the guise of traders, peddlers, and labourers, to sow what they called the living seed, and what the official Church termed “Satan’s tares.”  When the Government agents discovered these retreats, the inmates generally fled from the “ravenous wolves”; but on more than one occasion a large number of fanatical men and women, shutting themselves up, set fire to their houses, and voluntarily perished in the flames.  In Paleostrofski Monastery, for instance, in the year 1687, no less than 2,700 fanatics gained the crown of martyrdom in this way; and many similar instances are on record.* As in all periods of religious panic, the Apocalypse was carefully studied, and the Millennial ideas rapidly spread.  The signs of the time were plain:  Satan was being let loose for a little season.  Men anxiously looked for the reappearance of Antichrist—­and Antichrist appeared!

* A list of well-authenticated cases is given by Nilski, “Semeinaya zhizn v russkom Raskole,” St. Petersburg, 1869; part I., pp. 55-57.  The number of these self-immolators certainly amounted to many thousands.

The man in whom the people recognised the incarnate spirit of evil was no other than Peter the Great.

From the Nonconformist point of view, Peter had very strong claims to be considered Antichrist.  He had none of the staid, pious demeanour of the old Tsars, and showed no respect for many things which were venerated by the people.  He ate, drank, and habitually associated with heretics, spoke their language, wore their costume, chose from among them his most intimate friends, and favoured them more than his own people.  Imagine the horror and commotion which would be produced among pious Catholics if the Pope should some day appear in the costume of the Grand Turk, and should choose Pashas as his chief counsellors!  The horror which Peter’s conduct produced among a large section of his subjects was not less great.  They could not explain it otherwise than by supposing him to be the Devil in disguise, and they saw in all his important measures convincing proofs of his Satanic origin.  The newly invented census, or “revision,” was a profane “numbering of the people,” and an attempt to enrol in the service of Beelzebub those whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  The new title of Imperator was explained to mean something very diabolical.  The passport bearing the Imperial arms was the seal of Antichrist.  The order to shave the beard was an attempt to disfigure “the image of God,” after which man had been created, and by which Christ would recognise His own at the Last Day.  The change in the calendar, by which New Year’s Day was transferred from September to January, was the destruction of “the years of our Lord,” and the introduction of the years of Satan in their place.  Of the ingenious arguments by which these theses were supported, I may quote one by way of illustration.  The world, it was explained, could not have been created in January as the new calendar seemed to indicate, because apples are not ripe at that season, and consequently Eve could not have been tempted in the way described!*