How is one not to laugh at such stupidity? Why should we be incendiaries in our own empire?... You say that your blood has been spilled in wars with foreigners, and you add, in your foolishness, that it cries to God against us. That is ridiculous! It has been spilled by one, and it cries out against another. If it is true that your blood has been spilled by the enemy, then you have done your duty to your country; if you had not done so, you would not have been a Christian but a barbarian:--but that is not our affair. How much more ours, that has been spilled by you, cries out to the Lord against you! Not with wounds, nor drops of blood, but with much sweating and toiling have I been burdened by you unnecessarily and above my strength! Your many meannesses and persecutions have caused me, instead of blood, to shed many tears, and to utter sobs and have anguish of my soul.... You say you want to put your letter in your grave: that shows that you have completely renounced your Christianity! For God has ordered not to resist evil, but you renounce the final pardon which is granted to the ignorant; therefore it is not even proper that any mass shall be sung after you. In our patrimony, in the country of Lifland, you name the city of Volmir as belonging to our enemy, King Sigismund: by this you only complete the treachery of a vicious dog!... Written in our great Russia, in the famous, royal capital city of Moscow, on the steps of our imperial threshold, in the year from the creation of the world 7072, the fifth day of July. The Domostróy. (XVI. century.) The _Domostróy_, _i. e._, House-government, is an important document of the sixteenth century, as it throws a light on the inner life of the Russians in the time of Iván the Terrible. Its authorship is ascribed in the extant manuscripts to Sylvester, the adviser of Iván the Terrible, but it is assumed that he was only the last compiler of various codes of conduct that were known in Russia before his day. At least, the whole production bears the stamp of being a composite work. Two distinct groups are discerned in it: the first has continual references to the Tsar and the honours due him; the other deals with a society whose chief interest is purely commercial, and appeals to the judgment of the people, instead of to that of the Tsar. From this the inference is drawn that the first had its origin in Moscow, the second in Nóvgorod. The morality of the _Domostróy_ is one of external formalism. To preserve appearances before God and men is, according to this code, the chief aim in life. HOW TO EDUCATE CHILDREN AND BRING THEM UP IN THE FEAR OF GOD