empire were prostrate; Napoleon's armies stopped but a day's march from its gates, and resistance to his invasion was encouraged by what the people deemed divine interposition to save this sacred fortress; it gave shelter to tsars against domestic treachery, as well as against foreign foes. The Novospasski and Donskoï convents checked the Tatars at the entrance to Moscow. Solovetsk defied the Swedes.
Popular reverence for these holy citadels is enhanced by the natural beauties of their situations, the untold treasures and precious relics which they guard, and the hallowed spots which they commemorate. The Petcherski was the cradle of Russian monastic life, the home of Nestor and chroniclers of old; it is the shrine of innumerable saints, whose lives were passed in the mysterious caves where their bones are yet objects of pious veneration and worship; from the hillside of the Dnieper it looks out upon a broad expanse of meadow and stream as boundless as the ocean. The red-brick towers of the Troïtsa overhang picturesque ravines; its vaults are piled with incalculable riches, and its churches are sanctified by most sacred Icons. Iverski, upon an island of the beautiful Lake Valdai, is shrouded in magnificent forests. Voskresensk, the "New Jerusalem," is planned to reproduce the most revered sanctuaries of Palestine. Solovetsk, renowned for the austere piety of its brotherhood, is surrounded by scenery peculiarly impressive from its solitary and desolate grandeur, upon the bleak shores of the White Sea. Localities, fortunate in the presence and neighborhood of these holy shrines, are held by the people in especial veneration, and Peter the Great, in founding the city which bears his name, endeavored to invest it with similar title to popular regard by transporting thither, from Vladimir, the relics of the great hero and
