A RECENT number of Macmillan's Magazine contains an interesting paper by Edward Dicey, from which we extract the following vivid description. The Kremlin is the great temple of religious worship in Moscow, and as long as you keep within it, the glitter of enchantment hangs over you: “The very ground you tread on is holy ground. About you, you may see peasants turning, time after time, toward the East, crossing themselves with an infinity of signs, kneeling before pictures of the Saviour or the Virgin, lying at times prostrate upon the cold, hard stones which surround the sacred shrine. And here it is not as in Catholic lands, where the way worshippers are chiefly women and children, where grown-up men kneel but seldom in public, and where the prayers recited are gabbled over like a lesson learned by rote. Here, as elsewhere in Moscow—and to a great, though a less extent, in St. Petersburg—the major part of the population, no matter what their sex, or age, or rank, seem to share in this open-air worship, and pray aloud with a fervor whose accents are unmistakable. Entering the Kremlin shrine, the sense of glamour, of which I have spoken, increases on you. The building you look upon is the kind of edifice you see in dreams, and do not expect to meet in real life. Critics say it is of depraved style, false to every true principle of art, unsightly in construction, barbarous in ornamentation. It may be so. I do not dispute the verdict of experts; I can only say that I do not envy persons who are not carried away at first by its overwhelming gorgeousness.” “From the pavement to the summit of its lofty domes, supported on its vast porphyry pillars, it is one mass of gold and color. You can hardly put your hand upon a place not decorated with stones and jewels. Amethyst and onyx, jasper and opals, and all the stones whose names are recorded in the adornment of Solomon's Temple, seem to have been employed to make the shrine more splendid still. Upon the dusky portraits of the Virgin Mother and her child, with which the walls are covered, you see hanging necklaces of diamonds, strings of jewels, each one of which must be worth a fortune. It is a common saying that all the wealth of all the Russians could not suffice to buy the treasures in this cathedral church of Moscow; and I suppose that, if purchasers could be found to buy all the articles contained there, at their nominal price, the amount realized by the sale would be something fabulous. The very walls are wrought of silver; the roof is of solid gold. The odd thing is, that all this gorgeous splendor harmonizes with itself. There is nothing tawdry or gew-gawish about it at all. The dim twilight in which the church is always sunk, subdues the glare of its colors; and when at times, as I chanced to see it, a ray of the setting sun shines through the windows of the lofty cupola, golden beams shoot through the gloom, and are reflected back again by the burnished walls.”