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higher rose my admiration for them. Here were about ten thousand peasants, barely literate, with no intellectual leaders. They had been cast into the Caucasian wilderness, exposed to the perils of roving beasts and savage Tatars; yet they rose one day and, with the chanting of hymns, burned all their arms, and vowed to be Christians in their every thought and act, to kill no living thing, to abstain from violence, even when victims of it, to avoid all excesses and dissipations, to refrain from the use of meat, tobacco, liquor, to abandon a life of individual pursuit, and join in a commune where all should toil and enjoy and suffer together. They turned their backs upon modern civilization, they refused military service, and declined to take the oath of allegiance to the new emperor. They were lashed, tortured, jailed; they neither yielded nor resisted. Intellectual Russia applauded and idealized them. When Tolstoy made his memorable appeal in their behalf through the columns of the London "Times," the world responded and helped them migrate to western Canada in 1897.

Last summer an opportunity was afforded me to visit the Doukhobors in their Canadian settlements. I went first to Brilliant, British Columbia, their largest colony, with a population of twenty-five hundred souls. It lies

roaring Kootenay and on the other by the swift-flowing Columbia, and sheltered by a circle of gigantic mountains. About fifteen years ago, when the Doukhobors first came there, the place was a heavily wooded wilderness; but now as one gazes down upon it from a height one's eyes wander over endless rows of orchards and gardens, superbly cultivated, clusters of houses with large windows, patches of lawn and gorgeous flower-beds. Opposite the railway station tower mammoth grain-elevators, a massive jam factory, and not far away, on the rocky bank of the Kootenay, sprawls a huge sawmill. It has the aspect of a modern, progressive, prosperous community whose inhabitants are quick to make use of the discoveries of science, and spare no pains to woo the precious crop from a stubborn soil.

It was Sunday morning a little after five when I reached Brilliant, and when I entered the meeting-houseDoukhobors gather early for servicesI found myself in a world in quaint contrast to the one I had just been observing. In the middle of the room, which is a community kitchen and dining-room,-Doukhobors have no churches,-stood a red-painted table, long and bare, and on it lay a big round loaf of dark bread, and near by stood a glass of water, a white pitcher, a dish of salt. The worshipers were

standing, as in a Russian church, the women at the right of the table, picturesque in their bright shawls and richly colored waists and skirts, and the men facing the women at the left of the table, patriarchal in their homespun white smocks and broad unironed trousers.

The services were impressively simple and informal. There were no books, no ceremonial, no symbols other than the bread, water, and salt, no priests, and no leaders. Stepping forth a space in front of the table and facing the bread and water, they alternately took turns at reciting a verse of Psalms, after which they bowed low, touching the floor with their heads, rose, sang a hymn, a special Doukhobor composition in long-drawn-out wailing tones typical of a large body of peasant songs. Then followed an intermission. The men and women relaxed, chatted, chuckled, as if they were on a visit, and then they sang again. They were tireless singers, and their hymns seemed interminable.

At the close of the services a group of men had gathered about me. They deluged me with questions naïve and amusing. Shut in among the mountains, keeping entirely to themselves, strangers to the printed word,-few of them ever read books or newspapers, seldom visited by outsiders, they seemed childishly ignorant of the social world about them. Was it true, they queried, that there would be a new dynasty of czars in Russia, with Lenine as the first czar? Was it true that in America the working-men had decided to starve to death all capitalists? Did people in New York go shooting and did they drink liquor? How much did I pay for my suit of

clothes, my tie, my collar? How did I earn the money to pay with? Was everybody in New York going bareheaded, as I was? Possessed of a boundless spirit of curiosity, intensified by their seclusion, they did not scruple to make inquiries of intimate personal matters. Did I ever go shooting? Did I eat meat? Did I smoke? Did I consume liquor? No? Then my wife must be a happy

woman.

