As we were thus talking, the Archimandrite, Ieronym himself, came out of the hostelry yard and passed us, a benign old man, devout and ancient of aspect, but kindly and wise.  He is accounted a living saint, and it may well be that after his death he will be canonised.  Novy Afon has only been in existence thirty years, and he has been abbot all the time.  The monastery has been his own idea, it has grown with him.  If Novy Afon is a fountain of life, he is the rock out of which the fountain springs.  The whole monastery and all its ways are under his guidance, and as he wishes them to be.  They are as a good book that he has written, and better than that.

He went to a gorgeous little chapel at the base of the landing-stage, there to hold a service in memory of the visit to New Athos of their highnesses the late Tsar, Alexander the Third, and his queen, on that day 1888.  Presently behold the worthy abbot in his glorious robes, cloth of gold from head to foot, and on his head, instead of the sombre black hat of ordinary wear, a great golden crown sparkling with diamonds and rubies.  The many clergy stood about him in the little temple, or beyond the door, for there was not room for all, with them some hundred monks, and the multifarious populace.  The service was read in hollow, oracular tones, and every now and then a storm of glorious bass voices broke forth in response.  Evidently the Ikon of the Virgin named Izbavelnitsa was being thanked for her protection of the Tsar in a storm.  So much I could make out; and every now and then the crowd sang thanks to the Virgin.  At the end of the service the Archimandrite, who had had his back to the people all the time—­or rather, to put it more truly, had all the time looked the same way, with the people—­turned, and lifting and lowering the gold cross which he held in his hands, gave blessing.  The heads and bodies of the worshippers bowed as the Cross pointed toward them.

The service was over.  As the abbot Ieronym resumed his ordinary attire, and left the temple, the hundred or so peasant men and women pressed around him, and fervently kissed his little old fingers, white and delicate.  I watched the old man give his hand to them—­I watched their eagerness.  Religion was proved to be Love.

IV

What struck me particularly on entering Novy Afon was the new tone in the every day.  There was less of the barin and servant, officer and soldier feeling, less noisy commandings and scoldings, even less beating of the patient horses that have to carry such heavy loads in Russia.  Instead of these, a gentleness and graciousness, something of that which one finds in artistic and mystic communities in Russia, in art and in pictures, but which one seldom meets with in public life.  Here at New Athos breathes a true Christianity.  It was strange how even the undying curiosity of the Russian had been conquered; for here I was not asked the thousand and one impertinent questions that it is usually my lot to smile over and answer.  There was even a restraint in asking me necessary questions lest they should be difficult to answer.