tion during a pause in the all-night
service between vespers and matins. After the service, in our modern
times, the _prosfori_ are given back to the owners, who cross themselves
and eat the bread reverently on the spot or elsewhere, as blessed but
not sacramental. At this monastery, the _prosfori_ prepared for memorial
use had a group of the local saints stamped on top, instead of the usual
cross and characters. It is considered a delicate attention on the part
of a person who has been on a pilgrimage to any of the holy places to
bring back a _prosfora_ for a friend. It is very good when sliced and
eaten with tea, omitting the bottom crust, which may have been dated in
ink by the pilgrim. Some of the peasants at this monastery church sent
in to be blessed huge packages of _prosfori_ tied up in gay cotton
kerchiefs.

The service ended, and the chief treasure of the monastery, the
miraculous image of the Assumption of the Virgin,--the Falling Asleep
of the Virgin is the Russian name,--was let slowly down on its silken
cords from above the Imperial Gate, where a twelve-fold silver lamp,
with glass cups of different colors, has burned unquenched since 1812,
in commemoration of Russia's deliverance from "the twelve tribes," as
the French invasion is termed. The congregation pressed forward eagerly
to salute the venerated image. Tradition asserts that it was brought
from Constantinople to Kieff in the year 1073, with the Virgin's special
blessing for the monastery. By reason of age and the smoke from
conflagrations in which the monastery has suffered, the image is so
darkened that one is cast back upon one's imagination and the copies for
comprehension of this treasure's outlines. What is perfectly
comprehensible, however, is the galaxy of diamonds, brilliants, and gems
thickly set in the golden garments which cover all but the hands and
feet of the personages in the picture, and illuminate it with flashes of
many-hued light. After a few minutes, the image was drawn up again to
its place,--a most unusual position for a valued holy image, though
certainly safe, and one not occupied, so far as I am aware, by any other
in the country.

It occurred to us that it might prove an interesting experiment to try
the monastery inn for breakfast, and even to sojourn there for a day or
two, and abandon the open sewers and other traces of advanced
civilization in the town. Our way thither led past the free lodgings for
poor pilgrims, wh