a that
of mother. They considered themselves "spiritual Christians" because
they lived according to the spirit of Christianity. For the rest,
their doctrine was innocent enough, and, but for certain extravagances
and some dangerous dogmas borrowed from other sects, their diffusion
among the working-classes of the towns might even have been desirable.
Sexual chastity was one of their main postulates, and they also
recommended absolute abstention from meat, spirits, and tobacco. But
at the same time they desired to abolish marriage.

When the police raided Grigorieff's workshops, they found there about
fifty people stretched on the ground, spent and exhausted as a result
of the excessive efforts which Raboff's cult demanded of them. At
their meetings a man or woman would first read aloud a chapter from
Holy Scripture. The listeners would make comments, and one of the more
intelligent would expound the selected passage. Growing more and more
animated, he would finally reach a state of ecstasy which communicated
itself to all present. The whole assembly would cry aloud, groan,
gesticulate and tear their hair. Some would fall to the ground, while
others foamed at the mouth, or rent their garments. Suddenly one of
the most uplifted would intone a psalm or hymn which, beginning with
familiar words, would end in incoherency, the whole company singing
aloud together, and covering the feet of their "spiritual mother" with
kisses.

CHAPTER IX

A LABORATORY OF SECTS

We will now travel to the south of Russia, and examine more closely
what might be called a laboratory of sects, or in other words a
breeding-ground of religions whose idealism, whether foolish or
sublime, is often sanctified by the blood of believers, and descends
like dew from Hermon into the midst of our busy civilisation.

The mystical tendencies of the popular soul sometimes develop in a
fashion little short of prodigious, and to no country do we owe so many
remarkable varieties of religious faith as to that portion of Russia
which lies between Kherson and Nicolaiev. There is seen in full
activity the greatest religious laboratory in the world; there
originate, as a rule, the morbid bacilli which invade the rest of
Russia; and there do sects grow up like mushrooms, only to disappear
with equal rapidity.

An orthodox missionary named Schalkinsky, who was concerned especially
with the erring souls of the region of Saratov, has published a work