Such a benediction as the Czar was about to receive is often bestowed, in the Greek Church, even upon private persons who have in view some important enterprise, or wish to offer some particular supplication or thanksgiving. It is called a Molében; and it would be a beautiful and touching ceremony, but for the baneful influence of that superstition which too often leads its votaries to worship and serve the creature more than the Creator. Usually, most of the prayers are addressed to the guardian angel, or to the saint with whose picture the votary is blessed--the picture being then given to him as a kind of talisman. The benediction was to take place on the 27th of July, and early in the morning Ivan entered the Church of the Assumption, the sacred spot where the holy anointing oil had been poured upon the head of the Czar. Pope Yefim had found for him a quiet niche, from whence he could witness the whole of the ceremony. He had room to stand or kneel: in Russian churches the worshippers never sit, however protracted the services may be. From his place of waiting he heard the tumult, the shouts and cheering, which welcomed the Czar as he approached. He knew that now he was ascending the “Red” or “Beautiful” Staircase, by which, upon state occasions, the Czars were wont to enter the cathedral; but he could not know that he was “followed by an immense crowd, who wept, and blessed him, and swore to defend his empire with their lives.”[17] He knew that now this Czar would take his stand, as other Czars had done, upon the summit of the staircase, to allow the people beneath “to see the light of his eyes;” but he could not know as yet how profoundly the mighty heart of that people was moved, “as the trees of the wood are shaken with the wind.” Clear and sweet as the song of angels rose the ringing treble of the boyish choristers, who welcomed the Czar as he entered--“Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” The violet robes of the bishop and the assistant priests--the flash of innumerable jewels upon mitre, pall, and crozier--the faint perfume of incense--the sparkling drops of holy water flung from vessels worth the ransom of a king,--all these held the senses of Ivan, and wholly filled for a time his imaginative and impressible heart. Meanwhile, the man who was the centre of all this pomp, and whose manhood for Russia in that solemn hour was more than worth it all, stood reverently in his place while the officiating bishop sprinkled him with holy water, or touched his forehead, his lips, his breast with the sacred picture. As the eyes of Ivan rested on that stately figure, peerless in its grace and majesty, a kind of awe stole over him. All the old superstitious reverence of the Russian for the Czar, who is “God upon earth,” came upon him. It seemed almost an irreverence to raise his eyes to the face of the monarch; he could scarcely dare to do it.