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CHAPTER X.
RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL IDEAS—I.
"The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants," is a saying attributed to an English divine of the last century. The Stundists are probably more circumscribed still. The New Testament, and the New Testament alone, is the religion of Stundists. Theoretically, they pay the same reverence to both Old and New Testaments; practically, the New Testament is their only rule of faith and conduct. It is in an especial degree for them the Word of God; its precepts are not antiquated or obsolete; it is God's latest and only revelation to man, in which the plan of salvation is unfolded. This is probably the most important article of the Stundist creed, and it is held with a firmness that almost amounts to a passion. No Stundist is without a New Testament; most of them carry it about with them at their work; and in moments of relaxation, when the ordinary Orthodox peasant seeks the village drink-shop, the Stundist retires to some quiet spot to study his "Yevangeliye." It is no common knowledge he possesses of it; he is deeply read in the oracles of God; he feels that men like himself—common workmen, fishermen, tent-cloth weavers, carpenters—were the men chosen by God as the vehicles of His Spirit, and that it is a revelation in all ways suited to his wants, and written for such as he is.