But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. (Matt. vi. 7-8.) A bishop was sailing in a ship from Arkhángelsk to Solóvki. On this ship there were pilgrims on their way to visit the saints. The wind was favourable, the weather clear, and the vessel did not roll. Of the pilgrims some were lying down, some eating, some sitting in groups, and some talking with each other. The bishop, too, came out on deck, and began to walk up and down on the bridge. He walked up to the prow and saw there several men sitting together. A peasant was pointing to something in the sea and talking, while the people listened to him. The bishop stopped to see what the peasant was pointing at: he could see nothing except that the sun was glistening on the water. The bishop came nearer and began to listen. When the peasant saw the bishop, he took off his cap and grew silent. And the people, too, when they saw the bishop, took off their caps and saluted him. "Do not trouble yourselves, friends," said the bishop. "I have just come to hear what you, good man, are telling about." "The fisherman is telling us about the hermits," said a merchant, who was a little bolder than the rest. "What about those hermits?" asked the bishop. He walked over to the gunwale and sat down on a box. "Tell me, too, and I will listen. What were you pointing at?" "There is an island glinting there," said the peasant, pointing forward and to the right. "On that island the hermits are living and saving their souls." "Where is that island?" asked the bishop. "Please to follow my hand! There is a small cloud; below it and a little to the left of it the island appears like a streak." The bishop looked and looked, but only the water was rippling in the sun, and he could not make out anything with his unaccustomed eye. "I do not see it," he said. "What kind of hermits are living on that island?" "God's people," replied the peasant. "I had heard about them for a long time, and never had any chance to see them; but two summers ago I saw them myself." The fisherman went on to tell how he went out to catch fish and was driven to that island, and did not know where he was. In the morning he walked out and came to an earth hut, and there he saw one hermit, and then two more came out. They fed him and dried him and helped him to mend his boat. "What kind of people are they?" asked the bishop.