What effect the birch-twigs had on the religious convictions of the Stundisti I have not been able to ascertain, but I assume that they were not very efficacious, for according to the latest accounts the numbers of the sect are increasing.

Of the mission in the province of Samara I happen to know more, and can state on the evidence of many peasants--some of them Orthodox--that the only immediate effect was to stir up religious fanaticism, and to induce a certain number of Orthodox to go over to the heretical camp.
In their public discussions the disputants could find no common ground on which to argue, for the simple reason that their fundamental conceptions were different.

The monk spoke of the Church as the terrestrial representative of Christ and the sole possessor of truth, whilst his opponents knew nothing of a Church in this sense, and held simply that all men should live in accordance with the dictates of Scripture.

Once the monk consented to argue with them on their own ground, and on that occasion he sustained a signal defeat, for he could not produce a single passage recommending the veneration of Icons--a practice which the Russian peasants consider an essential part of Orthodoxy.

After this he always insisted on the authority of the early Ecumenical Councils and the Fathers of the Church--an authority which his antagonists did not recognise.