of society is
in the other rather a reaction against it. Russia's advantage over
America lies in the fact that there the excesses of fancy and zeal
prevail in a more primitive, unsophisticated and childlike race. Some
diseases are best passed through early in life, before the time of full
development. It is no less true of some moral maladies: childhood
suffers from them less than youth or maturity. Russia is still in that
stage of civilization which is naturally subject to attacks of feverish
and mystical religion, but one day it will emerge from it; and the
precocious skepticism of a large portion of its educated classes shows
plainly that no inexorable fate condemns the national character to
credulity and superstition.

The Raskol is more than a morbid symptom or a sign of weakness. If it
does little credit to the sense or cultivation of the people, it does
much to its heart, its conscience and its will. Independence and
individuality are often said to be lacking in it, but the Old Believers
show that firmness and conception of duty which are as needful as
intelligence to a nation's strength. Beneath the dull, monotonous
surface of political society these sects give us a glimpse of the hard
rock which is the groundwork of this seemingly inert race: its
originality and stern individuality are what are dear to it. One day
Russia will display in other spheres the originality and patient, sturdy
energy which these religious struggles have called forth. That a
considerable portion of the people have revolted against the liturgic
reform shows that it is not the stupid, sluggish herd Europe has so long
imagined. On one ground at least its conscience has displayed sufficient
independence, and told despotism that it is not all-powerful. And if
mere ritual alterations have aroused such opposition, what would result
from a change of religion--from the transition to Catholicism or
Protestantism so often dreamed of and advised by Western theologians? So
far from being always docile and void of will and determination, the
Russian people, even in their religious vagaries, have displayed a
singular power of organization and combination.

ELEANOR'S CAREER.

I first met Eleanor Vachy at a boarding-school in the city of R----,
where we soon became intimate friends. Eleanor was the result of a
system. When but a few months old, and an orphan, she had been left to
the care of her aunt, Miss Willmanson, a reformer, a progressio