golden cross. These islands are the Solovetsk group; and once, at least, the lad went over from Kem in a boat to pray in that holy place. The lights, the music, and the ample cheer appealed to his fancy and his stomach; leaving on his mind an impression of peace and fullness never to be effaced.

He got his pass as a seaman, came over to Archangel, fell into loose ways, and meeting with some German sailors from the Baltic, listened to their lusty songs and merry tales, until he felt a desire to leave his own country and go with them on a voyage. Now sailors are scarce in the Russian ports; the Emperor Nicolas was in those days drafting his seamen into the Black Sea fleets; and for a man to quit Russia without a pass from the police was a great offense. Such a pass the lad felt sure he could never get; and when the German vessel was about to sail he crept on board her in the night, and got away to sea without being found out by the port police.

The vessel in which he escaped from his country was the "Hero,” of Passenburg, in Hanover, plying as a rule between German and Danish ports, but sometimes running over to the Tyne and the Thames. Entered on the ship's books in a foreign name, Father John adopted the tastes of his new comrades; learned to eat English beef, to drink German beer, and to carry himself like a man of the world. But the teaching of his father and his pope was not lost upon him, even in the slums of Wapping and on the quays of Rotterdam. He began to pine for religion, as a Switzer pines for his Alp and an Egyptian for his Nile. What could he do? The thought of going home to Kem was a fearful dream. The lash, the jail, the mine awaited him-he thought-in his native land.

Cut off from access to a priest of his own religion, he talked to his fellows before the mast about their faith. Some laughed at him; some cursed him; but one old sailor took him to the house of a Catholic priest. For four or five weeks Father John received a lesson every day in the creed of Rome; but his mind misgave him as to what he heard; and when his vessel left the port he was still without a church. In the Levant, he met with creeds of all nations-Greek, Italian, Lutheran, Armenian-but he could not choose between them, and his mind was troubled with continual longings for a better life.

Then he was wrecked in the Gulf of Venice, and having nearly lost his life, he grew more and more uneasy about his soul. A few months later he was wrecked on the coast of Norway; and for the second time in one year he found himself at the gates of death. He could not live without religion; and the only religion to whisper peace to his soul was that of his early and better days. But then the service of his country is one of strict observance, and a man who can not go to church can not exercise his faith. How was he to seek for God in a foreign port?

A chance of coming back to Russia threw itself in his path. The ship in which be served-a German ship-was chartered by an English firm for Archangel; and as Father John was the only Russ on board, the skipper saw that his man would be useful in such a voyage. But the news was to John a fearful joy. He longed to see his country once more, to kneel at his native shrines, to give his mother some money he had saved; but he had now been twelve years absent without leave, and he knew that for such an offense he could be sent to Siberia, as he phrased it, "like a slave." His fear overcame his love, and he answered the skipper that he would not go, and must quit the ship.

But the skipper understood his trade. Owing John some sixteen pounds for pay, he told him that he had no money where he lay, and could not settle accounts until they arrived in Archangel, where he would receive his freight. "Money,' says the Russ proverb, "likes to be counted," and when Father John thrust his hands into empty pockets, he began to think, after all, it might be better to go home, to get his wages, and see what would be done.

With a shaven chin and foreign name, he might have kept his secret and got away from Archangel undiscovered by the port police, had he not yielded the night before he should have sailed, and gone with some Germans of the crew to a drinking-den. Twelve years of abstinence from vodka had caused him to forget the power of that evil spirit; he drank too much, he lost his senses; and when he woke next day he found that his mates had left him, that his ship had sailed. What could he do? If he spoke to the German consul, he would be treated as a deserter from his post. If he went to

the Russian police, he fancied they would knout him to death. Not knowing what to say or how to act, he was mooning in the port, when he met an old schoolfellow from Kem, one Jacob Kollownoff (whom I afterwards came to know). Like most of the hardy men of Kem, Jacob was prospering in the world; he was a skipper, with a boat of his own, in which he made distant and daring voyages. At the moment when he met Father John he was preparing for a run to Spitzbergen in search of cod, to be salted at sea, and carried to the markets of Cronstadt. Jacob saw no harm in a sailor drinking a glass too much, and knowing that John was a good hand, he gave him a place in his boat and took him out on his voyage. The cod was caught, and Cronstadt reached; but the return was luckless; and John was cast away for a third time in his life. A wrecked and broken man, he now made up his mind to quit the sea, and even to take his chance of what his people might do with him at home.

