The best elements in the council supported the new coalition ministry, although it did not have a Socialist majority, and it claimed the right to work independently of the council. The Cossack funeral was really a government demonstration, and those of us who saw it believed for the moment that it marked the beginning of a new era in Russia’s troubled progress toward democracy and freedom. The services were held in St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the largest church in Petrograd, and one of the most magnificent in a country of magnificent churches. The bodies, in coffins covered with silver cloth, were brought to the cathedral on a Friday afternoon at 5 o’clock, accompanied by many members of their regiments and representatives of others. The flower-heaped coffins surrounded by flaming candles filled the space below the holy gate leading to the high altar; around them knelt the soldiers and the weeping women relatives of the dead, while a solemn service for the repose of their souls was chanted. In the Russian church no organ or other instrumental music is permitted, but the singing is of an order of excellence quite unknown in other countries. Part of a priest’s education is in music, and the male choirs are most carefully trained and conducted. They have the highest tenor and the lowest bass voices in the world in those Russian church choirs, and there is no effect of the grandest pipe organ which they cannot produce. They sing nothing but the best music, and their masses are written for them by the greatest of Russian composers. Many times I have thrilled to their singing, but at this memorial service to brave men slain in defense of their country I was fairly overwhelmed by it. I do not know what they sang, but it was a solemn, yet triumphant symphony of grief, religious ecstasy, faith and longing. It soared to a great climax, and it ended in a prolonged phrase sung so softly that it seemed to come as from a great distance, from Heaven itself. The whole vast congregation was on its knees, in tears. The service in the cathedral next morning was long and elaborate, and it was early afternoon before the procession started for the Alexander Nevski monastery where a common grave had been prepared for the murdered men. Back of the open white hearses walked the bereaved women and children, bareheaded, in simple peasant black. Thousands of Cossacks, also bareheaded, many weeping bitterly, followed. The dead men’s horses were led by soldiers. The Metropolitan of Petrograd and every other dignitary of the church was in the procession. I saw Miliukoff, Rodzianko and other celebrities. Women of rank walked side by side with working women. Many nurses were there in their flowing white coifs. There were uncounted hundreds of wreaths and floral offerings. The bands played impressive funeral marches. But there was not a single red flag in the procession.