y be obtained by hard bargaining. Only consecrated images,
_i.e._, those which have been sprinkled by a priest with holy water,
cannot be, I think, made an object of traffic.

The orthodox Russians have no less veneration for fine churches than for
splendidly adorned images, and the well-known German dramatic writer
Kotzebue gives in the relation of his forced voyage to Siberia,(116) under
the Emperor Paul, a characteristic trait of this disposition. The titulary
counsellor(117) Shchekatikhin, who conducted him to the place of his
exile, Kurghan, in the south of Siberia, showed a great reverence to all
the churches which they passed by. Whenever they passed a fine church
constructed of solid masonry, he doffed his cap and crossed himself most
fervently, whilst he treated very cavalierly all those which were built of
wood, making a hardly perceptible sign of the cross in their honour. This
national propensity to treat respectfully the great and disdainfully the
little, of which M. Shchekatikhin's piety was such a characteristic
exemplification, has been, in its application to churches, described by
the great admirer of Russia, Baron Haxthausen, whose account of the
devotional practices observed by the upper classes of that country I have
given above, p. 173, in the following manner:--

"We saw, in most part of the villages on our road, fine new churches built
of stone or brick; but in one of them, called Novaya, I saw for the first
time an old wooden church, built of logs, and covered with boards and
shingles, such as they generally had been every where in Russia. These
wooden churches continually disappear, being replaced by those constructed
of masonry. The Russian peasantry consider it a particular honour to have
in their village a church of stone or brick. To leave a village with a
church of stone in order to settle in a place which has but a wooden one,
is considered as a degradation, and the inhabitants of the former would
hardly intermarry with those of the latter. The villages which have only a
wooden church, therefore, do all that they can in order to rise to an
equal grade with those who have one of stone or brick. This shows how the
pride of rank pervades the mind of the Russians in every form of life, and
in every class of the population. In cases of this kind, no promotion but
only a sum of money is required in order to obtain the desired rank. It
may be purchased by constructing a church of stone or brick. S