Outside the Winter Palace and the Official Church dissent was growing and thriving throughout his reign. No doubt some few conformed--with halters round their throats. When autocrat and monk combined to crush all those who held aloof from the State religion, the sincere dissenter had to pass through bitter times; but spiritual passion is not calmed by firing volleys into the house of prayer; and the result of thirty years of savage persecution is, that these non-conformists are to-day more numerous, wealthy, concentrated, than they were on the day when Nicolas began his reign. No man in Russia pretends to know the names, the numbers, and the tenets of these sects, still less the secrets of their growth. A mystery is made of them on every side. The Minister of Police divides them into four large groups, which he names and classifies as follows: I.--DUKHOBORTSI, Champions of the Holy Spirit. II.--MOLOKANI, Milk Drinkers. III.--KHLYSTI, Flagellants. IV.--SKOPTSI, Eunuchs. In our day it is rare to find self-deception carried to so high a point as in this official list. Four groups! Why, the Russian dissenters boast, like their Hindoo brethren, of a hundred sects. The classification is no less strange. The Champions of the Holy Spirit are neither an ancient nor a strong society. The Milk Drinkers are of later times than the Flagellants and the Eunuchs. The Flagellants are not so numerous as the Eunuchs, though they probably surpass in strength the Champions of the Holy Spirit. The Flagellants and Eunuchs are of ancient date--no one knows how ancient; the Flagellants going back to the fourteenth century at least; the Eunuchs going back to the Scythian ages; while the Milk Drinkers and the Champions of the Holy Spirit sprang into life in the times of Peter the Great. CHAMPIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.