and he did not see why he should not be successful.  He believed that the Founder of Christianity had been simply a man like himself, who understood better than others the people around him and the circumstances of the time, and he was convinced that he himself had these qualifications.  One qualification, however, for becoming a prophet he certainly did not possess:  he had no genuine religious enthusiasm in him—­nothing of the martyr spirit about him.  Much of his own preaching he did not himself believe, and he had a secret contempt for those who naively accepted it all.  Not only was he cunning, but he knew he was cunning, and he was conscious that he was playing an assumed part.  And yet perhaps it would be unjust to say that he was merely an impostor exclusively occupied with his own personal advantage.  Though he was naturally a man of sensual tastes, and could not resist convenient opportunities of gratifying them, he seemed to believe that his communistic schemes would, if realised, be beneficial not only to himself, but also to the people.  Altogether a curious mixture of the prophet, the social reformer, and the cunning impostor!

Besides the Molokanye, there are in Russia many other heretical sects.  Some of them are simply Evangelical Protestants, like the Stundisti, who have adopted the religious conceptions of their neighbours, the German colonists; whilst others are composed of wild enthusiasts, who give a loose rein to their excited imagination, and revel in what the Germans aptly term “der hohere Blodsinn.”  I cannot here attempt to convey even a general idea of these fantastic sects with their doctrinal and ceremonial absurdities, but I may offer the following classification of them for the benefit of those who may desire to study the subject: 

1.  Sects which take the Scriptures as the basis of their belief, but interpret and complete the doctrines therein contained by means of the occasional inspiration or internal enlightenment of their leading members.

2.  Sects which reject interpretation and insist on certain passages of Scripture being taken in the literal sense.  In one of the best known of these sects—­the Skoptsi, or Eunuchs—­fanaticism has led to physical mutilation.

3.  Sects which pay little or no attention to Scripture, and derive their doctrine from the supposed inspiration of their living teachers.

4.  Sects which believe in the re-incarnation of Christ.

5.  Sects which confound religion with nervous excitement, and are more or less erotic in their character.  The excitement necessary for prophesying is commonly produced by dancing, jumping, pirouetting, or self-castigation; and the absurdities spoken at such times are regarded as the direct expression of divine wisdom.  The religious exercises resemble more or less closely those of the “dancing dervishes” and “howling dervishes’s” with which all who have visited Constantinople are familiar.  There is, however, one important difference:  the dervishes practice their religious exercises in public, and consequently observe a certain decorum, whilst these Russian sects assemble in secret, and give free scope to their excitement, so that most disgusting orgies sometimes take place at their meetings.