Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/270

 stoop to labour, than idly to waste their substance and their time in drinking, playing, and so on; for beer and mead are forbidden to the common people, except on some of the more solemn feast days, such as Christmas Day, Easter Day, Whit Sunday, and some others, when they are permitted to drink them, so that, on these days, they abstain from labour, not for divine worship, but rather for the sake of the drink.

They keep the feast of the Trinity on Monday during the feast of Pentecost, and on the eighth day of Pentecost they keep the feast of All Saints; but they do not observe the day of Corpus Christi as we do.

In taking oaths and swearing, they seldom use the name of God; but when they swear, they confirm what they have said or promised by kissing the cross. Their common imprecation is like that of the Hungarians, "May a dog defile thy mother", etc. Whenever they sign themselves with the sign of the cross, they do it with the right hand, that they may first touch the forehead, then the breast, then the right, and lastly the left side of the breast, in the form of a cross; but if any one guide his hand otherwise, they do not regard him as a follower of the same creed, but as a stranger; for I remember that I myself, being ignorant of this ceremony, and guiding my hand otherwise, was noticed and reproached with this appellation.

They do not believe in Purgatory, but say that every one who is dead receives a place according to his desert; that to the pious is ordained a bright abode with the peaceful angels, and to the ungodly, a gloomy place beset with black darkness, with the angels of terror, where they await the last