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THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.

complete religious freedom; but sometimes, in their zeal to be on good terms with their rulers, they adopt the new religion without laying aside the old. I have heard of the chief of a tribe of Yakouts, a savage and idolatrous people in Northern Siberia, who joined the Russian Church and was baptized. He attended faithfully to all its observances, and at the same time did not neglect anything pertaining to his old belief. When about to make a journey, or to undertake any other enterprise, he


A COLLEGE DORMITORY.

offered prayers in the church, and then summoned the shaman, or Pagan priest of his tribe, to perform incantations and bribe the evil spirits not to molest him. On being questioned as to his action, he said he was not certain which belief was the right one, and he wanted to make sure by professing both."

One of the youths asked the Doctor about the treatment of the Jews in Russia. He had read that they were greatly oppressed in some parts of the Empire, and that many of them had been killed for no other reason than that they were Jews.

"That is quite true," the Doctor answered; "but the outrages were the work of excited mobs, rather than acts authorized by the Government. There is much fanaticism among the lower orders of Russians and they were roused to what they did by stories which the priests had