Октябрь 1881 г.

At four and a half o'clock in the morning, going to church to write money into a mug, I usually met small children (about eight years old) chasing me and asking for alms; I became annoyed with them and became angry, and lost grace, and felt sorrow and oppression, from which I got rid of through repentance by the grace of the Lord, when I diligently touched the Holy Altar (in the chapel of Peter and Paul). Glory to the Lord! Nine and a quarter o'clock in the morning. I thank the Lord, who showed me His great help during the service of the prayer service with Mr. Balinov: by His grace I served heartily, kindly, boldly, without stumbling, victoriously. Glory to the Lord! Always help me, my Lord, Lord the Benefactor, Giver of Life! Remember all those who commanded me, unworthy, to pray for them and for those who give alms. After late mass on Pokrov; The Lord, by His ineffable mercy, delivered me from deadly anger towards the sexton for his excessive, pretentious zeal for me when dressing in priestly robes; I even became embittered at the fact that he served clothes warmed by his hands, and I shunned his very warmth, like some kind of uncleanness, but I repented to the Lord about my evil habit, and the Lord changed my heart, delivering me from the devil’s malice against the innocent sexton. And another time, too, the Lord delivered me from similar malice through a prayer of repentance. Before the great entrance, the Lord also showed great mercy to me through intense prayer. At the great entrance before the celebration of the Sacrament, the enemy stung with pity the precious cross, which would become dusty from the incense, and cooled my heart towards God, but glory to the goodness of God that He sent me His light and convinced my mind and my heart that everything in the world is perishable, like the world itself, that God alone is eternal, and souls created in the image of God are also eternal, and we must care for souls, to save souls, to adorn with virtue, to cleanse unceasingly by repentance, to love God with all our hearts and to please Him, and not to our lusts and passions, that our priestly service is a service to the heavenly, not the earthly, the service of immortality, incorruptibility, the service of truth, and we must regard everything earthly as rubbish, decay, smoke. After this, the Lord gave peace. A Christian must sharpen the eye of his mind and see beyond the present, not dwell on the material or material world, but be able to penetrate with his gaze into the spiritual, eternal world. After Matins. Glory to the new miracles in me of Your goodness and mercy, Lord Jesus Christ, my God, my true life and true sweetness, incorruptible, eternal! During Matins, when I stood and repented at the throne of Your glory for my hard-heartedness and stinginess, severity and obstinacy towards the poor and touched the upper part of the throne, You had mercy and revived me soon, despising my sins, and with great boldness I read and sang the canons of the morning. Upon arriving home from church, the enemy twice stole and exposed my soul from the grace of God with carnal sweetness, separating me from You and bringing death into my bowels, but You again accepted my double repentance and delivered me from the snares of the enemy, teaching me not to be seduced by deadly sweetness that corrupts soul and body, but to hold on to Your one imperishable sweetness, which gives life, peace, light, strength and strength. my soul and body. I praise You, I extol You, Life-Giver, Source of truth and holiness. I want to be conformed to the Lord, who created me in His image and likeness in truth and holiness, to the Lady Theotokos, of whom, like the Lord, I am an unworthy servant, to the holy Angels of God, my elder brothers, also in the image of God, like me, created and remaining faithful to their Lord; Finally, I want to be consistent with and imitate all the holy saints of God, who were imitators of the Lord on earth. May the Sovereign Lord grant this to me, who has said: Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect [Matthew 5:48]. Oh, wonderful, precious words! Oh, the greatness of human nature, with which it is possible to achieve the perfection of the Divine, to become like God! Oh, the greatness of God's gifts to man! Oh, my Creator! Grant me to love You above all else and for Your sake to count everything earthly as rubbish: gold, and precious stones, and magnificent clothes, and the beauty of a woman’s face, and large and beautiful dwellings, and ranks, and distinctions, and wealth, and nobility, and earthly glory, vain, short-lived. Amen. Go into the depths [Luke 5:4], for in the depths sin nests and hides. On October 3, just before morning, I was awakened by a wonderful dream: I was with the Metropolitan in his palace for some business; I come to him - I just left and was walking around the yard; I drank a little grape wine from someone; suddenly he comes home; I see him in the open doors, I run from him to other rooms, [...] in vestments; he is behind me, catching up with me; seeing that it is impossible to keep up, he throws off his vestments; I go to him to confess, he meets me; I fall to one knee and face him; he accuses me of rage and a bad conscience, testifies to me, says: “Breathe deeper,” I sigh; says: “Well, I don’t drink, I’m walking straight, I’m not afraid,” but [himself] apparently drinks wine, and I woke up; It was half past six in the morning. I got up. I thank You, Lord, for the miracle of Your mercy in me in the Church of the Epiphany for reviving me, killed by my sins: gluttony, satiety, drunkenness, sleep, laziness and inaction. I tearfully repented and prayed during mass, and the Lord miraculously revived me: I vividly felt and felt the mercy of the Lord and during the funeral service I clearly uttered three exclamations: “You are the resurrection, having defeated the enemy-terrorist.” Entering the church, you see the faces of Christ the Savior, the Most Holy Theotokos, Angels and saints: apostles, prophets, saints, saints - in a word, the heavenly Church; you see in a small form the earthly Church: clergy and clergy and laity, praying and calling on the intercession of the saints to help and reinforce their weak prayer, and through the open royal doors you see, as it were, Golgotha ​​and on it a cross with the crucified Lord of glory, the throne of the Heavenly King, you see the Holy Chalice, from which the faithful drink the Blood that flowed from the most pure Body of Christ. How much and convincingly all this speaks to the mind and heart of a Christian! How all this expands his religious horizons! How this animates, touches and expands his heart with love for God and for the saints and for all people! How this lifts the spirit of grief! How can one not pray with an expansive heart for everyone when you see with the eye of faith all the saints praying for us! The Virgin stands today in the church, and from the faces of the saints she invisibly prays to God for us: The angels and the bishops bow down, the apostles and the prophets rejoice 101 - that’s what the Church sings! After the all-night vigil in the Duma Church. I thank the Lord for reviving my heart, deadened by sin, during the all-night vigil. Feeling heavy and drowsy, I intensified my prayer; standing before the throne, I thought about where