door. A colonel of gendarmes leaped from a drojki, followed by a master of police. Four gendarmes and four citizens of Moscow came with them. Pushing into the chief office, they asked to see the strong-box, and to have it opened in their presence. As the clerk looked shy, the colonel of gendarmes was sharp and rude. They were accused, he said, of forging ruble notes, and he had come by order of the Governor-general, Prince Vladimir Dolgorouki, to open their strong-box under the eyes of four eminent merchants and the master of police. He laid the prince's mandate down; he showed his own commission; and then in an imperial tone, demanded to have the keys! The keys could not be found; the treasurer was gone to Moscow, and would not return that night. Then seal your box,' said the colonel of gendarmes; 'the police will keep it! Come to-morrow, with your keys, to Prince Dolgorouki's house in the Tverskoi Place, at ten o'clock.' The box was sealed; the police master hauled it into his drojki; in half an hour the cavalcade was gone. Next day the treasurer, with his clerk and manager, drove into Moscow with their keys, and on arriving in the Tverskoi Place were smitten pale with news that no search for ruble notes had been ordered by the prince."

"Who, then, was that colonel of gendarmes ?"

"A thief; the master of police a thief; the four gendarmes were thieves; the four eminent citizens thieves !"

"And what was done ?"

"Prince Dolgorouki sent for Rebrof, head of the police (a very fine head), and told him what these thieves had done. 'Superb!' laughed Rebrof, as he heard the tale; and when the prince had come to an end of his details, he again cried out, in genuine admiration, 'Ha! superb! One man, and only one in Moscow, has the brain for such a deed. The thief is Simonoff. Give me a little time, say nothing to the world, and Simonoff shall be yours.' Rebrof kept his word; in three months Simonoff was tried, found guilty on the clearest proof, and sentenced to the mines for life. Rebrof traced him through the cabmen, followed him to his haunts, learned what he had done with the scrip and bonds, and then arrested him in a public bath. The money-two hundred thousand rubles-he had shared and spent. 'Siberia,' cried the

1

brazen rogue, when the judge pronounced his doom, 'Siberia is a jolly place; I have plenty of money, and shall have a merry time.' Had there been no false reports about the cemetery, a theft like Simonoff's could hardly have taken place."

CHAPTER XXXI.

RAGOSKI.

RAGOSKI, another cemetery of the Old Believers, in the suburbs of Moscow, has a different story, and belongs to a second branch of the Popular Church. There is a party of Old Believers "with priests" and a party "without priests." Ragoski belongs to the party with priests; Preobrajenski to the party without priests.

One party in the Popular Church believes that the priesthood has been lost; the other party believes that it has been saved. Both parties deny the Orthodox Church; but the more liberal branch of the Popular Church allows that a true priesthood may exist in other Greek communions, by the bishops of which a line of genuine pastors may be ordained.

"You wish to visit the Ragoski ?" asks my host. "Then we must look to our means. The chiefs of Ragoski are suspicious; and no wonder; the times of persecution are near them still. In the reign of Nicolas, the Ragoski was shut up, the treasury was seized, and many of the worshippers were sent away-no one knows whither; to Siberia, to Archangel, to Imeritia—who shall say? Alexander has given them back their own; but they can not tell how long the reign of grace may last. An order from Prince Dolgorouki might come tomorrow; their property might be seized, their chapel closed, their hospital emptied, and their graves profaned. It is not likely; it is not probable; for the favor shown to this cemetery is a part of our general progress, not an isolated act of imperial grace. But these Old Believers, caring little about general progress, give the glory to God. If you told them they are tolerated, as Jews are tolerated, they would think you mad; The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away;

blessed be the name of the Lord." Who among them knows when the evil day may come? Hence, they suspect a stranger. Not twenty men in Moscow, out of their own communion, have been within their gates. The cemetery will be hard to enter; hard as to enter your own Abode of Love."

By happy chance, a gentleman calls while we are talking of ways and means, who is not only an Old Believer, but an Old Believer of the branch with priests. A short man, white and wrinkled, with a keen gray eye, a serious face, and speech that takes you by its wonderful force and fire, this gentleman is a trader in the city, living in a fine house, and giving away in charities the income of a prince. I know one man to whom he sends every year a thousand rubles, as a help for poor students at the university. This good citizen is a banker, trader, mill-owner, what not; he is able, prompt, adroit; he gives good dinners; and is hand-and-glove with every one in power. I have heard folks say-by way of parable, no doubt —that all the police of Moscow are in his pay. You also hear whispers that this banker, trader, what not, is a priest; not of the ordained and apostolic order, but one of those popular priests whom the Synod hunts to death. Who knows?

