Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/281

Rh Sergius, and discovered after its locality had been unknown for nearly three hundred years. Near the chnrch is a tower two hundred and ninety feet high, and containing several bells, one of them weighing sixty-five tons. Russia is certainly the country of gigantic bells.

"A description of all the churches at Troitska would be tedious, especially as we have spoken of the two of greatest interest. The sacristy is in a detached building, and contains more curiosities than I could describe in a dozen pages. There are mitres, crowns, crosses, and other ornaments that have been given to the monastery by the various rulers of Russia or by wealthy individuals, many of them set with jewels of remarkable size and beauty. A copy of the Gospels, given by the Czar Michael in 1632, is in heavy covers, ornamented with designs in enamel; in the centre of the design on the front cover is a cross made with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, and there is a similar though smaller cross on the back.

"The robes worn by the priesthood are as numerous and costly as those we saw at Moscow, and so are the ornaments that accompany them. The pearl head-dress which Catherine II. wore at her coronation is preserved here, and serves as an ornament on a priestly robe. There is a crown presented by Elizabeth, and an altar-cloth from John the Terrible. And so we could go on through a long list of magnificent gifts from kings and emperors, and an equally long array of vestments worn by high dignitaries of the Church on state occasions.

"The piety of the pilgrims is shown by their adoration, not of these jewelled crowns and diadems, but of the wooden utensils and coarse garments which belonged to the founder of the monastery. These relics are distributed among the glass cases which contain the costly mementos we have mentioned, with the evident intention of setting forth as clearly as possible the simple ways of his life.

"One of the curiosities they showed us was a natural agate, in which there is the figure of a monk bowing before a cross. The cross is very clearly defined, and so is the cowled figure kneeling before it, though the latter would hardly be taken as representing anything in particular if