uisitely cut and set, a golden chain and necklace, a crown of gold,
and, most precious of all, a crucifix made of wood of the true cross!
The metropolitan bishop of Ephesus, who was sent with these presents,
was authorized, in the name of the church and of the empire, to place
the crown upon the brow of Monomaque in gorgeous coronation in the
cathedral church of Kief, and to proclaim Monomaque Emperor of Russia.
This crown, called the _golden bonnet of Monomaque_, is still
preserved in the Museum of Antiquities at Moscow.

These were dark and awful days. Horrible as war now is, it was then
attended with woes now unknown. Gleb, prince of Minsk, with a
ferocious band, attacked the city of Sloutsk; after a terrible scene
of carnage, in which most of those capable of bearing arms were slain,
the city was burned to ashes, and all the survivors, men, women and
children, were driven off as captives to the banks of the Dwina, where
they were incorporated with the tribe of their savage conqueror. In
revenge, Monomaque sent his son Yaropolk to Droutsk, one of the cities
of Gleb. No pen can depict the horrors of the assault. After a few
hours of dismay, shriekings and blood, the city was in ashes, and the
wretched victims of man's pride and revenge were conducted to the
vicinity of Kief, where they reared their huts, and in widowhood,
orphanage and penury, commenced life anew. Gleb himself in this foray
was taken prisoner, conducted to Kief, and detained there a captive
until he died.

Monomaque reigned thirteen years, during which time he was incessantly
engaged in wars with the audacious nobles of the provinces who refused
to recognize his supremacy, and many of whom were equal to him in
power. He died May 19, 1126, in the seventy-third year of his age,
renowned, say the ancient annalists, for the splendor of his victories
and the purity of his morals. He was fully conscious of the approach
of death, and seems to have been sustained, in that trying hour, by
the consolations of religion. He lived in an age of darkness and of
tumult; but he was a man of prayer, and, according to the light he
had, he walked humbly with God. Commending his soul to the Saviour he
fell asleep. It is recorded that he was a man of such lively emotions
that his voice often trembled, and his eyes were filled with tears as
he implored God's blessing upon his distracted country. He wrote, just
before his death, a long letter to his children, conceived in t