There is one testimony, if I may venture without undue complacency to give it, to the estimation in which our nationality is held, which does not suggest that we are really considered, even by those who have of late so often glibly said it, to be degenerate and decadent and not fit to hold the possessions we have, or shape the destinies of the many peoples who own our rule. I have never met any one yet, of another nationality, who did not think it a compliment to be mistaken for an Englishman. It is not often that one can make such a mistake, but I have met Dutchmen and Germans, and Russians also, who just for a moment or two, from dress, expression, or speech have made one feel that they were fellow countrymen. Young Russians especially, though different in physique, for often they are built on huge lines and are enormously strong, after receiving an English education from a very early age, wearing English dress, being pleased to meet us, may easily be considered to be English; and I doubt if there are amongst them any who would not feel it a compliment to be so considered, while they would resent the same mistake being made with regard to any other nationality. Englishmen, therefore, it will be admitted, have kept up the standard in Russia, and not let down the good name of their own country. When I was visiting the Troitsk Gold Mine, in 1912--a little short of three days' and three nights' journey, on the other side of Moscow--to spend Sunday and give them their first English services, the surveyor, when showing me over the mine and its workings on the Monday, told me that those large illustrated almanacks which we have, with a picture in the middle and information about Church and parish round the sides, and which are so often seen on the walls of the houses of our own working-classes, are also very popular amongst their own work-people. "They are got up in the Russian style, of course," he said, "with a Russian illustration, and so on; but you will be interested to hear that a great part of the paragraphs round it is given up to describing English ways and ideas, societies and arrangements, and always with appreciation and approval." It must ever be remembered that people who cannot leave their own country must judge largely of other countries by what they see of those who come from them. If English ideas, manners, and customs are held in favour and esteem in Russia and Siberia it can only be, therefore, because English men and women have worthily represented them there in business and commerce, by upright and moral conduct.