rded by a pause when
changing horses in the night to get a few hours' sleep in the
_tarantass_ in the open air, which would, of course, make all the
difference, and which would then be quite possible. But if I had done it
on this occasion I should have had to lose a Sunday instead of arriving
on the Saturday evening. I was well repaid, for though nothing more than
a notice was sent quickly round, "The bishop has come, and there will be
services at the manager's house to-morrow at half-past ten and at six,
and Holy Communion at half-past seven," yet at half-past seven every one
of our countrymen was there and received Communion except the wife of
one member of the staff ill in bed. The manager's two little boys were
there to be present at the first early Anglican celebration of Holy
Communion ever taken beyond the Urals. A beautiful _ikon_, flowers, and
two lights adorned the temporary altar. Others than our own countrymen
attended the other services. It was a glorious day to have, including
as it did attendance at the Russian Church in the morning when our own
service was over.

This great mining property includes Karagandy, where the coal is, and to
which I came first; Spassky, where the smelting-works had been set up,
some forty miles further on; and Uspensky, where the mine itself is,
some fifty miles further still. From Spassky I went to Uspensky by
motor-car, and spent three days there with the foreman of the mine and
his family. I went down the mine also to make acquaintance with the
Kirghiz who are at work there, and knocked off for myself some specimens
of the rich ore.

The foreman and his family--two girls and two sons of between twenty and
thirty--had been in New Zealand, in the Backs, and it was no new thing
for them to have a bishop stay and give them services. The wife was a
particularly good and devout woman, and in all the years she had been
there had never once had the happiness of attending a service of her own
Church. The two young men were shy fellows, but the manager having first
prepared the way, I took them in hand, and, finding they were ready to
come to a decision in life, instructed and confirmed them. On these
missions, as with Philip and the eunuch, we cannot lose such
opportunities; and I shall not forget the Celebration, early on the day
I left, when that whole family received Communion together. I know what
a joy, such as she had never expected, it was to that good woman thus to
have fam