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Christ, the heaven’s eternal King,

Whose glory through the world doth ring,

Bids us, his beloved people,

In lone deserts, shady caves,

Darksome forests, refuge take;

Bury deep ourselves in sand,

Strewn with ashes walk the land,

Die in hope and never fear,

For God’s kingdom draweth near!

Tichon listened with special eagerness to tales about the secret settlements, amid dark forests and bogs beyond the Volga, and about the legendary and invisible city—Kitesh on the Lake of Light. The site of the city appeared to be a lonely wood; yet there were churches, houses, monasteries, and numbers of people. In summer church bells are heard at night ringing on the lake’s surface and the clear waters reflect the golden domes of the churches. There the true kingdom on earth is, in peace, quiet and eternal joy; holy fathers have flourished there, like lilies, cypresses and date palms, like pearls and heavenly stars. From their lips unceasing prayer to God rises like the breath of sweet-scented thyme and choice incense, and at night their prayer is visible like fiery sparkling pillars, and the light is so strong that it is possible to read and write without a candle. God loves and cherishes them as the apple of His eye, and His invisible hand is ever over them. And they shall experience neither sorrow nor affliction from the Beast; only for us sinners do they grieve day and night for our apostasy and Russia’s, and for the dominion of Antichrist over us. One road only leads to this invisible city. It is narrow, surrounded by all sorts of wonders and terrors, and winds among thickets, through woody dales, and no one can find it, except those whom God Himself leads to this serenely quiet refuge. Listening to the tales, Tichon longed to be in these dark forests and lone deserts. With inexpressibly sweet melancholy would he repeat after Pahómitch the poem about prince Joseph, the young hermit:—