but, wherever established, they have invariably evinced the same docile submission and useful qualities. Agriculture is their favorite pursuit; they have been active pioneers in the southern steppes, making the wilderness to blossom like the rose, creating little republics, animated by a strong theocratic spirit, realizing, as it is possible only in small communities, imbued with ardent faith and under strict moral discipline, the Utopian theories of practical socialism.
Their flourishing colonies on the Molotchnaya river fell into anarchy and disorder at the disappearance of their leader, Kapoustine, about 1814; he was accused of attempts at proselytizing, and thrown into prison.: Although he was soon afterwards liberated, nothing positive is known of his subsequent career. His son and grandson, who succeeded him in turn as the Christ, were weak and inefficient, and all authority fell into the hands of a council of elders, who were accused of frightful and revolting practices, substantiated by a government investigation in 1834.[1] The emperor Nicholas, always intolerant of Dissent, seized upon this pretext to break up their settlements, and in 1840 ordered the transportation to the Caucasus of all, both Molokani and Doukhobortsi, who refused to join the established Church.
In their new home the Molokani, less extravagant than the others, have, by their frugality and industry, again built up thriving and prosperous villages.
Among the reformatory Protestant sects there is one with Jewish tendencies, recruited chiefly among the lower population, whose history, is obscure, whose doctrines are but little known, but which merits notice from the singular fact of its existence amid a people obsti-
- ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 291.