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We squatted down on the spacious porch of the meeting-house and continued our conversation. Very eagerly they expounded to me their beliefs and practices. They regard it a waste of wealth to build churches. Usually, they gather for services in their homes or on a lawn or in an orchard. They worship in the communal house in Brilliant as a matter of convenience; it accommodates a larger crowd than any other place they have. They do not believe in a clergy because the clergy "exploit the people. When a man is born, the priest collects a tax on him; when he marries, the priest collects a tax on him; and when he dies, the priest collects a tax on him." Festivities of any nature they taboo. They have even discarded holidays. They have no New Year's, no Christmas, and no Easter. The reason?

"Holidays make a man lazy, offer his mind a chance to drift into bad thoughts, and tempt him into evil acts. What did people in Russia do on holidays? Drink, quarrel, fight. Yes, and in this country are they any better?" In their onslaught on gaiety they out-puritanize the most old-fashioned New-Englander. Aside from singing, of which they are fond, they

indulge in no music. Their weddings are simple affairs. The bridegroom announces publicly that he has selected such and such a girl for his wife and that she has accepted him, and will "the brethren and sisters bless them?" No rollicking ceremonies such as rock a Russian village at an ordinary peasant wedding.

Quite remarkable is their explanation of their attitude toward the Bible. Such rationalism is as un-Russian as it is unpeasantlike.

"The Old Testament," they explained, "is an interesting book; we read it sometimes. But there are a lot of foolish things in it. It speaks of war and punishment and revenge and of God helping one army against another. That 's all pure nonsense, so we think. The New Testament we read more often than the Old, but we do not regard it as an inspired book. We do not believe in inspired books. Men write them, and they make errors. The stories of the virgin birth, of the ascension of Christ to heaven in the flesh, of his bodily resurrection, are for children. They are contrary to the laws of nature. And when the New Testament speaks of submission to authority we do not know what it means. Christ says do good for evil, and supposing your ruler tells you to cast your brother into dungeon or to take up a gun and go to war? How can you do good for evil then? You see a man has to figure all these things out for himself with his own understanding and not accept everything as it is written down. That's why we do not go much by books, any books. We have no religious books of any kind. We do not print any of our psalms or hymns. We teach them to our children by word of mouth. In

winter, when there is not much work on the land, every mother and father instructs the children in the things that a Doukhobor ought to know." "What other education do your children receive?"

"The father or sometimes a neighbor will teach them to read and write Russian and arithmetic."

"And history and geography, too?"

"No; that is not necessary. We don't believe in education. It is not a good thing for a man. It weans him from honest labor, makes him want to live by his wits, by deception. Is not that so?"

"But education," I argued, "enriches and beautifies your life—”

The old man interrupted me with a laugh.

"Nu, brother," he began, "we have heard such words before. But, you see, we are simple people. We are happy as we are. To us education means being a good Doukhobor. That is, to love all living things and to do no evil, not to shoot, not to eat meat, not to smoke, not to drink liquor. We teach all these things to our children. And more, too. And more, too. The mothers teach their daughters to bake and to cook and to spin and to weave and to embroider, and the fathers teach their boys to be handy with an ax, a carving-knife, a plow, a team of horses. Such things are useful and are good, and the other things that you educated people speak of, nu, you can have them. We do not need them. what good are pictures, musical instruments, theaters, "moova peachers?" They only excite your bad appetites, so to speak. You see? To us education means doing useful things."

Of

"Supposing so," I contended, "if it was not that men have studied in

The old man only shook his head. "And do you suppose machinery is a good thing?" he answered. "In the Caucasus we had small farms, no machinery. We did all our work by hand, and did not we enjoy life there? Did not we have enough to eat? Aye, better food than we have here. And we did not work so hard and did not have so much worry."

"Correct, correct," the other men muttered. From the expressions of their faces it was evident that they felt they had the better of the argument. I was on the point of mustering a new array of reasons in support of modern education when a man who had all the time been silently leaning against the door-post turned toward me and said:

"Nu, you look at your cities. I don't know much about them, but once in a while I read a newspaper, and I read of murders there, and robberies and arrests and police and jails. And look at us. We have no education, and yet there are twenty-five hundred of us living in this community, and we have no police and no courts and no jails and no guns. And now, friend, look at the rulers of the world. They are educated, yes? They have been in universities, yes? And, nu, see what they have been doing. Have they been following Christ? They have been fighting wars instead. Merciful Lord! think! They have killed millions and millions of people, and all for what, can you tell me?"