I stand, before Who, what am I doing? Who is entrusted to my prayers, as many have commanded me to pray for them? And living feelings appeared, tears of tenderness, my soul warmed and calmed down, and it became easy, easy! After the release, in confusion and with omissions of what was said, there was great confusion and oppression, captivity from enemies, but for repentance and falling with faith and contrition of heart to the throne of God (the Forerunner), the Lord delivered from captivity, revived, calmed, and consoled. Upon arriving home, there was a strong temptation after reading the legend about the miraculous healing of the crippled twenty-seven-year-old Catherine by the Mother of God. The reason is my passion for the servant girl Evdokia. Mortally wounded; Through deep repentance, the Lord cleansed, pacified, and delivered from trouble. I have betrothed you to one husband in order to present you to Christ as a pure virgin [2 Cor. 11:2]. What is the betrothal or pledge? – Mutual loyalty, unity of spirit and body. He who is united with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord [1 Cor. 6:17]. Every kingdom divided against itself will be desolate, and a house divided against itself will fall [Luke 11:17], therefore the devil always tries to double our heart: it draws us away from God to the world and its delights, and tears our soul away from God. A terrible, absurd duality has occurred in man since the time of his fall and falling away from God. He quickly inclined towards sensuality, carnality, soullessness in relation to God, to His reason, to His truth and holiness, to His endless Kingdom; he despised his soul, its eternal, cherished needs; He made his mind earthly, earthy, immersed in dust and corruption, in dreams of food, clothing, wealth, about the comforts and pleasures of earthly, transitory life; He also made the heart from the spiritual into flesh, from the subtle, tender into rough and stony, the will into passionate, unreasonable, disobedient to God and the law of life, truth, His holiness, corrupt and destructive. Until now, a person who has not been renewed by grace despises or forgets all the immeasurably great gifts of grace. Resurrection. If sin is extremely insolent and against our will, it rages in us and floods us, then all that remains is to despise it and not sympathize with it at all, to loathe it and earnestly pray to the Lord in unfeigned repentance, so that He Himself will stop its violence and insolence in us, and henceforth not give a reason for it to nest in us. Various punishments and spiritual sorrows soften, admonish, cleanse, renew and strengthen our hearts in truth and virtue, clearly show the flattery and destruction of any sin, inspire disgust towards it and turn the sinner to God, encouraging us to sincerely love God and our neighbor. And without sorrows, a person would become a slave of passions and would perish forever. Sorrow is God's great mercy. If you suffer punishment, then God treats you as sons. For is there any son whom his father does not punish? If you remain without punishment... then you are illegitimate children, not sons (Hebrews, Epistle of the Apostle Paul, [12:7-8]). I sinned - I was angry tuna 102 with the poor and sickly woman, Natalia, treating her obstinately, regretting giving her more and giving her little, reluctantly, with vexation, with bile in my heart; I denounce my pride, lack of faith, unbelief, lack of hope in the all-generous Providence of God for everyone and for me, ingratitude, lust, carnality, anger, malice, envy, pride, impurity and coarseness of the heart, ignorance, insolence, willfulness, unmercifulness, carelessness about virtue. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for Thy name's sake. I wear golden crosses, but I have not learned self-sacrifice, I have not been jealous of Christ’s humility and meekness. After an intense, deep prayer of repentance, now again the triumph and miracle of God’s mercy took place in me: I was released from severe sorrow and oppression, delivered from the scorching - by the heart of the Lord, His benevolence, kindness, goodness! The poison of sin spread throughout my entire being. Now the dew of grace. I thank the Lord for threefold deliverance from severe cramps and sorrows in church during Matins, then at home in the morning and especially in the afternoon after refusing to give a tradesman with a child in his arms sixty [kopecks] or one ruble twenty kopecks of money for a metric certificate. I repented intensely and prayed for my misfortune, and finally the Lord, having punished me, had mercy, having heard my prayer. Glory to His mercy! Woe to the hard-hearted. I thank the Lord for deliverance from mortal sorrow and distress that befell me just before Matins for my anger at a pockmarked beggar boy, at another beggar, a retired scribe, and at a woman who came from Moscow with her daughter in extreme poverty and was inactive and only crying. I brought sincere repentance to the Lord, standing dead from my sins and passions before the throne of God, I accused myself of hard-heartedness, malice, pride, carnality, stinginess, I realized that I should give alms willingly, in humility, with zeal, affection, lovingly and meekly, and not with annoyance, reluctance and compulsion, not with anger and rage. And the Lord had mercy on me, delivered me from severe sins, gave me peace, silence, wholeness, boldness, light, joy, space, lightness. I thank the Lord, who is gracious, gracious, and kind. Last night, regarding Father Pavel Lamanov’s search for a precious cross and regarding the subscription to its construction, I fell into hostility towards him because, without having done any particularly useful work, he is looking for precious differences, having already many differences. I sincerely repented of my hostility and falling away from the gospel of brotherly love, when it became very cramped for me, and I asked the Lord to change my heart from evil to good, and the Lord changed it and granted mercy, and peace, and spiritual space. Glory to the Lord, I am ashamed of my face, as if I have not yet corrected myself. The sign of the cross, which we depict on the forehead, heart and both shoulders, is like an impenetrable shield against the machinations of the devil, who is constantly arming himself against us and seeking to devour us, it is a shield against all passions, against the nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts that he puts into our mind and heart and will, against all the lusts of the evil one. Glory to the Lord for this! In addition, the sign of the cross reminds us of the two most important commandments of the law: love for God and neighbor, love with all your thoughts, all your heart and all your strength. Three main fingers mean the Holy Trinity, two small ones - two natures in Christ, bending - bowing of heaven, descent to earth, exhaustion. Yesterday morning I ate a bun with tea and spoiled myself for the whole day. It was hard, it tightened my stomach. After the early second mass. I thank the Lord with all my heart for the immeasurable mercy shown to me in the service of the liturgy and the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and for overcoming all the enemy’s treacheries, especially for overcoming the loss of spirit brought on by the enemy for withdrawing from my income one ruble (out of two) in favor of the poor for my excessive labor and walking on demand, far surpassing the labors of the brother priests, and even then quite often recording a reduced amount received for the required correction. Tomorrow, October 9, there will be two prayer services: at eight o’clock in the morning in the apartment of Ekaterina M. Lebedeva and at eleven o’clock in the afternoon with Mr. Ivanov in Trapeznikov’s house number one. