He had travelled much, and had been an attentive observer.

Whether he had ever been in America was doubtful, but he had certainly been in Turkey, and had fraternised with various Russian sectarians, who are to be found in considerable numbers near the Danube.

Here, probably, he acquired many of his peculiar religious ideas, and conceived his grand scheme of founding a new religion--of rivalling the Founder of Christianity! He aimed at nothing less than this, as he on one occasion confessed, and he did not see why he should not be successful.

He believed that the Founder of Christianity had been simply a man like himself, who understood better than others the people around him and the circumstances of the time, and he was convinced that he himself had these qualifications.

One qualification, however, for becoming a prophet he certainly did not possess: he had no genuine religious enthusiasm in him--nothing of the martyr spirit about him.