might reign in the hearts of Christians at Moscow. They assisted with all their suite at the usual prayers, and, after they left the church, there followed repeated roarings of cannon, and the ringing of bells of every size and tone down to nightfall. The heir-apparent, who came that day in state with his bride, had himself been baptized in infancy within the precincts of the Kremlin, in the Church of the Annunciation, in the Choudoff monastery, from which at a later hour I saw the Metropolitan then come across the square to receive him. S CHAPTER CII. The Choudoff Monastery. OME days after I was shown over the Choudoff founder, are preserved in a silver shrine. Alexis, its There was a rich pall over them, and a monk standing by with a stole over his black dress, and his staff in his hand. This was on the morning of June 7 [N.s.]. Overhead was a picture of the Saint as he appeared before Demetrius Donskoi, exhorting him to put his trust in God in the approaching conflict with Mamai, the Mongol. The doors of the Sanctuary are of silver. In the vestry is preserved a copy of the New Testament, written by St. Alexis with his own hand very beautifully on parchment, and much worn, with a few words of Archbishop Platen on the first leaf. There were also, as elsewhere, some most splendidly jewelled robes and mitres; one set in particular presented by the Emperor Paul to the Metropolitan Platon, and another given by a noble lady still living to the present Metropolitan. In this monastery, Isidore, the thirtieth Metropolitan, was confined, on his return from the Council of Florence; and here Gregory Otrepieff, the PseudoDemetrius, planned his enterprise which had almost subjected Russia to the Poles. CHAPTER CIII. St. Sergius. SERGIUS, the founder and special saint and patron of the Troitsa or Trinity Monastery, flourished in the fourteenth century,' and it may be right to preface this visit to his great Lavra with some pages from Mouravieff's "Church History," and Mr. Blackmore's notes upon it, by way of introducing to the reader both the Holy Hermit and his home. "With the name of Sergius," says Mouravieff, p. 61, a new monastic world opens itself in the north. The commencement of his lonely hermitage in the woods near Moscow is a point of as much importance in our history as the excavation of the caves of Anthony on the banks of the Dnieper; for he was destined to divide with Anthony the glory of having been the Father of monasticism in Russia. Sergius was born at Rostoff; when yet quite young he left the house of his parents, and, together with his brother Steven, settled 1 [Vide supra, pp. 183, 184.] G g himself in the thick woods in the neighbourhood of Radonege, where his brother left him. In this wild solitude he resisted all manner of temptations, and lived among the wild beasts of the forest, until the report of his holy life drew disciples around him. He built by his own labour in the midst of the forest a wooden church, with the title of the Source of Life, the ever blessed Trinity, which has since grown into that glorious Lavra, whose destiny has become inseparable from the destinies of the capital, and from whence on so many occasions the salvation of all Russia has proceeded. "Prelates and princes applied to Sergius for teachers, who, trained by him to perfection, might in turn by their good example be of like service to others; and thus a second era and development of monasticism began, and in the fulness of its light our unhappy country, which had been suffering so long under the plague of the Tartars, revived. At the very moment of the decisive victory upon the Don, gained over the Mongols, which first shook their empire in Russia, the aged saint was supporting Demetrius by his prayers. "He died at an extreme old age, amid the blessings of his contemporaries, which were soon changed into prayers for his intercession when his remains were found uncorrupted. They were found by his disciple |