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from great sorrow, oppression, confusion, shame, darkness, the shadow of death, which befell me for my anger and rage at a beggar big guy of about twenty, constantly begging me for alms for all sorts of needs and asking me for clothes for the winter. I gave reluctantly and with great anger, for this I suffered grievously at the meeting of the board of trustees (on Thursday, October 8), and there I shrank, shuffled from the crampedness and binding of my soul, and repented, resorting internally to the mercy of the Lord, and received a wonderful deliverance from sins and cramped conditions and received peace, space, strength, light and life and the joy of God. Glory to the Lord! From meat food, very tasty and consumed with greed, I suffered severely in soul and body. Oh, if only I didn’t eat meat! Three and a half hours. Evening of October 9. The enemy caught me today, fatally beheading my soul with malice in the officer’s apartment in Trapeznikov’s house just before the prayer service, when I was looking at the album and saw Father Pavel Lamanov, towards whom I had dislike and hostility for his pride and arrogance 103; I now became embittered with him and died in soul, falling away from the grace of God, which does not tolerate malice. I destroyed the entire law of God, which is love, and barely served the prayer service: I could not speak the litany, the Gospel of Matthew was handed over to Me by My Father... [Matthew 11:27] I did not read enough, and precisely the words that speak of meekness and humility, and so on. I suffered for a long time afterwards, walked around Catherine’s Park and internally repented of my malice, prayed to God to change my heart, to correct, to turn away the malice and to grant kindness, meekness and gentleness, and the Lord finally had mercy, granting forgiveness, good fortune and peace; the more conveniently the enemy told me that I had a good dinner of whitefish and fish soup with black soft bread. Five and a half o'clock in the evening. Again the Lord surprised me with His immeasurable mercy outside the city (in the house behind the Romashov tavern) before and during the reading of the prayer to the mother in labor - the wife of a poor tradesman: I was struck by mortal sorrow and distress for refusing, with malice in my heart, secondary alms to the beggars at the cathedral, when I sat down in a droshky to go out of town to give prayer, and for this malice, together with greed, stinginess, I was punished internally by pride, voluptuousness, carnality, and through the prayer of repentance the Lord gave me deliverance, peace, space, boldness, a good yoke and a light burden. Glory to the mercy of the Lord, which is not defeated by our all kinds of sins! Glory to the Lord, who has given me so many times the renewal of salvation and the destruction of the oppressions and deaths of hell! Glory to God’s mercy, which overcomes the strength of hell within me! Oh, how passionate and senseless and ungrateful I am to the Lord in practice, although in words I am always grateful! How I have not yet assured my heart with God! What other lack of hope in the Lord and hope in earthly blessings exist in me! What self-love with all the knowledge of one’s wretchedness and lewdness, one’s madness, impotence, darkness, impurity! Despise the flesh 104, that is, carnal passions and lusts. As you want people to do to you, do so to them [Luke 6:31]. One must keep in mind the extreme weakness of human nature, its sinful corruption, passion, in order to condescend to people a lot, a lot, so as not to be embittered at them, not to despise them, not to take revenge on them; we must know the limitations of our essential needs, so as not to envy the wealth and luxury of the rich and not to be embittered for their hardness of heart; the rich [must] enter into the condition of the poor if they want the poor to be disposed towards them, to respect and love them and to serve them honestly and diligently. Evening. I thank the Lord, who visited me with His mercy and delivered me from a severe headache, which probably occurred from the excessive consumption of grape wine yesterday, and from the bad weather. Her head ached from early morning until three o'clock in the afternoon, and it was she who was healed during a prayer service with Evlampia Shlyapnikova, or decisively after the prayer service after anointing her head with holy water and drinking from a cup. Resurrection. I want to give thanks to the Lord for His countless mercies shown to me this day during Matins and early mass and after the requiem service before consuming the Holy Gifts and then at home. How many entrapments and captivations of my soul there were from bodiless enemies, from evil and unclean spirits, so many were deliverances from the Lord through the prayer of repentance, and there were many entrapments, especially when reading the Gospel and immediately after it; the enemy brought me into confusion while reading it, and I hurried, skimmed 105 at the end and grabbed the wonderful, comforting, invaluable, life-giving words, filled with the greatest love and condescension for us of the Lord Jesus Christ: go therefore to my brethren and say to them: I will ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God [John 20:17]. Then, before and during the vacation, he caught me with suspicious fear, and I reduced the vacation to the utmost; then, before reading the prayer to Christ, the True Light, which, however, he said in its entirety, having prayed to the Lord about it in advance. The deadly trap after the great entrance was from the enemy, then before the cry In the first remember, Lord, and after, especially after the requiem, the release of which I did not pronounce from the devil’s fear and only said the last words; This last temptation was especially hard for me, it killed my spirit, but the Lord accepted repentance and delivered me from the death of sin. Away with stupid fear! Come, unshakable boldness! At home, the Lord delivered us from the poison of carnal love twice, at ten o’clock and at one o’clock. Three and three quarters o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who has now delivered me from the torment of vexation and anger at my family, with whom I was traveling to the cemetery; Because of the dog, my wife forced the driver to stop several times to pick her up as she ran behind the droshky, and there was little time - I was in a hurry until Vespers. I got off the droshky and walked. Then a cab drove up when I had walked half a mile, and I sat down. I thank the Lord, who earlier delivered me from the movement of a voluptuous heart. Lord, have mercy. We are great sinners, constantly sinning a lot before God and worthy of righteous condemnation, and therefore we often cry out to God, the teaching of his mother, the Church of Christ, about