The sects whose general evolution we have sketched may appear to us
ridiculous and childish. We are tempted to look with contempt upon a
people capable of such extravagances; but such an estimate would be
erroneous. Absurdity and extravagance have always found a ready welcome
when presented under the garb of religion; and countries boasting of
older and more widespread civilization are not behind Russia in this
regard. The Raskol has its counterpart in the past and the contemporary
sectarianism of England and of the United States. A strong likeness
holds between the Puritans and the Old Believers; and both as to
originality and religious eccentricities the Anglo-Saxon and the
inhabitant of Greater Russia may be compared. The Russians delight in
pointing out the resemblances between their country and the great
republic of the New World; and this is not the least of them. The
Americans have their prophets and prophetesses, just like the old
Russian serfs, and no absurdity or immorality is too gross to find
preachers and converts among them. How shall we account for so striking
an analogy between the two most extensive empires of the two continents?
To characteristics of race and an incomplete blending of different
stocks, or to the nature of the soil, the extremes of heat and cold, and
the strong contrasts of the seasons? to the vastness of their
territories and the scanty diffusion of population and culture over
areas so immense? or still again to the rapid and inharmonious growth of
the two countries--to the lack of popular education in the one, and the
low standard of the higher education in the other? Separately or
combined, these causes fail completely to explain the curious
phenomenon; and still they are the most striking points of resemblance
between the two colossal powers. In some respects, the sectarian spirit
presents itself in a different and almost opposite manner in the
democratic republic and the despotic empire. In the United States the
ranker growths of religious enthusiasm spring from an excess of
individualism and enterprise--from the independent and pushing temper
transported from politics and business into religion. In Russia, on the
contrary, the popular mind has thrown off all restraint in the religious
sphere, simply because this was long the only one in which it could
disport itself unchecked. The religious boldness and extravagance which
in the one country is the direct consequence of the state