and with what the deputy called a "swift-footed lay-brother" (Todшkns KоoμKós) as our guide. We reached St. Paul in four hours, just as it was getting dark, our path lying across the summit of the ridge which forms the back-bone of the peninsula. The greater part of the way we passed through forests of pine, and were enveloped in mist, but every now and then a break in the clouds showed us the waters dashing hundreds of feet below, and the full horrors of the precipice, over whose edge a false step would hurl us. St. Paul is situated on the western side of the promontory, which is much more abrupt than the eastern. On reaching the edge of the cliff hanging immediately over the monastery, we descended to its gate by a zigzag track, much like a steep staircase cut in the rock. There was just light enough to show us the dangers of the path.

The gates of St. Paul had been shut for the night before our arrival, and we were reconnoitered carefully through a wicket before the massive bolts were undone for us. Our welcome was very warm as soon as the Abbot had read my letter from the Consul, as the monks here are all Ionians now, though the convent was originally founded for Servians and Wallachians, and is said to take its name not from the Apostle Paul, but one of its chief benefactors, a son of the Emperor Maurice. Its estates are chiefly in Moldavia, and the Abbot had lately returned from a visit to them. The charter-deeds are mostly in Slavonic; but I was also shown here a very curious parchment, in Greek, signed with the cipher of Mahomet II., the conqueror of Constantinople, and promising safety and protection to the community. I claimed the monks, being Ionians, as my fellow-citizens (ovμжоλirai), but they disclaimed, I fancied, with a little bitterness, being more than Rayáhs of England. They are chiefly Cephalonians, and a copy of an inflammatory article in an Ionian paper about the late insurrection there had been sent them from Smyrna. The gazette generally read by the Greek subjects of the Porte is "The Telegraph of the Bosphorus,” (Ο Τηλέγραφος τοῦ Βοσπόρου,) a Greek paper published at Constantinople, and which, as abstaining from the discussion of exciting topics, is allowed free circulation by the Turkish government.

The Abbot of St. Paul is named Sophronius Calligas, and belongs to a numerous class in Cephalonia. He is a short swarthy man of forty, with rather a sinister expression of countenance. His brother, who is

the officiating deacon of a church in Argostoli, the chief town of Cephalonia, and is now on a visit here, is a fine-looking and intelligent person. He speaks of England without any of the bitterness which is often to be remarked in Ionians; but assures me that the vast majority of his countrymen, from national feelings, wish to be annexed to Greece, though they are aware that their material interests are well guarded under the protection of Great Britain. En attendant, the Ionians in the Levant are very glad to avail themselves of the countenance of the English Ambassador and Consuls; and the Abbot of St. Paul relates with much pride the kind reception which Sir Stratford Canning had lately given him on his way to Moldavia, and

how he had told him that "Greece may well boast of her Demosthenes and of her St. Paul,"'—a dictum which is repeated throughout the holy peninsula, as if it had come from an eighth Wise Man of Hellas. But not the Ionians alone-all the Christians in Turkey look upon Sir S. Canning as their great protector; and it is a proud thing for an Englishman to find his country so well represented.

From the connexion of the monks with the Ionian Islands, I observed many little traces of Frank civilization in this convent, and actually ate my dinner off a table, sitting on a chair. Soon after my arrival, the great bell began to toll for the dypurvía, or vigil and mass, which always precedes a festival, the morrow being Sunday. At the proper time, a lay-brother advanced, and prostrating himself three times before the Abbot, told him that the fathers were awaiting him. He accordingly started in procession, to remain in the church till nine o'clock on the following morning, leaving to entertain me his brother the Deacon, and a venerable, earnest-minded old monk from the neighbouring convent of Simopetra, properly 'H Ziuwvos IIérpa,— "the rock of Simon," so called from its position and from its founder, a hermit named Simon. He is a native of Cerigo, the ancient Cythera, and had served for some time as a constable under the English. His story showed me that everything in this holy community is not such "couleur de rose," as it appears at first. He is in extreme old age, and had been severely beaten with a stick by order of the Abbot of Simopetra, for not having appeared on some occasion in his full canonical dress. He wanted, in consequence, to retire from that convent, but the Abbot refused to restore him the 2,000 piastres which he had paid for his reception, and without which entrance fee one so far past manual labour would find it difficult to procure admission elsewhere; and as his papers had been destroyed or taken from him during a recent illness, he had no means of proving himself entitled, as an Ionian, to the powerful protection of the English Consul at Thessalonica. Meanwhile he had come on a visit to his brother Ionians at St. Paul. Tears glistened in the poor old man's eyes as he told his hard case; but he bowed meekly down his snowy head, and spoke without the least bitterness of his persecutors. I thought of the xp owopoveïv vñò otével of Eschylus, and of Bishop Butler's remark, that resignation is almost the whole of piety. I was struck by his suddenly asking me, in a very earnest tone, 66 Why miracles (Daúpara) have ceased in the Church?" I replied, "I presume, because primitive faith is no longer found;" adding inwardly, "and no wonder, when monks beat each other in this way."

