CHAPTER XIV.
PRESENT CONDITION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS.
We have now arrived at the conclusion of these sketches descriptive of the history, progress, and inner life of probably the most remarkable religious movement since the Reformation. From its earlier beginnings, exactly thirtyfive years ago, in an insignificant German colony, from the conversion of the Russian peasant Onishenko, the seeds of native Protestantism have taken firm root, and have spread outwards and upwards into a mighty growth. We have followed the course of the wonderful movement from village to village and from province to province, from the notable day when the light came to the simple peasant of Osnova, until we could number its adherents at a quarter of a million. Indeed, in placing the number of Stundists at this figure, we have in all probability underestimated them. M. Dalton, a Lutheran clergyman, long resident in St. Petersburg, and whose knowledge of religious movements in Russia is very considerable, goes so far as to say that they are two millions strong. But it is not alone to the actual number of professing Stundists that we are to look in estimating the force and extent of the movement which they have inaugurated in Russia. The idea which first found a place in the minds and souls of a few peasants in the province of Kherson, although its progress and growth has always been accompanied by persecution of a most infamous description, has
