ive; an artist
with sketch-book in hand would have many a good chance of catching
graphic heads and costumes, and all the more easily because these
pilgrims are not so lively as lethargic. Still, for grand scenic
impression, I have never in Russia witnessed any church function so
striking as the piazza in front of St. Peter's on Easter Day, when
all Rome flocks to receive the Pope's blessing from the balcony.
Yet the whole interior of this cathedral is itself a picture, or
rather a countless succession of pictures; as to the architecture
there is not the minutest space that has not been emblazoned by
aid of a paint-pot.

But the greatest marvel in this Cathedral of the Assumption is
the iconostas, or screen for the sacred pictures, a structure
indispensable to all Russian churches, of which I have withheld the
description till now, when I find myself in front of a large and
more astounding erection than can be found in St. Petersburg, Moscow,
or Troitza. In small churches these sacred placards, bearing the
character of drop-scenes, are apt to be paltry, indeed the irreverent
stranger may even be reminded of painted caravans at village fairs.
But in large cathedrals the screen which stands between the people
in the nave and the priests in the holy of holies, presents a vast
facade, upon which are ranged, in three, four, or five stories,
a multitude of sacred pictures covered with gold and decked with
jewels. These elaborate contrivances correspond to the reredos
in Western churches, only with this important difference, that
they are not behind the holy place but in front of it. They might,
perhaps, with more correctness be compared to the rood-screens which
in our churches stand between the altar and the people. The sacred
screen now before me mounts its head into the dome, and presents an
imposing and even an architectonic aspect, but certain details,
such as classic mouldings of columns, and a broken entablature,
pronounce the edifice to be comparatively modern. The summit is
fitly crowned by a crucifix, almost in the flat, in order not to
evade the law of the Russian Church, which prohibits statues in the
round; the figure of Christ is silver, the cross and the drapery
of gold or silver-gilt. On either side of the crucifix stand in
their prescriptive stations the Madonna and St. John. On the story
beneath comes the entombment, all covered with gold and silver,
in a low-relief which indicates the forms of the figures