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THE STUNDISTS.

is that of the ordinary peasants of his neighbourhood, and his occupation is generally tilling the soil. He receives no stipend of any description, except an occasional allowance for travelling expenses.

There is no such thing among the Stundists as courts of appeal. The Presbyterian system of session, synod and general assembly, with their several appellate jurisdictions, has nothing at all answering to it among the Russian Protestants. Nor is it at all likely that questions could arise among them calling for the exercise of the authority of a theological court. As we shall have occasion later on to show, Stundist theology is an exceedingly simple affair, and requires no buttressing with the authority of ecclesiastical courts. If a Stundist presbyter is deemed unsound on some doctrine held by the body as an essential, he is first warned and then excluded from communion. If he is a strong man, he takes his community with him, and the community is then known by his name. Among these Russian brethren quite a number of such offshoots exist—all of them sound on the great central truths of Christianity, but differing on what most sensible people agree in considering nonessentials.