There is a new dynasty and a new capital, but the memory of Ivan the Fourth is yet green and, strange to say, it is not hideous. There was, no doubt, a certain picturesqueness about him, as there was about our own Henry the Eighth, who dealt out death with no niggard hand, and who still, in story and legend, lives as a sort of hero. A strong man of arms always awakens a certain admiration, and no doubt it was a fine sight for the citizens of Moscow to see the fierce Tsar ride out bare-headed through the Saviour’s Gates at the head of his splendidly caparisoned _strelzi_ and _spritchniki_ (archers and bodyguard). Tailors and saddlers and armourers are rare makers of fame. With what wise judgment and loving care the Russians preserve their old monuments! Where any restoration is needed it is carried out with such discreet skill that it is almost impossible to detect the new from the old, and so the approach to the Kremlin through the Spasskia Vorotui (the Saviour’s Gates), with their beautiful tower, leads to a succession of pictures which are not fragments of the old world clumsily pieced together, but the sixteenth century itself, whole, sound and without a blemish. Bare your head as you go through these mystic gates, for even the Emperor of all the Russias dare not pass them covered. Inside the court of the Palace of the Tsars stands the ancient Church of the Saviour on the Cross, and here were gathered quite a little crowd of pilgrims—for this is a very holy place—listening with intense devoutness to the words of one of their number, who, with all the fervour of an ancient Hebrew prophet, was telling, in language so picturesque that it seemed almost inspired, the story of a miracle which had befallen him on his travels. As he was tramping, weary and footsore, from some distant province to worship at the shrines of Moscow, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him on the road, and bidding him to be of good cheer, encouraged him to march on to the end of his pious journey. What was hunger, what was fatigue in comparison with the holy joy which awaited him? One envies the simple, unreasoning faith of these humble folk; it would be still more enviable if it possessed a stronger moral influence upon character; but, alas! I have already shown how much too often it comes to a dead halt in the realm of superstition. A little while later in the afternoon I saw a pious pilgrim—pious he must have been, or he would not have faced the hardships and cost of the journey—staggering dead drunk on his return from the shrines; but even so he did not forget to remove his cap as he passed through the sacred Gates of the Saviour. Explain it who will, the _mujik_ honestly and reverently offers himself body and soul to his God, and yet it never occurs to him that he is defiling and degrading the gift. Fancy a man dragging through the mud a rose which he is to lay at the feet of his beloved!