with their mouths wide open, waiting for ministering angels to quench their spiritual thirst from invisible chalices. While in constant and patient expectation of a miracle that shall again unite the body of the faithful upon earth with their Father in heaven, the great number of these enthusiasts rub tranquilly along through life, restrained by the engrossing difficulties of an arduous existence and the natural kindliness of the Russian character, from many of the aberrations that should logically follow upon their theories; but the more exalted and fanatic recoil from no consequences, however painful. Their dead are buried without prayer, as they have lived, in sickness and in trouble, without religious consolation; marriage is ignored, family ties and obligations are disregarded, and all the bonds and reciprocal duties upon which society is based are repudiated. This question of marriage is the chief stumbling-block in their path, the principal and fruitful cause of dissension and division among them. The moderate and more practical of their number consider conjugal reciation, convenient, entitled to respect even, but with nothing sacred or inviolable in its character. The more rigid affirm celibacy to be obligatory, and marriage to be a state of continual sin. Between these two extremes there is room for the wildest and most repulsive theories. Carnal sensuality is allied in monstrous union with religious mysticism. Free love, independence of the sexes, possession of women in common, have been preached and practised. Debauchery, as an incidental weakness of human nature, has been advocated as the lesser evil; libertinism as preferable to concubinage, and the latter as better than marriage. One of their most austere teachers cynically declares that "it is wiser to live with
