But this church is not the wonder of the city. You must go with us to the Isaac Cathedral, whose gilded dome has attracted our eye from every part of the city, and whose glittering cross above the crescent we have studied with an opera-glass, again and again, at a distance. Peter the Great built a church of wood just here, and Catharine another when the first was destroyed, but that gave way to this glorious pile, which was forty years in building, and was completed in 1858. It is far more imposing in its external appearance than St. Peter’s. Its proportions are perfect and stupendous. Like all other Greek churches, it is four square and in the form of the Greek cross. A grand entrance on each side is approached by a broad flight of red granite steps, vast blocks of stone from the quarries of Finland. Each flight of steps is surmounted by a peristyle, each pillar of which is sixty feet high, one solid, polished, red granite column! Above them, thirty pillars support the central cupola, and on the crown of this vast hovering cupola is a miniature of the temple below, a beautiful finish to the whole, on the summit of which stands the shining cross. Within, the splendor is amazing. Think of columns of solid malachite fifty feet high! A bit of this stone is a gem to be set in gold for an ornament on a lady’s dress. But here it is in lofty pillars, and steps for altars, with lesser pillars of lapis lazuli standing near. The worship is in the form and manner of the Greek Church, and is strikingly Oriental, more so than that we see in the Church of Rome. Men and women not merely bow and kneel and cross themselves, touching their fingers to their foreheads and breasts, but they prostrate themselves with their faces on the cold stone floor, and lie there as if dead. Women thus lying in a heap looked more like a bundle of rags or old clothes, than human beings worshipping the Almighty. Others brought candles and lighted them, to be burned before the images, that is, the pictures of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Child. Some of the people lighted the candles themselves, repeating a prayer; the verger lighted them for others, and presented them to the Virgin as he proceeded with the service. One woman brought a napkin or some cloth embroidered, and gave it to the verger, who opened a golden door into the Virgin’s panel, and placing the offering in it, locked it again. This was as truly idolatrous as any worship you would see in Romish churches, and wherein it differs from offerings to idols in pagan temples I do not see. A collection was now taken up, by assistants going around with bags, and gathering from the multitude standing before the altar. Every one seemed to put in something, and their alms and prayers went together.