TheEnghsharethe only foreigners in St. Petersburg who keep exclusively to their own community, and form a kind of state within a state, or at least endeavour to do so. On their church on the Neva is inscribed, " Chapel of the English Factor)'," and the same is stamped on all their prayer books. This factory is not one of the least interesting of all the settlements that this remarkable nation has scattered over the whole globe. Though small in numbers, (there are about 800 souls,) it is extremely rich, and in credit, power, and opulence perhaps as important as a settlement of 20,000 individuals of any other nation. Many EngHsh have entered the Russian service, and seem to do extremely well in it. "When I visited their church I counted twenty Russian epaulets on young English officers. " Farther, farther," said a voice beliind me, as I stood in the entrance, looking over the little congregation and estimating their numbers. It was an elegant, but grave and severe-looking gentleman, who directed my attention to the regulations suspended from a pillar, which forbade standing in the passages, and then gave me a seat. On one occasion when the Emperor Nicholas visited this church, and stood still at the entrance, he also was addressed with the " Farther, farther ! your majesty," and shown to a seat. Extreme quiet, which is not the least important part of public worship, and is certainly more conducive to devotion than singing or any other exercise, reigned over the whole assembly. But it was not all alike pleasing or edifying. The English episcopal service is certainly susceptible of much reformation and improvement. The very monotonous, though not displeasing singing, (they never make such an outcry as in many German congregations,) occupies the greater part of the time. The sermon is short, the manner of dcHvering it without eloquence or fervour. The St. Petersburg preacher, moreover, propped his head sometimes on his right, sometimes on his left hand, and sometimes on both together, which would have looked indecorous in a coffee-house, but in the pulpit, and from a preacher, was in the highest degree improper and offensive. The English clerk, who sits under the pulpit, constantly repeats certain words of the preacher in such ajourneyman-like fashion, and in so nasal and trumpeting a tone, that it is really difficult to keep properly in view the gravity of the occasion, and not to be unduly excited by the very comic effect. It is strange also, and beneath the dignity of the preacher, to leave his seat so often during the prayers, and appear now here and now there, now at the altar, and now in his desk.
There are several German Lutheran churches in St. Petersburg, but they would not be sufficient to contain the 40,000 German protestants there settled, if they were as zealous church goers there as in their native land. The church of St. Anne is the most important; the preachers appear much too fine in the pulpit, covered as they are with orders, whose gay colours fonn a glaring contrast with their black gowns. There is also a great deal of luxury and ostentation among the German congregations. One day I found St .Anne's church all hung with black, the pulpit decked with crape, before the altar several tapers were burning as in the Greek churches, and in the midst was placed a coffin covered with silver, and before the door, carriages, some with two, some with four horses, and a whole chorus of black muffled torch-bearers. In great astonishment I asked what German prince had died here. It is the confectioner K , of Vassili Ostroff, was the answer! We forgive luxury and ostentation in princes and nobles much more readily than in upstarts and mechanics, because to those bom in the purple, it comes as something of course ; they fancy it cannot be otherwise. But the others have a bad conscience in their proceedings, hide it but indifferently, and may be said to invade the rights of the public.
In a foreign land, even the most insignificant appearance has an unusual interest, and if we bestow little attention on a fruit-tree in a garden, we examine it more closely by a hermitage, or in a wilderness. Such a fruit-tree is the small brotherhood of Hermhuters in St. Petersburg. Their small adorned house of prayer is at the end of Isaac's-street, and is entered through a light, cheerful court. There are very few of them ; not more than fifty brothers, it is said, form the centre of this congregation ; but the reputation of their piety, and the eloquence of their preachers, has spread so far, that on every holiday many persons assemble here, high and low, Germans, Russians, Poles, and French. The church is always so full that the people press up to the open windows to take part in the service, and the pastor opens the doors of his adjoining apartments to find places for the congregation.