Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1884 — Russia. [ARTICLE]

Russia.

Russia presents no beauties of nature except in the Ural Mountains and on the Caucasus. The country along the great railroad lines is as monotonous as a Western prarie, but less fertile. The cities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Kief, and Odessa, especially the first two, contain all that is interesting to a traveler. St Petersburg represents new Russia, Moscow old Russia. The principal sights in both are palaces and churches. They are filled to overflowing with treasures of silver, and gold, and precious jewels. The Winter Palace and Hermitage at St. Petersburg, the Summer Palace at Peterhof, the palaces of the Kremlin in Moscow are bewildering and oppressive by the treasures which unlimited power has accumulated for centuries. The churches, too, are overloaded with precious and glittering gold. The finest churches are St. Isaac’s in St Petersburg, built by .Nicholas 1., the Church of the Lady of Kazan, modeled after St. Pete V’s in Rome, and the Church of the Redeemer in Moscow, built in commemoration of the deliverance from the French in 1812, completed and consecrated in 1883 at enormous cost. The churches are crowded at the time of worship. The Russians are a very religious people in the observance of outward forms. Their religion consists chiefly in lighting candles, blessing holy images, bowing to the floor, and making the sign of the cross over and oyer again. The worship of the Virgin Mary and of the saints is carried fully as far as and even farther than in the Roman Church. Holy images are found not only in the churches, but in the houses, on public places, in railroad stations and telegraph offices, and no devout Russian passes them without bowing and making the sign of the cross. The chief services is the mass, which is performed with more mystery and dramatic display than in the Church of Rome. The singing is beautiful, but confined to the priests, deacons, and trained choristers; the people listen passively. The ever-repeated response, the Kyrie Rleison, or Cord, have mercy upon us, is exceedingly touching and will long resound in my memory. —Dr. Schaff, in New York Observer.