, so that he should be recognized under the number 662
or 664 as clearly as under 666. Turning from the particular
sovereign to the imperial title, the Raskolniks have unearthed the
number of the Beast in the letters composing it. Singularly
enough, it happens that all which is needed to obtain the
Apocalyptic number from the word _imperator_ is the omission of the
second letter; whence they say that Antichrist hides his accursed
name behind the letter M. By an equally odd and embarrassing
coincidence the Council of Moscow--which, after deposing Nikon,
definitively excommunicated the schismatics--met in 1666. Here,
plainly enough was the fatal number, and when the reform of the
calendar attracted the attention of the Old Believers to the point,
they considered it a weapon thrust into their hands by their
opponents. The year in question, accordingly, was fixed as the date
of Satan's accession. But not content with turning the line of
monarchs into so many emissaries of hell, some of these champions of
Old Russia have managed, by the help of an anagram, to identify
their native country with the mysterious land which is the object of
so many prophetic curses. In the _Asshur_ of the Bible they find
_Russia_, and apply to it the anathemas launched by the prophets
against Nineveh and Babylon.

The infernal sign, however, was visible to the Raskolniks not only
in the title and the names of their rulers, but in all their
innovations as well, and in all that they imported from abroad.
Since Russia is under the dominion of the "devil, the demon's son,"
the truly faithful are bound to reject all that has been introduced
during "the years of Satan." Encouraged by the notion of Antichrist,
the Raskol's opposition against the modern reform of government
spread until it embraces in its hostility everything brought from
the West. In no other of its developments do we see more distinctly
the characteristic features of the schism, its narrow formalism and
its coarse allegorizing, its blind worship of the past and its
national exclusiveness. It presented the novel spectacle of a group
of popular sects holding in abomination every object of foreign
commerce, everything new--material articles of consumption not less
than the discoveries of science. While the products of the East and
West Indies were pouring into the rest of Europe, the Old Believer
rigorously excluded them. He frowned upon the use of tobacco, of
tea, of coffee and of suga