throughout the East, that the insane are peculiarly blessed of God, and possess his Holy Spirit. Prophecy is the general characteristic of sects founded by these enthusiasts or demoniacs. The revelations are of diverse nature, enunciated in diverse ways. They pronounce the actual fulfilment of scriptural promises and threats, or, predicting the future, they deal with the mysteries of heaven and hell, and proclaim the approaching end of the world and the coming of Christ. Vague, incoherent, fluent declamations, clothed in ambiguous, but terse and Biblical, language, are devoutly received as inspired utterances, and are personally applied by credulous and imaginative listeners.
Women are especially endowed with the gifts of preaching and prophesying. The Russian peasant looks upon them as inferior beings in the usual avocations of life, but concedes to their feebler practical intelligence greater powers of comprehension of divine influences, and greater susceptibility to them. He considers religion as essentially a domestic matter, and, as such, especially within the domain of the weaker sex. These female leaders often bear the title of "Bogoroditsa"—"Holy Virgin," or "Mother of God," which is taken in a mystical sense, or sometimes literally, by those who are awaiting a new Messiah. These "Virgins," or "Mothers," are usually accompanied by a "Christ," but often exercise an authority equal to or superior to his. Souslov, among the Khlysti, and Selivanov, among the Skoptsi, each had a "Holy Mother," and their successors, likewise. Akoulina Ivanovna, the first Bogoroditsa of the Skoptsi, is still invoked and worshipped with divine honors; their traditions declare her to have been the Empress Elizabeth, and, in defiance of history, the mother of Peter III., whom they confound with Selivanov.
