But to return from this long digression. The archimandrite was a dignified-looking man of about fifty, and had lost his wife six years previously, when, according to the custom, he had embraced the monastic life. He had two sons, government _employés_, who resided with him in the establishment. He was a man of great erudition, and had views on religious points much too enlightened for his nation, as I was informed that he had been imprisoned some time before on account of opinions he had expressed concerning modern miracles, &c., but, in consideration of his high character for learning and moral excellence, extreme severity had not been resorted to. He always seemed much pleased at our visits, and received us with kindness and hospitality. My Russian friends had known him for many years, and respected him greatly. I was fortunate, certainly, in being acquainted with so many worthy people belonging to the Greek priesthood, and am glad to be able to speak well of a class of men of whom favourable opinions are not generally entertained by foreigners; but I believe that many speak ill of them upon false reports, and judge lightly of the merits of the many from the disgraceful conduct of a few, or from those ignorant, debased members of the profession who are to be found in the remote villages and almost barbarous districts of the interior. I remember accompanying a friend once on a visit to one of her estates at about seven hundred versts from St. Petersburg; the peasants came as usual to pay their respects to their proprietor. I was not astonished at any display of _slavish servility_ on _their_ part, as a long residence in different parts of Russia had too much accustomed me to such conduct, but I was greatly shocked and disgusted to see the priest descend to such meanness as to prostrate himself to the earth, and kiss the lady’s feet: in fact he seemed not a whit superior to the degraded boors amongst whom he lived. A Russo-French gentleman, who had travelled over nearly every part of the empire, even to the interior of Siberia, informed me that the state of the clergy in the remote country places was inconceivably bad; that they were ignorant, slavish, vicious, and drunken in almost an equal degree with the debased peasantry; that, although it is strictly forbidden for a priest to be seen to enter a whisky-shop, yet they are not ashamed to send one of their flock to fetch spirits, nor do they blush to be seen intoxicated in the miserable villages of which they are the pastors; that their wives and children are ragged and filthy, and are scarcely as respectable as those of the serfs. In what state of morality can the peasants be whose teachers are thus degraded?