Fit house for us who on earth do move;

Night approacheth, endeth Day,

And Death his scythe doth lay

To the root of all that live....


CHAPTER II

A meeting of the brethren had been convoked at the monastery to discuss Avakoum’s controversial epistles.

The zealous priest had sent to his friend the old Monk Sergius in Kerjenetz a letter relating to the Holy Trinity, with the superscription:—

“Receive, Sergius, this eternal Gospel, written not by my hand, but by God’s.”