To-day the trees send forth buds and the fragrant flowers bloom, and behold, the gardens already emit a sweet odour, and the workers labouring in hope acclaim Christ the giver of fruits. We were before like the trees of the forest that bear no fruit, but to-day the faith of Christ has been grafted on our unbelief, and those who already held to the roots of Jesse have burgeoned with the flowers of virtue and expect through Christ a regeneration in heaven, and the saints who labour for the Church expect a reward from Christ. To-day the ploughman of the Word leads the oxen of the Word to the spiritual yoke, sinks the plough of baptism into the furrows of thought and deepening them to furrows of repentance plants in them the spiritual seed and rejoices in the hope of future returns. To-day everything old has taken an end, and all is new for the sake of the resurrection. To-day the apostolic rivers are full, and the pagan fish let out their broods, and the fishermen, having examined the depth of the divine incarnation, drag in full nets into the Church.... To-day the industrious bees of the monastic order show their wisdom and set all to wonder, for living in the wilderness and providing for themselves, they astonish both angels and men, just as the bee flies upon the flowers and forms combs of honey in order to furnish sweetness to man and what is needed in the church.... To-day there is a feast of regeneration for the people who are made new by the resurrection of Christ, and all new things are brought to God: from heathens, faith; from good Christians, offerings; from the clergy, holy sacrifices; from the civil authorities, God-pleasing charity; from the noble, care for the Church; from the righteous, humility; from the sinners, true repentance; from the unhallowed, a turning to God; from the hating, spiritual love. Néstor’s Chronicle. (XII. century.) Néstor was born about 1056, and at the age of seventeen entered the monastery of the Grottoes at Kíev. In 1091 he was commissioned to find in the Grottoes the mortal relics of Theodosius, the founder of the monastery. Having performed this task he wrote a life of the founder. He died about 1146. To this Néstor has been ascribed the authorship of the chronicle which in one of the manuscripts of the fourteenth century bears the title: _The stories of bygone years, whence the Russian land began, who first reigned at Kíev, and how the Russian land was formed_. It has, however, been proved that only a small part of the chronicle belongs to him, and that the last editor of the whole was the abbot Sylvester, the continuator of Néstor’s Chronicle for the twelfth century.