The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-30

Tartars and Muscovites. have fought and bled these hundreds of years
 Above the gate rises a bell tower with It's miraculous image or ikon of St. Nich- olas. This ikon. a mosaic under a pro- tecting pane of glass, is specially terrible to liars, who cannot look upon 1t without having their perjuries overwhelm them. and 1t is powerfully helpful to all hon est litigants who come on their knees to mplore it's aid in their lawsuits All though the French laid a mine under the gate and blew it's tower to frag- ments, memorial tablet records, the ikon by the wonderful power of God was unharmed and even the pane of glass over it and the lantern and candle belonging to it were not broken. Wherefore, the tablet triumphantly in- quires, "Who is greater than God, our God, the marvellous God who does mir acles by his saints?'
 Another of the 16 gates that pierce the Kremlin wall is even more venerated and with still more miraculous ikon, which centuries ago confounded and dis persed the beseging TartarS Through this gate the Czars all go to their coro- nations No one, not even the most hurrying drosky driver, passes in ,r ou: of it with covered head. And anybody in the genuflecting throng that daily pours through it could tell the stranger that Napoleon paid dear for refusing tc uncover to that Gate of the Redeemer
 The City Within City
 Entering the gate the unwarnet stranger is startled by d mob of tower. and domes and riot of color and ar. chitecture. Possibly he may be surprised to see before him not one great palace or castle, but city of palaces and gar dens. of churches shrines and convents of museums, courts and barracks, o streets and open squares
 For the Kremlin really is a city in 1t self It has no less than 10 churches ant as many as three dozen big bells, includ ing the Napoleon bell, so called because 1t was cast from metal dug out of thu fire ruins. And the bells of Russia art the most musical in the world For bel casting is both an art and a rite witl the Russians. and bell ringing is no mere rope pulling and careless dangling Indeed their bells are not swung at all but are played upon with cappers as drum Is beaten with it's stick
 Each of the Kremlin churches has it own bitter, memory of the Napoieonc in vasion, but the bitterest of all turks il the dusk of the special church of thu Czars. For on the very altar befor, which the Romanoffs kneel to receive tn oil of conservation. the alien soldier squatteu ana gambed with cards, Whi they stabled their horses in It's nave an' chapels. even as they mad desecrate, the great mosque of Fl Ahzar at Cairo But the church has it's triumph to offse its shame, for its present. chandelier We're cast from 900 pounds of stolen silve that the Cossaks recaptured from the re treating grand army.
 On everything that slistened in tn churches of the Kremlin the soldiers lai their pillaging hands. Not only were tn gold and silver ikons and vessels dumpe into the melting pot, but even the gol leaf was stripped from the images an decorations.
 The most conspicuous of the, towers that of Ivan or John. recalls the da when the Emperor stood before 1t per sonally superintending .he removal c it's enormous cross AndHfor what pur pose? To send it to Pafis and place above the dome of the Hotel des In valides. But the immense thing tumble ! and crashed, nearly killing it's impiou asssilants. Only by that lucky mis chance was Napoleon 3pared the ignc miny of finding his grave beneath stole cross. sF The palace of Napoleon, or that part c 1t which he occupied. in the Kremlin, wa