ible by them.

The priests in the Greek Church there are generally uneducated men, and
their intoned services and "unknown tongue" do not avail much in the way
of enlightenment. The schoolmasters, I was told by those who had good
opportunity of judging, are much better educated than the priests. I
observed that one of these, who had on a former visit been pointed out
to me by my friend Dobri, sat not far from the colporteur smoking his
chibouk with a grave critical expression of countenance.

At last the colporteur turned to the 115th Psalm, and I now began to
perceive that the man had a purpose, and was gradually leading the
people on.

It is well known that the Greek Church, although destitute of images in
its religious buildings, accords the same reverence, or homage, to
pictures which the Romish Church does to the former. At first, as the
colporteur read, the people listened with grave attention; but when he
came to the verses that describe the idols of the heathen as being made
of, "silver and gold, the work of men's hands," with mouths that could
not speak, and eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear,
several of the more earnest listeners began to frown, and it was evident
that they regarded the language of the colporteur's book as applicable
to their sacred pictures, and resented the implied censure. When he
came to the eighth verse, and read, "They that make them are like unto
them, so is every one that trusteth in them," there were indignant
murmurs; for these untutored peasants, whatever their church might teach
about such subtleties as worshipping God _through_ pictures, accepted
the condemnatory words in simplicity.

"Why are you angry?" asked the colporteur, looking round.

"Because," answered a stern old man who sat, close to me, "your words
condemn _us_ as well as the heathen. They make out the pictures of our
saints to be idols--images and pictures being one and the same thing."

"But these are not _my_ words," said the colporteur, "they are the words
of God."

"If these words are true," returned the old man, with increasing
sternness, "then _we_ are all wrong; but these words are not true--they
are only the words of _your_ Bible, about which we know nothing."

"My friends," returned the colporteur, holding up the volume from which
he had been reading, "this is not only my Bible, it is also yours, the
same that is read in your own churches, only rendered into your own
modern t