One insanity begets another, and belief in the presence of Antichrist leads to belief in the approaching restoration of the earth, the second advent of Christ and the millennium, which has infected the more extreme sects of the Bezpopovstchin, thus connecting it with Gnostic sects of various origins.  Russian literalism, like many early Christian heresies, interprets the prophets and the Apocalypse in a purely material sense.  The mujik or artisan looks for the establishment of Christ’s temporal kingdom, and anticipates the dominion promised to the saints.  Such a belief opens the door to a trust in prophets, and to all the extravagances and rascalities that come in its train.  In vain does the Russian statute-book condemn false prophets and lying miracles:  from time to time the country is overrun by illuminati proclaiming the Second Advent, and occasionally giving themselves out as the expected Messiah.  They are frequently accompanied by a woman, who plays the part of mystical mother or spouse, and to whom they give the title of the Mother of God or the Blessed Virgin.  Sometimes it is only the simple folk who are themselves hunting for the Redeemer; and not long since appeared a body of Siberian sectaries, called “Christ-hunters,” maintaining that the Saviour was about to appear, and scouring desert and forest to find him.  Peasants have even been known to refuse payment of their taxes under pretext that Christ was come and had done away with them.  The Messiah of the Russian sectaries is sometimes sought in the person of a simple peasant, and sometimes in a native or foreign prince.  Some have long beheld the expected liberator in Napoleon, for their persuasion that the Russian state is the reign of Antichrist easily led to welcoming as a Saviour any one who seemed destined to destroy it; and in the great enemy of the empire, the great furtherer of a general abolition of serfdom, many recognized the conquering Messiah of the prophets.  It is said that at their meetings an image of Napoleon is worshiped, and busts of him are certainly nowhere met with more commonly than in Russia.  An equal veneration is paid to pictures representing the first emperor surrounded by his marshals and floating above the clouds in a kind of apotheosis, which is literally accepted by the matter-of-fact Russian.  The story runs among his worshipers that Napoleon is not dead, but has escaped from St. Helena and taken shelter on the shores of Lake Baikal, whence he will one day come forth to overturn the throne of Satan and found the kingdom of justice and peace.

The main point of these millennial hopes was the abolition of forced labor and the obrok, the emancipation of the serfs, and the equitable distribution of land and other property.  A ready reception was sure to await such a gospel, with its combination of promises of liberty and faint dreams of communism; and something of the kind is necessary to explain the easy success of so many extravagant sects, lying prophets and feigned