By Mrs. MARY S. ROBINSON.

CHAPTER XI.
THE TROITSA—DMITRI DONSKOÏ—VASILI DIMITRIÉVITCH, AND VITOVT OF LITHUANIA.

The traveler who wends his way toward “Holy Mother Moscow,” meets with many a pilgrim journeying to pray before the shrine of a saint, founder of a community first of all religious, but industrial and scholastic also, whose buildings are seen from afar, and whose inhabitants are numbered by thousands. This place, whose revenues, increased by the voluntary offerings of multitudes of the faithful, are comparable with those of the imperial household, is the Troitskaia-Sergieva, the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, one of the four Lauras, or monastic establishments of the first order; that of Alexander Nevski, at Petersburg, of Solovetski by the Frozen Sea, and the Pecherski, or the Catacombs at Kief, being the other three.

In the days of Simeon the Proud, son and successor of Kalita, Sergius, the Benedict of the Russian Church, withdrew from the stirring, tempting life of the capital to dwell apart and foster his religious aspirations, selecting for his retirement a spot some sixty miles from Moscow, within an untrodden wood, where for a long period his only companions were the bear and the beaver; his food, herbs and the wild honey, always abundant in the hollow trees of Russian forests. In those times when the benignant influence of Christianity was scarcely felt in many classes of society, the spiritually minded, who valued above all other possessions their simple virtue and a good conscience, were drawn to a secluded and exclusively religious life; hence, as the years passed, numbers of sincere self-denying souls gathered about the son of the Rostof boyar. His moral wisdom and impartial position caused him to be consulted by the great and powerful on occasions momentous for themselves, or for the welfare of their people. Warriors sought his blessing upon their enterprises, and princes asked his counsel upon affairs of state. The particular privileges accorded to ecclesiastical institutions, the security of their estates, and the industrial instruction imparted by the monks to the common people, drew large numbers of these latter to the region of the monastery, whose work-shops and glebes were the most prosperous of the country, and whose industries were uninterrupted by the continual ravages of war. Cleanly kept, enclosed within walls of huge thickness flanked with towers, the inhabitants of TroÏtsa were exempt from the calamities of pestilence and fire. Having many dependents living in communal villages,—in the days of serfdom it possessed a hundred and six thousand serfs, not to mention the monastic establishments, some thirty-two in number, that were offshoots from it,—its peace-loving inhabitants could defend themselves and their people in times of emergency. The fires of national and religious independence burned upon altars within its gates that were never reached by papal Pole or pagan Tatar, although it was more than once besieged. The most cruel of Tsars, the wicked Ivan Fourth, appropriated money and men for the building of half its stately structures. Hither came Peter the Great for rest of soul during the intervals of his journeys and campaigns; and Catherine Second, putting aside her cares, abandoning for the time her excesses, to commune with the Sovereign before whom emperors and empresses are but sinful, perishing, human beings. From the beginning, pilgrims from all the grades of life have journeyed to the shrine[A] of the saint, who remained to his latest day a simple, laborious servitor, in no way exalted by the honors put upon him, or by the material increase of his community. In later years the Metropolitan of Moscow has been the archimandrite, or abbot, of the monastery; a dignitary who, because he restrains the souls of men, is revered with the solemnity that belongs to those who represent exclusively that spiritual element in human life which, though not of this world, has ever been an inalienable force in the shaping of its destinies.

Simeon acquired his surname by reason of his haughty demeanor to the other princes; but he maintained cordial relations with the khan, to whom he sent many costly gifts, for whom he raised large revenues, and from whom he received the pay of a farmer-general. He assiduously cultivated the industries and arts that his father had encouraged. We read of bells for the cathedrals being cast in his reign, and imposing paintings for certain of the churches. His will was written on paper (1353) instead of the parchment that had previously been used for purposes of writing.

