accordance with the indications sent up to the altar with the loaves on slips of paper, such as “For the soul of Ivan Vasilievitch,” “For the health of Tatiana Pavlovna.”  Thus is preserved the memory of early Christian times, when the Christians brought wine and oil and bread for their worship; and the best having been selected for sacred use, portions were taken from the remainder in memory of those who sent or brought them, after the rest was used to refresh the congregation during a pause in the all-night service between vespers and matins.  After the service, in our modern times, the prosfori are given back to the owners, who cross themselves and eat the bread reverently on the spot or elsewhere, as blessed but not sacramental.  At this monastery, the prosfori prepared for memorial use had a group of the local saints stamped on top, instead of the usual cross and characters.  It is considered a delicate attention on the part of a person who has been on a pilgrimage to any of the holy places to bring back a prosfora for a friend.  It is very good when sliced and eaten with tea, omitting the bottom crust, which may have been dated in ink by the pilgrim.  Some of the peasants at this monastery church sent in to be blessed huge packages of prosfori tied up in gay cotton kerchiefs.

The service ended, and the chief treasure of the monastery, the miraculous image of the Assumption of the Virgin,—­the Falling Asleep of the Virgin is the Russian name,—­was let slowly down on its silken cords from above the Imperial Gate, where a twelve-fold silver lamp, with glass cups of different colors, has burned unquenched since 1812, in commemoration of Russia’s deliverance from “the twelve tribes,” as the French invasion is termed.  The congregation pressed forward eagerly to salute the venerated image.  Tradition asserts that it was brought from Constantinople to Kieff in the year 1073, with the Virgin’s special blessing for the monastery.  By reason of age and the smoke from conflagrations in which the monastery has suffered, the image is so darkened that one is cast back upon one’s imagination and the copies for comprehension of this treasure’s outlines.  What is perfectly comprehensible, however, is the galaxy of diamonds, brilliants, and gems thickly set in the golden garments which cover all but the hands and feet of the personages in the picture, and illuminate it with flashes of many-hued light.  After a few minutes, the image was drawn up again to its place,—­a most unusual position for a valued holy image, though certainly safe, and one not occupied, so far as I am aware, by any other in the country.