but they are executed in the most barbarous taste, and possess no artistic excellence whatever. Some of them are so blackened by time that at first sight the face and hands appear merely dark spaces left in the brilliant surface; but the older and uglier these Virgins are, the more they are adored and the more miracles they are said to perform. There is an immense deal of gilding about the churches, which, with rows of saints, all in their gold and silver dresses, lighted up by the innumerable little lamps suspended before them, the small tapers stuck in stands here and there, and candles of gigantic circumference in silver sconces, near the shrines and altars, makes a very glittering appearance, and harmonizes well with the splendid robes of the priests when they perform mass. More enlightened nations are apt to look with contempt on all these gewgaws, but undoubtedly they have their use in impressing a people so uncivilized and illiterate as are the lower classes in Russia, with respect for a religion which they are not yet in a condition to understand by precept alone. It is like teaching children to read by means of a pictured alphabet. Many and many a time have we seen deeply-felt devotion among the poorer portion of a Russian congregation; certainly they _do_ frequent their places of worship much more than their brethren in more polished countries, and believe what their pastors teach them. In the Greek Church, even the babies in arms communicate. I was present at a mass in which a child of about three months old took the sacrament. The reason given is, that they follow the command of Christ, that the children should be brought to him, from the text, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” The infant above-mentioned was that of a gipsy-woman, who, with a party of her tribe, had come to worship at the cathedral of Novogorod. The manner of administering the sacrament in the Greek Church differs from that of ours. The priest holds the cup in his hand, and presents a portion of the wine in a spoon to the communicant, together with a small loaf, something in the shape of what we call a cottage-loaf, which is always made either by a nun or a priest’s widow, but never by less sacred hands. A very small triangular piece is cut out of the loaf, which the communicant takes with the wine. Everybody in Russia is expected to take the communion once a year at the least, and those in the government employ must produce a certificate from the clergyman to that effect.