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16
THE STUNDISTS.


Only in two provinces, Kherson and Kief, can we follow with any degree of accuracy the course of this most marvellous revolt. We have already sketched its growth in Kherson; let us now turn to Kief. The first village affected seems to have been Plosskoye. This was in 1868. Here, as elsewhere, here as in Galilee, it was the homeless and landless who first attached themselves to the new Evangel. Tyshkevitch was one of the earliest pioneers of the faith in this province. An able colleague of his was Pavl Zyboulski. Tyshkevitch had lived for many years in Kherson, and had married a Protestant wife there. He had been long under the influence of Bonekemper and other pastors. Indeed, so completely had German ideas penetrated and permeated him that he is said to have worn his beard and his clothes in the German fashion. Zyboulski was undoubtedly an abler man than Tyshkevitch, a man with an extraordinary gift of lucid and persuasive speech. Abjectly poor, totally without means of support, he wandered about from village to village, and was supplied by the brethren with the bare necessities of life. He also had lived some time in Kherson, and his native zeal had been shaped and directed by Bonekemper. The meetings at Plosskoye were at first held secretly for fear of the police and priests, but after a while, seeing that no very strong measures against them were adopted, the brethren grew bolder, and met openly by day in Zyboulski's lodgings. Peasants from the surrounding villages soon heard of the grand new message delivered to their fellows in Plosskoye, and streamed in to hear the preachers. When they returned to their homes they in turn began to preach, and from their villages radii of light went out in turn to villages still more remote. At last the attention of Arseni, Metropolitan of Kief, was attracted. He put the police on the track of Tyshkevitch and other leaders, numerous arrests were made, meeting-places were closed, and arbitrary