We have no time to follow the war as carried on in Armenia, but on November 17-18, the city and fortress of Kars was carried by assault, and the Russian officers remembering how the fanatical Turks had tortured and killed the wounded soldiers that had fallen into their cruel hands, expressed the fear lest their excited soldiers might put aside feelings of humanity and inflict summary vengeance. But contrary to all expectations, Cossack and Russian put aside all thought of personal revenge; and not a single civilian was killed or insulted, and not a woman had to complain of insult or outrage. These facts are stated for the sake of those who may have thought that there is little to choose between the semi-barbarous hordes of Russia (as they call them) and the armies of Turks, Kurds and Circassians. Another fact regarding the religious sentiment of the Russian peasant transformed into a soldier. A Frenchman who was at Plevna with the officers of the Commander-in-chief's staff thus writes of Skobeleff: "He is a magnificent looking soldier, almost as tall as the Emperor. * * On the battlefield he is brave as a lion. * * * When ordering a retreat, he sheathes his sword, sends his white charger to the front and remains on foot, the last man in the rear, saying; 'They may kill me if they like, but they shall not harm my horse unless he is advancing against the enemy.' He has never quitted a battlefield without carrying off his wounded (unless in such retreat as from the third assault on Plevna), nor has he ever after a battle gone to rest without making an address to his men, and writing his own report to the commander-in-chief. He is adored by his soldiers. * * He is highly educated and a sincerely religious man. 'No man can feel comfortable in facing death' he has been heard to say 'who does not believe in God and have hope of a life to come.' Each evening in the camp he stood bareheaded taking part in the evening service which was chanted by fifty or sixty of his soldiers. * If the people of Paris who shed tears over the Miserére in Trovatore, could hear these simple soldiers in the presence of death addressing prayers and praises to the Almighty Father with their whole hearts, they would find it far more moving. Skobeleff is as distinguished for his modesty as his bravery. 'My children,' he says to his soldiers, 'I wear these crosses, but it is you who have won them for me.'" Attention is called to these things that you can compare for yourselves the morale of the Russian army with its reverence for woman and for God, with the grossness and corruption and wickedness that prevails in the mixed multitudes that form the soldiers of Islam. Who is not touched by the deep sincerity of that word in his first address to his army, "while you are fighting I shall pray for you."