argaining between the shepherd and his flock. Would-be
couples often wait for months until a sum can be fixed upon with
his reverence for tying the knot; and sometimes, by means of daily
haggling, the amount first asked can be reduced by one-half, for
the cost of the ceremony varies--according to the social status of
the happy pair--from ten to one hundred roubles. Funerals, too, are
at times postponed for most unhealthy periods during this process.
Generally, however, the White Clergy[1] are so miserably poor that
they cannot be blamed for making the best market they can for their
priestly offices. Whether the system or the salary be at fault
it is hard to say, but from whatever cause the fact remains that
the parish clergy of the villages are not always all they might
be; there are many among them who lead upright lives and gain the
respect of their parishioners, but it would be idle to deny that
there are many whose thoughts turn more to _vodka_ than piety,
the _kabak_ than the Church. Such shepherds have little in common
with the best elements of their flocks, and much with the worst,
in whose company they are generally seen.

[Footnote 1: The White Clergy wear any colour but that from which
they take their name--a deer-skin cap and long felt boots.]

The poor "Pope" spends much of his time going from _izba_ to _izba_,
giving his blessing and receiving in return drink and a few copecks;
from this come, all too easily, the proverbs of his parishioners,
"Am I a priest, that I should sup twice?" etc. Count Tolstoi makes
his hero remark in the trial scene of the _Resurrection_, when his
fellow jurymen are more friendly than he would wish, "The son of
a priest will speak to me next." But most of them have a side to
their natures which, though not always to be seen, is, nevertheless,
latent--the hour of need often lifts them to the lofty plane of
their sublime functions; the labouring--often hungry--peasant of
the weekdays becomes on Sunday exalted above the petty surroundings
of Mujik life, and becomes indeed the "little father" of his people.

From the Established Church of the State, the Church of the few in
the North, let us turn to the old faith, the Church of the many.
The Old Believers, Raskolniks, or dissenters, are indeed a numerous,
although officially an uncounted, body in the North; half the trade
of Moscow, most of that which is Russian at all, in the Port of
Archangel, all the Pomor shipping lies in their