' In a Catholic church or Greek church, the
men are not only as numerous as the women, but they are as intense in
their worship. Well-dressed men, with good heads, will prostrate
themselves before the image of the Holy Virgin as many times, and as
devoutly, as the beggar-woman.
"I think I saw a Russian gentleman at St. Isaac's touch his forehead to
the floor, rise and stand erect, touch the floor again, and rise again,
ten times in as many minutes; and we were one day forbidden entrance to
a church because the czar was about to say his prayers; we found he was
making the pilgrimage of some seventy churches, and praying in each one.
"Christians who believe in public prayer, and who claim that we should
be instant in prayer, would consider it a severe tax upon their energies
to pray seventy times a day--they don't care to do it!
"Then there is the _democracy_ of the church. There are no pews to be
sold to the highest bidder--no 'reserved seats;' the oneness and
equality before God are always recognized. A Russian gentleman, as he
prays, does not look around, and move away from the poor beggar next to
him. At St. Peter's the crowd stands or kneels--at St. Isaac's they
stand; and they stand literally on the same plane.
"I noticed in the crowd at St. Isaac's, one festival day, young girls
who were having a friendly chat; but their religion was ever in their
thoughts, and they crossed themselves certainly once a minute.
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