have seen,' they said, 'is awful and majestic, but what seems to us supernatural is the young men who have white wings and dazzling robes, and cry "Holy! Holy! Holy!" in mid-air--this truly surprises us.' 'What?' answered the guides, 'do you not know that angels come down from heaven to our services?' 'You are right,' said the Russians; 'it is enough--more we do not wish to see; let us return to our country and tell of that which we have already seen." If the early chronicles may be trusted, the Bible was first translated into Slavic by Cyril and Methodius, two Greek monks of Byzantium, about the year 863, and so prior to the advent of the Norseman Rurik. In all probability, the faith was spread by proselytising clergy, in part helped by the devotion of the noble women of Byzantium who wedded with the savage Ros, and from the first was wholly independent of the civil power. Of persecution there was little; Kiev furnished one Voeroeger martyr, and, as elsewhere among heathen, the Christian religion appears to have been readily embraced. Before the Kremlin was raised, before Moscow was, the church was represented on the banks of the Moskva by the little wooden chapel "spass na Boru." Ivan Kalita was one of the first to recognise the usefulness of the church as an adjunct to civil and military power; he made priests not only welcome in Moscow but all important there. How the reigning princes caused the church in Moscow to rival in authority that of Kiev and, later, to attain supremacy throughout Russia, has already been stated. Of equal importance to the work initiated by any Tsar were the services of St Sergius, founder of the great monastery at Troitsa, which at one time possessed immense tracts of land and owned more than 100,000 serfs. Sergius was born at Great Rostov, and in his youth passed some time near Moscow, and later, having a dozen disciples and the aid of the Patriarch of Constantinople, helped greatly the colonisation of Russia by sending out monks trained at Troitsa. He lived the life of a hermit, and even when abbot did his full share of the menial labour. A commonly seen picture represents him as an old man seated on a rough bench sharing his piece of bread with a bear. Then came St Peter, an apostle sent from Macedonia, who, as a sign "passed through the fire" uninjured; after converting many he settled at Kiev and was of great assistance to George Danielovich in raising the clerical status of Moscow, and to his "incorruptible remains" many miracles are attributed. A large number of relics assigned to him are still preserved in the Uspenski Sobor and the sacristy of the Patriarchs. Next in importance to Moscow was Alexis, the Metropolitan, afterwards canonised. From the earliest times, the clergy, living the life of the people and not that of the military caste, had great influence with citizens and peasants: many times the church has raised