one day, and misery a few days af

century has elapsed, and the remnants of those influences are now of small significance for its essence; and, in comparing Malakanism with other religions, we obtain little more than negations. The Malakani abhor image-worship, have no priests, no dogma, no sacraments, no symbols of faith, no consecrated forms of worship, no sacred buildings, no peculiar dress and manner, and do not imagine themselves to be inspired by the Holy Ghost. Although their congregational meetings mostly take place on Sundays and other great church holidays, they do not scruple to transact business on those days; and any day appears to them fit for congregational devotion. Even their Presbyterianism, very unlike that of the Calvinists, scarcely deserves the name of a constituted church government. For their elders are simply old men, well read in the Scriptures, who owe their authority to tacit consent, not to election; and it is not easy to draw a line where eldership begins. Mere negations can not, however, give an idea of Malakanism; and we must try to collect its positive traits.

Its outward form is the very extreme of plainness. The locality where the congregation assembles is, as a rule, one of the hall-like rooms; but a smaller room, or a yard, or even a field, also answers the purpose. The service is described in the following manner by a witness who often saw it celebrated:

"In the large room where the assembly is going to take place a table is covered with a white cloth, and upon it a number of Bibles and psalters are placed. When the presiding elder enters the room all the others rise and salute him by

bending their heads; he also bends his head, and all pray in silence. He then proceeds to his seat, indicates the chapters of the prophets, the Psalms, the New Testament, to be read; after the reading he points out the Psalms or chapters intended to be sung; all then go nearer to the table. The singing itself is melancholy, resembling that of popular ballads. After the singing there is again some reading, and then a prayer, likewise composed of Bible verses. At the end of the prayer the whole congregation, led by the elder, prostrate themselves. Some other prayers are performed kneeling."

common.

My own experience of Malakani congregational worship is slightly different from this description, but agrees with its most prominent trait, the total absence of settled liturgical forms and of an established order. No one knows before the beginning of the service what is going to be read and sung. The presiding elder himself chooses the texts during the service. Not unfrequently several elders preside, and the choice is made by consultation, or sometimes alternately by the one, sometimes by the other. Colloquial commentaries, principally by the elders, on the passages which have been read, are not unMost congregations have a few traditional prayers in prose, and some religious songs, which are occasionally, according to the presiding elder's choice, employed in the service. More settled, and even approaching to a liturgical ritual, are the services for weddings, the reception of the new-born, and burial. But the presiding elder is here also at liberty to choose and alter as he deems appropriate. Family devotion is still more devoid of set rules. It is not usual in Malakan families to gather regularly for any purpose; and even the meals are about as uncertain and prolonged as breakfast in an English country mansion where there are many visitors. There are, therefore, no established usages for saying grace, nor is there anything at all akin to English morning and evening family worship. All the above-mentioned private religious exercises are quite free, according to each member's own choice. Even fasts are kept in the same way. They are self-imposed penances, and though, like the Jewish fasts, consisting in total abstinence from food, often last several days. The only other remnant of Judaism in the congregations I have here more specially in view is a peremptory objection to pork. In some other congregations, however, the Saturday Sabbath is kept exactly as in Jewish houses, and even minute details of Jewish Sabbath-customs are observed. Some congregations in the Caucasus even used, twenty years ago, to have certain Hebrew prayers, and perhaps have them still.

riage, birth, and death-are, as I have already said, consecrated by congregational worship; and the marriage ceremony, though absolutely colorless, is very impressive. The whole congregation assembles in one of the vast yards, and its representative on this occasion is the very oldest man, white-haired, trembling, and so all the more venerable. This service is very lengthy, and consists principally of prayers, composed of Bible verses, which the elder reads, the congregation joining only in the amens and prostrations. The burial service is less long, but else of a similar nature.

