In later chapters I will write more at length upon religion and worship, but I must give the reader _at once_, if a stranger to Russia, something of the impression which the ubiquity of the _ikon_ makes upon those who go there for the first time. It is _always_ to be seen. And though I will try and describe what it directly represents in the shape of Church life later, yet from the very first I must write, as it were, with the _ikon_ before me. I must see with my mind's eye the Holy Mother clasping the Divine Child to her bosom, with a few flowers and a twinkling little light before them, all the time I write, whether it is of things secular or sacred, grave or gay, national or international, or I shall give out but little of the spirit which I feel I have breathed deeply into my life in that wonderful country, and certainly shall not be able to help any reader who has not been there as yet to understand why it should be spoken of as "Holy Russia." That which the _ikon_ stands for, therefore, must be the spirit of every chapter I write, or I shall give my readers no true picture of Russian life. Fortunately for those who want further particulars than such a book as this can give them--and it will fail in its purpose if it does not make many readers _wish_ to have them--there has been a very excellent _Baedeker's Guide to Russia_ published last year, which is a wonderfully complete work considering the vast empire with which it has to deal. I will therefore attempt nothing at all in the way of statistics or descriptions such as a guide-book gives, or such as will be found in the excellent books to which I shall often refer. If I can take my readers with me in thought as I travel about Russia and Siberia, and can give them some of the information which has been given so freely to me, and can convey to them some portion of the impressions made upon me when far away from the beaten track, and above all can lead them to give their sympathies freely and generously to the people of the land and to our own countrymen so hospitably welcomed amongst them, and so generously treated, I shall be more than repaid for my work, and shall ask nothing better. In Russia there are two forms of government, clearly and strenuously at work, and wide asunder in their character, the autocratic and the democratic. It is impossible to do much more than mention these two tremendous forces, which are so strongly forming the character, and determining the destinies for a long time to come, of a great people.