His enriched, well-ordered state passed to the care of his brother, Ivan Krotki, the Debonair, or Gentle, a prince too unlike his predecessors to govern the realm they had formed by repression and a vigorous assertion of power. The elements of turbulence broke forth anew. Novgorod, that had paid a contribution to Simeon, who on his part had confirmed its liberties, closed its coffers and elected a prince with the freedom of former years. The military governor of Moscow was murdered, nor was his death avenged. The patriarch of Constantinople put forward a rival to the holy Alexis, primate of the capital, and who was immeasurably loved and revered by the Muscovites. So unsuited were the virtues of this prince to his place and time, that at the close of his six years’ reign, Dmitri of Suzdal obtained the title of Grand Prince (1359), and made his solemn entry into Vladimir, to the threatened subordination of the principality of Moscow. Alexis, the primate, devoted himself to the education of Ivan’s children. When the eldest, Dmitri, was twelve years old, at the instance and by the influence of the faithful bishop, “whose prayers had preserved the life of the khan, and had strengthened his armies,” the young prince obtained the right to bear rule from his master at SaraÏ. Thus early was the government laid upon the shoulders of this descendant of the Nevski and of Monomakh; a ruler who was chivalrous without cruelty, devout without ostentation; who not only acquired but was voluntarily and gladly accorded the supremacy over his kinsmen and his realm, and who by his personal nobility did much toward preserving his people from the debasement of their conquerors.

Dmitri, assured of his strength, ventured to re-assert the Russian claim to Bolgary, the extensive region east of the Volga, where he compelled the Tatars to pay him tribute and to accept Russian magistrates for their settlements, some of which had grown to sizable cities. Later he gained a brilliant victory over a lieutenant of the khan, MamaÏ, in the province of Riazan. “Their time is past, and God is with us!” he exclaimed in the triumph of the hour. Two years later, MamaÏ having silently gathered an immense and motley host, aided too by the intrigues of Oleg of Riazan, who, restive under the power of his neighbor, had made friendly alliances with the Tatars and with Lithuania, dared to defy the strength of a now nearly united realm. For Dmitri had summoned all the princes, and these came with their contingents, crowding the Kreml and the city with their drujinas and troops, and received with acclamations by the people.

Never had such an army been seen in Russia: the safest estimates number it at a hundred and fifty thousand, including seventy-five thousand cavalry. Prince Dmitri strengthened his soul in prayer at Troitsa, where he obtained in the name of the God of Nations the blessing of Sergius, and was given two monks, brave men, to go forward with him and his host. As this embodied strength and hope of the nation moved toward the banks of the Don, it was threatened by the Lithuanians from the west, and the Tatar hordes from the east. A message from Sergius favoring an advance, decided the councils of war; and when the passage of the river was effected, the army formed for battle on the plain of Kulikovo, the Field of Woodcocks, westward of the Don and southward of Riazan (1380). A mound of earth was cast up for the general-prince to witness the movements of the action; and as he stood upon it, the army in one loud voice of unison offered the prayer: “Great God, grant to our sovereign the victory.” Dmitri, beholding the marshaled ranks, and knowing the solemn fate that was soon to dim their splendor and disorder their stately array, knelt in the sight of all the troops, and with uplifted arms besought the divine protection for Russia. As he rode before the men, he proclaimed: “The hour for the judgment of God is come,” and when the alarum had been sounded, he stood ready to lead the first advance. “It is not in me to seek a place of safety,” he said to those who would deter him, “when I have exhorted these, my brethren, to spare not themselves for the good of the land. If I am cut down, they and him in whom we confide will protect our Russia.”

The battle was long and strenuously contested; for in respect of the future, it was to be decisive for or against the ascendency of the Asiatics, and the self-government of the Russian states. A breach had been made in the drujina of the Grand Prince, when his trusted kinsman Vladimir, and the watchful Dmitri of Volhynia came from their appointed positions to his support. The right, left, and center of the host were woefully thinned, but they were not repulsed. MamaÏ, from the height of a funeral mound, saw his men desperate, falling and giving way, as the afternoon waned, and covering his eyes, exclaimed: “The God of the Christians is all-powerful!” The Mongols in trepidation and wild disorder were pursued in all directions; a hundred thousand of them lay dead or shrieking in death agonies upon the plain; nor was the Russian host hardly less depleted. When Vladimir, who won the distinction of “the Brave,” in this action, planted his banner upon a mound, and with signal trumpets rallied the remnant of the men, princes, nobles, soldiers obeyed the call; but Dmitri was not among them. After a long search he was found, faint, bleeding, his armor shattered. The whispered words of good cheer, the banners waving before his dimly opening eyes, caused his pulses to beat again, and as he lay surrounded by his captains, his low prayer of thanksgiving was heard between the huzzas of the weary yet rejoicing ranks. From that day forward he was Dmitri DonskoÏ—of the Don—for by its waters he had broken the tradition of servitude; under his leadership the Russian heart had been rekindled to its ancient courage; the Russian manhood had been restored. As his litter was borne from the field, he saluted his fallen comrades in arms: “Brothers, nobles, princes, here is found a resting place for you. Here, having offered yourselves for our land and faith, you have passed to a peace nevermore disturbed by conflict. Hail and farewell.”

