tain the idea which animated him, even against the false deductions which others had drawn from it; whether he could meet and check the divisions among those who had hitherto been his adherents. From the seed of his doctrine" of the liberty of the Christian," there threatened to shoot up a harvest of the wildest fanaticism, if he should not root it out at the right moment. Already had Karlstadt and the enthusiasts of Zwickau begun to distract, by their iconoclastic mischief, the young community at Wittemberg.

But Luther interfered, and preserved the liberty of the gospel. "Do not change liberty into compulsion," Machet nur nicht aus dem Frei sein ein Muss sein, he exclaimed, "that ye may not have to render an account of those whom you have led astray by your liberty without love." "As I cannot pour faith into the heart, I neither can nor ought to force or compel

any one to believe; for God only can do this, who alone can communicate life to the hearts of men. We are to preach the word; but the result must be as God pleases. Nothing can come of force and command, but pretence, outward show, and the aping of religion.

"Let us first of all seek to move the heart: wherever the heart and the mind of all are not moved, there leave it to God; ye cannot do any good. But if ye will carry out such base precepts, I will recant all I have written and preached; I will not stand by you. The Word hath created heaven and earth and all things; that Word must do it, and not poor sinners like ourselves."

The artist makes the soothing power of Luther's preaching strikingly evident, by representing him in the midst of the iconoclasts, arresting their wild proceedings.

THE

HE preparations being made for

my departure southward, I wiped my spectacles, mounted a drochski, and ordered a drive once more among the principal public edifices- my final adieu to them. The wide streets, the magnificent palaces, the huge and even fantastic churches, with their colored domes and gilt-tipped arrowy spires, the varied populace and variegated costumes-all formed a phantasmagoric picture amidst which I was whirled about by my isvoshtschick, until it almost seemed the illusion of a dream. But, alas! there are always downright realities to break in upon our finest reveries. The traveler, courteous reader, has to deal somewhat in money-in cash. I assure you it is a real matter of fact, however dubious it may seem. In Russia, especially, is it a fact. About to depart, I had to bethink myself of my money-belt, and having some preparatory financial transactions to look after, I

THE BOURSE OR EXCHANGE.

I found nothing in my own fiscal matters to entertain you with, but I soon saw that I had passed by, in former observations, one of the most interesting features of this marvelous metropolis, and now it was too late for more than a glance at it. The

the Neva. The Russian word biesha, which answers to our Exchange, is applied to all places of business assemblage, even to the squares where hackney coaches have their position. If you wish to see the Exchange, properly speaking, you must add the word Hollandaise, for it is thus distinguished in St. Petersburgh, probably because the position it occupies was where the first Dutch merchants settled, when

they came into the country, by the invitation of Peter, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It has one of the finest situations in St. Petersburgh, for it stands quite isolated, upon a vast circle formed by massive granite quays. A colossal group of statuary ornaments the principal front, in which Neptune is the most conspicuous figure. It is surrounded on all sides with immense Doric columns, forty-four in number, supporting the roof. At two points of the elevation, presenting magnificent views, stand two columns of immense height, adorned with marine designs in iron, surmounted with colossal vases, which are filled with inflammable substances, and must present a splendid appearance at the public illuminations.

The interior is divided into a large hall, and eight smaller apartments for different purposes. There is nothing remarkable about the former, save its colossal dimensions, and an altar at its furthest extremity, upon which tapers are constantly burning. The Russian merchants always bow their heads to it upon entering the building, and frequently prostrate themselves before it, to implore the protection of the saints in their business enterprises. What a sight! thought I to myself. Was it really an altar to Mammon? That depends upon the heart! Were these innumerable hearts-beating with the love and calculations of gain-were they more eager for the sanctification than for the success of their schemes? A temple or an altar is what the mind makes it, and

this shrine is one of idolatry, if any on earth is.

The habitual frequenters of the Exchange are not distinguished by their elegance; the Polish Jews, Tartars, and Bokharians who crowd it, certainly have neither the language, manners, nor exterior of our custom-house officers. They are a very interesting study, however, for those who know how to interpret their silent pantomime. Prodigious money operations take place here. What is spoken aloud is of little importance, but the whispered words within these walls will awaken echoes in the most distant parts of the globe.

But our devoirs having been paid-our purse replenished-let us away from this Pandemonium of Mammon-away to the southward! I traveled by the mail-post or diligence from St. Petersburgh to the ancient capital of the empire, preferring it to the railroad, because I wished to see the country more deliberately. I found this mode of conveyance rapid, comfortable, and cheap. The route between the two cities is barren and uninteresting; the low, sandy level is diversified occasionally by green fields, thickets of ferns or firs, a village or a marsh. No scene impresses itself upon your memory: the verdure and fine coloring of the south are utterly wanting; and the expanse before you fails to give the ideas of sublimity which are so frequently remarked in the prairie scenery of America, for the least obstacle, a house or tree, conceals miles

of the country, with the

horizon which termin

ates it.

