Kneeling on the sand in prayer, Zosima was nerved by a miraculous vision to found a religious colony in that lonely island, even as Marfa's people were founding secular colonies at Suma, Soroka, and Kem. He saw, as in a dream, a bright and comely monastic pile, with swelling domes and lofty turrets, standing on the brink of that lovely sheet of water--henceforth to be known as the Holy Lake. Starting from his knees, he told his companion, German, of the vision he had seen; described the walls, the Sacred Gates, the clusters of spires and domes; in a word, the convent in the splendor of its present form. They cut down a pine, and framed it into a cross, which they planted in the ground; in token that this island in the frozen deep belonged to God and to His saints. This act of consecrating the isle took place (in 1436) a year after St. Savatie died. The monks erected cabins near this cross; in which cabins they dwelt, about a mile apart, so as not to crowd upon each other in their desert home. The sites are marked by chapels erected to perpetuate their fame. The tale of these young hermits living in their desert on the Frozen Sea being noised abroad in cloisters, monks from all sides of the north country came to join them; bringing strong thews and eager souls to aid in their task of raising up in that wild region, and among those savage tribes, a temple of the living God. In time a church grew round and above the original cross; and as none of the hermits were in holy orders, they sent a messenger to Yon, then archbishop of Novgorod, asking him for a blessing on their work, and praying him to send them a prior who could celebrate mass. Yon gave them his benediction and his servant Pavel. Pavel travelled into the north, and consecrated their humble church; but the climate was too hard for him to bear. A second prior came out in Feodosie; a third prior in Yon; both of whom staid some time in the Frozen Sea, and only went back to Novgorod when they were broken in health and advanced in years. When Yon, the third prior, left them, the fathers held a meeting to consider their future course. Sixteen years had now passed by since Zosima and German crossed the sea from Suma; ten or twelve years since Pavel consecrated their humble church. In less than a dozen years three priors had come and gone; and every one saw that monks who had grown old in the Volkhoff district could not live in the Frozen Sea. The brethren asked their archbishop to give them a prior from their own more hardy ranks; and all these brethren joined in the prayer that Zosima, leader of the colony from first to last, would take this office of prior upon himself. His poor opinion of himself gave place to a sense of the public good.