mercy: Lord, have mercy; although we are sinners, we are humble sinners, repentant, or sinners, yes of God; By this repentance, this humility, this cry to God for mercy, we differ from demons, or evil spirits, who, having sinned and sinned countless times, do not allow even the thought of repentance due to their immense pride and malice and cannot say sincerely: Lord, have mercy. What will our foolish clever people say to this, who sometimes mock the worship of our Church because in it we hear every now and then: Lord, have mercy and grant, Lord? They forget that they are damned sinners, poor, poor, blind, naked, and therefore have an extreme need for God’s mercy, for God’s gifts. I thank the Lord, who healed my headache (shooting) during Vespers, especially during the prayer service with Alexei Sergeevich, son-in-law of Evdokia Lukinichna Gulyaeva (Kuznetsov). Evening. I bring to You a whole-hearted confession of Your ineffable mercies towards me, revealed in me during the early Liturgy at the beginning, especially after the great entrance, when You delivered me from the deadly remorse of the devil; especially during and after communion of the Holy Mysteries, when You miraculously revived me, renewed me, laid Your lightest yoke on me, rejoiced, comforted me, enlarged my heart and my mouth against my enemies [1 Samuel 2:1]. Even after the prayer service, you delivered me from the demonic distress that befell me from the cunning of the enemy while reading the Gospel of the Mother of God, which I did not read due to the wedge of the devil in my heart; Finally, after the funeral service, the Lord delivered me from the deadly breath of the devil when I accepted a bottle of church wine for use in the church about the salvation of Anthony (Maria Terentyevna’s husband). I thank the Lord for His wonderful powers in me. And before Vespers and during Vespers, the Lord delivered me twice and three times from carnal pleasures and grief towards the poor. Eleven o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who now, through the prayer of deep, reasonable repentance, has brought about in me the greatest salvation from the sweet sin that bound my soul, who has delivered me from the cruel death of sin and who has given me life, space, peace, and boldness. Oh, how good is the sweetest yoke of our Lord Jesus Christ and how bitter is any sin, although at first it pretends to be sweet! How deceptive is the sweetness of sin! Many of our learned brethren know a lot, but they don’t know the main thing - they don’t know Christianity, they don’t have faith in Christ, they don’t have love for Christ, they don’t have Christ in their hearts, they don’t carry, they don’t put on Him, they don’t pray to Him sincerely, they don’t have and don’t keep His commandments, but they walk through the age of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air [Eph. 2:2], they diligently fulfill His lusts, allowing themselves sinful carnality in of all kinds, greed, unmercifulness, stinginess, hard-heartedness and lack of compassion, mockery of the rites of faith, considering public and home prayers, reading, knowledge and fulfillment of the Gospel unnecessary. And if they don’t know Christianity, then it’s the same as if they don’t know anything, for all knowledge without Christian knowledge is insignificant and fleeting (just as the image of this corruptible world passes away), dissipating like smoke with the death of a person; So, scientists should not be proud of their learning in front of simple, unlearned people, who in the simplicity of their hearts often preserve great faith and love for God and who, with their wise simplicity, have often put the learned sages to shame. Let learned people remember the words of the Hypostatic, infinite Wisdom: I glorify You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You hid this (the miracles of the Gospel, the teaching of the Gospel and the power over demons) from the wise and prudent and revealed it to infants; Hey, Father! for such was Your good pleasure [Matthew 11:25–26]. Everywhere, always and in everything good, a struggle with oneself is needed in order to sincerely do good, for example in prayer, almsgiving, [fasting]; at the beginning of prayer, most of the time the heart is reluctant to pray, not sincerely, but as if involuntarily, as if only because it is necessary to pray, that it is bad to be without prayer, and not fervently, but coldly, lazy and careless; Only then do you begin to pray willingly and fervently, when you think about with whom and what you are talking about, Whom you thank and for what great and unceasing benefits you glorify, what all-perfect Being you glorify, Whose wonderful name you pronounce with your lips, with what wonderful, perfect, eternal Life you are talking face to face, what a wonderful, all-powerful King you stand before, what an abyss of mercy and generosity! So it is in the matter of alms: for a long, long time we do not willingly, not from the heart, but often with annoyance and indignation, sometimes with anger and rage, we give it to the poor, if there are a lot of them, very often they ask, forgetting that those who accept alms themselves have mercy on us most of all, that is, God, who accepts through them, that they are our enrichers, and we, the givers, with material wealth, contentment, pleasures, excesses - damned, spiritually poor sinners who have an extreme need for the grace and mercy of God with their countless and grave sins, with their pride, envy, greed, hard-heartedness, satiety, with various worldly pleasures, for which we have all the means and occasions. Oh, how much grace, spiritual wisdom, light, faith, hope and devotion to God is needed to always give alms that are merciful to ourselves with a pure heart, willingly, with humility and zeal! Many, many lack the intelligence and desire for this, because they consider giving it an unproductive loss, while with the same prosperity or wealth they destroy themselves, either not sparing themselves any pleasures, often harmful and dangerous, or by being excessively stingy and shaking over every penny, becoming perfect slaves of money, like Judas. Or again: what abyss of punishments is needed for us and is used by the Heavenly Father who loves us and all of us so that we put aside excess malice and stop being angry with our neighbors because of every trifle and love meekness, gentleness, patience and completely hate all malice, all anger? Or again: how often must the Lord use the rod of punishment to defeat our prodigal heart, in order to inspire disgust for all uncleanness, to which our voluptuous heart is so eager and inclined? No one suddenly becomes meek, kind, chaste, sincere; It takes a lot of effort, work, prayers, whole-hearted repentance, and punishment to acquire these virtues. Good is planted, grows, matures and strengthens slowly, with great obstacles, with interruptions, uprooting and new labors of planting. Man is a crafty animal, having learned from his youth wickedness from the master of evil and every kind of deceit; he values ​​everything in the world beyond measure, only the most precious treasure he does not value and often despises, at least in reality, are the divine virtues of faith, humility, truth, alms, prayer, chastity, abstinence, patience, meekness, non-covetousness, and is constantly