It was the hope of his bishop that he would bring in stragglers to the fold; not that he should set up for himself a broader camp in another name and under a bolder flag. Ilyin went out among the sectaries who abound in every province · of the empire; and to these men of wayward mind he preached a doctrine which his ecclesiastical patrons fancied to be that of the Orthodox faith. In every place he drew to himself the hearts of men; winning them alike by the splendor of his eloquence and by the purity of his life.

Early married, early blessed with children, happy in his home, Ilyin could give up hand and heart to the work he had found. He took from the Book of Revelation the name of Right-hand Brethren, as an appropriate title for all true members of the church; his purpose being to proclaim the present unity and future salvation of all the friends of God.

A good soldier, a good man of business, Ilyin was sent to the government works, in the province of Perm, in the Ural Mountains, where he found time, in the midst of his purely military duties, for preaching among the poor, and drawing some of those who had strayed into separation back into the orthodox fold. His enemies admit that in those days of his work in the Ural Mountains he lived a holy life. Going on state affairs to the mines of Barancha, where the Government owns a great many iron works and steel works, he saw among the sectaries of that district, most of whom were exiles suffering for their conscience' sake, a field for the exercise of his talents as a preacher of the word, a reconciler of men. But the martyrs of free thought whom he met in the mines of Barancha, were to him what the Kaffir chieftains were to the Bishop of Natal. They put him to the test. They showed him the darker side of his cause. They led him to doubt whether reconciliation was to be expected from metropolites and monks. Forced into a sharper scrutiny of his own belief, Ilyin at length gave up his advocacy of the Orthodox faith, and even ceased to attend the Orthodox mass.

A secret Church was slowly formed in the province of Perm, of which Ilyin was the chief. Not much was known in high quarters about his doings, until Protopopoff, one of his pupils, was accused of some trifling offense, connected with the public service, and brought to trial. Protopopoff was a

leading man among the Ural dissenters. His true offense was some expression against the Church. Ilyin appeared in public as his friend and advocate. Protopopoff was condemned: and Ilyin closely watched. Ere long, the director-general of the Ural Mines reported to his chief, the minister of finance in St. Petersburg, that in one of his districts he had found existing among the miners a new religious body, calling themselves, in secret, Right-hand Brethren, of which body Nicolas Ilyin, captain of artillery in the Emperor's service, was the chief and priest.

Not a little frightened by his discoveries, the director-general lost his head. In his report to the minister of finance, he said a good deal of these reconcilers that was not true. He charged them with circumcising children, with advocating a community of goods and lands, with propagating doctrines fatally at war with imperial order in Church and State.

It is true that under the name of Gospel love, the followers of Ilyin taught very strongly the necessity and sanctity of mutual help. They spoke to the poor, and bade them take heart of grace; bidding them look, not only for bliss in a better world, but for a reign of peace and plenty on the earth. In the great questions of serf and soil, two points around which all popular politics then moved, they took a part with the peasant against his lord, though Ilyin was himself of noble birth. These things appeared to the director-general of mines anarchical and dangerous, and Ilyin was denounced by him to the minister of finance as a man who was compromising the public peace.

But the fact which more than all else struck the council in St. Petersburg, was the zeal of Ilyin's pupils in spreading his doctrine of the unity and brotherhood of mankind. The new society was said to be perfect in unity. The first article of their association was the need for missionary work; and every member of the sect was an apostle, eager to spend his strength and give his life in building up the friends of God. A man who either could not or would not convert the Gentile was considered unworthy of a place on His right hand. At the end of seven years a man who brought no sheep into the fold was expelled as wanting in holy fire. Ilyin is alleged to have declared that there was no salvation beyond the pale

of this new church, and that all those who professed any other creed would find their position at the last day on the left hand of God, while the true brethren found their seats on His right. This story is not likely to be true; and an intolerant Church is always ready with such a cry. It is not asserted that the new Church had any printed books, or even circulars, in which these things were taught. The doctrine was alleged to be contained in certain manuscript gospels, copied by proselytes and passed from one member to another; such manuscript gospels having been written, in the first instance at least, by Ilyin himself.

A special commission was named by the ministers to investigate the facts; and this commission, proceeding at once into the Ural Mines, arrested many of the members, and seized some specimens of these fugitive gospel sheets. Ilyin, questioned by the commissioners, avowed himself the author of these Gospel tracts, which he showed them were chiefly copies of sayings extracted from the Sermon on the Mount. scathing terms, he challenged the right of these commissioners to judge and condemn the words of Christ. Struck by his eloquence and courage, the commission hardly knew what to say; but as practical men, they hinted that a captain of the imperial artillery holding such doctrines must be unsound in mind.

