of the bridal couple, and of the witnesses, to the effect that a marriage has taken place; they may thereupon, without inquiry as to the performance of any ceremony, grant a certificate which is valid in law as evidence of marriage, confers upon the contracting parties the same rights as a regular marriage before a priest, and subjects them, in like manner, to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals in all matters appertaining to marriage and divorce.
This measure is as yet limited in its application to the million or more schismatics enrolled upon the official lists; its benefit for them is very great; it regularizes their social position and that of their children, relieves them from grievous humiliation, and elevates them, both in their own estimation and before the law, to an equality with their fellow-subjects. Restricted as it yet is, it may well rank high among the many wise reforms of the late reign, and affords palpable evidence of the spirit animating both State and Church in dealing with the momentous problems which the religious question presents.
For a full comprehension of the many and great difficulties encountered in the attempt to arrive at a full solution of this complicated and perplexing subject, it is necessary to pursue the inquiry further, to descend to the lower strata of Russian Dissent, and to extend investigation alongside of and below the Raskol, properly so called, with its many branches and ramifications. In these depths of popular superstition, underneath the Old Believers, who are in partial harmony with the Church, and the No Priests, who reject Church and clergy, there are numerous obscure and mysterious sects; some indigenous, evolved from the excitable, prolific imagination of the Russian people, without direct affiliation with
