from the other, are scattered over these vast territories; the number of priests is small, as it is fixed according to the population, which is scanty. The inhabitants do not congregate in villages of any size, but are sparsely distributed over the whole region; roads, where any exist, are bad, often impassable, and the climate is inclement and stormy. Attendance at church is, perforce, limited to rare occasions, and pastoral visits are almost unknown. From want of intercourse with their parishioners the clergy lost authority and influence over them; the peasant, isolated in his isba,[1] learned to suffice for his own needs, and became independent of priestly aid, even on the most solemn occasions, left to himself, he looked to the Scriptures for his guide, and interpreted them according to his feeble and limited light; he had not the resources of the Protestant Puritan in education, nor in the accumulated wisdom of the Christian fathers and ancient philosophers. Were he capable of, and did he care for investigation, he could, at best, rely only on the bewildering scholastic treatises of Byzantine theologians; a little learning is dangerous, and his mind was starved with indigestible food, filled with crude or false ideas, erroneously comprehended, and his imagination was fired by mystical sophisms.
Some Russian writers have attributed the preponderance of the Bezpopovtsi, in the north of Russia, to the influence of the neighboring Protestant nations of the north of Europe, but this hypothesis is unnecessary for the explanation of the fact, and it is not in accordance with the peculiarly indigenous, national character of the movement, whether it be considered at its inception or in its most radical development.
- ↑ Isba is the hut, or cabin, of the Russian peasant.
