Yet the gift of miracles is greater than the gift of sacrifice. The Black Clergy stand out for miracles; not in a mystical sense, but in a natural sense; not only in times long past, but in the present hour; not only in the dark and in obscure hamlets, but in populous places and in the light of day.
At Kief a friend drives me out to the caves of Anton and Feodosie, where we find some men and women standing by the gates, expecting the father who keeps the keys to bring them and unlock the doors. As these living pilgrims occupy us more than the dead anchorets, we join this party, pay our five kopecks, light our tapers, and descend with them the rocky stairs into the vault. Candle in hand, an aged monk goes forward, muttering in the gloom; stopping for an instant, here and there, to show us, lying on a ledge of rock, some coffin muffled in a pall. We thread a mile of lanes, saluting saint on saint, and twice or thrice we come into dwarf chapels, in each of which a lamp burns dimly before a shrine. The women kneel; the men cross themselves and pray. Moving forward in the dark, we come upon a niche in the wall, covered by a curtain and a glass door, on the ledge of which stands a silver dish, a little water, and a human skull. Our pilgrims cross themselves and mutter a voiceless prayer, while the aged monk lays down his taper and unlocks the door. A woman sinks on her knees before the niche, turns up her face, and shuts her eyes, while the father, dipping a quill into the water, drops a little of the fluid on her eyelids. One by one, each pilgrim undergoes this rite; and then, on rising from his knees, lays down an offering of a few kopecks on the ledge of rock.
"What does this ceremony mean?" I ask the father. "Mean?" says he: "a mystery--a miracle! This skull is the relic of a holy man whose eye had suffered from a blow. He called upon the Most Pure Mother of God; she heard his cry of pain; and in her pity she cured him of his wound."
"What is the name of that holy man?"--"We do not know."
"When did he live and die?"--"We do not know."
"Was he a monk of Kief?"--"He was; and after he died his skull was kept, because his fame was great, and every one with pain in his eyes came hither to obtain relief."