Returning to Kem with the skipper, he was seized by the police on the ground of his papers being out of order, and cast into the common jail of the town, where he lay for twelve months untried. The life in jail was not harder than his life on deck; for the Government paid him, as a prisoner, six kopecks a day; enough to supply his wants. He was never brought before a court. Once, if not more than once, the elder hinted that a little money would make things straight, and he might go his way. The sum suggested as enough for the purpose was seventy-five rubles-nearly ten pounds. in English coin. "Tell him," said John to his brother, who brought this message to the jail, "he shall not get from me so much as one kopeck."

A week later he was sent in a boat from Kem to Archangel, under sentence, he was told, of two years' hard labor in the fort; but either the elder talked too big, or his message was misread; for on going up to the police-office in that city, the prisoner was examined and discharged.

A dream of the summer isles and golden pinnacles came back to him; he had lived his worldly life, and longed for rest. Who can wonder that he wished to become a monk of Solovetsk!

To the convent his skill in seamanship was of instant use.

A steamer had just been bought in Glasgow for the carriage of pilgrims to and fro; and on her arrival in Archangel, Feofan, Archimandrite of Solovetsk, discharged her Scottish crew and manned her with his monks. At first these holy men felt strange on deck; they crossed themselves; they sang a hymn; and as the pistons would not move, they begged the Scottish engineer to return; since the machine-being made by heretics— had not grace enough to obey the voice of a holy man. They made two or three midsummer trips across the gulf, getting hints from the native skippers, and gradually warming to their work. A priest was appointed captain, and monks were sent into the kitchen and the engine-room. All went well for a time; Savatie and Zosima—the local saints of Solovetsk-taking care of their followers in the fashion of St. Nicolas and St. George.

Yet Father John was a real God's gift to the convent, for the voyage is not often to be described as a summer trip; and even so good a person as an Archimandrite likes to know, when he goes down into the Frozen Sea, that his saints are acting through a man who has sailed in the roughest waters of the world.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE VLADIKA.

"You have a letter of introduction to the Archimandrite of Solovetsk ?" asks Father John, as we are shaking hands under the pilgrim's lamp. "No! Then you must get one.

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Why? Are you so formal when a pilgrim comes to the holy shrine ?"

"You are not quite a pilgrim. You will need a room in the guest-house for yourself. You may wish to have horses, boats, and people to go about. You will want to see the sacristy, the jewels, and the books. You may like to eat at the Archimandrite's board."

“But how are these things to be done?”

"You know the Most Sacred Vladika of Archangel, perhaps ?"

"Well, yes, a little. One of the Vladika's closest friends has been talking to me of that sacred personage, and has promised to present me this very day."

"Get from him a line to the Archimandrite. That will make all things smooth," says Father John.

"Are they great friends ?"

"Ha! who can tell? You see, the Most Sacred Vladika used to be master of every one in the Holy Isles; and ; but then the Vladika of Archangel and the Archimandrite of Solovetsk are holy men, not likely to fall out. You'll get a line ?”

now

"Yes, if he will give me one; good-bye."

"Count on a week for the voyage, and bring white bread," adds the dwarf. "Prosteté-Pardon me."

Of course, the Vladika (bishop or archbishop) is a monk; for every high-priest in the Orthodox Church, whether his rank be that of vicar, archimandrite, bishop, or metropolite, must wear the hood, and must have taken vows. The rule that a bishop must be "the husband of one wife,” is set aside so far as regards the clergy of higher grades. A parish priest is a married man; must, in fact, be a married man; and no young deacon can obtain a church until he has first obtained a bride. The social offices of the Church are done by these family men; baptism, purifying, marriage, confession, burial; yet the higher seats in the hierarchy are all reserved (as yet) for celibates who are under vows.

The Holy Governing Synod-highest court of the Orthodox Church-consists of monks, with one lay member to assist them by his knowledge of the world. No married priest has ever had a seat on that governing board. The metropolites are monks; and not only monks, but actual rulers of monastic houses. Isidore, metropolite of Novgorod, is archimandrite of the great Convent of St. George. Arseny, metropolite of Kief, is archimandrite of the great Convent of Pechersk. Innocent, metropolite of Moscow, is archimandrite of the great Convent of Troitsa. All the vicars of these high-priests are monks. The case of Archangel and Solovetsk is, therefore, the exception to a general rule. St. George, Pechersk, and Troitsa, are governed by the nearest prince of the Church; and in former times this was also the