As regards the doctrines professed by the Malakani, they can not properly be said to have any other established faith than that the Bible is God's word, and ought therefore to be obeyed. The teaching derived by them from this axiom is not at all dogmatical, but merely practical, and exclusively consists in the application of the commands of the gospel to the duties of every-day life, an endeavor in which they have acquired a great proficiency, even their young people, girls especially, vying with each other in the quoting of texts. The practical lessons thus deduced are well fitted to meet with the approval of the educated-whether religious or not-in Western Europe. Their treatment of what we call "the rights of the female sex," is especially remarkable. Such "rights" they do not acknowledge, because, as they instinctively feel, religion teaches only duties, not rights; and yet they manage to assure to women as lofty a position as any enthusiast could desire. The matrimonial relations are based upon the rule that "the husband ought to love his wife as Christ loves his Church." This rule is not only accepted and applied throughout private life, but is also the source of the juridical decisions of elders and congregations in questions of marriage law. The reason alleged for granting equal advantages to daughters and sons is that "God commands us to love all our children alike, and that therefore to give a preference to sons would be sinful." All the other teachings are analogous to these. A superficial observer might, however, be misled into the belief that, besides these practical lessons, there is in Malakanism, as in other religions, some formulated dogmatical creed. For there are scores of Malakan professions of faith, much more similar to each other than the creeds of the various branches of Calvinism. But all of them form part of those enormously voluminous secret documents of the Ministry of the Interior relating to the criminal prosecutions and police investigations of sectarianism, some specimens of which, stolen from the archives, were published by Kelsieff, one of Herzen's followers (4 vols., London, The three great events of family life-mar- Trübner & Co., 1860-1862). The Russian law

considers sectarian propagandism as a crime, and own absolute incapacity to follow up a theologithe Malakani as sectarians of the most danger- cal argument. They drive their adversaries— ous kind; and thousands of reports and proto- themselves no very great lights—to despair by cols of criminal inquests into Malakanism, there- persistently misunderstanding them, and by over fore, exist in the head office and the branch and over again repeating the same texts. Malaoffices of the Ministry of the Interior, to whose kanism is an entirely practical and absolutely unfunctions those inquests, which were indeed dogmatical religion. It takes its foundation for more administrative than juridical, appertained granted, and makes no effort to investigate it. till not long ago. The inquisitors were of course obliged to ask the accused, "What is your faith?" and the accused were obliged to answer. All these professions of faith are therefore, in fact, answers to questions of men belonging to the orthodox Church, although their form does not always indicate it. E. g.:

word of God.

“Confession.—The prayer addressed to Jesus that he may act as mediator for the forgiveness of sin."

Although these answers fully agree with the Malakani's convictions, we should be much mistaken if we considered them as their intellectual property. They are, indeed, nothing but the petrified remnants of the doctrines of Duchobortsi (spiritual warriors), the older sect, from which Malakanism sprang. That sect, which, as already said, derived its origin from Quaker teaching, is perhaps even more remarkable than the Malakani. Its principal abode, on the Molotchnaya River, in the Crimea, was visited in 1818 by the Quaker R. Allen and two other Quakers, and in 1842 by Baron Haxthausen; and all these travelers were astonished by the Duchobortsi's mystical speculations and the dialectical subtilty with which they defended them. The Malakani, on the contrary, are as far as possible from being great thinkers. They no doubt show some adroitness in fencing with the orthodox clergy; but their principal arm in such disputes is their

All the Malakani can and do read; but, having no literature of their own except some manuscript prayers and religious songs, they must look elsewhere for intellectual food; and the choice made by them throws a curious light on their intellectual sphere, proving how completely they are cut off from the general movement. Besides Bibles and psalters in Slavonic-the same which are used in the orthodox Church-New Testaments, and a few parts of the Old Testament in modern Russian, and still fewer commentaries on the whole or part of the gospels, all of them likewise published by the orthodox Church, the Malakani read, as far as I was able to discover, only four books-the "Magazine of all the Amusements," the "Writings of Skovoroda," "Jung Stilling's Autobiography," and Livanoff's "Essays on Russian Sects." The latter author, though employed by the Government to attack sectarianism, and having for that purpose free access to the archives of the Ministry of the Interior, extols the Malakani almost beyond measure, and draws, with wonderful audacity, ironical parallels between them and the adherents of the established Church. The "Magazine of all the Amusements" is a collection of astrological, chiromantical, and other mantic tracts, apparently translated about fifty years ago from much older German publications. Skovoroda was a Cossack, a quaint Christian philosopher and poet of the last century. "Jung Stilling's Autobiography" was translated into Russian in 1815, and was in high favor with the mystics of St. Petersburg. It probably reached the Malakani from Sarepta, the Hernhut colony on the river Volga; and an adversary of the Malakani asserts that they at one time prized that book above the gospel. Malakan owners of books certainly glory a little too much in the possession of these treasures, frequently mixing scraps from them with their conversation. For, though quite without spiritual pride, they are not free from a naïve, childlike vanity.

