The Roumanian churches offer a pleasant contrast to the bleak, uncompromising appearance of the Saxon ones. Even when architecturally not remarkable, they are invariably covered with a profusion of ornament and decoration of extremely artistic effect. Few places of worship appeal so strongly to the imagination as these Oriental buildings, which, without as well as within, are one mass of warm soft coloring. The belfry tower is encircled by a procession of celestial beings, and the walls divided off into little arched niches beneath the roof, each of which harbors some quaint Byzantine saint, with pale golden aureole and shadowy palm-branch. Though the outlines may be somewhat primitive, and the laws of perspective but imperfectly understood, nature, the greatest artist of all, has here stepped in to complete the picture: summer showers and winter snows have mellowed each tint, and blended together the color into perfect harmony. The same style of ornament is repeated inside with increased effect; for here the saintly legions which adorn the walls are brighter and more vivid, stronger and fiercer looking, because in better preservation. They seem to be the living originals of which those others outside are but the pale ghosts, and appear to rush at us from all sides as we enter the place, increasing in numbers as our eyesight gets used to the dim, mysterious twilight let in by the narrow windows. Not a corner but from which starts up some grinning devil, not a nook but reveals some choleric-looking saint, till we feel ourselves to be surrounded by a whole pageant of celestial and diabolical beings, only distinguishable from one another by the respective fashions of their head-gear—horns or halos, as the case may be. These horned devils play a very important part in each Roumanian church, where usually a large portion of the walls is given up to representations of the place of eternal punishment. The poor Roumanian peasant, whose daily life is often so wretched and struggling as hardly to deserve that name, seems to derive considerable consolation from anticipations of the day when the tables are to be turned, and the hitherto despised poor shall receive an eternal crown. Thus the hapless victims depicted as being marched off to the infernal regions under the escort of several ferocious-looking demons armed with terrific pitchforks, are invariably recruited from the ranks of the upper ten thousand. They are all being conducted to their destination with due regard for etiquette, and rigid observance of the laws of exact precedence. First comes a row of kings, easily to be distinguished by their golden crowns; then a procession of mitred bishops, followed by a line of noblemen booted and spurred; while on the other side of the wall a crowd of simple peasants and a group of shaven friars are being warmly invited by St. Peter, key in hand, to step over the threshold of the golden gate which leads to Paradise. [Illustration: ARCHBISHOP SCHAGUNA.]