"Are the Molokanye, then, very bad people ?" "Not at all.

The Molokanye are good and honest." "Why, then, do you think their faith is so much worse than that of the Mahometans ?" "How shall I tell you ?" The peasant here paused as if to collect his thoughts, and then proceeded slowly, "The Tartars, you see, received their faith from God as they received the colour of their skins, but the Molokanye are Russians who have invented a faith out of their own heads!" This singular answer scarcely requires a commentary.

As it would be absurd to try to make Tartars change the colour of their skins, so it would be absurd to try to make them change their religion.

Besides this, such an attempt would be an unjustifiable interference with the designs of Providence, for, in the peasant's opinion, God gave Mahometanism to the Tartars just as he gave the Orthodox faith to the Russians.
The ecclesiastical authorities do not formally adopt this strange theory, but they generally act in accordance with it.

There is little official propaganda among the Mahometan subjects of the Tsar, and it is well that it is so, for an energetic propaganda would lead merely to the stirring up of any latent hostility which may exist deep down in the nature of the two races, and it would not make any real converts.