and remote. Emissaries came to him from the Mahometan Bulgarians and the Khorazian Jews, from the Latin Christians of Germany and Rome, and from the Greeks of Constantinople. To each of them he returned a characteristic reply. The pleasures of Mahomet's paradise were tempting, but he refused to be circumcised or to abstain from pork or from wine, "for drinking," said he, "is the delight of Russians, nor can we live without it." Of the Jews he asked: "Where is your country?" and when they acknowledged that for their sins God had driven them forth and scattered them over the earth, he indignantly rejoined, "Do you, whom your God has forsaken and dispersed, pretend to teach others, and would you have us share your fate?" The Western doctors were dismissed with scant courtesy, as coming from troublesome neighbors; "Our fathers have never believed in your religion," said he. He listened more attentively to the Greek, who alternately aroused and soothed his superstitious fears by eloquently depicting the future torments of the wicked and the reward of the righteous, enforcing his words by pictures representing the Judgment Day. "Tell me more," said Vladimir, "happy are those seated on the right, wretched the sinners on the left." All the mysteries of the Orthodox faith were explained; he was deeply moved, and perhaps recalled the teaching of his grandmother Olga. In the succeeding year, 987, by the advice of his boyars, he sent trusty counsellors to examine in different countries the religion of each. At Constantinople the importance of their mission was more seriously realized than elsewhere, and every effort was made by the emperor and the patriarch to impress their imaginations and convince them of the superiority of the Greek Church. They were dazzled by the magnificence of the court, and transported
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