Such was the battle of Kulikovo—the reparation of what was foregone at the battle of the Kalka.[B] The nation, however, had still much to endure from, and was essentially modified in its manners and customs by the people who had been its masters. Four centuries or more were required for the European Mongols to adopt the customs of Russian civilization, and to render them sufficiently instructed to contribute to the prosperity of the empire. The pestilence of the fourteenth century, the Black Death, together with the dissensions of the khans, impaired the strength of the Horde, which rallied, however, under Timur Lenk, the Lame, or Tamerlane, as he is commonly named, a direct descendant of Genghiz on the maternal side[C]. Toktamuish, one of his generals, took possession of the country from the Volga to the Don, and turned his horses’ heads toward the north. The counsels of the princes were divided. Dmitri would not that the thousands buried at Kulikovo should have perished in vain: but the principalities were in no condition for the further maintenance of war. In the hope of help from the north, Dmitri withdrew to Kostroma, above Moscow. The Mongols laid siege to his capital, but finding they could make no breach in its defenses, entered into negotiations, or affected to do so, and watching their opportunity, surprised the gates. Then ensued the devastation of former days. The precious archives of national history, the ancient stately buildings, were all consumed: the citizens were massacred without distinction or mercy. “In one day perished the beauty of the city that had overflowed with riches and magnificence,” writes Karamsin; “smoke, ashes, ruined churches, corpses beyond the counting, a frightful waste, alone remained.” Dmitri, like his ancient kinsman, Iuri,[D] returned to deplore the ruin of the richest portion of his country, for which, in vain, as it appeared, he had labored and suffered from his youth up. The prince’s son, Vasili, was detained as hostage at the Horde, but escaped after a three years’ captivity. Many more were required for the rebuilding of the city. The Tatar baskaks were again established among the slowly reviving communities. But incapable of solidarity, these people were unable permanently to subdue the dwellers in cities, or to destroy a firmly compacted state. The invasion of Toktamuish closed the drama of their conquests in Europe.

Dmitri lived some years after this overthrow of his hopes, but continued to the last, strong and assiduous for the up-building of his principality. The walls of the Kreml[E] were rebuilt this time not of oak, but of stone; churches and fortified monasteries were reared within and beyond the city walls. Not less necessary than his own dwelling is the house of worship to the religious Russian. Kief at one time had four hundred churches, or nearly fifty more than Rome, and Moscow, though almost entirely rebuilt since 1813, encloses a hundred and seventy within its walls. To the west of the Grand Principality, extending to the Urals, the stone girdle of Eastern Russia[F], lay the vast territory of Permia, or Perm. A monk, Stephen, went forth into its unexplored wastes, won the hearts of some of its people, confuted their sorcerers, overthrew their idols, notably one much adored, the Golden Old Woman, who held two children in her arms—established schools, and in time was made bishop of the diocese he had discovered; wherein finally he was put to death, winning thus the honor of the first Russian missionary and missionary martyr, and enduring reverence for his mortal remains, entombed in the capital of his country.

In the south, the intrepid, maritime Genoese formed colonies at Kaffa and Azof, connecting links between Russia and the West. Among the articles brought into the country at this period were cannon. Parks of artillery were used in the army, in the last year of the DonskoÏ’s reign.

His personel, as retained by the historical paintings representing the scenes of his career, is that of a serious, steadfast man, patient and brave, intent upon his affairs, without self-consciousness, capable of that tempered happiness that attends long-continued exertion. His dark hair falls upon vigorous shoulders; a full and manly beard does not conceal the firm outlines of the lower part of the face. The eyes are touched with care, their region deeply traced with marks of toil; a seamed, broad forehead sustains the weight of its crown. They that looked upon this prince must have been reminded of the Presence that strengthens and subdues the souls of all good men. Dmitri, Alexis, and Sergius, the ruler, the pastor, and the saint, made the titles “Holy Russian Empire,” “Holy Mother Moscow,” not wholly insignificant, not entirely a sad irony upon the conduct of those who wrought by manifold means toward the compacting of the nation.

