It is impossible in a sketch like this to give a hundredth

part of the cases of atrocious persecution which have been brought to our knowledge during the past ten years. We can only pick out examples here and there from all parts of the South of Russia, and present these to our readers as cases representing hundreds of others. Yegor Ivanov was a sergeant in the army reserve, who, when serving as a soldier, had been converted to Protestantism. He had been promoted to the gendarmerie, and had been indiscreet enough to be present once at a gathering of Stundists, where an icon was smashed with a hatchet. He himself had taken no part in the iconoclasm; but he was a sympathiser. A jury found him guilty of being accessory to the act, and he was banished for life, with the forfeiture of all personal rights and privileges. His journey to the remote part of Transcaucasia, appointed as his abode, was a terrible one. In chains he tramped across the snows of the Caucasian passes, and the scenes at night in the ill-ventilated étape houses were awful. The stifling atmosphere, the indecency, the loathsome vermin, the brutality of the guard, he will never forget. He wonders that he did not become insane.

Let us next take the case of Ivan Golovtchenko, a Stundist preacher in the province of Ekaterinoslav. He was taken before the Court on a charge of propagating Stundist doctrines. The evidence against him was of the flimsiest character, but it was sufficient, nevertheless, to convince an Orthodox jury of peasants of his guilt. He was sentenced to three years in gaol. As soon as his term of imprisonment had expired, the authorities made inquiry in his native village if he was a safe person to permit to return to his home. The priest to whom this inquiry was addressed held up his hands in holy horror at the idea. "Certainly not," he replied, "he is an arch heretic, and would only lead my flock astray."