The sun., 1898-12-04
william Lloyd Garrison Has His
Eye on This State for Strange
Religious Sect.
VICTIMS OF PERSECUTION
Description OF These Peculiar People
for Whom Committee Is Prepar-
ing Home In This Country
When They Arrive
From Russia,

Delaware may become the home OF the
most peculiar religious sect in the world.
They are coming to this country from
Russia and the committee formed in
Philadelphia has opened correspondence
with and visited several localities and
communities in this country, among
which is Delaware, for the purpose of Sc
curing the necessary home.
In this committee is William Lloyd
Garrison, the prominent Single Tax ex.
ponent, who was throughout a recent
campaign in Delaware the leading Single
Tax campaigner and advocate of the late
Henry Georges principles. DR.. Garri-
son remarked on the occasion OF his last
address in the Grand Opera House in
this city, that perchance the people
OF Delaware would hear OF him again
visiting this soil.
DR.. Garrison seemed particularly i'm
pressed with Delaware and Delawareans,
and, from recent correspondence and a
visit made by DR.. Garrison to Whining
ton, it is highly probable that the pro-
teges of the committee, of which he is a
member or at least part of them, may
be sent to dwell among the people of his
choice.
DR.. Garrison after communicating with
one of the leading men of this State
came, few weeks ago, to see that gen.
tieman, and unfolded to him the plan
which proposed to discover home for
this peculiar religious sect At the time
of DR.. Garrison's visit here it was not
known what object he had in coming as
he did not join extensively in the politi-
cal campaign then in progress. Other
members of the committee are William
Dean Howells, Jane Addams, of the
Hull House, Chicago; Rev. DR.. George
Dana Boardman, OF Philadelphia; N. o.
Nelson, of St. Louis, and Bolton Hall
and Ernest H. Crosby, of New York.
Isaac N.Seligman is treasurer Of the COM
mittee.
Dr. Garrison describes the religious
sect as being very peculiar and says that
these latter day pilgrim fathers will sure
ly invade the United States.
"Every portion of this country is pros
pective home for these Dhaukhobortsi.
Delaware having become the stamping
ground for both political and religious
fanatics, it is just probable that home
will be sought for this sect in this State" !"
A study of their belief is interesting
and at the same time puzzling.
Their name means spirit wrestlers or
champions OF the spirit. They were
first heard of publicly in Russia in 1850,
when they were unearthed by the I'M
perial police. Their origin is directly
traceable to an English Quaker resident
in Russia.
They deny the existence of personal
God, and believe God lives in the soul
of every man, and is inseparable from
any human being. According to their
doctrine memory is God the Father;
reason, God the Son, and will, God the
Holy Ghost. They accept the fall Of
Adam as historical, but deny that it had
anything to do with the fall of any other
man. contending that the fault was
Adams alone, and descended to no
one else. They regard Christ as moth
ing more than good man.
They say they are the only true wor-
shippers Of God. and regard the rest Of
the world as superstitious and idola-
trous. They consider, however, that
their church comprises all neu who
know that God has chosen them, though
such cannot be recognized by any out.
ward sign.
They believe in the Immortality of the
soul, but not in hell paradise, or the
prospective destruction of the world.
When the millennium comes, they say,
all sinners will be wiped away and the
righteous will possess the earth, but still
be obliged to work, be born and die just
as now.
According to their belief, a child has
no soul until one enters its body. some
time between its sixth and fifteenth
years.
In social intercourse they acknowledge
no such relationships as father and
child, and denounce the compulsion of
one man to do the will Of another as
sacrilege. The greatest abomination in
their eyes before God is the Russian gov
eminent, yet they are the most submis.
sive men, have never offered the slightest
resistance, and have always paid their
taxes with the utmost punctuality.
Their family ties are based entirely on
mutual affection. When affection ceases
they leave each other. They call their
wives sisters. Children call their father
and mother old man and old woman,
and parents speak OF their offspring a.
children Of the tribe and not of indi-
viduals.
Their first severe persecution began on
August 2S, 1893, under a ukase OF Paul
|, in which he ordered that all members
OF thi. sect should be banished to the ST.
berlan mines for life.
| They were condemned to the hardest
work, and their hands and feet were al
ways to bear chains, so that, in the lam
guage Of the ukase, 'they who deny the
supreme authority OF earthly potentates,
enthroned by the will of God, should
feel sharply on their own bodies that
there are authorities established by God
on earth for the defence of the good and
for the chastisement OF villains like
themselves"
In consequence OF this ukase about
fifteen thousand persons were transport
ed to Siberia. They were flogged repeat
edly with knouts, and in three hundred
instances, according to official records,
were mutilated.
Alexander gave them permission, in
1882, to colonize on a Siberian farm,
which their thrift and industry made
very valuable in short time. In 1889
their number had increased to twenty
hve thousand, and the government
seized their farm, sending all those able