, apparently to
receive visitors. Recognizing us as foreigners, they greeted us with
great cordiality, and invited us to take up our quarters for the night
in the house appropriated to guests. We desired, however, to see the
church before the combined fog and twilight should make it too dark; so
a benevolent old monk led the way, hand in hand with P., across the
court-yard.

The churches of the Greek faith present a general resemblance in their
internal decorations. There is a glitter of gold, silver, and flaring
colors in the poorest. Statues are not permitted, but the pictures of
dark Saviours and Saints are generally covered with a drapery of silver,
with openings for the head and hands. Konewitz, however, boasts of a
special sanctity, in possessing the body of Saint Arsenius, the founder
of the monastery. His remains are inclosed in a large coffin of silver,
elaborately chased. It was surrounded, as we entered, by a crowd of
kneeling pilgrims; the tapers burned beside it, and at the various
altars; the air was thick with incense, and the great bell still boomed
from the misty tower. Behind us came a throng of our own
deck-passengers, who seemed to recognize the proper shrines by a sort of
devotional instinct, and were soon wholly absorbed in their prayers and
prostrations. It is very evident to me that the Russian race requires
the formulas of the Eastern Church; a fondness for symbolic ceremonies
and observances is far more natural to its character than to the nations
of Latin or Saxon blood. In Southern Europe the peasant will exchange
merry salutations while dipping his fingers in the holy water, or turn
in the midst of his devotions to inspect a stranger; but the Russian, at
such times, appears lost to the world. With his serious eyes fixed on
the shrine or picture, or, maybe, the spire of a distant church, his
face suddenly becomes rapt and solemn, and no lurking interest in
neighboring things interferes with its expression.

One of the monks, who spoke a little French, took us into his cell. He
was a tall, frail man of thirty-five, with a wasted face, and brown hair
flowing over his shoulders, like most of his brethren of the same age.
In those sharp, earnest features, one could see that the battle was not
yet over. The tendency to corpulence does not appear until after the
rebellious passions have been either subdued, or pacified by compromise.
The cell was small, but neat and cheerful, on the ground-floor,