“There is one thing which you would not hear from any lip on earth--a word of blame for your Czar. But do not think I mean it so if I ask, could not some life less precious be found to spend itself in these ministrations? Would not he do well to remember the warning of Jethro--‘Thou wilt surely wear away, thou, and this people that is with thee; for this thing is too heavy for thee’?” “Clémence, you do not know our Russians. I love them well, yet I see their faults, which are something like those of clever, ill-educated children, but on a gigantic scale. They are, when they choose it, the most accomplished of deceivers. They can elaborate and carry out a fraud with a patient ingenuity, a consummate dexterity, that one is tempted to call quite artistic. When the Czarina Catherine travelled through the empire, her courtiers of course wished her to imagine it in a state of the highest prosperity; so they erected mock villages along her route, and drove to the neighbourhood herds of cattle, and troops of well-dressed peasants to greet her with smiles and acclamations. It takes all the vigilance of my Czar, and all his careful personal inspection, to guard against similar deceptions; and I fear that even he does not always succeed.” “Is not the remedy for this want of truth, as for other evils, to be found in the dissemination of the Word of truth?” asked Clémence. “Surely it is,” said Ivan with a brightening look. “Do you not feel, Clémence, as if the spring were come,--as if every plant were budding with new, glorious life? Amongst the princes of the earth, one says, ‘I am the Lord’s;’ another subscribes with his hand unto the Lord, and surnames himself by the name of the God of Israel. His Word is loved, honoured, scattered broadcast amongst the people. Think of the joy of having it in our common tongue, Clémence--the tongue in which the babe lisps to its mother, and the gray-haired mujik tells his stories of the past as he sits beside his stove! Soon, I hope, in the izbas of every village throughout the length and breadth of our land, the father will be reading to the children the story of their Saviour’s love. I learned to-day two things which rejoiced my heart about the home I have never ceased to love--holy Moscow, the city of our solemnities.” “Tell them to me, Ivan.”