drawn to the opposite. Surrender all of yourself to God, and God will be everything to you. I thank the Lord, who solemnly and quickly, graciously delivered me during Matins from mental turmoil due to my suspiciousness regarding the gift from the Markovs (apples, grapes and pears that came to me and which I wanted to take to my nephews) and for the liturgy, well performed; I thank you both for the wonderful renewal of the Holy Mysteries and for the dismissals at the liturgy and at the memorial service. As a result of eating watermelon abundantly this evening, this morning my heart was rough, weak, and irritable; during early mass there was a grave temptation - grief over the prosphora bowl because of the stale prosphora; invisible enemies stung extremely poisonously, confused, irritated, did not allow one to calm down and take possession of the world of the heart, especially before the great entrance; after entering there was great confusion, but after intense prayer the Lord pacified and strengthened the heart, delivering him from the devil’s mortification; after communion, new life, a life-giving current in the whole being, peace, lightness, freedom, boldness, strength; I read the prayer behind the pulpit with boldness and strength, and the dismissal said the same. After mass there is a requiem service: he stole his leave from the influence of the devil; a new mortification, but also a new life after repentance by the Lord. Prayer service in church: again temptation and again victory or, better yet, mercy for me, defeated by the devil. Officer Vlasov has a prayer service with a triumphant, victorious spirit; Captain Ivan Nikolaevich (where officer Kalmykov) has a prayer service prosperous by the grace of God. Five and a half hours. Now there was a grave temptation because of the beggar boy, or, better, because of his father, who received fifty kopecks at the depot and sent his son to me every day to receive a ten-kopeck piece. I came and in anger and rage pulled him out by the hair, but I upset myself, inflamed with anger, causing a deadly ulcer in my heart, confusion, sorrow, cramped conditions, and Gehenna. But glory, Christ, to Thy long-suffering and endless mercy: You accepted my sincere, deep, ardent repentance of my sin and delivered me from my inner hell, gave me forgiveness, deliverance, peace, boldness, freedom, spiritual healing and made Thy servant glad with Thy mercy. At the gymnasium, he spent a wonderful time in the classrooms, talked with the students intelligently and casually, edifyingly. God bless! Thursday. This day began with the greatest mercies of God for me, especially at the beginning of early mass, when, through my prayer, the Lord took away sorrow, despondency, crampedness, confusion from my soul, and especially after the Cherubic Song and the Great Entrance, when the Lord drove away the crampedness that was pressing me due to ill will towards my spiritual daughters and some envy that I often allow them to partake of the Holy Mysteries, for which they thirst, and hunger, and ask. Where would I rejoice in the fact that there are those who hunger and thirst for the grace of justification in Christ, I was devilishly grieved, damned one. But, having sincerely repented of this, I received forgiveness and peace and boldness. He received Holy Communion in a life-giving and new way; the whole spirit of despondency and humiliation of the devil, oppressive, deadening, disappeared. He read the prayer behind the pulpit superbly, and the dismissal said the same. At the dismissal of the memorial service, he succumbed to the fear of the devil and did not utter the sweetest words: Christ, our true God, possesses the living and the dead, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother and so on, only the last three or four words he said: he will count with the righteous, and have mercy on us, as He is Good and Lover of Mankind. We must fight hard against the devil’s despondency, coldness, cowardice and fear and preserve our dignity with which the Lord, my Redeemer, has honored me from all sin, and boldly turn our face to the people and speak to everyone the words of faith, hope, love and Divine mercy. The enemy brings despondency, cowardice and fear to me in order to bring the same to those who are coming and deprive them of hope and peace. Yes, I dare by the grace of God. After consumption and during the use of the Holy Gifts, all the machinations of the enemy were destroyed in me, like a cobweb, and the wonderful life of God took possession of me, God’s wonderful peace and coolness, and during Mass and Matins, from time to time spiritual snakes bit me severely. God! Forgive me for my folly in sparing a fat meal for a child because of my addiction to earthly goods that disappear like smoke, due to extreme pride and carnality. Forgive me, Lord, and deliver me in everything from this madness, for through this addiction I instantly fall away from You and die in soul. O my inexhaustible treasure, my eternal food and my sweetness and my bright, imperishable robe and my eternal life, Lord, may I cleave to You alone with all my heart. Wake up! Amen, amen. And sincere prayer, in spirit and truth, must be won through an internal strong and persistent struggle against one’s lazy, inert flesh and against the spirits of malice that scatter, confuse and often paralyze our thoughts and heartfelt feelings. By the way, we often depict the sign of the cross in order to remember with gratitude and love the fierce sufferings on the cross and the death on the cross for us of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to hate our sins, which were the cause of these indescribably great and grave sufferings of the God-man, and to love God with all our hearts and to fulfill His holy will, rejecting our own, evil and sinful, disastrous. The sign of the cross, moreover, is a shield and protection against the machinations of demons; it is the power of God, scorching and repelling demons. Whoever does not depict the sign of the cross out of negligence and lack of faith is constantly open to the action of invisible enemies and is constantly and differently caught from them, often without noticing it and fulfilling their destructive will. The cross, as a trophy of Jesus Christ and His Church victorious over the devil, is found and constantly used in the Church. The cross is the glory and invincible power of the Church and will remain so until the end of the world. The unclean in heart, the glutton, the prodigal, the selfish, the self-loving, the envious, the proud, the willful, the impatient, curses at himself and at God Himself and His saints, for he is defiled and constantly distorts the image of God in himself and expels from himself, from his heart, as a church not made by hands, the Spirit of God, which should dwell in us. always; An unclean person cannot pray purely, for his heart is flooded with sin, covered, like bark, with sin. During the all-night vigil at home (Thursday, October 15), I experienced extremely severe temptations due to greed for meat during dinner; enemies pierced my heart, thought and tongue with uncleanness, and four times, as a result of my fervent prayer of faith and repentance, the Lord delivered me from the demons of uncleanness, and if not for the prayers of faith and repentance, then at least I would not