among them, called "Obstchii," or "Communists," carried their theories to extremes, and advocated conmmnity of women, as well as of property, but their views were never generally accepted.
Like the Quakers and Moravians, both the Molokani and the Doukhobortsi are strongly prejudiced against all oaths and against military service. War is utterly opposed to their ideas of charity and brotherly love. The radical nature of their religious belief influences their opinions on social and political questions, and as their inclinations are democratic, even communistic, they have been accused of preaching resistance to all authority, temporal as well as spiritual, and of giving refuge in their villages to criminals and fugitives from justice; but while this is an exaggeration, socialistic opinions have aroused among them a general expectation of the millennium. They have dreams of a regenerated world, of an "empire of Ararat," soon to come, when peace and righteousness shall prevail. Although they passively submit to the present order of things, they do not sympathize with it, and cherish obscure traditions of a Western hero, the "lion of the valley of Jehoshaphat," destined to overthrow the false emperor and restore the throne of the White Tsar. The fame of Napoleon awakened their hopes, and it is said that, in 1812, they sent a deputation to inquire of him if indeed he were the deliverer announced by the prophets.
The adherents of both these sects have, by the testimony of all who, either in official or private capacity, have known them, always been distinguished for honesty, sobriety, industry, and peaceful obedience to the law. The government has frequently interfered to prevent the extension of their doctrines, and has transported their settlements hither and thither to isolate them,