A bylina, or historical ballad, chants the last scene in this eventful, care-laden life. In the Uspenski Sobor, “the Holy Cathedral of the Assumption, Saint Cyprian was chanting the mass. There, too, worshiped Dmitri of the Don, with his princess Eudoxia, his boyars, and famous captains. Suddenly ceased the prince to pray: he was rapt away in spirit. The eyes of his soul were opened in vision. He sees no longer the candles burning before the sacred pictures; he hears no longer the holy songs. He treads the level plain, the field of Kulikovo. There, too, walks Mary, the Holy Mother: behind her the angels of the Lord, angels and archangels, with swinging lamps. They sing the pÆans of those who fell upon that earth, beneath the blade of the pagan. Over them she, too, lets fall the amaranth.—‘Where is the hero who stood here for his people and for my Son? He is to lead the choir of the valiant: his princess shall join my holy band.’ * * * * * * * In the temple the candles burned, the pictures gleamed, the precious jewels were bright. Tears stood in the grave eyes of our prince. ‘The hour of my departure is at hand,’ he said. ‘Soon I shall lie in unbroken rest; my princess shall take the veil, and join the choir of Mary.’” For from the days of Anne, daughter of Olaf of Sweden, and consort of the great Iaroslaf (1050), the wives of the Grand Princes, following the custom of the widowed empresses of Byzantium, had retired to a convent upon the death of their lords.

Dmitri, by compact with a number of his kinsmen, princes, had effectually secured the Muscovite succession to the eldest son, thus abolishing the old Slavic law, whereby the elder, were he son or brother of the deceased prince, entered upon it. So entire was the confidence, so genuine was the affection that he had inspired in the hearts of his countrymen—for he was, in effect, the Russian Washington—that his son Vasili (Basil) received upon his shoulders the “collar” and burden of government (1389) without opposition. His reign of thirty-six years proved that he had inherited his father’s skill and good fortune, if not fully his greatness of mind. The DonskoÏ had secured the virtual consolidation of the adjoining State of Vladimir, or Suzdal, with that of Moscow. The far-reaching territories of Novgorod the Great, too, were gradually being regarded as a part of the Grand Principality, notwithstanding frequent demonstrations of resistance from its people, who yet paid tribute to, and had chosen, from motives of policy, a succession of grand princes for their princes. The republic, after its humiliation by the Mongols, had warily parried the Muscovite encroachments by frequent alliances with Lithuania,[G] a realm much larger than organized Russia in the fourteenth century—whose tribes had been united by a succession of powerful native chiefs.

By the charter of Iaroslaf the Novgorodians were accorded the right of choosing their sovereign; hence, when circumstances rendered a Lithuanian prince desirable for their protection against a Muscovite one, they obtained him by election. But affinities of race, religion, and a common history, were too strong to permit a permanent union with a foreign power.

From the Horde, Vasili, by bountiful payments, procured an iarluik for seven appanages, including Murom, Suzdal, and Nijni or Lower Novgorod—all belonging to his less wealthy kinsmen, who were offered their choice of becoming his dependents, or of dying in captivity or exile. The succession of the eldest son had procured the elevation of the nobles of the grand prince to a subordinate princely rank and power. In view of this fact, perhaps, the citizens of Nijni-Novgorod voluntarily surrendered their last titular prince, Boris: for if a Muscovite boyar could become a prince, and if the Muscovite grand prince could work his will with the khan, why resist this ever growing, ever more dominant power? Accordingly, amid the clangor of the bells of these ancient, hitherto independent cities, the son of the DonskoÏ was proclaimed their sovereign.

Arrogant and overbearing to his kinsmen, the native princes, the sagacious Vasili maintained amicable relations with the Tatar on the east, and the Lithuanian on the west, notwithstanding that he had been hostage and prisoner at SaraÏ´, that he had escaped thence as a fugitive, and that his domains were twice invaded by the hordes of its peoples. Tamerlane, at this time at variance with his former general, Toktamuish, harried the dismembered empire of Kipchak and moved westward into Russian boundaries, destroying the people by the sword, and their possessions by the fire-brand. Moscow was again in peril: in its streets and its homes were revived with fearfulness and trembling tales of the destruction of 1382. The Tatars were sixty leagues away at Elets on the Don, a town which they razed. Its ancient monastery of the Trinity has four memorial chapels commemorative of the citizens that perished at the time—all the place contained, save a few fugitives.

