PEREKOP 



PERFECTIONISTS 



45 



Perekop, ISTHMUS OF, in South Russia, con- 

 necting the peninsula of the Crimea (q.v. ) with the 

 mainland of European Russia. For the dimen- 

 sions and course of the ship-canal through the 

 isthmus ( projected in 1888, but not begun in 1898 ), 

 see CANAL, Vol. II. p. 701. In the north of the 

 isthmus is the small town of Perekop ; pop. 5000. 



Pere-la-haise. See LACUAISE ; and for the 

 cemetery, PARIS, p. 764. 



Perennial, in Hotany, a term employed in 

 contradistinction to Annual (q.v. ) and Biennial 

 (q. v. {, to designate plants which subsist for a 

 number of years. Some plants, however, which 

 are annual in cold climates are perennial in 

 warmer regions. The term perennial is in general 

 applied only to herbaceous plants, and indicates a 

 property only of their roots, the steins of most of 

 them dying at the end of each summer. Perennial 

 herbaceous plants, like shrulis and trees, are cap- 

 able of producing flowers and fruit time after time, 

 in wliidi they differ from annual and biennial 

 plants, which are fruitful only once. Those plants 

 wliich are capable of being propagated by cloves, 

 offset bulbs, or tubers are ail perennial. Thus, the 

 potato is a perennial plant, although the crop is 

 planted in soring and reaped in autumn, like that 

 of corn, whiUt all the corn plants are annuals. 

 There is great diversity ill the duration of life of 

 perennial plants. 



Pereslavl, a town of Russia, 96 miles NK. of 

 Morrow by rail. It has a I2tli-century cathedral, 

 iMiton manufactures, and lake-tisheries. Pop. 7466. 



Per'/.. Avi-nxni, minister of Philip II. of 

 Spain, wan born in Aragon in l.~>39. His reputed 

 father was an ecclesiastic who was secretary to 

 Charles V. and Philip II., and he himself was 

 appointed to this office when only twenty-live 

 years of age, and acquired the entire confidence of 

 the king. Don John of Austria having sent his 

 confidant. Juan de Kscovedo, to Spain, to solicit 

 aid against the party of Orange, and Kscovedo 

 having rendered himself an object of suspicion to 

 the king as an abettor of Don John's ambitious 

 schemes, Philip resolved to put him out of the way 

 by murder, and entrusted Perez with the accom- 

 pli*limeiit of this design, which Perez accomplished 

 accordingly, 31st March 1578. The family of Ksco- 

 veilo denounced Perez as the murderer, and .all his 

 enemies joined against him. The king at first 

 nought to shield him ; but in July 1581 he was 

 arrested, and by torture forced to confess. He 

 succeeded, however, in making his escape to 

 Aragon, where he put himself under protection of 

 its fiieros, which secured a trial in open court. 

 The king, charging him with heresy, now applied 

 for aid in May l."i!)l to the Inquisition, and the 

 Aragonese court delivered him up to its agents ; 

 but the people rose in tumult and liberated him. 

 This happened repeatedly ; and at last, in Septem- 

 lier 1591, Philip II. entered Aragon with an army 

 powerful enough U> sulnlue aU opposition, and 

 abolished the old constitutional privileges of the 

 country. Perez, 'however, made his escape, was 

 condemned in Spain as a heretic, but was treated 

 with great kindness in I'aris and in London, where 

 he was the intimate of Bacon and the Earl of 

 H-sex. He spent the later years of his life in 

 Paris, and died there, 3d November 1611, in great 

 poverty. Perez wrote Relaciones (1598), which 

 some recent writers have regarded as lying fabri- 

 c:iiions. 



S.v- Mignet's monograph (5th ed. 1881); Morel-Fatio, 

 /.' A'../"""' ,,,t XVI. et auXVII. Sitde (1878) ; also Fronde 

 in Thf Nf*ini*>i xtuni <,f Ihi Armniln (]8!)2) : and works 

 l .it I'liii.ii' II. 



y, or PKHKKCTIONISM, the U-. 

 tiine that man in a state of grace may attain to 



perfection in this life. Catholics hold that no one, 

 not even the most holy, can avoid sin altogether 

 except by a special privilege of God, as in the case 

 of the Blessed Virgin ; the justified do not, how- 

 ever, commit mortal, but venial sins (see SIN). In 

 various points Franciscans, Jesuits, and Molinists 

 approach to a doctrine of perfection denied by 

 Dominicans and Jansenists. Among Protestants, 

 \Vesleyan Methodists believe in the possibility of a 

 <'lii-istian perfection attainable in this life. It is 

 not a perfection of justification, but a perfection of 

 sitiii-tijiration ; which John Wesley, in a sermon 

 on Christian Perfection, from the text Heb. vi. 1, 

 ' Let us go on to perfection,' earnestly contends for 

 as attainable in this life by believers, by arguments 

 founded chiefly on the commandments and promises 

 of Scripture concerning sanctification ; guarding his 

 doctrine, however, by saying that it is neither an 

 angelic nor an Adtimic perfection, and does not 

 exclude ignorance and error of judgment, with con- 

 sequent wrong affections, such as 'needless fear or 

 ill-grounded hope, unreasonable love, or unreason- 

 able aversion.' He admits, also, that even in this 

 sen~e it is a rare attainment. The Friends profess 

 that the justified may be 'free from actual sinning 

 and transgression of the law of God, and in that 

 respect perfect. Yet doth this perfection admit 

 of a growth ; and there reinainetn a possibility of 

 sinning where the mind doth not most diligently 

 ami watchfully attend unto the Lord." Other 

 schools also hold similar views ; but most Pro- 

 testants repudiate the doctrine of Perfectibility. 

 The general lielief of Protestant Christians is that 

 those who have professed a belief in their own 

 perfectibility were merely more self-complacent 

 an<l less sensible of their own corruptions than is 

 usual, and that the commands and promises con- 

 cerning sanctification are all susceptible of an ex- 

 planation consistent with remaining corruption in 

 believers, and a need of further sanctification, or a 

 continued going on unto perfection whilst this life 

 endures. 



Perfection, COUNSELS OF. See SUPERERO- 

 GATION. 



Perfectionists, also called BIBLE COMMUN- 

 ISTS and FKEE-LOVERS, a small American sect, 

 founded by John Humphrey Noyes, who was born 

 at Brattleboro, Vermont, 6th September 1811, 

 graduated at Dartmouth in 1830, then studied law, 

 and afterwards theology at A ndover and Yale. While 

 a theological student, he experienced a second con- 

 version, discovered that the prevailing theology was 

 wholly wrong, and lost his license to preach. He 

 held tliat the gospel if accepted secures freedom from 

 sin ; that God has a dual body (male and female) ; 

 that the author of evil is uncreated, but not God ; 

 and that communion with Christ not merely saves 

 from sinning, but from disease and death. He now- 

 founded a 'Perfectionist' church at Putney, Ver- 

 mont. He and his converts, men and women, 

 with their children, put their property into a com- 

 mon stock; they gave up the use of prayer, all 

 religious service, and the observance or the Sab 

 bath ; those who were married renounced their 

 marriage ties, and a ' complex marriage ' was 

 established between all the males and all the 

 females of the 'Family.' Having dispensed with 

 law, he set up public opinion as a controlling power 

 in its stead ; and free criticism of one another by 

 the members of the society became an important 

 feature of his system. In 1848, after not a few 

 difficulties, the community removed to a new home 

 in the sequestered district of Oneida, in the state of 

 New York, and soon numbered some 300 members, 

 living in strict order and with much outward com- 

 fort on thoroughly communistic principles the 

 community of women and of children being an 



