By this time they had reached the gate of Ivan’s palace. Clémence gladly renewed her acquaintance with the friend of her husband’s boyhood; she gave him a hospitable welcome, and, to his intense delight, showed him her two lovely boys, the elder just able to lisp his father’s name, the younger a three months’ babe in the cradle. From that time Ivan’s old playfellow was a frequent visitor. Clémence helped him in the studies of which he was so proud; and they had many a quiet happy talk together about Him of whom the Book they loved so well testified in every page. Eventually, however, the current of their lives divided, and swept them apart, never probably to meet again on this side of the grave. But the lessons they had learned remained with both, and both in their several spheres sought to pass them on to others. Many years afterwards, a German traveller[75] in Russia visited the churches of St. Petersburg, as an interested spectator of the touching Russian custom of the reading of the Scriptures on Easter eve by the people for one another. He tells us that in one of these churches he saw a veteran soldier, scarred and weather-beaten, standing at the desk with a taper in his hand reading the story of his Saviour’s death to a company of little children who clustered around him, listening to the sacred words with absorbed and breathless attention. Perhaps he failed to notice, or perhaps he did not think it worth while to chronicle, that the reader had lost a hand. Never can it be known, until the great day of revelation, how many hearts at this epoch received life and blessing from the Word of God, scattered broadcast throughout the great Russian Empire, not only with the approbation, but with the earnest personal co-operation, of its monarch. “For,” said Alexander, “I consider this undertaking not merely worthy of my attention; no, I am penetrated by it to the inmost recesses of my soul. And I reckon the promotion of it my most sacred duty, because on it depends the temporal and eternal happiness of those whom Providence has committed to my care. Blessed are those who take a part in it; for such gather fruit unto life eternal, when those who sow and those who reap shall rejoice together.”[76]