The entire Slavic world is living under the dominion of religion more or less clearly interpreted and understood. This manifests itself in conversation with the people. "God help you on your way!" "Go with God." "Praised be the Lord Jesus Christ!" are common greetings as one journeys along Slavic highways and byways. The names of the Deity and of the Saviour or the Virgin are never uttered without lifting the hat, accompanied by the words: "Slava i cast nyim budi!" Honour and praise to them! The highways among the Western Slavs, who are largely Roman Catholic, are lined by crosses, chapels and shrines; and no matter how wretched the village, its church is well appointed and its peasants are not quite happy at the end of the year, unless its monotony was broken by a pilgrimage to some shrine where the Virgin waits, ready to bestow her blessing of good health or other rich favours supposed to be in her special keeping. Feast days and fast days follow one another in quick succession and no season of the year or event in life is left unhallowed by religious observances. All this is equally true of the Eastern and Southern Slavs who, with but few exceptions, belong to the Greek Orthodox church, and are cast in a religious mold as fixed as the form of the Byzantine _icon_, the symbol of that church. To the Russians, the largest body among the Eastern Slavs, religion is an atmosphere in which they "live and move and have their being." Among them also, church feasts and fasts regulate the days, while either the pleasure or the pain they bring is willingly accepted. Sacrifices of candles and oil are freely offered and no pilgrimage is too wearisome to be undertaken. Visiting the tombs of saints and the dwelling places of hermits is a national mania, and religious ceremonies, which in their origin and meaning are wholly Pagan, take place in hut and palace alike; for no class of Russian society is quite free from gross superstitions. The peasant coachman, who drives his miserable beast over the cobblestone pavement, crosses himself before every chapel and _icon_; while his passenger, be he a general, a university professor or one of the common people, will do the same, with perhaps only a little less unction. Yet, in spite of the fact that religious forms dominate the life of the masses of the Slavs, there are no people in Europe who less understand the real value of religion, whose conduct towards each other is so little affected by it or to whom it is so entirely a mere belief in the mysterious forces of Heaven and Hell which can be appeased by prayers, formulas, sacrifices and pilgrimages. Religion with them has seemingly nothing to do with sobriety, chastity, conquering the will, or the cultivation of the inner virtues.