I can overbear their sneers as I go away, and I know they have many sayings such as--'The priest takes from the living and from the dead.' Many of them fasten their doors, pretending to be away from home, and do not even take the precaution of keeping silent till I am out of hearing." "You surprise me," I said, in reply to the last part of this long tirade; "I have always heard that the Russians are a very religious people--at least the lower classes." "So they are; but the peasantry are poor and heavily taxed.

They set great importance on the sacraments, and observe rigorously the fasts, which comprise nearly a half of the year; but they show very little respect for their priests, who are almost as poor as themselves." "But I do not see clearly how you propose to remedy this state of things." "By freedom and publicity, as I said before." The worthy man seemed to have learned this formula by rote.

"First of all, our wants must be made known.

In some provinces there have been attempts to do this by means of provincial assemblies of the clergy, but these efforts have always been strenuously opposed by the Consistories, whose members fear publicity above all things.

But in order to have publicity we must have more freedom." Here followed a long discourse on freedom and publicity, which seemed to me very confused.