He paused and gazed at me as though expecting a reply, and when I offered none, he continued:

"And yet, you know, they tell us, these educated people, that we ought to kill the wild beasts in the woods. Nu, have all the wild beasts since the beginning of time destroyed half as many lives as have the two-legged beasts in the last war?"

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One of the men invited me to his house for breakfast. He lived in a colony, as they all do, on top of a hill across the railroad track. The colony consisted of a square row of framehouses in each of which lived several families. It was set off in an orchard of apple-, plum-, peach-trees loaded with ripe fruit. Hop-vines in full bloom stretched in a network over the walls and porches. Flower gardens, free of weeds and with a varied assortment of flowers-dahlias, marigolds, roses-greeted the eye at every turn. The lawns were freshly cut and free of any refuse. The neatness of the Doukhobor in his surroundings, in house and person, is one of his outstanding virtues. As we entered the yard, a group of girls came out. They were barefooted, in bright shawls and long skirts; each carried on an arm the head of a sunflower plant from which she was picking the seeds with her fingers and eating them. "Glory be to God!" they greeted us, bowing. "Glory be to God!" my host responded, removing his hat and returning the bow. This is the customary manner of salutation among them. They have dispensed with the Russian "good day" and "good evening" and even with the general "zdravstvuite."

Upon entering the house, what

struck my attention most poignantly was the head-dress of the women. Some of them had their shawls off, exposing clipped heads clipped close and all around save for a straggling tuft in front. They reminded me unpleasantly of the inmates in the hospitals I had visited in Canada. They explained that they began cutting their hair about a dozen years ago. Why?

"Because," the cook, a ruddy, stout, affable young woman, replied, "it is too much bother to have heavy hair. It takes time to care for it, and we are not like your women; we have no leisure, we have to work in the field, help our men. And, then, heavy hair is not healthy. It used to give me headaches, and sometimes when a person works around the kitchen, hair would fall into the dough or the soup, and that is not clean. So we are now cutting it."

“But hair makes a woman beautiful," I protested, thinking of the numerous hair-tonic ads I had read extolling the glory of woman's hair.

She waved her hand, shook her head, and smiled.

It was a charming bit of philosophy, but the cook probably imagined it pictured the Doukhobor women as too unearthly, for she hastened to add:

"We believe in bodily beauty; but to us such beauty means a ruddy face, muscular arms, a strong body, flesh like blood and milk.”

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I was riding up the mountains once with a white-haired Doukhobor. At one place we made a sharp turn in the road and beheld a few rods ahead of us, and directly beneath a clump of overhanging brush, several deer, wideeyed and with uplifted heads, staring at us. The Doukhobor halted the horses, gazed at them, and shook his head in ecstasy.

"How handsome they are!" he said in a low voice, as though fearing they might hear him and skulk away. "What a pity to kill them! And yet in the fall the Anghlicks tramp all over these mountains and shoot them by the hundreds. But we never touch them, and they are wise beasts, oh,

Here my host, ever ready to philosophize, like all older Doukhobors, remarked:

"You see, druzhok [little friend], there is beauty of the spirit and beauty of the flesh. What 's beauty of the flesh? To-day you have it, to-morrow you lose it. Is not that so? Now, for example, you have dark hair. To-morrow it turns gray. To-day it is heavy, to-morrow it falls out. Today you have a full face, to-morrow the bones stick out. But beauty of the spirit, you understand, grows with age. It is as lasting as God."

friends, and so they come down upon our land for shelter. They wander in our gardens and orchards like cows. And one night last fall a party of Anghlicks rowed across the river and shot fifteen of them upon our land. And that was the first time since we have been here that the blood of a living thing has been shed upon our soil, and with God's help we hope it will be the last."

I asked him what they did to animals that foraged on their crops.

"We drive them off," he said; "we never kill them. Look at the squirrels this year. Lord! how they have been