Sabbath-Keepers in Russia.
By J. N. L.
WRITING from Neuchatel, Oct. 28., Bro. J. N. Andrews says: “In the new edition of my Sabbath History, pp. 464–467, I have shown that there are many Sabbath-keeping Christians in Russia, and that their history dates back at least one century earlier than the reformation under Martin Luther. I have just met with an interesting confirmation of this statement. There lives in this vicinity a sister by the name of Pigueron, who with her daughter removed in 1871 to Roumania, a province of the Turkish Empire which borders on Russia. She returned last year. She states that the brother of her daughter's husband visited Russia, and on his return told her that there were people in Russia who keep the seventh day as the Sabbath. He said that they had churches, but that they were much scattered by persecution; that there are many of them, and that they kept it from their forefathers. I will in due time give a further account of these observers of the ancient Sabbath.” The day after reading the above, I met, in Oakland, a Russian school teacher, who left Russia seven years since. He was well acquainted with many of the Sabbath-keeping Russians, has been in their houses, conversed with them, and partaken of their plain, frugal diet. He says there are many thousands of these Molokaners, that they are earnest believers in Christ, and even make more use of the New Testament than the Greek or Russian church. He said they were not brought out on the Sabbath, by missionaries but by their own investigations of the Bible. They now have teachers and ministers among them, but they are those who have received their information and education among the Molokaners themselves. He says they are an intelligent, energetic people, and many of them quite wealthy. He stated that this sect commenced in Russia in Europe a long time ago, that they were considered as heretics, and dangerous to the religion of the empire, and were banished over the Ural Mountains, but that they prospered more after their banishment than before. Before their banishment they were serfs, or renters of land; but, since their banishment, many of them have become peasants, or moderate sized farm owners. We shall watch with interest for what Bro. Andrews shall say of them.