"You are an Old Believer," he begins, addressing his speech to me. "I know that from your book on The Holy Land; every word of which expresses the doctrines held by the Russian Church in her better days."

My host explains my great desire to see the cemetery of Ragoski. "You shall be welcomed there like a friend. Let me see; shall I go with you? No; it will be better for you to go alone. The governor, Ivan Kruchinin, shall be there to receive you. I will write." He dashes off a dozen lines of introduction, written in the tone and haste of a recognized chief.

Armed with this letter we start next day, and driving through the court-yards of the Kremlin, have to pull up our drojki, to allow a train of big black horses to go prancing by. It is the train of Innocent, metropolite of Moscow, taking the air in a coach-and-six !

"This Ragoski cemetery," says the councillor of state, as we push through the China Town into the suburbs, " had an origin like that of the Transfiguration. It was opened on ac

count of plague (1770), not by a single founder, like its rival, but by a company of pious persons, anxious to consecrate the ground in which they had already begun to lay their dead. A chapel was erected, and a daily service was performed in that chapel for eighty-six years. Of late, the police are said to have troubled them very much; no one knows why; and no one dares to ask any questions on such a point. We are all too much afraid of the gentlemen in cowl and gown." In about an hour we are at the gates. The place is like a desert, brightened by one gaudy pile. An open yard and silent office; a wall of brick; a painted chapel, in the old Russ style; a huge tabernacle of plain red brick; a wilderness of mounds and tombs: this is Ragoski. Not a soul is seen except one aged man in homely garb, who is carrying logs of wood. This man uncaps as we drive past; but turns and watches us with furtive eyes. Our letter is soon sent in; but we are evidently scanned like pilgrims at Marsaba; and twenty minutes elapse before the governor comes to us, cap in hand, and begs us to walk in.

A small, round man, with ruddy face and laughing eyes, and tender, plaintive manner, Ivan Kruchinin is not much like the men we see about-men who have a lean, sad look and fearful eyes, as though they lived in the conscious eclipse of light and faith. Coming to our carriage-door, he begs us to step in, and puts his service smilingly at our will.

"What is this new edifice with the gay old Tartar lozenges and bars ?"

"Ugh ?" sighs the governor.

"One of the last efforts made to win these Old Believers over," says the councillor of state. "You see the monks have gone to work with craft. The pile is Russ outside, like many old chapels in Moscow; piles which catch the eye and impress the mind. They call it an Old Believers' Chapel; they have built it as the Roman centurion built the Jews a synagogue; and they hold a service in it, as they hold a service. in the Transfiguration; said and sung by Orthodox popes, but in the language and the forms employed before Nikon's time."

Inside, the chapel is arranged to suit an Old Believer's taste; and every point of ritual, phrase and form is yielded to such as will accept the ministry of an Orthodox priest.

"Do they draw any part of your flock?"

"Not a soul," says the governor. "A few of those 'without priests,' have joined them in despair; not many—not a hundred; while thousands of their people are coming round to us."

"These converts, who accept an Orthodox priest and the ancient ritual, are called the United Old Believers—are they not?"

"United! They-the new schismatics! We know them not; we hate all sects; and these misguided men are adding to our country another sect."

Passing the cemetery yards, ascending some broad stone steps, we stand at a chapel door. This door is closed, and all around us reigns the silence which befits a tomb. Kruchinin makes a sign; his tap is answered from within; a door swings back; and out upon us floats a low, weird chant. Going through the door, we find ourselves in a spacious church, columned and pictured, with a noble dome. This is the Old Believers' church. A few dim lamps are burning on the shrines; some tapers flit and mingle near the royal gates; a crowd of women kneel on the iron floor, not only in the aisles, but across the nave. Advancing with our guide, up the central aisle, we come upon a line of men, some prostrate on the ground, some standing erect in prayer. A group of singers and readers stands apart, in front of the royal gates, with service-books and candles in their hands, reciting in a sweet, monotonous drone the ritual of the day.

As a surprise the scene is perfect.

"Who are these readers and singers ?"

"Citizens of Moscow," says the governor; "bankers, farmers, men of every trade and class."

We stand aside until the service ends-a most impressive service, with louder prayers and livelier bendings than you hear and see in Orthodox cathedrals. Then we move about. "What is the service just concluded?" Kruchinin bends his eyes to the ground, and answers, "Only a layman's service; one that can be said without a priest. You noticed, perhaps, that neither the royal gates nor the deaccn's doors were opened ?"

"Yes; how is that?'