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ERNEST W. LOWRY

A report was brought to Basil, the Metropolitan of Moscow, in the year 1340, by merchants of Novgorod, who asserted that they had beheld a glimpse of Paradise from the shores of the White Sea. Whether their vision were merely the dazzling reflection of some sunlit iceberg, or only the glow of poetic imagination, it so fired the ardour of the mediæval prelate that he longed to set sail for this golden gleam. Be the old legend true or false, it is certain that to this day the northern Mujik shows an even more marked religious enthusiasm than his brother of the central governments. Fanaticism, mysticism, and fatalism go ever hand in hand in Northern Russia. The Empire of the Tsars being so vast in area and so embracive of races affords space for all forms of belief, or want of belief, within her boundaries. All creeds are represented, from the pagan Samoyede of the tundras to the Mohammedan Tartar of the Steppes. Our concern is with but one of these—the Old Believers. But to understand their doctrine, we must glance at the clergy of the State Church from which they dissent.