And

two annual commemorations in the cemetery. this last custom is even still kept up in some places.

M. Baranoff told us several remarkable stories, for instance: At the time of the mutiny on the present Emperor's accession, a certain captain had given assurance that he could answer for all his men; and, some of them having notwithstanding joined the mutineers, this man, being hardly spoken of by his colonel, shot himself. His sister, who was a nun, prayed much for his soul: and after twenty days she saw him in a dream, and he seemed to tell her that he was benefited much by her prayers, and to beg her to continue them. After forty days or a year (I forget which) he appeared again, giving her to understand that now it was well with him.

Again he spoke of a monastery on the road, I think to Archangel, where, when he was quite a boy, the remains of a hieromonach, named Theodore, were found incorrupt,' and wrought miracles. They acquired such

1 [Vide infra, p. 91, note. The most famous of these instances are supplied by the catacombs at Kieff.

"On the Dnieper," says Cardinal Lambertini, "is the city Kieff, and here are certain crypts about which Herbinius, a Lutheran, wrote a treatise. He made an inquiry about them of the Archimandrite, and as the result of it candidly reports that they were the work of angelic men whose bodies had remained incorrupt for about 600 years by reason of their sanctity of life and singular piety towards God. However, we

fame, that when he was grown up, from a feeling of curiosity, he persuaded his sister and others of his

of 150 versts to the monasWhile they were there, a She was bound with ropes

family to go to a distance tery where the relics lay. possessed girl was brought. and chains, and howled and cried in the most horrible and inhuman manner when the fit was on her. They sent for the priest to exorcise her; and as they were bringing the Trebuck (the Office-book) to read the prayers out of, she cried out not to let that book come near her; that it hurt her. When read, however, it

are ignorant whose bodies are buried in these crypts, and it ought to be enough for us that their incorruption [taken by itself] is not to be accounted a miracle."-Canon. Sanct., pp. 208, 209.

Pinkerton says, "The sacred catacombs consist of subterranean excavations in the hard dry sand and clayey hills on the left bank of the Dnieper. As with tapers in our hands we passed along, winding in different directions, we came to the square cells of the monks in former times, now the sepulchral chambers of many of them. Smaller niches are also occupied with bodies lying in open coffins, swaddled and dressed up in silks, with gloves on their hands and shoes on their feet of the most costly materials. The number of these mosches is seventy-three. In some respects they resemble mummies; only the latter have been embalmed, whereas these are preserved from falling into dust merely by the peculiar quality of the soil, and the dryness of the air in these caves, resembling that in the lower aisles of the cathedral churches of Bordeaux and Bremen, where I have seen a number of bodies which have been preserved in the same way, some of them for centuries."-Russia, pp. 218, 219.]

produced little or no effect. They then made her touch the Relics, which she struggled most violently not to do. At last they laid her hand or arm upon them, and she shrieked out. And then it seemed as if she were stupefied or killed by it; and she lay as if in a swoon for some time. For all that, when she at last came to herself she was by no means cured. He and his party left

without waiting to see the end.

They say that there

are many such cases; almost everybody has had personal knowledge of one or more. And though often there is no perfect cure, yet often on the other hand, there is a manifest cure; and even careless and irreligious people confess that it is so.

A friend of his, who had been living carelessly, was sitting alone one night in his room, his servant being in the anteroom. Suddenly his dog began to whine, and to show great excitement. At first he saw nothing; then he saw his father, who looked sternly at him, and asked him how long he meant to play the fool. The servant, being questioned, said that his attention had been excited by the dog's whining as if in alarm, and, on putting his head in, he saw his master looking like one dead. M. Baranoff said that from that time his friend has been an altered man.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Greek Liturgy.

THURSDAY, Aug. 15 [o.s.]. The Assumption.

At 10 a.m. I went to the Liturgy, and found

the church thronged, as it had been last night. The Deacon was standing with his face close to the Holy Doors, which presently were opened (that is for the lesser Introit, with the Gospel), and somewhat later (i.e. after the Gospel had been chanted) they were shut. After a while they again opened, and the Deacon came round again into the church from the north side-door, bearing on his head with one hand up to it the diskos (i.e. the paten) covered up, and having in his other hand a thurible, and followed by the priest bearing the chalice. Then the Holy Doors were again closed, and the veil within drawn. This is called the Great Introit, soon after which the Creed was sung by the two choirs of singers together; and the more mysterious part of the Liturgy followed, in which after the singing had ceased, Christ's words of the Institution

both for the Bread and for the Cup were uttered by the Priest aloud quite distinctly, and a response of Amen was sung after each recitation. Also the oblation,

66

offering to Thee for all and in respect of all” (dià távta kai katà πávτα), was said aloud, a slight elevation being made at the same time by the Deacon, and the choir sang something after it; and the invocation of the Holy Ghost "to make this bread the Body of Christ" was likewise said aloud, with a response of Amen by the Deacon, and "to make this cup the Blood of Christ" with Amen again, and for both together "changing by the Holy Spirit," with a triple response of Amen, Amen, Amen. But this invocation is commonly unheard and unnoticed by those standing in the body of the church. Then at the mention of the Blessed Virgin, as especially commemorated, the choirs burst in with an anthem: "It is meet indeed to call thee Blessed, O Deipara, ever-blessed and allimmaculate, and mother of our God, more honourable than the cherubim and more glorious than the seraphim beyond compare, who with unimpaired virginity didst bear God the Word, we magnify thee as being truly the Mother of God." The Lord's Prayer, also, a little later, was sung by all the singers together, as if by the whole congregation; and after the Priest and the Deacon had received the Communion within, the Holy Doors were once more opened, and the Holy Mysteries