There the wild horsemen suddenly turned southward and rode into Azof, the emporium of the wealth of merchants who had come thither from Cairo, Venice, Genoa, Catalania, and the Biscayan country. Fresh from the hoarded treasures of Bokhara and Hindustan, and having in expectancy the wealth of Constantinople and of the Nile cities, they were allured to the regions of the south in preference to the toilsome way over steppe and through forest, to the peopled country of the north.

But they remained not long absent. Vitovt, the vigorous Lithuanian chief and prince, took the opportunity to raise a crusade against the never resting, ever appearing, all-devouring Tatar. To this end he obtained an army from the King of Poland, five hundred of “the iron men,” the Sword Bearers, numbers of the Russian princes with their contingents, whose ancient kinsmen had borne the standards at Kulikovo, and not least, Toktamuish, the exiled khan, fugitive from Tamerlane; for in nearly all the wars carried on east of Hungary and Poland after the thirteenth century, the European Mongol had his place and his active part.

By the river Vorskla, a branch of the Dnieper, a hundred and eighty miles southeast of Kief, the crusade of Vitovt was brought to a disastrous closing; the Tatar general, Ediger, friend and ally of Temir Kutlu, khan of the invading host, coming to the help of his people at the crisis of battle, and inflicting an overwhelming defeat upon the hosts of the Lithuanian. The message of Temir Kutlu before the closing of the armies is suggestive of the precarious fortunes of the khans, still barbaric and quite as roving as those had been who crossed the European boundaries in 1224. He demands the rendition of “my fugitive Toktamuish. I can not rest in peace knowing that he is alive and with thee. For our life is full of change. To-day a khan, to-morrow a wanderer; to-day rich, to-morrow without an abiding place; to-day friends only, to-morrow all the world our foes.” Ediger’s opportune arrival with a strong force confirmed the resolution of the khan against yielding to the demands of Vitovt, who offered him the alternative of being a “son” or a slave. The Vorskla proved for him and his people another Kalka;[H] the Tatars followed hard after the remnant of the Lithuanian ranks, and again plundered Kief, and desecrated its sacred Monastery of the Catacombs.

Between the growing kingdom of Poland and the principality of Lithuania, on the west, and the locust-like swarms of Mongols unexpectedly appearing ever and anon from beyond the Asiatic boundaries, Moscow and the Russian States generally, were ever liable to surprise and to the danger of being crushed, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. Ediger, elated by his success over the combined forces of Vitovt, caused the report to be spread about, that he should carry the war into Lithuania: at the same time, with the secrecy and celerity characteristic of his race, he appeared at the front of his horsemen and wagons within the boundaries of the Grand Principality. Vasili withdrew to Kostroma (1408), as his father Dmitri had withdrawn on a similar emergency, and left the city to the defense of Vladimir the Brave. Again was all the surrounding country harried, the towns burned, the farms and fields destroyed, the transport of provisions stopped, and a dense population brought to the verge of starvation by the terrible Tatar. But just before the situation became one of extremity, reports of divisions and dangers at the Horde, compelled Ediger to raise the siege. He sent a haughty message to the Kremlin, demanding tribute from the citizens, which he obtained to the amount of three thousand roubles, a sum equivalent to not less than thirty thousand dollars in our day. The sentinels who looked forth from the embrasures of the citadel, were glad that at any price could be purchased the sight of the hordes darkening the horizon with their disappearing.

