e to see Who said 'By this shall all men know that ye are
My disciples if ye have love one to another.' That will be progress of
the best kind, and, even if it is slow, I for one shall greatly rejoice
that we are moving at all in the right direction. Let us only keep
moving, and we shall arrive in time."

We talked on about my own experiences the year before just to the south
of where he had lived so long, and when I told him that I hoped this
year to go to the Altai, his own actual country, he looked as though he
envied me the journey. After embracing me again he accompanied me into
the ante-room, where a poor peasant woman was waiting to see him with an
_ikon_ to be blessed. There was a great pile of quite cheap _ikons_ for
the poor, towards which he waved his hand and said, "And I have all
these to bless also."

As I left I could only murmur to myself, "The dear old saint." He made
me feel some sense of being back at Troas or Miletum or Ephesus, or
coming out from the presence of Barnabas or Silas or St. Paul. It was
truly apostolic!

Of course the interpreter makes a tremendous difference, but again, as
at Petrograd and Riga, I had an excellent friend and helper in Mr.
Birse, one of the churchwardens of our church in Moscow, who had spoken
Russian all his life. I may add also that, as in Mr. Feild's case at
Petrograd, he enjoyed the interview as much as I did, and would probably
catch little subtleties of expression and self-revelation that would be
lost to me by the hurried kind of interpretation that was necessary.

The next great dignitary I will try and describe, though I know I cannot
possibly do justice to the dignity and nobility of character evident in
all she says and does, is the Abbess Magdalena of the great Convent at
Ekaterinburg in Siberia. The Convent is a most imposing group of
buildings, stretching along an extended front, with cupolas, spires, and
pinnacles, and is much frequented by pilgrims from far and near who come
to pray in its chapel before a famous _ikon_. The Abbess and all her
nuns wear the same kind of black dress, with cap and veil, quite black
and unredeemed by any trace of white linen or cambric. The first thing
that impressed me, even before I entered the gate, was the beauty of
their singing. The choir were practising for a service on the Emperor's
name-day on the morrow, and their hymn was the most beautiful thing I
had ever heard from women's voices. It seemed to me that all th