is begun is the
fundamental doctrine of the Raskol, and particularly of the
Bezpopovstchin. In the light of this new dogma all the contradictions of
the latter are explained and justified. This is the reason for the
extinction of the priesthood, of marriage and of the family.
Wherefore--many ask--wherefore continue the race when the archangel's
trump is about to proclaim the end of humanity?

The end of the world was announced to be nigh even before Peter the
Great; and they who proclaimed it are not yet weary of awaiting it. Like
Christians in the West in other periods, they are not undeceived by the
delay of the destined time, and are at no loss to explain it. Many
consider the reign of Antichrist to be a period or era which may last
for centuries, as one of the three great epochs in religious history,
and as having, like those of the old and the new dispensations, a law of
its own which abrogates what went before. All of the Raskolniks, or even
of the Bezpopovtsy, however, do not agree as to Antichrist; for while
his reign is generally admitted, it seems to be very differently
understood. Those who retain the priesthood and the more moderate of
their opponents hold his reign to be spiritual and invisible, and
government and established Church to be the unconscious or unwilling
tools of Satan; while the extremists of the Bezpopovstchin maintain that
Antichrist reigns materially and palpably. He it is, as we have seen,
who occupies the throne of the czars since Peter the Great, and his
Sanhedrim that usurps the name of the holy synod. Trivial as the
difference is, theologically speaking, its political consequences are
considerable; for the state may arrive at some understanding with sects
that only regard it as blind and misled, while even a truce is out of
the question with those which look upon it as the incarnate enemy of
souls.

Very singular are the vagaries to which the ignorant peasants are
naturally led by this belief. Since the world is in subjection to
"Satan, the son of Beelzebub," all contact with it was defiling, and
submission to its laws nothing short of a denial of the faith. To escape
the hellish contagion the best means was isolation or rigid withdrawal
into inaccessible retreats or desert places. In their spiritual
confusion and terror some of the sectaries saw no refuge but death, and
murder and suicide were systematically resorted to for the purpose of
shortening the time of probation and hasteni