DOUGLASS —DOUKHOBORS
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almost entirely illiterate and did not possess any written book. They found alike their mutual relations and their relations to other people—and not only to people, but to all living creatures — exclusively on love, and therefore they hold all people equal and brethren. They extend this idea of equality also to the Government authorities, obedience to whom they do not consider binding upon them in those cases when the demands of these authorities are in conflict with their conscience; while in all that does not infringe what they regard as the will of God they willingly fulfil the desire of the authorities. They consider killing, violence, and in general all relations to living beings not based on love as opposed to their conscience and to the will of God. They are industrious and abstemious in their lives, and when living up to the standard of their faith they present one of the nearest approaches to the realization of the Christian ideal which has ever been attained. Such, in their most general character, are the beliefs for which the Doukhobors have long endured cruel persecution. Under Nicholas I., in the years 1840 and 1850, the Doukhobors, who on religious grounds refused to participate in military service, were all banished from the government of Tauris—whither they had been previously transported from various parts of Russia by Alexander I. —to Transcaucasia, near the Turkish frontier. But neither the severe climate nor the neighbourhood of wild and warlike hillmen shook their faith, and in the course of half a century, in one of the most unhealthy and unDoukhobors, The.—“ Doukhobors ” is a name fertile localities in the Caucasus, they transformed this given by the Russian Orthodox clergy to a community of wilderness into flourishing colonies, and continued to live nonconformist peasants. The word etymologically signi- a Christian and laborious life, making friends instead of fies “spirit-fighters,” being originally intended by the fighting with the hillmen. But the wealth to which they priesthood to convey that they fight against the Spirit of attained in the Caucasus weakened for a time their moral God; but the Doukhobors themselves accepted the term fervour, and little by little they began to depart somewhat as signifying that they fight, not against, but for and with from the requirements of their belief. As soon, however, the Spirit. Of late, however, they have decided to give as events happened among them which disturbed their up this name and call themselves “ Christians of the outward tranquillity, the religious spirit which had guided Universal Brotherhood.” This religious community was their fathers immediately revived within them. In first heard of in the middle of the 18th century. By 1887, in the reign of the Tsar Alexander III., universal the end of that century or the beginning of the 19 th military service was introduced in the Caucasus; and even their doctrine had become so clearly defined, and the those for whom, as in the case of the Doukhobors, it had number of their members had so greatly increased, that formerly been replaced with banishment, were called upon the Russian Government and Church, considering this sect to serve. This measure took the Doukhobors unawares, to be peculiarly obnoxious, started an energetic campaign and at first they outwardly submitted to it. About the against it. The foundation of the Doukhobors’ teaching same time, by the decision of certain Government officials, consists in the belief that the Spirit of God is present in the right to the possession of the public property of the the soul of man, and directs him by its word within Doukhobors (valued at about .£50,000) passed from the him. They understand the coming of Christ in the community to one of their members, who had formed out flesh, his works, teaching, and sufferings, in a spiritual of the more demoralized Doukhobors a group of his own sense. The object of the sufferings of Christ, in their personal adherents, which was henceforth called the “ Small view, was to give an example of suffering for truth. Party.” Soon afterwards several of the most respected Christ continues to suffer in us even now when we do representatives of the community were banished to the not live in accordance with the behests and spirit of his government of Archangel. This series of calamities was teaching. The whole teaching of the Doukhobors is accepted by the Doukhobors as a punishment from God, penetrated with the Gospel spirit of love. Worshipping and a spiritual awakening of a most energetic character God in the spirit, they affirm that the outward Church ensued. The majority (about 12,000 in number) resolved and all that is performed in it and concerns it has to revive in practice the traditions left them by their no importance for them. The Church is where ’two or fathers, which they had departed from during the period three are gathered together, i.e., united in the name of of opulence. They again renounced tobacco, wine, meat, Christ. They pray inwardly at all times; on fixed days and every kind of excess, many of them dividing up all they assemble for prayer-meetings, at which they greet their property in order to supply the needs of those who each other fraternally with low bows, thereby acknow- were in want, and they collected a new public fund. ledging every man as a bearer of the Divine Spirit. They also renounced all participation in acts of violence, Their teaching is founded on tradition, which is called and therefore refused military service. In confirmation of among them the “ Book of Life,” because it lives in their their sincerity, in the summer of 1895 the Doukhobors memory and hearts. It consists of sacred songs or chants, of the “ Great Party,” as they were called in distinction partly composed independently, partly formed out of the fr'om the “Small Party,” burnt all the arms which they, contents of the Bible, which, however, has evidently been like other inhabitants of the Caucasus, had taken up for gathered by them orally, as until quite lately they were their protection from wild animals, and those who were in
1901, 19,126, with a suburban population just outside the borough of 3100. Douglass, Frederick (1817-1895), American orator, was born in Tuckahoe, Talbot county, Md., and died in Anacostia, D.C., 20th February 1895. His mother was a slave and his father a white man. He learned to read and write, and was allowed to hire his own time and work in a shipyard. In 1838 he escaped from slavery, and soon settled in New Bedford, Mass. A speech made by him in 1841 resulted in his being offered the agency of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. From that time his oratorical powers rapidly developed, and he aroused much interest in the cause of emancipation. In 1845 he made a lecturing tour through the British Isles, where he remained until 1847. For many years after 1847 he conducted an antislavery weekly journal at Rochester, N. Y. He encouraged, but did not actually participate in, John Brown’s invasion of Harper’s Ferry. In 1870 he became editor of the New National Era in Washington, D.C. When, in 1871, President Grant appointed a commission to report on the question of annexing Santo Domingo to the United States, Douglass became its assistant-secretary. In 1872 he was presidential elector at large for the State of New York. From 1876 to 1881 he was marshal of the District of Columbia, after which time he was its recorder of deeds for five years. From 1889 to 1891 he was United States minister to Hayti. The experiences of his life were described in an autobiography.
