Although most of the sects of which we have spoken sprang from the orthodox church, the molokanes and the stoundists were indirect fruits of the Protestant church, and even among the Jews there were cases of religious mania to be found.

Leaving out of account the karaÏtts of Southern Russia, formerly the frankists—who ultimately became good Christians—we may remark from time to time some who rejected the articles of the Jewish faith, and even accepted the divinity of Christ. Such a one was Jacques Preloker, founder of the "new Israel," a Russian-Jew philosopher who discovered the divine sermon on the Mount eighteen hundred and seventy-eight years after it had been delivered. This was the beginning of a revolution of his whole religious thought, which resulted in 1879 in the founding of a new sect at Odessa. The philosopher desired an intimate relationship with the Christian faith, and dreamed of the supreme absorption of the Jewish Church into that of Christ. In his new-found adoration for the Christian Gospel, he tried by every means in his power to lessen the distance between it and Judaism, but, though some were attracted by his ardour, many were repelled by the boldness of his conceptions.

Towards the end of his life, the bankrupt philosopher, still dignified and serious, although fallen from the height of his early dreams, made his appearance on the banks of the Thames, and there endeavoured to continue his propaganda and to explain to an unheeding world the beauties of the Jewish-Christian religion.