"If you said pneuma agion," I used to say, "then you would cross yourself
like us, and if we said sancti spiritus we should cross ourselves like
you."

"The adjective," replied my interlocutor, "should always precede the
substantive, for we should never utter the name of God without first
giving Him some honourable epithet."

Such are nearly all the differences which divide the two churches,
without reckoning the numerous idle tales which they have as well as
ourselves, and which are by no means the least cherished articles of
their faith.

We returned to St. Petersburg by the way we had come, but Zaira would
have liked me never to leave Moscow. She had become so much in love with
me by force of constant association that I could not think without a pang
of the moment of separation. The day after our arrival in the capital I
took her to her home, where she shewed her father all the little presents
I had given her, and told him of the honour she had received as my
daughter, which made the good man laugh heartily.

The first piece of news I heard was that a ukase had been issued,
ordering the erection of a temple dedicated to God in the Moscoi opposite
to the house where I resided. The empress had entrusted Rinaldi, the
architect, with the erection. He asked her what emblem he should put
above the portal, and she replied,--

"No emblem at all, only the name of God in large letters."

"I will put a triangle."