The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1903-07-10

QUEER PRACTICES WHICH AUG.
CLAM GAR MUST TOLERATE.

beets That Reject Priests and Prayer
--stsanaest Jumbles o. plsty ard In
fldellay and License 70 Be Found
AnyWhere-Ths Runners and Jump-
ers-The swltehers.
II the Gar OF Russia really ls In
earnest In Issuing hts ediet of religious
liberty, the queerest lot Of outlandish
faiths any nation ever saw will have
fun license TO practice their ideas.
How outre are same CT their doctrines
may be inferred from the niclmame8
applied to the devotees-Judaites
Adamites. Mutes, slghers, Svitchers,
Runners. Jumpers. and what not All
Of which proves the truth that It Is but
a step from the strictest tyranny ia the
widest license from hidabound oCtho-
doxy to blasphemous hetegDdoxy.
For no Christian government has
been more severe In matters of pub
lie worship than the Russian. Nomi-
nally It has tolerated all sects and
creeds-except, possibly tha Hebrew
but In reality these dissenters are
bound in their activity, hand and foot
They must not win a convert by pro-
selyting and no member of. the esv
tablished or orthodox church, is per-
mitted TO change his communion. But
in religious matters, repression and
persecution usually defeat their own
ends, so the crop of odd Dersuaslons'
is more rank IN Russia than. In any
free country.
Recently one Of these sects has been.
brought to the notice of Americans
by the emigration of many Of its mem
bers to Canada and by their strange
performances there-llberatiug their
live stock, hitching their women to
plows and refusing even to wear
shoes because they are made from the
skins of slaughtered animals. Yet the,
practices of the Doukhobors- are no
more peculiar than the customs Of a
hundred other dissenting danomina-
tons in the Cars dominions.
Russia was converted to Christian
y W AOA AG ~ DE9ln WILL. 4 AdL " do
in the first Vladimir's time. He had
his subjects immersed by wholesale,
three times, once each in the name of
the Father, of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost Yet now there is. not to be
found more profoundly religious peo-
pie than the Russians.
The Orthodox church has two class
es of Observation-Disclosures religious
brothers, monks, VINO are celibates,
like all the Roman Catholic clergy;
and white-robed secular priests, who
not only may, but must, be either mar.
ried or betrothed. Worship is con-
Quoted In the old Russian or SIavonic
tongue, as much OF a dead language
as AnglO-Saxon is to- Americans
AS a reaction against these rigorous
orders Of priesthood, most of the dis
senting sects of Russia are priestless.
AS a general rule they have neither
clergy nor sacraments. At their meet
ings some lay member reads tho Scrip
lures and the others comment thereon
as the spirit moves them.
Since there can be no legal marrfag-
es in Russia that are not solemnized
by priests OF the Orthodox church,
there can be no legal marriages in
these priestless sects. With them
nuptials are by mutual consent, of by
declaration of parents in the presence
of friends. Sometimes the ceremony
consists merely of bride and groom
holding the corners of the same hand
kerchief between them, not a word
being spoken. OF course, unions thus
contracted are just as easily severed,
and divorce may be had by mutual
consent.
Generally, these prfestless sects
frown upon permanent alliances. Hold
ing marriage to- be a weakness of the
flesh, they contend that the more
transient is love the better. These
anti-matrimonia cults run the full
gamut Of extremes, from absolute cell
back to free love. their only point Of
union being opposition to marriage by
priest.
Then there are the non-praying
sects, a revulsion from the rhetoric OF
the Russian prayerbook. God is a spirit,
they say, and must be wOrshipped in
spirit only, not in words, not even in
mental prayer. Even the singing of
hymns they hold to be sinful. Every
thing in the Bible is allegorical moth
ing to- be taken literally, and all must
be construed in a spiritual sense. The
Virgin Mary is merely a personifca-
ton of the Good Deed, of whom was
born the Divine Word. They divide
! the history Of the world into four neri-