Yaroslav’s previous life had passed, not merely without fruitful action, but even in action which dimmed his reputation. It had passed in barren wars, which were for the greater part the mere wanton, fighting amusement of princes. Only in riper years, when, in time of bitter slavery, he held the throne of Vladimir under Mongols, and when he had passed through the woe of the Russian land in common with all people, did he redeem his past errors and receive that respect which made his name memorable and won for him that love which he could not obtain earlier. When Yaroslav returned to Vladimir the people met him with grateful tears and a touching delight, with prayers to the Almighty and with thankfulness. All saw in him now a prince who had suffered with the people, and a still greater merit was this,—that he was ready to suffer with them in future. Everything that had happened before the Mongol tempest seemed now very distant, a past gone forever, but a past with its terrible relics. What Yaroslav had seen while returning to Vladimir was ghastly to look at and remember. He had passed through places worse than a desert. Vladimir was one half destroyed, one half charred and blackened. There were dead bodies everywhere,—in the streets, in the houses, in the churches. Yaroslav’s first task was to cleanse, to clear out and purify, to bury the dead; clear away the ruins; summon the people from forests and dens of concealment; to struggle with hunger, which threatened to increase, and with pestilence, which follows closely on hunger; to restore order; and begin anew to establish that which had been created by generations of labor and had been lost in that one Mongol horror.