Vitovt’s uncle, Olgerd, had been ally, by marriage and in war, with one of the Mikhails of Tver, successor of that prince whose martyrdom we have narrated.[I] Thrice during the reign of the DonskoÏ, had Olgerd led his brother-in-law, Mikhail, up to the walls of Moscow; but the prudence, both of the offensive and defensive leaders, withheld them from a decisive engagement that would prove certainly ruinous to the party who should suffer defeat. The same rÔle was repeated between Vitovt and Vasili DimitriÉvitch: this time with the result of a settlement of boundaries, in which Vitovt was careful to retain his valuable conquest, Smolensk. Before and after these conflicts, Vasili acquired certain cities from the State of Tchernigof, and large territories on the northern Dwina[J] in the territory of Novgorod, where the Good Companions, Bravs Gens, adventurous military bands, and commercial settlers, frequently came in conflict with Muscovite subjects, themselves pioneers upon the wastes and toward the ports or harbors of the far north. Vasili, pursuant to the policy of his dynasty, had recourse to undisguisedly severe methods to break the power of the free principality, and to incorporate it as much as he might, within his own. He obtained control of the Republic of Viatka, and framed treaties advantageous for Moscow with the princes of Tver and Riazan. These politic measures, with his unvarying entente cordiale with the dominant khan of the Horde, and the marriage of his daughter to the Greek Emperor, John Paleologus, strengthened his firm government, and widened the reputation of his industrious, wealthy, well-ordered state. Vitovt, whom we have named as the last of four chieftains, who secured unity to the tribes of his country, and sought to establish an independent nationality, did not lose courage nor ambition by the disaster at the Vorskla (1399). The Russian provinces of his country were under the religious direction of the metropolitan of Moscow. Vitovt procured that a learned Bulgarian monk should be installed metropolitan of Kief, in his time within Lithuanian boundaries—thus obtaining for his possessions a religious independence. He had designs also to free his country from its subordination to Poland; and by cultivating the friendship of Sigismund (1429), emperor of Germany, he obtained the favor of that monarch in helping him to become king of Lithuania. His court at Troki and Vilna was regal, in truth, in its magnificence, where the old man, an octogenarian, presided at long-continued festivals, at which seven hundred oxen, fourteen hundred sheep, and game in proportion, were consumed daily; where his grandson, Vasili VasilÈvitch, prince of Moscow, Photius, metropolitan of Moscow, the princes of Tver and Riazan, Iagello, king of Poland, the khan of the Crimea (one of the divisions of the ancient Kipchak), the hospodar of Wallachia, the grand-master of Prussia, the landmeister of Livonia, and embassadors from the Oriental empires, were entertained at his table as guests and friends. But his hopes of royalty were never realized. Even while the envoys of Sigismund were bringing him the scepter and the crown, the Pope, with whom the Poles had been conferring, compelled them to turn upon their path. The old chieftain survived this disappointment but a year; and with his life ended the attempts to create a distinct Lithuanian nationality, although for nearly a century thereafter it was governed by a prince of its own election. Early in the sixteenth century it was more definitely united with Poland, though still retaining its title of grand duchy, or principality. Its Russian provinces were Polonized; the descendants of Mindvog and Gedimin, Rurik and Iaroslaf, assumed the customs and language of the Polish nobility, and have retained them in the main, even under the repressive, reconstructive government of the tsars. Podolia, Volhynia and Kief are, in modern phrase, Ruthenian, occupied by a people homogeneous with those of Gallicia in Austria, with Southern Poland, and Northeastern Hungary.

With the increase of industries in Russia, an increase of coins became necessary. In 1420 Novgorod had its own mint, and its coins, stamped with the device of a throned prince, were twice the value of those of Moscow or of Tver. A Tatar coin, denga, from tanga, which signifies a mark, was current in the last named cities. For small transactions pieces of marten skins, squirrels’ heads, squirrels’ ears even—the latter less than a farthing in value—had been in vogue, but were gradually displaced, as was the giving of gold and silver by weight, in the larger transactions of commerce.

We have thus traced the development of the Russian state from its inception, to its compacting and centralization as the Grand Duchy, or Principality of Moscow, whose subsequent tsars brought under their sway most of the territory included within the boundaries of the modern empire. The writer of these chapters regrets that the limits of The Chautauquan prevent the presentation of the characters and careers of the two Ivans,—the Great and the Terrible—of Philarete, Peter the Great, Catherine Second, and other royal or noble personages whose genius, or whose moral force, have contributed in the later centuries to the elevation of the Russian Empire to a foremost place among the European powers. She can but entertain the hope, however, that this account of its rise and growth will awaken an inclination in the minds of those who have followed her narrative, to learn something further of a people whose aspirations for national freedom have been re-awakened and stimulated by our own history and prosperity; a nation whose tendencies and interests are largely similar, nay, are identical in the main, with those of the people of this republic.

We must not be surprised to find that even the highest works of God come to an end. Everything with an end, beginning, and origin, has the mark of its circumscribed nature in itself. The duration of a universe has, by the excellence of its construction, a permanence in itself, which, according to our ideas, comes near to an endless duration. Perhaps thousands, perhaps millions of centuries will not bring it to an end; but while the perishableness which adheres to the evanescent natures is always working for their destruction, so eternity contains within itself all possible periods, so as to bring at last by a gradual decay the moment of its departure.—Kant.