times immersed in full canonicals, lest, by a prior removal of their insignia, their sacred attributes should be washed away.
Not much respect could be felt for men thrust forth from their own Church for misconduct, or tempted from it by cupidity. Generally they were well remunerated, but held in light esteem as mere hirelings, in accidental possession of certain exclusive powers. They were treated with increasing indifference in process of time, and deacons, or even unordained persons, were accepted and allowed to officiate; they were kept in strict dependence, and had but little influence over the congregations who paid their stipend, chose or rejected them at pleasure, and retained all power and authority in their own hands. This predominance of the lay element in the administration of Church affairs was a common feature of both branches of the Raskol.
From their early days the Raskolniks of both divisions favored the establishment of "skeets," or hermitages, convents, and similar institutions, in remote districts, or over the border in an adjacent country, to serve as places of refuge and religious centres. Dissensions, rivalries, differences of opinion, creating numerous sects, constantly arose, and no one establishment among them all rose to any pre-eminence, or was able to impose its authority as supreme over either the one or the other branch. A terrible public calamity afforded them both an opportunity, of which they cleverly availed, to remedy this grievous want of a central head.
The plague broke out at Moscow during the reign of Catherine II., and raged with unparalleled fury; all efforts of the government to stay its ravages or to afford adequate relief were insufficient. In this appalling crisis the empress made appeal to the charity and gen-