In

A report from these commissioners being sent, as usual, to the Holy Governing Synod, that board of monks made very short work of this pretender to sacred gifts. The reconciler of creeds and men was lodged in the Convent of the Frozen Sea until he should put away his tolerance, give up his dream of reconciliation, and submit his conscience to the guidance of a monk.

And so the reconciler rests in his convent ward. The Holy Governing Synod treats such men as children who have gone astray; looking forward to the wanderer coming round to his former state. The sentence, therefore, runs in some such form as this: "You will be sent to where you will stay, under sound discipline, until you have been brought to a better mind." Unless the man is a rogue, and yields in policy, one sees how long such sentences are likely to endure!

Nicolas Ilyin is a learned man, with whom no monk in the

Convent of Solovetsk is able to contend in speech. A former Archimandrite tried his skill; but the prisoner's verbal fence and knowledge of Scripture were too much for his feeble powers; and the man who had repulsed the English fleet retired discomfited from Ilyin's cell.

Once the prisoner got away, by help of soldiers who had known him in his happier days. Escaping in a boat to Onega Point, he might have gone his way overland, protected by the people; but instead of hiding himself from his pursuers, he began to teach and preach. Denounced by the police, he was quickly sent back to his dungeon; while the soldiers who had borne some share in his escape were sent to the Siberian mines for life.

The noble name and courtly family of Ilyin are supposed to have saved the arrested fugitive from convict labor in the mines.

My efforts to procure a pardon for the old man failed; at least, for a time; the answer to my plea being sent to me in these vague words: "Après l'examin du dossier de l'affaire d'Ilyin, il resulte qu'il n'y a pas eu d'arrêt de mise en liberté." Yet men like Nicolas Ilyin are the salt of this earth; men who will go through fire and water for their thought; men who would live a true life in a dungeon rather than a false life in the richest mansions of the world!

CHAPTER XXIII.

ADRIAN PUSHKIN.

EXCEPT the fact of their having been lodged in the Convent of Solovetsk in neighboring cells, under the same hard rule, Adrian Pushkin and Nicolas Ilyin have nothing in common; neither age nor rank; neither learning nor talent; not an opinion; not a sympathy; not a purpose. Pushkin is young, Ilyin is old. Pushkin is of burgher, Ilyin of noble birth. Pushkin is uneducated in the higher sense; Ilyin is a scholar to whom all systems of philosophy lie open. Pushkin is not clever; Ilyin is considered, even by his persecutors, as a man of the highest powers.

Yet Pushkin's story, from the man's obscurity, affords a still more curious instance of the dark and difficult way through which a beneficent and reforming government has to pass.

Early in the spring of 1866, a youth of good repute in his class and district, that of a small burgher, in the town of Perm, began to make a stir on the Ural slopes, by announcing to the peasant dissenters of that region the second coming of our Lord, and offering himself as the reigning Christ!

Such an event is too common to excite remark in the upper ranks, until it has been seen by trial whether the announcement takes much hold on the peasant mind. In Pushkin's case, the neighbors knew their prophet well. From his cradle he had been frail in body and flushed in mind. When he was twenty years old, the doctors were consulted on his state of mind; and though they would not then pronounce him crazy, they reported him as a youth of weak and febrile pulse, afflicted with disease of the heart; a boy who might, at any moment of his life, go mad. Easy work, in country air, was recommended. A place was got for him in the country, on the Countess Strogonof's estate, not far from Perm. He was made a kind of clerk and overseer; a place of trust, in which the work was light; but even this light labor proved too great for him to bear. In doing his duty to his mistress, his mind gave way; and when the light went out on earth, the poor idiot offered his help in leading other men up to heaven.

Many of the people near him knew that he was crazed; but his unsettled wits were rather a help than hindrance to his success in stirring up the village wine-shop and the workman's shed. In every part of the East some touch of idiotcy is looked for in a holy man; the wandering eye, the broken phrase, the distracted mien, being read as signs of the Holy Spirit. The province of Perm is rich in sectaries; many of whom watch and pray continually for the second coming of our Lord. Among these sectaries, Adrian found some listeners to his tale. He spoke to the poor, and of the poor. ing the peasants to his side, he pictured to them a kingdom of heaven in which they would owe no taxes and pay no rent. The earth, he told them, was the Lord's; a paradise given by

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