Priest. Bene. Of wliat sex are the ang-els ?
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
Bfnk. But I mean in then outward appearance, in their garments. Are they more hke the male or female sex ? In a word, how are their garments formed wlien they appear to us ?
A kind of medium between the two, a sort of toga in folds.
After all these theoretical matters comes the practical part; the " slushba" (service), and therein at a later period consists the chief art. A young Russian seminarist is much more zealous to learn the " service," and to qualify himself for the execution of the minutest forms, and of liis abilities that way he is much more proud, than of a knowledge of the more difficult questions of doctrine. As in all offices of religion, — baptism, mass, &c. — the form is in every minute particular defined, and every stone, so to say, hewn and carved as in a Gothic church ; it requires study and long practice, to get them all at the fingers' ends. I believe the suppleness of the Russians must do them good service here, and they find their way through the maze much more quickly than a German woidd do.
Speaking of an officer the phrase is often used, " On otshen kharasho slushbu snaf/et" (He knows the service very exactly). The same phrase is applied to a priest. Yet strange does it sound to hear the demeanour of a priest in the performance of his duties criticized in this manner. " // fait le service avec beaucoup de sentiment ;" or from another, " I do not like to go to him, lie makes such a ridiculous figure in the service, and has such had manners."
At first I did not understand this, and did not see how it was possible when the form of the spectacle was so precisely settled, that there coidd bo much difference ; but I afterwards observed among the priests traces of affectation, an artificial sentimentality, and striving after effect, in the manner of making the cross, in pronouncing the blessing, in putting on the robes, and so forth. I shall never forget one old bishop, whom I have often seen officiate. The man might have been as old as the patriarchs ; his white hair, and long white beard, hung from his head like the long moss tangles from a northern pine ; his slow step and gentle motions were those of a spirit, and his voice sounded like that of a hamadryad from the hollow of a halfdecayed oak. When he pronounced the often -repeated words " In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ;" the last words sounded so ghostlike through the church, that one felt as if a supernatural being were near. Such priests are best liked by the Russians, they prefer them to young men gifted with the finest voices, as they prefer their old black pictures to the pretty newly-painted ones, and old worn dirty prayer-books to clean and well printed ones.
Just such another figure was the old Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, who could no longer hold a book, and was besides too dim-siffhted to have read it if he had. The Bible used to be held before him, and what he had to read whispered in his ear by another, when the prompter was sometimes better heard than the actor.
THE SECTS OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH.
I was sitting once on the shores of the Black Sea with an old Greek fisherman, who had formerly been captain of a small vessel, and as such had in his youth visited Odessa, which was then a little Turkish anchoringplace. We had been speaking of different things, and came at last to the differences in religious behef. After sundry remarks on the subject, my companion expressed his sentiments thus : " The only true Christians are those of the Greek church. That is evident. For what is Christianity ? It is the holy Trinity, and the three fingers mean the Trinity. We make the cross the only right way with tliree fingers. The Lutherans don't make the sign of the cross at all. I won't say that they are heathens exactly, but there is very little Christianity in them. And the Catholics, my God!" — and here he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, — " they make the cross with thumps and punches in the ribs !" He could hardly recover himself from the excess of his mirth at the folly of the wrongbelie^^ng Catholics !