CHAPTER II.
PROGRESS.
We have seen the first beginnings of the Stundist movement in Rohrbach, Osnova, and elsewhere, and two of its greatest leaders, Onishenko and Ratushni, have been introduced to us. These men and their immediate disciples became possessed of an extraordinary desire to travel. As true apostles they desired to spread the light. They tramped from village to village, from townlet to townlet, carrying the message of the Gospel. Peasants in villages far remote from Osnova began to know these itinerating preachers who came to their houses in various guises, generally as pedlars or book-hawkers. The arrival of the travelling evangelist was always an event. A scout had gone before to herald his coming, and from the outlying hamlets peasants flocked to an assigned meeting-place, sometimes a remote cottage, sometimes a sequestered hollow in the steppe. Here the people would learn for the first time in their own language of the wonderful works of God. Those who desired them, bought New Testaments, or rough Russian translations of German hymns in manuscript. In a surprisingly short time the peasants in most districts of the extensive province of Kherson had heard the Gospel preached, and sang with perfect ease queer Russianised versions of "O sacred Head surrounded," "The Lord our God is King," "Lead us, O Father, to the heavenly gates," and other favourites. Ratushni was indefatigable. When not preaching, he was
