The priests contrived, however, to have a pretty little salvage out of the shipwreck of 1812 ; among other things a Mount Sinai of pure ducat gold, a present from Prince Potemkin. On the summit stands a golden Moses, with a golden table of the law ; and within the mountain is a golden coffin to contain the host. It is said to weigh 120,000 ducats. A Bible, the gift of Nataha Narishkin, the mother of Peter the Great, is so large, and the cover so laden with gold and jewels, that it requires two strong men to carry it into the church. It is said to weigh 120 pounds. There is a gigantic deacon of this church, who sometimes displays his strength by taking the whole burden, like a second St. Christopher, on his o^n pious and enormous shoulders. The emeralds on the cover are an inch long, and the whole binding cost 1,200,000 rubles, a sum for which all the books in Moscow might be handsomely bound. The other remarkable objects in this church are, the great chestnut-coloured wooden tlu-one-seat of Vladimir the Great, within a house of brass-work, which they told us was an imitation of the tomb of Christ ; and a miraculous picture of the Saviour, which daily performs miracles quite incredible, that are faithfully believed by every one here " Within this month," said the priest who showed us the picture, " a merchant lame in both hands and feet was brought hither, and, after he had prayed fervently before this picture, he rose up healed and walked out of the door, which he had been carried through on his bed."
The Arkhangelslci Sabor (Church of the Archangel JNlichael), although dedicated to the bearer of the flaming sword, has such very diminutive windows that all the light of its jewels, and all the glitter of its gold and its fihrincs, are only sufficient very partially to enlighten its blackened wrUm. The star that shines the brightest in the night of this church is that of a little boy, on whose bier more blood has been shed and more sighs lavished than on that of any child in the world, and whose name, once so terrible in Russia, is now worshipped there.
It is the last false DemetriuS; who has long rested here, and enjoyed the homage of all Russia ; and as he now makes no claim to an earthly kingdom, lie enjoys his share in the heavenly kingdom uncontested. Of course the Russians do not esteem him the false but the veritable Demetrius. The fact they adduce in proof of this is exactly what raises in others the greatest doubt. They say that after the body of the royal child had been in vain sought for in Uglitsh, where he was nmrdered by the emissaries of Boris Godunoff, it arose, coffin and all, from the ground, at God's command, and presented itself to the longing people, whereby its genuineness was so paljmbly manifested, that it would be absurd to express any doubt on the subject.
Jie this as it may, the mummy of a boy of five or six years of age, magnificently clad, is exposed on festivals in an open coffin. Every part is veiled but the forehead, which is kissed by his adorers. Above the coffin, the portrait of the little canonized prince is attached to a pillar set in a I'aised frame of the finest gold. Being well concealed it escaped the French in 1812. The events happened two hundred years ago, but they yet live in as lively remembrance with the people, as if all had occurred but yesterday. While we strangers were standing with curious eyes before the picture, a fat merchant's wife on one side and an old peasant on the other came up to us, and began to relate the history of the holy child. The latter played the historian's part, and recounted the story of the murder for our edification ; the former enlarged on the discovery of the corpse and the value of the gold frame. Both were so zealous for our instruction, that what one omitted was supplied by the other, and frequently both talked away at the same time.
Plow strong the affection the Russians still feel for this last offshoot of the old Rurik dynasty, was lately testified by a gift made to the young martyr, by the inhabitants of Uglitsh, of a new silver podsvietshnik, a candlestick as tall as an ordinary man, with a profusely decorated pedestal and a thick flat top. On this top is a cavity in the centre for the reception of a thick wax-candle, with a number of smaller cavities around, for candles of different dimensions, according to pleasure.