Before retiring for the night under the coverlets (orpúμara) spread for me on the divan, I paid a visit of an hour to the Convent Church. The midnight mass was a very striking scene; a few silver lamps suspended from the roof gave just light enough to show in dim and mysterious outline the dark cowled figures ranged along the walls; while the rising clouds of incense, and the swell of the chanting, contributed to heighten the interest. On an average, the Church services in a Greek monastery last eight hours out of the twenty-four,

and the monks stand all the time, only leaning their elbows on the sides of their stalls.

Sunday, Oct. 28.—At 9 A.M. I went to see the procession of the monks from the church, where they had passed the whole night, to the refectory. A rich crozier, gilt, and set with precious stones, and two large lighted candles, were borne in front of the Abbot, who was followed by all the society, chanting a hymn. The meal was taken in Carthusian silence-a deacon reading the parable of the sower, with a commentary in modern Greek. The fare of all, from the Abbot downwards, was exactly the same-a bowl of soup, a piece of bread, and a pint of light wine. In the Coenobite monasteries (ovóßia) on three days of the week the monks have only one meal; on the other three days they have only two. All Greek monks belong to the ascetic order of St. Basil. After breakfast I was shown the cells of some of the fathers-little square rooms, with a book or two on religious subjects, and a rug to sleep on, for all their furniture. There are fewer than 100 caloyers in St. Paul; and the whole number on the Holy Mountain scarcely amounts to 3,000 at present. There were twice that number formerly; and even still more when the Thebais poured forth its sacred population after the Saracen conquest of Egypt. A great proportion of the holy exiles settled down on Mount Athos, forming a society which is utterly without parallel in all history.

About noon, the weather, stormy in the morning, having partially cleared up, I took a most affectionate farewell of my kind hosts, and set out for Laura, the largest of all the monasteries, and situated at the southern extremity of the peninsula. I must observe that this convent does not derive its name from its dedication to any saint, nor is it properly called St. Laura, as I see it named in certain books of travels. The Abbot of St. Paul ignorantly told me that the word λaupa is derived from Aaos-" people," a sort of school-boy "shot." The truth is, that λaupa, in ancient Greek, is "a street," or "lane;" in Latin, "angiportus." Hence in ecclesiastical Greek, the term Xaupa (pronounced láurai) came to be applied to monasteries, and signifies "monachorum cellæ, quæ, cum sejunctæ sint, vias et angiportus quodammodo formant." (Ducange, Gloss. Compare Welcker. Trilog. p. 212, who refers λaßúpir0os to the same root; to which opinion the modern pronunciation of the same word (láurinthos) would seem naturally to lead.) 'H Mɛyáλn Aavpa," the Great Convent," is then the title applied, par excellence, to the first in size and dignity among the monasteries of the Holy Mountain. So Dr. Wordsworth (Athens and Attica, p. 212) derives the etymology of Laurium, the mine-district of Attica, from λavpetov, a place formed of lanes; i. e. a mine of shafts, cut, as it were, into streets like a catacomb.

The ride from St. Paul to Laura occupied us not quite five hours; and the path was often a mere cornice running along the face of the cliff, with a sheer precipice above and below. Looking back on St. Paul, and on the convents of St. Dionysius, St. Gregory, and Simo