There is little variety in the villages. Two lines of cottages are regularly arranged at a certain distance from the highway. They are all alike, built of clumsy-shaped pieces of wood, with the gable end toward the street: notwithstanding this tiresome uniformity, there is an air of competence, and even comfort, about them, which cannot fail to interest the traveler. They are rural, and pervaded by the calm of pastoral life, though unpicturesque in appearance. Occasionally, however, some little picture, with its poetic associations, engraves

itself upon the memory. The sketch of a peasant family, which we give on the following page, represents one of those scenes of domestic life, which are always beautiful and poetic in themselves, even in the midst of the most barren surroundings. The young wife and mother wears the national kokochnik, a kind of diadem, which entirely covers the head and hair. The kokochnik of the young girl is open at the top, and in this she probably won her husband at the praznik, or village fete, which is the rendezvous of the betrothed and of those who wish to become so. That her youngest child may enjoy the pale rays of the oblique sun, she is seated at the door of the isba, which her husband, with the assistance of his relations and neighbors, built in a very short time. The ax was almost the only implement employed in its construction: its foundations, walls, roof, and staircase, are all cut from the neighboring forests; no bricks are used, except for the stove which warms the house, and which is also the common kitchen, and in winter the family sleepingplace for the Russian peasant is ignorant of the luxury of beds. During the brief warm season he reposes upon a bench, and

the stove serves him for the long cold nights of winter. The houses of the villagers are generally sufficiently ample, and comfortably built, though the domestic animals are quite universally the occupants of the lower floor.

Beyond the village there is little to interest the traveler. Perhaps you meet a caravan of merchandise, consisting of some thirty or forty vehicles, laden with the produce of Europe and the East; perhaps a government courier or feldjager flies past you in his telega. This is a kind of live telegraphic communication. The bearer of the dispatches is usually as ignorant as the electric machine of the nature of his errand; he delivers the message with which he is charged to another automaton as ignorant as himself, who awaits him at his station fifty, a hundred, or perhaps a thousand miles distant. The telega is the only vehicle capable of resisting the roads of Russia, when sleighs are rendered useless. But if this strange conveyance can endure the execrable roads, who can endure the telegal The death-penalty is nominally abolished

in the Russian empire. Instead of sentencing a man to lose his life, he is condemned to receive a certain number of strokes from the rod, the stick, or the knout, though it is well understood that the first stroke of the latter may be rendered as surely fatal as that of an ax. I have always marveled that among the punishments invented by the fertile brains of despots in Russia, the telega has been overlooked. But why are not criminals doomed to travel a hundred leagues in a telega? I would answer for any one's death at the end of the journey. No description could give an idea of the tortures inflicted by these barbarous vehicles. They are small, uncovered,

with two seats destitute of springs, or protection of any kind. The front one is occupied by the postillion or coachman, and by a strange good fortune in this country, he is changed at every relay; but imagine the condition of the poor feldjager upon the back seat. To say that he is shaken, knocked and jolted is to say nothing; he is literally and continually tossed in the air, like Sancho Panza in the blanket. One of the minor liabilities of this mode of traveling is the danger of having the tongue severed by the abrupt and violent contact of the teeth.

Sometimes groups of prisoners are met on their way to Siberia. The very word almost chills one's blood with horror; and the sight of those who are condemned to this terrible journey, and the subsequent fate of the exile, is not easily forgotten. Yet so absolute is the power of the autocrat, that a word from his lips fixes the doom of any one of his subjects in those desolate regions. I have been told that two hundred and fifty thousand victims of his vengeance are thus expiating their

RUSSIAN PEASANTS.

offenses against his sovereign will. Many of these have excited the Czar's displeasure by political opinions or slight misdemeanors, which would pass unnoticed elsewhere.

The peasants seen on the route from St. Petersburgh are generally the property of the crown. As far as material and animal life is concerned,-and this is what is understood by happiness in Russia, as in most unenlightened countries, their position has many favorable points. During the frequent famines which often decimate the country, the crown serf is secure of nourishment for himself, his family, and his cattle. If the absence of physical or moral suffering is a test of enjoyment, he may, perhaps, be considered as happy as the free peasants of any other European country. Yet it is scarcely possible that one of the latter class could be found so miserable and degraded as to be willing to change places with the Muscovite serf, though he has always enough to eat, is comfortably warmed in winter, and is never disturbed by any of those mental anxieties