A Peculiar People Author:Aylmer Maude Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER V FIRST YEARS IN CANADA When I had nearly finished writing this book, I found there was a serious gap separating the first chapters from the concludi... more »ng ones, This came about in the following way. I had observed the Doukhobdr movement from 1898 till 1899, using as an explanation of what was happening, the Tolstoyau assumption that the Doukhobdrs were morally far above ordinary humanity, and were persecuted just because they were so good. When they began to act unreasonably, and to give much needless trouble to the Canadians, I was puzzled, and wished to accept the ingenious explanations evolved by the Tolstoyans. I found, however, that though each of these explanations taken by itself was plausible, the total effect of trying to accept a succession of different explanations for a succession of fresh vagaries indulged in by the Doukhobdrs, was extremely confusing. I watched events, received frequent news from Canada, and talked with Russian and English friends returning from helping the Doukhobdrs; but for lack of a key to the situation I was,- for a long time, unable to trace a rational sequence in what went on. By the time the Pilgrimages occurred, of which an account is given in later chapters of this book, I had learnt—partly from what was told me by Russian friends who hadlived among them, and partly also from Doukhobdr history, to look to Verigin's authority, and to the theory of a God-Man always present among them, for a solution of the mystery. From then to the present time I have been able to follow what has occurred as a consecutive drama. Still, however, I felt a difficulty about recalling the confused incidents of the years 1899-1902 with sufficient precision to reduce them to any sort of order. There was, therefore, some danger that this fifth chapter of my ...« less