hment. It was made clear to his budding intellect, too, that the
shortest, simplest, and altogether the best way to get rid of
disagreeable persons was to put them to death, and throughout his life
Ivan never forgot this lesson for a single moment. Power, he was told,
was worthless unless it was used, and the only way in which it could be
really used was by oppression. For three years no pains were spared to
teach him this system of ethics and politics, and the young prince, in
his anxiety to perfect himself in the art of governing, diligently
practised all these precepts.

When he was seventeen years of age he was formally crowned czar. The
citizens, ignorant of the truths of political economy and the principles
of governmental science underlying the young Czar's system, became
alarmed, and fired the city one night. When Ivan awoke, he was
terrified, being of an abnormally nervous temperament, and the
apparition of a warning monk, together with the influence of Anastasia,
the young czarina, led the czar to abandon the simple and
straightforward methods of government in which he had been bred, and for
thirteen years, under the dictation of Alexis Adascheff and the monk
Sylvester, Ivan devoted himself to the commonplace employments of
developing Russia politically and socially. He dismissed his ministers
and put others in their places. He reorganized the army; revised the
code, in the interest of abstract justice; equalized assessments;
subdued the Tartars; established forts for the protection of the
frontiers; laid the foundation for the future greatness of his empire;
began the work which was completed so grandly under Peter the Great;
introduced printing into Russia; added greatly to her possessions;
checked the abuses of the clergy; brought artists from western Europe,
and in a hundred ways made himself famous by doing those things which
historians love to chronicle.

Meanwhile, his genius for governing upon the Gluiskian system lay
dormant. It was not dead, but slept, and after its nap of thirteen years
it awoke one day, refreshed. Anastasia, the beautiful queen whose
influence had been supreme for so long a time, died, and Ivan was free
again. He recalled an old bishop who had been banished for his crimes,
and consulted him as to his future course.

"If you wish to be truly a sovereign," said this eminent prelate, "never
seek a counsellor wiser than yourself; never receive advice from any
man. Command, but never