"Now put on these!" And he threw a dilapidated monk's dress towards him, faded out of all color by sun and rain. Araktseieff, taking off his general's uniform, put it on. And as saints on this earth do not drive in carriages, he followed the saint on foot and barefooted to the gates of the Monastery of St. George. St. George's is one of the wealthiest monasteries in all Russia. It is situated near Grusino, at the end of the long peninsula formed by the river Volkhov and Lake Ilmer. Its gilded cupolas, green from the verdigris which centuries have brought out on the copper, tend to spread its fame far and wide. But entrance within the walls of the monastery oppresses the spirits. Silver dais upon silver dais reach to the dome; the organ towers aloft, with its pipes of gold; there are pictures of saints dazzling with rubies; mosaics composed entirely of precious stones. Upon the elaborately decorated altars lie costly Bibles bound in silver, and enamelled books of the mass. Over one of the altars is a picture of St. George in beaten silver. But it is only when we come to the "treasure chamber," with its priceless store of mitres, crooks, crowns, pearl-embroidered stoles, golden monstrances, that we realize how rich is Heaven's vicegerent--the Church. While the priests who guard all these treasures wander in among them in coarse cassocks and bare feet, that the world may see how poor is man. But the most jealously guarded of all the treasures stood before the altar. It was a granite pillar enclosed within silver rails. On the granite was engraven: "Upon this spot knelt Czar Alexander, attended by his faithful servants, the Archimandrite Photios and Alexis Andreovitch Araktseieff, in the year 1818." Thither Photios brought the statesman, that he might see his name perpetuated beside that of the Czar. "So high you had raised yourself. Now come and see how low you have sunk!" The Archimandrite led the penitent back to the cloister and showed him his, the Archimandrite's, cell. It was a space six feet broad by eight feet long. But there was one luxury in it: it had a window through which sunshine penetrated. His bed was a coffin roughly put together; his _prie-dieu_ a stone hollowed out by constant kneeling; a jug and a bowl for the daily _kwas_ the sole furniture of the cell. Yet all this was luxury compared with what awaited the penitent.