Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/274

 ambassador at the time interceded for him even with somewhat unworthy petitions) and put out of the way. Georgius, a Greek, surnamed the "Little", who was the prince's treasurer, chancellor, and chief counsellor, was immediately removed from all his posts which he held, and lost the prince's favour, because he encouraged and defended the same cause. But as the prince could by no means dispense with his assistance, he was again restored to favour, and placed in a different office, for he was a man of remarkable learning and extensive experience. He had come to Moscow with the prince's mother; and the prince respected him so much, that on one occasion when he had summoned him, and found that he was sick, he ordered some of his counsellors of the first rank to fetch him in a sedan to his own residence. But when he reached the palace, he refused to be carried up so many steep steps, and being taken out of the sedan, he commenced ascending slowly up to the prince. When the prince accidentally saw this, he began to be extremely angry, and commanded that he should be brought up to him in a litter; and after he had consulted him, and his business was over, he ordered that he should be carried down the steps in a litter, and that he should be carried up and down ever afterwards.

The principal care of the monks is to convert all men whatsoever to their own creed. The hermit monks have already brought over to the faith of Christ a great part of those who were idolaters through daily and  industriously disseminating the word of God amongst them. Even now they go to various countries in the north and east, which they can only reach by the greatest toil, at the risk of both fame and life, and without hope of the least personal advantage; nor do they seek it, for they have an eye to this one thing only, viz., that they may be able to do an acceptable service to God, and to recall into the right path the souls of many who have gone astray (sometimes confirming the doc-