, with
fine sonorous voices, the evening service; incense was being waved, and
people from all sides were rushing in and bowing and crossing
themselves, and as quickly rushing out again. The Russians of the Greek
Church seem to think that much virtue exists in visiting a number of
churches or shrines in quick succession on the same day; and certainly
Moscow offers great facilities to the performance of this ceremony, for
a person cannot go many hundred yards in any direction without meeting
with a church, or chapel, or shrine of some sort. The churches in
Moscow do not generally possess any fine paintings, the pictures of
their saints showing merely the faces and heads. But there is one
church, that of Le Vieux Croyants a la Ragosky, which has a fine
collection. The priests of that church, being intelligent men, value it
properly.

A gentleman who joined our friends gave them several bits of interesting
information.

The small old church in the Kremlin was being renovated; nothing but the
whitewashed walls remained. They found that the gilding and paintings
which appeared so rich in the churches were merely fastened to wooden or
canvas panels, and placed against the walls, so that a day was
sufficient to turn a barn into a magnificent cathedral. He pointed out
that the gates were of different sizes. The largest was for the
admission of the Patriarch when he came to the church, the smaller for
that of the ordinary members of the community.

"Exactly," said Harry, "like the Irish peasant who has a big hole in the
door for the pigs to walk through, and a small one for the chickens.
All people are much alike."

Religious liberty is very much curbed in the country; but they were told
that every Sunday, at the Church of the Assumption, an open discussion
on matters of religion takes place, chiefly, however, among the persons
who wish to pass for savants. The priests seldom or never attend. It
is suspected that these discussions are encouraged by the Government,
not from any abstract love it possesses for truth, but for the sake of
ascertaining the opinions of those who attend them. If the governing
powers suspect, from any of the opinions he utters, that a person is
likely to prove dangerous, his movements and words are ever afterwards
narrowly watched till he is caught tripping, when he is without further
ceremony marched out of harm's way into Siberia.

As the party were walking round the Kremlin, they passe