CHAPTER III.
GROWTH.
It was in 1867 that Karl Bonekemper arrived in Rohrbach to take up the office vacated by his father's death. We have no direct details as to his method or manner of work for the next ten years; all we know is that he was in close touch with most of the Stundist leaders in Kherson, Kief, and elsewhere. He knew them all, advised them in their difficulties, and conducted an extensive correspondence with them. Some of his letters—epistles, we ought rather to call them—had a most extensive circulation, and were universally acknowledged as authoritative deliverances. These were years of extraordinary growth, and it is interesting to take up the reports of the Russian clergy, and trace the rapid course of the movement from village to village over almost every part of the Southern and South-western provinces of the empire. Bonekemper's influence was paramount. The leaders not only applied to him for instruction as to organisation, but also on points of faith and interpretation. He had one or two cardinal pieces of advice that he never wearied of inculcating: "Learn to read, both men and women of you, and teach your children to read." "God's will and revelation are found in the New Testament; therefore, obtain a New Testament at all costs, and study it day and night." "Look at your neighbours and see what a curse drink is, how it enervates a man, and destroys his best faculties; abstain, therefore, from that which works such
