The Paschkovites, as they came to be called, had nothing at all in common with the Khlystys. Their morals were absolutely unimpeachable, and what they preached was simply the necessity to conform one’s morals were absolutely unimpeachable, and what they explained and commented upon, each person according to his own light. They were Protestants in a certain sense, inasmuch as their views were distinctly Protestant ones. But they had much more in common with the nonconformists than the real followers of Luther or of Calvin. They were a kind of refined Salvation Army, if this expression can be forgiven me; though they never acquired the importance, nor did the good which the latter has done, perhaps because they could never make any practical application of the principles and of the ideas which animated them. But at one time the Paschkovist craze was just as strong as the Rasputin one became later on, and Lord Radstock and Mr. Paschkoff were considered just as much prophets among their own particular circle as was Rasputin among the fanatical ladies who had taken him up. These crises of religious mania are regular occurrences in Russian higher social circles when unusually grave circumstances arrive to shake their equanimity. Seen from this particular point of view, the apparition of Rasputin and the importance which his personality acquired in the life of the Russian upper classes present nothing very wonderful. Before him other so-called prophets had kept the attention of the public riveted upon their doings and their actions. What distinguished his short passage was the fact that it was made the occasion by the natural enemies of the empire, consisting of the discontented at home, and of the Germans outside the frontier, to discredit the dynasty as well as those whose life was spent in its immediate vicinity and to present this figure of the vagrant half-monk and half-layman, who preached a new relation to those foolish enough to listen to him, as being one of almost gigantic importance, who could at his will and fancy direct the course of public affairs and lead them wherever he wanted.