The Malakan congregational organization is, according to their own opinion, the counterpart of the organization of the early Church, and the resemblance is undeniable, because there is some similarity between the two situations. The Malakani, long accustomed to be treated by the law as dangerous sectarians, and to be deprived of many of the natural rights of unoffending men,

look upon the Emperor and the Government ed by twelve unconditionally devoted adherents, much as the early Christians did, scrupulously called the "angels of death," who maintained obeying the authorities and laws, but obeying his authority by means of threats, blows, and them as strangers. They call the established even murder. Ukleïn, disgusted by Pobirochin's Church "Russian," and its adherents "Rus- forbidding his followers to read the Bible, soon sians," just as if they themselves were foreign- fell out with him. In one of the congregational ers. Their congregational assemblies have for meetings he opposed his father-in-law so violentthat very reason a signification very similar to ly, that only the alarm raised by the housewife that which the " ecclesia" had for the early saved him from the clutches of the "angels of Christians. We have already seen that mar- death." riages and births are consecrated by the congregation; and these public acts have, in the eyes of the Malakani, a not merely sacramental but also a legal authority: nay, the Government itself, having no other means to ascertain the status of Malakan families, accords-though not openly and distinctly-some weight to those acts. All legal disputes between Malakani are brought before the congregation; and the elders are in their jurisdiction guided by their notions of Bible law; for the Bible is their only law-book, and when they sit in judgment it is constantly in their hands. The congregational assembly also admits new members, exercises a disciplinary authority, and receives confessions of sin. That no regular contributions are raised, and that the elders are entirely unpaid, are other important points of resemblance between the church government of the Malakani and that of the early Christians. The education of the young is not among the functions of the congregation; there neither are, nor ever were, any Malakani schools, but the somewhat desultory instruction of the Malakani children is performed solely by their relatives.

Malakanism originated about a century ago, and its beginnings are fit to form the theme of a stirring novel. Its founder, the village tailor Uklein, left his legitimate wife to marry the daughter and become one of the principal followers of the village heresiarch Hilarion Pobirochin, a wealthy peasant in one of the villages of the province of Tambov (to the southeast of Moscow). Pobirochin had, during a residence in Poland, been imbued by some of the mystics of that country with ideas belonging rather to India than to Europe. On his return to his native village he placed himself at the head of the Duchobortsi of those parts, who, at that time, divided and uncertain in their doctrines, were, with the submissiveness of Russian peasants, disposed to accept the commands of his despotic will. He taught that there is no God, save in the persons of the righteous; that when one of these dies another one is born into whom the deceased's soul passes, while the souls of the lawless pass into the bodies of animals. Himself he considered as the incarnation of the Son of God. In order to enforce these doctrines he was surround

The teachings of the Duchobortsi, independently of Pobirochin's extravagances, are, as I have already pointed out, nearly akin to those of the Quakers, and these same doctrines formed the fundamental stock with which Ukleïn started when founding his new sect. He, however, reverted to the Bible, which had been somewhat set aside by the Duchobortsi in favor of their inspirations and mystical speculations; and he, moreover, became the associate in propagandism of the head of a widespread Judaizing sect, receiving them into his fold, and adopting some of their tenets, especially the objection to pork. It seems strange that the necessarily confused ideas arising from this mixture achieved a large and rapid success. The fact is, that among the Russian lower classes there is a craving for spiritual food, because the established Church offers them nothing but forms, which, though full of beauty, become mere idolatry in the hands of a drunken and contemptible village clergy, performing the rites mechanically, and without even the pretense of an interest in them. The persecution of Malakanism, on account of its close resemblance to the "pernicious" Duchobortsi creed, also contributed mightily to its spread, which was, moreover, favored by the locality where the new sect originated. The province of Tambov borders on the vast steppe region, stretching from the confines of Asia across the river Volga, which is in some of its southeastern and eastern districts still inhabited by Calmuck, Kirghiz, and Bashkere nomads. The greatest part of that region had, in January, 1771, become nearly empty by the exodus of the Calmuck nation, which, justly alarmed by the establishment of the German colonies, fled into Asia, leaving only a few fragments on the right bank of the river, and entirely deserting the left bank-that is to say, the whole wide space between the rivers Volga and Ural. The Kirghiz afterward pressed forward into that space; but up to Uklein's time they had only made some raids into it, ravaging some of the German settlements, and driving the inhabitants and their herds and flocks to Asiatic markets. The German colonists, though by far the densest population of the region, numbered barely thirty thousand, spread over one thousand square miles. The remaining parts of the population were some