petra beyond it, each cluster of buildings, dimly seen through the mists which ever and anon rolled over them, looked like a flock of sea-fowl quailing in a storm on a ledge of rock. At some distance from St. Paul ("Ayios Ilavλos) we reached St. Anne (Ayia "Avva), which is an doknтnpiov, that is, a subordinate monastery and place of ascetic retreat, dependent upon Laura, which possesses all the southern end of the peninsula. These dokηrnpia (vulgarly pronounced as if they were written σkýria) bear the same relation to the regular convents as did the old halls at Oxford to the colleges on which they depended. Below St. Anne the cliff juts out into the Singitic gulf, and was anciently called, as we learn from Strabo and Ptolemy, the Nymphæum. The church of St. Anne, surrounded by a cluster of small houses, and nestling in a beautiful hollow of the rocks at some distance above the sea, is just such a place as we may suppose to have been dedicated to the nymphs-those fairies of classical mythology. The houses around the church (called cells, кɛɛĩa, as elsewhere on the Holy Mountain) are inhabited by ascetics who labour in the adjoining vineyards, which cover the face of the cliff to some extent, earth having been carried up in baskets to every ledge of the rock. Above, Mount Athos rises abruptly to its peak, 4,000 feet above the level of the sea. A grove of trees flourishes around the church, the roots spreading in the crevices of the rocks; and more singing birds were warbling among them, and around, than I ever recollect to have heard out of England. From a spring high up on the face of the cliff, water is brought to irrigate the shrubs and flowers, in long aqueducts, made of the hollowed trunks of trees, and the gentle murmuring of the stream is very delightful. The church of St. Anne is noted for possessing in a silver case, set with precious stones, the left foot of the saint," a most miraculous and odoriferous relic," (λeífavor πανθαύμαστον καὶ εὐῶδες,) as it is called in a curious work published at Venice in 1701 by one John Comnenus, and entitled, Ilpooкvvηrápιov τοῦ ̔Αγίου Ορους. The same authority informs us that the monastery of Simopetra possesses the right hand of St. Mary Magdalen, "sending forth in abundance a most agreeable odour,” (πολλὴν καὶ πάντερπνον evwdíav ekπeμπov.) I asked to see the foot of St. Anne, when the caloyers-- having first lighted candles and put on their full canonicals -drew forth the ghastly and shrunken sinews, which they devoutly kissed. They did not seem to expect that I, like honest John Comnenus, should be aware of any fragrant odour, and probably knew by experience that northern olfactories are not so delicately sensible of sweet smells.

او

Laura was originally the retreat of Athanasius, a hermit of Athos ; but it has been enlarged and enriched by the munificence of many emperors and other benefactors. Though ranking first of all the monasteries in dignity and antiquity, it is now inferior in wealth to Chiliandári, Iberon, and Vatopéthi, because its property was chiefly situated in Greece, and was confiscated under the government of Capodistria. The solitude and silence of its vast quadrangles speak to its poverty and decay. Among the rocks and woods around are scattered many Kɛɛïa and doкnτýpia dependent on it. Like the other

convents, Laura has the appearance of a fortified village, and is entered by a long winding vaulted passage, guarded by several massive iron gates, one within the other. It stands in a situation similar to the church of St. Anne-that is, exactly at the foot of the peak of Athos, but at the south-eastern instead of the south-western extremity of the peninsula, and overlooks a cape, the ancient Anathos. At a small harbour below is the 'Apoɛvas, the arsenal or port for the galleys and boats of the monks, with a small tower for its protection. The Epitropos who received me at Laura was a particularly venerable old man, and I was more pleased with him on the whole than with any other caloyer with whom I conversed. If not boasting the wisdom of the serpent, he was blest at least with the innocence of the dove. He told me that this monastery is often made a receptacle or place of confinement for ecclesiastics, and pointed out a poor old priest who had been driven mad (edapovioon was the word he used) by fright during the siege of Varna by the Russians in 1828. Two priests were also sent here some time ago by the Patriarch to be confined for immoral conduct; but about a month since they tied their bed-clothes together, let themselves down from the window of the tower, and effected their escape, as the epitropos thinks, in a fishing-boat to one of the neighbouring islands.

The gales of Mount Athos, of such evil repute now as of old, roared loudly round the convent the whole night.

CHURCH BUILDING IN THE COLONIES.

SIR,-In your number for August I was very glad to find the subject of "Church Building in the Colonies" introduced to the notice of your readers, by your Lennoxville correspondent, and if not considered superfluous I will add my opinion supported by personal experience in the Eastern to that of our friend in the Western Hemisphere; and I feel persuaded that his suggestions are so reasonable and so important at the present time, that if the notice of only a few of our English Churchmen, who take an interest in the architectural beauty of ecclesiastical buildings, can be gained, they will not be backward to afford their aid in preparing the required plans of churches, of various styles and dimensions. Such plans should be accompanied with "directions for carrying them into execution," and the "minutest details" should be stated in language as untechnical as possible, that one previously unacquainted with practical architecture may be able to direct, and superintend the work, which will often have to be executed by the natives of the respective localities in which the church is to be built. In the various colonies and dependencies of Britain the Church of our fathers is now widely spreading itself, the ancient spirit is reviving, and a strong desire to have suitable buildings in which to worship God is manifest in the efforts and liberality of our brethren in foreign lands, and in the yearly increasing sympathy and assistance they receive from the mother country. The necessity, therefore, of preparing and publishing, in a "cheap form," a periodical on Church