Note 8 — Chapter XXXVI · THE PENAL COLONY OF KARA.

This may be noticed in connection with a statement of the author of “The Russians of To-day” (p. 231), who says: “Once a week a pope—himself an exile—goes down into the mines to bear the consolations of religion, under the form of a sermon enjoining patience.” I suspect that the poor fellows would be only too thankful to have the opportunity once a week of listening to a sermon upon patience or any other subject! Moreover, the number of sermons given by our author to his prisoners is exceedingly liberal (52 in the course of the year), seeing that in an ordinary church in Petersburg or Moscow the number does not usually exceed half-a-dozen. I have seen it stated that properly there should be 12, but, in Siberia, on my asking the grandson of a metropolitan how often his father preached, he told me “five or six times a year,” and after many inquiries I never heard of but one priest in the empire, though, of course, there may be others, who preached, or rather read, a sermon every week.