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24
THE STUNDISTS.

giving offence and of consequent trouble, lie adopted a line of action and a mental attitude—outward conformity to Orthodoxy and inward contempt for it—which, was suicidal, destructive of all true spiritual progress. The Baptists rebelled, and it is to their rectitude on this point that the present lofty position of Stundism is due. To German Baptists like Wieler, Pritzkau, Bekker, and Onken, of Hamburg, the Stundists are deeply indebted, for, in addition to purifying them from the taint of dissimulation, they were instrumental in no small degree in putting the stronger and sterner elements of the movement into a thoroughly orderly position. The Baptist wing of the Stundists is undoubtedly the best organised and equipped. But if the German Baptists were at first so friendly and sympathetic, it is a matter of deep regret that latterly, when the storm and stress of persecution has beaten alike upon both sections of the Russian brethren, the Germans have held themselves studiously aloof. Secure in their own rights to worship God in their own way, they have proved themselves lacking in sympathy for their Russian co-religionists. We trust that they will no longer incur this reproach, and that they will now exert themselves to obtain for their Russian brethren what they enjoy for themselves. They are a powerful body, and their apparent callousness during the recent, persecutions is hardly to their credit.