journey to another town, in a part of
the country to which very few English travellers ever go, and there the
small community consisted of one family only, though they were three
generations. We were only a dozen altogether, and some might think it
was hardly worth taking up a bishop's time for three days to go and see
one family. But the head of that family had been there between forty
and fifty years, and never had our Church's service during that time,
nor received Communion. The grandchildren had never seen or heard the
service before, and they were the children of a Russian father,
attending a Russian school. I made my address simple so that they could
understand it, knowing that the others could if the children did, and I
had one or two opportunities of conversation with them, which they
greatly welcomed. Late at night I left, all the party accompanying me to
the station to see me off; and after we had said, "Good-bye," and they
had left, the mother of those children came back quietly and said:--

"Bishop, I felt I must come back just to tell you this. In the winter,
after having tried so long to keep my boy and girl English in their
ideas, I felt hopeless and gave up the struggle; but I want you to know
that in the service to-day I've had the strength and courage given me to
begin again."

[Illustration: _The British Community at Atbazar, Siberia, after Morning
Service during the Bishop's Visit._]

Is it not worth while to have a travelling chaplain go about and find
such experiences as that waiting for him in many places? Can any one
possibly think that those who have to live on the Continent of Europe,
because of some fanciful ideas of intrusion upon the jurisdiction of
another Church, should be deprived of the services of their own, and
find, as they inevitably do find, that they are ever accepting for
themselves a lowered standard and a dimmer ideal?

I remember a girl whom I had confirmed in Switzerland coming at a later
visit to tell me that, after six months of happy life as a communicant,
she had begun to "fall away," and now seemed to have "lost all
interest." What was she to do? On being questioned, it appeared that at
the end of those six months she had gone to stay with a family in the
country, where there was no English church within any possible distance,
and she said:--

"I missed the services at first, but I _found gradually that I could do
without them_; and so I grew not to mind." I advise