have served the all-night vigil at all - so much so did the demons kill me, sting, burn, torment, devour, immerse, kill! Shame and grief, and that’s all! Today's early liturgy was full of miracles of God's mercy towards me from its beginning to the end. At first I felt heartbreak, tightness, sorrow, cowardice, humiliation, weakness of heart, fear, and embarrassment. But after sincere prayer, the Lord revived me, pacified me, consoled me, strengthened me, resurrected me, and renewed me. He received life-giving communion, feeling and touching with his whole being the fire of the Divine, burning all the thorns of sins and miraculously reviving. But invisible enemies intensified to steal from me the treasure of the Divine and the renewal of the sacred, truth, love, kindness, tearing me into anger at the sexton for singing the same songs instead of the sacrament (I wanted variety) and at Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina for bringing my goddaughter Parasha Shlyapnikova to communion (why is she poking around everywhere and why is the child sleepy); I barely overcame all this with strong faith, a prayer of repentance to the Lord; here the Lord soon revealed the greatest powers of mercy and salvation in me, and the principles and powers of darkness dissipated and ran away from me, and I got rid of the beginning of the oppression, sorrow, despondency, shame, fear, dumbness and calmed down, became confident, and cheerfully read the pulpit, and said dismissal without hesitation. Through you, Lord, I triumphed, was consoled, became mature, rejoiced and had fun. Amen. I read the canon at Matins splendidly. I thank You, Lord, who changed my heart regarding Father Pavel Lamanov from evil to good. I thank the Lord, who turned the malice of my heart against the old maid Paraskeva Ivanovna Kovrigina during the reading of the canon and prayers for communion, and who delivered me from evil, embarrassment, darkness, oppression and death, and who granted peace, light, freedom and life quickly, in an instant, according to my inner prayer during the reading. Glory to the Lord, quick in His intercession and mercy. I am unfair towards Paraskeva Kovrigina, and the devil is angry with her through me. After early mass. I thank the Lord, who, by His great mercy, delivered me for the sake of my repentance and prayer from the greatest and most difficult temptations, firstly, at the beginning of Matins from mortal sorrow and cramped conditions due to my grief at the poor, then at the beginning of Mass from devilish despondency and crampedness and cowardice, then when reading the Gospel from cramped conditions through the prayer of faith, after the great entrance and especially at the end of the liturgy from extremely fiery, acute Satanic temptation, due to some displeasure with Paraskeva Kovrigina for her striving forward and due to failure to pronounce the words: Let the communion of Thy Most Pure Mysteries be not for judgment or condemnation for me, but for the healing of soul and body. Woe came to me from the all-evil demons, but God’s immeasurable goodness, through my prayer, defeated the demonic malice in me, and I was a miracle of God’s mercy and power today. Praise the Lord. Received life-giving communion. Evening. I thank the Lord, who revealed in me the power of His salvation at Compline through my secret prayer and transformed the powerlessness and fear of my heart into strength and courage; I thank the Lord, who accomplished His salvation in me through the Sacrament of Baptism, at the end of which I stumbled while saying the last litany and could not utter the dismissal. I thank the Lord for his wonderful help during the all-night vigil and after it, when I touched the throne in cramped conditions. I thank the Lord, who performed a great miracle of salvation in me at home, at eight and a half o’clock in the evening, after a quarrel with my wife. Every sin is a reproach to the greatness, goodness, holiness and truth of God, for the sinner, firstly, reproaches God in himself, in his soul, which is the image of God, the imprint and image of His perfections, and which the sinner disfigures, defiles and darkens with sin, separates it from God and thereby causes it spiritual death, the firstfruits of eternal, terrible death, eternal separation from God; secondly, he curses God personally, directly, despising His laws, not giving Him due glory and gratitude for His untold and innumerable benefits, constantly deviating from the goal of his existence, to which we are all destined from the beginning of the world; thirdly, he curses God in His creations, rational or irrational, animate or inanimate, using them as means or as ends of his perverse activities. A person devoted to passions and therefore unclean in heart cannot sincerely honor and love God and the Mother of God and the saints of God until he mourns himself and cleanses his nasty, evil, blasphemous heart with tears of repentance, denies himself, all his sinful wealth with which the devil, this all-evil planter of the filth of sin in the world of God, has enriched him! Without deep repentance, an unclean person cannot pray purely to the Most Pure One and look directly with pure eyes and a pure heart at the icon of Him and the Most Pure Mother of God and the saints, for the blasphemies flowing from his heart confuse and scatter him and do not allow him to calmly talk with God, thank and glorify Him. The Mother of God and all the saints, like a soul in a body, abide eternally in God, they are one spirit with the Lord [1 Cor. 6:17]. Resurrection. After mass. I thank the Lord, who gave me help to celebrate the liturgy with tenderness and tears and who made me worthy to receive communion without condemnation and to say the word about the general resurrection; I read the prayer behind the pulpit with demonic fear, missed many words in it, and spoke with fear in the face of extreme violence from the devil. During the Vespers Great Litany he spoke poorly, vaguely, greyly, confusedly, incomprehensibly, only the last words, but after the stichera on the Lord, he cried out, arose from the demonic delusion, resorted to the Lord with a prayer for help - and with His help he defeated his enemies. At the litanies of petition and prayer and at dismissal of Vespers, as well as Compline, the Lord rejoiced me with His intercession and salvation! Oh, how narrow and sorrowful is my path from the attacks of the crafty and evil, the most vile demons! I thank the Lord, who saves me from bad thoughts and feelings of prodigal behavior or hobbies, inclinations! Morning. The Lord surprised me with His mercy during the morning service, when invisible enemies terribly attacked me, irritated, embarrassed, oppressed, tormented me, and I prayed to the Lord and cried out for help and deliverance and pacification of my troubled soul. The Lord delivered me during the sixth psalm and then, giving me the strength to overcome the treachery of demons until the end of the service and, despite their machinations, to pronounce all the prayers, stichera, litanies, and dismissals. Glory to the Lord! Greatness and splendor to the Lord! Generosity to the Lord! After mass. The Lord surprised me with His sovereign, saving right hand in delivering me from the evil wiles of the devil, especially before and during the reading of the prayer