hird of the land whereon they live and which
they cultivate, and for every acre (to their honor be it said) they
have paid a fair market value, having accumulated the means by
industry and rigid economy. An intelligent native merchant informed
the author that self-respect seemed to have been at once implanted
among the common people by the manifesto of March, 1861, and that a
rapid social improvement has been clearly observable ever since. The
better education of the rising generation is what is now most
required to supplement the great act of emancipation; and though
this is being attempted in the various districts to a limited extent
as we have shown, still it is but a slow condition of progress. Not
until the Government takes the matter seriously in hand, using its
authority and lending its liberal pecuniary aid, will anything of
importance be accomplished in this direction.

The Tzar's dominion embraces every phase of religion and of
civilization. Portions of the Empire are as barbaric as Central
Africa; others are semi-civilized, while a large share of the people
inhabiting the cities assume the highest outward appearance of
refinement and culture. This diversity of character spreads over a
country extending from the Great Wall of China on one side to the
borders of Germany on the other; from the Crimea in the South to the
Polar Ocean in the far North. As to the national or State
religion,--that of the Greek Church,--it seems to be based upon
gross superstition, and is therefore all the more effective as a
restraining principle from evil-doing among the great mass of poor
ignorant creatures who respect scarcely anything else. Much genuine
piety is observable among the Russians, a large proportion of the
educated people being zealous church-goers, strictly observing all
the outward forms of the religion they profess. In the churches there
is no distinction of person; all are deemed equal before the Almighty
Father. There are no seats in the temples of worship; all the
congregation stand or kneel, and during the services often prostrate
themselves upon the marble floor. The monks and nuns conduct a
thriving business in the sale of sacred tapers, holy relics, images,
wedding-rings, and also indulgences and prayers, as in the Roman
Catholic Church. Indeed, the resemblance in the forms and ceremonies
of the two are to one not initiated almost identical.

To commemorate such an event as leads other nations to erect
tr