ls felt
themselves bound to pay court to the new religions. One of the
Imperial councillors, Piletzky, who was supposed to be writing a book
refuting the doctrines of the _skoptzi_, defended them, on the
contrary, with such warmth that his volume--obviously inspired by the
opinions of the Court--was prohibited by the Bishop Filarete as
Anti-Christian.

But though they could talk volubly of the illustrious origin of their
leader Selivanoff, "the second Christ," and of their "divine mother,"
Akoulina Ivanovna, their doctrines were in fact obscure and nebulous,
and they avoided--with good reason--all religious argument. They
insisted, however, upon the sacredness of their initiation
ceremony--which invariably ended in deportation for life, or the
delights of the prison-cell.

From the physiological point of view, the _skoptzi_ resembled the
Egyptian eunuchs, described by M. Ernest Godard. Those who had
undergone the initiation at the age of puberty attained extraordinary
maxillary and dental proportions. Giants were common among them, and
there was frequently produced the same phenomenon that Darwin
discovered in the animal world--enlargement of the pelvic regions.

This doctrine, which ought to have repelled the populace, attracted
them irresistibly. The young, the brave, and the wealthy, in the full
flower of their strength, abandoned at its call the religion of life
and yoked themselves to that of death. It seemed to fascinate them.
After conversion they despised all human passions and emotions, and
when persecuted and hunted down they took their revenge by expressing
profoundest pity for those who were powerless to accomplish the act of
sacrifice which had brought them "near to divinity."

They often let this pity sway them to the extent of running into danger
by preaching their "holy word" to "infidels." Like the ascetics of
Ancient Judea, who left their retreats to make sudden appearances in
the midst of the orgies of their contemporaries, these devotees of
enforced virginity would appear among those who were disillusioned with
life, and instruct them in the delights of the supreme deliverance. In
their ardent desire to rescue all slaves of the flesh, some rich
merchants of Moscow, who had adopted the doctrine, placed the greater
part of their fortunes at the disposal of their co-religionists, and in
this way the sect was enabled to extend its influence throughout
Russia, and even into neighbouring count