behind the pulpit (because of Adrian the sexton, who had quarreled in the choir). And throughout the mass, invisible villains pressed me. Birthdays and name days, before all other weekdays, should turn our hearts and eyes to heaven with grateful feelings to the Creator, Provider and Savior with the thought that there is our fatherland and Father, that the earth is not a fatherland, but a place of arrival and wandering, that clinging to perishable things is reckless, sinful, harmful, ungodly, that we must cling to God with all our hearts. I thank the Lord, who created in me the power of strength and salvation during Vespers and Compline and who granted me a glorious victory over invisible fighting enemies (they tempted me through a beautiful woman officer), so that I unfalteringly and solemnly, with a loud voice, pronounced the litany and dismissals. It is deplorable that some people in their early youth desecrate their virginity and corrupt themselves with malaria and fornication; They thus corrupt their hearts throughout their lives, and cause countless griefs to themselves in the future, and for themselves become a source of confusion, languor, shame, filth, blasphemy, wickedness, malice, pride, self-love, carnality, voluptuousness, envy, laziness, negligence, impatience, cowardice, despondency, fear, mistrust, suspicion, waywardness, stubbornness, because a corrupt heart conveniently becomes a tool of the all-evil devil and a nest of all sin. The Lord created the Heavenly Powers to be rational in essence, incorruptible by grace. And we, people, were created by the Lord in the beginning to be rational in essence, so that we cannot turn into irrational or dumb animals, and rational nature is unchangeable, but we could fall from incorruption into corruption, from righteousness fall into sin, which is what happened. It was necessary to provide something in us to free will, so that a source of bliss would open in us from the consciousness that we used some labor and self-sacrifice for the sake of fulfilling the all-perfect will of our Creator, that we brought something of ourselves into our life and activity, that we obtained, so to speak, with our labor, with our unchanging loyalty to the Creator. It was necessary to present a lot to free will, so that not only goodness, mercy, but also the truth of God would appear in the life and fate of rationally free beings, so that those faithful to God, His holy laws and statutes, His holy will would be rewarded and honored with closeness to Himself, fellowship with Himself, blessed forever, and the unfaithful, who deviated into deceit, self-love, malice, pride, envy, impurity, waywardness, punish and remove from Himself, so that in this way the madness and absurdity, the audacity of sin receive the proper punishment in the very nature, essence and natural consequences of evil. So the devil fell with the spirits subordinate to him and was worthily rejected from God with them, so people fell and were rejected, but for faith and repentance and good deeds, by the power of redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ, they are forgiven, restored to righteousness, and again accepted into the love of God, and introduced into the life of God, and are rewarded with the Kingdom of God and eternal bliss. Glory to the Lord our God for this. For yesterday’s voluptuousness and gluttony, the disembodied enemy gave me a terrible, evil bath today at Matins; His anger began from the canon, from the very beginning: the sexton began singing extremely weakly, and this upset me, and the devil came to his aid - he turned a small upset into a great and extremely acute one and brought the most caustic, scorching and burning sting to my heart; I didn’t know where to go, although I read the canon loudly; I did not speak two small litanies, fearing confusion; only before the petitionary litany I begged the Lord for mercy and deliverance and received relief, deliverance and peace. When I told the sexton about this, that he sang sluggishly at first, he humbly accepted it and apologized for his weakness. O priest! You must always be great, high and exalted in your soul because of the greatness of your dignity, because of the greatness of your work that you are assigned to do, because of your mediation between the Creator and creation, between God and people (and what mediation, terrible and all-saving!) because of the highest and greatest Sacraments performed by you for the salvation and renewal of people, because of the comprehensive, sublime prayers interceding for the whole world, for the whole Church God, existing on earth, and glorifying the Church of God in heaven. Look with whom you are constantly in communion in prayer - with the Mother of God and with all the saints, with God Himself, with the entire Church on earth. You must be a great man, O priest, and not a small one! Sublime and not low at all. You serve immortality and incorruptibility - despise what is mortal and perishable; you serve the heavenly - despise the earthly; you serve truth and holiness - put aside sin, hate, reject. Matins is full of temptations, but through the grace of God he overcame everything. Envy of the abbot over the cartload of foreign wines and all sorts of fruits and things brought to him; death of the heart due to envy; the conviction that there is only one Lord, my life treasure, inexhaustible, supreme, calmed me. There is embarrassment regarding the complaint of the old woman Ekaterina Stepanovna, but by the grace of God this is overcome. Truly, the Lord alone is for me every good that is incorruptible, eternal, premium, vital, but everything earthly is vanity and more insignificant than any vanity. The image of this world passes away, self-interest, wealth, honor, sweet food and sweet drinks, elegant clothes, light, decorated palaces, various amusements, music, shows, entertaining singing, colorful lights, entertaining fountains, everything earthly. When you are called to pray somewhere for the living or the dead, look and carefully watch yourself, so that your heart is completely given to prayer, so that it sincerely, ardently wishes for those for whom and for whom they ask you to pray or for whom your daily duty forces you to pray, for example, about the sovereign and the reigning house, about the Holy Synod and the bishop, about all the brethren in Christ, about the army, about the peace of the whole world, about those who enter the church and about others and about everything else: about the goodness of the air, the abundance of earthly fruits, and so on. Pray with a calm spirit, dispassionately, peacefully. After mass. I thank the Lord, who heard an intense, tearful prayer about my greatest sorrow, cramped conditions, misfortune, to which I was subjected as a result of irritation and rage, first at the sexton Bystryakov and then at the peasant who called me at the wrong time just before mass for a prayer service in Sorokin’s house on Krasnaya Street behind the Manege. I was surrounded by mortal bonds in my soul as a result of my reckless rage, but through the prayer of repentance and after diligently falling to the throne of grace in the Pokrovsky chapel and kissing, the Lord destroyed the mortal bonds and gave me peace, freedom, boldness, an easy yoke, His sweet belly, and I served the mass with gracious peace. At the