"My duty is to report and not to judge," said I, dryly. "I owe it to my authority to reproduce his views as he gave them to me. The only thing that I can do is to add your criticism to my report." They were satisfied with this offer; and in accordance therewith I have reproduced the interview. FOOTNOTE: [10] An interview with a Russian Conservative. XXV SECTARIANS AND SOCIALISTS I was taken one day to see a young Russian nobleman who was making a special study of the nature of sects. We drove to the outermost skirts of Moscow and stopped before a small palace. My companion, another young boyar, spoke to the servants, and after a few minutes we were conducted up a broad marble staircase to the first floor, where a suite of rooms furnished in extremely modern style opened out before us. I remarked to my companion that, after all, there really are no boundaries between countries, for this little palace with its very modern interior might just as well have been in Paris or London as here in Moscow. Instead of answering, the boyar motioned towards the ikon which hung in a corner. Modern furnishings, a bookcase filled with the most modern philosophical literature, and above it the orthodox ikon--we were in Moscow, after all. The master of the house came in and embraced and kissed his friend. I was introduced, and we shook hands. Cigarettes were lighted, and without further formalities the young host took some manuscripts from a shelf and began to give me a private reading. My companion helped out when the reader's vocabulary failed him. It is thus that I am in a position to give from my notes the following excerpts from a work which cannot be printed in Russia, because it deals with the forbidden subject of the character of sects in a fashion not entirely acceptable to the censor. The significance of sects in the inner structure of Russian life is best shown by some figures which give approximately their membership. In the year 1860 about ten million Raskolniks (non-conformists) were counted; in 1878, fourteen million; in 1897, twenty million; and to-day they number thirty million. These non-conformists not only do not belong to the orthodox church, but stand in hostility to the state, which identifies itself with the orthodox church. The sects are constantly increasing in number, and there is no doubt whatever that they answer much better to the religious needs of the Russian people than the state church, just as they already comprise what is morally the best part of the nation.