end of the liturgy after communion there were temptations, but with the grace of the Holy Mysteries I overcame them. After the funeral service, at which I could not pronounce my release from the devil’s delusion due to the cutting of the antidor and not concentrating on the subject of prayer, I was terribly wounded by the enemy-stammerer, but after a long and deep repentance, the Lord again had mercy and brought joy to me, the fallen one. O my sweet world and belly, Lord! Not only should I not envy the abbot for his material abundance, but I should also pity him for his hardness of heart towards poverty and addiction to earthly pleasures, and I myself must give to the poor what I have, for I still have enough surplus. Four o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who now, through my prayer, has delivered me from adulterous inclination with my eyes and heart, and from the violence of sins, from confusion and oppression and shame. I don’t know how to adequately thank the Lord for His many-merciful deliverance of my lewdness from oppression, shame, alienation from the Lord and the mortality of lustful thoughts and voluptuous movements of the flesh and spirit, which defiled and darkened me when I was a girl with us [Balykina]. In this cramped space, I went out into the street and, walking along Aleksandrovskaya Street, I repented to the Lord about my sin long and deeply, and He, the most merciful, delivered me from sin and cleansed me from my defilements, pacifying and expanding my heart. So, I do not want to know any sweetness other than the holy and incorruptible sweetness of my Lord, no created beauty, that is, I will not be seduced by any beauty of corruptible creatures, but will be captivated only by the incorruptible beauty of the Creator, who adorned and preserved every creature and myself. During the all-night vigil, the enemy cooled and killed my heart, removing me from God through an addiction to the shine of my golden cross, and only tears of repentance returned to me the grace of communication with God, and peace, and boldness of heart with zeal for God and prayer. When reading the Gospel, what I was afraid of, that’s what happened: I was extremely embarrassed from demonic fear and, stumbling halfway through the Gospel, did not finish reading many words, disgracing myself before the church (a meeting of worshipers). This happened from satiety with the Lenten table: black bread with pressed caviar, sprat and sardines (of which, however, I ate very little), which caused an excessive crowding of the seminal vessels. I partly compensated for the stumbling block and temptation by reading the canon of the Mother of God at the same all-night vigil. And at the funeral service in Abramov’s house, the enemies did not give me peace, interrupted me, to my extreme chagrin, embarrassment and cramped conditions. I walked from there and repented, and the Lord had mercy and pacified my spirit. Look at every person, especially a Christian, with spiritual, intelligent, pure eyes, as an image of the Divine (redeemed from sin and from the power of the devil by the honest blood of the Son of God) and created and called to good deeds; but do not look, but beware of looking at him with unclean, passionate, carnal, devilish eyes, and this happens when someone looks at a person as an object of his passion, with voluptuous eyes or with contemptuous, envious or evil eyes. Look at everyone in simplicity of heart, with meekness, with love, benevolence, especially with the good desire for everyone of truth, knowledge of God, holiness and eternal salvation. I thank the Lord, who allowed me many temptations on the day of the appearance of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, and at the end of the day, during the service of many prayers, who delivered me from these temptations and gave me triumph, victory, especially at the christening of Alexei Kuznetsov. Wonderful deliverance of God at the prayer service at Al. Ivanovich Pimenov and his parting words with confession and the Holy Mysteries, when the enemy carried me away through violence and deprived me of words, and after a prayer service and parting words (about the fall of the cassock and embarrassment). Then there were temptations about Kovalenka’s satiety with soft bread and good herring. It was hard for a long time, and I could not serve freely and with embarrassment and stumbling, I served very short prayer services, fifteen or eighteen prayer services: from morning to late evening prayer services. God bless! Glory to the Lady Theotokos, who called me to pray and praise the Lord and Her. What is more precious and more beautiful for our soul than the Lord God the Creator, the all-good, eternal, beautiful and surpassing in beauty everything, giving to all life and breath and everything [Acts 17:25]? What dear and beautiful thing can we compare Him with? With nothing. It was he who was desired most of all by the apostles, prophets, forefathers, martyrs, hierarchs, saints, the righteous and all the saints; We, too, must desire it and acquire it in our souls more than any acquisitions that are perishable and cannot give life to the soul. I thank the all-good and merciful and all-powerful Lord, who solemnly delivered me from the storm of my passions and the flood of sin and from the deadly cunning of the devil in the apartment of the late factory foreman Mikhail before the outdoor litiya. The fact is that when I was walking along Catherine Boulevard to take out, two poor women came at me from behind like a whirlwind and began to extort notes from me about clothes to the pastor; I began to say that the notes (forms) were all over, but they didn’t believe them and asked; I spat with anger and came in strong excitement and irritation, and died in soul: sorrow, crampedness, the ferocity of the devil inside; I came to the apartment of the deceased and threw myself on my knees before the Lord with repentance and prayer for mercy and deliverance from the devil’s captivity and violence, from the demonic storm, and the Lord visited me with His swift mercy: I suddenly came to life, calmed down, was freed from mortal bonds, and it became so easy for me, easy, and I calmly pronounced the litany and dismissal. And for a long time it was easy for me. He celebrated mass outside the city. During mass, the saving right hand of God again delivered me from sinful death at the beginning of the liturgy, then at the Great Entrance and at the funeral service after reading the Gospel. At seven o'clock in the evening I went to bed after being very tired and slept until eleven and a quarter o'clock in the evening (at night). He ordered the samovar to be put on at twelve o'clock and drank tea at half past twelve; After that, although I went to bed, I could not sleep; I got up at half past four in the morning. Parents' Saturday, matins at five o'clock. I thank the Lord for the help and successful service of the entire Matins from beginning to end with all the funeral litanies. With the greatest boldness I read the canon of the Sabbath (or, rather, the canons) and from the Menaion to the holy martyr Arethas and others like him. Going to bed earlier and getting up earlier is good for your mind and body. From wakefulness the spirit is strengthened and cleansed. I thank the Lord for the successful celebration of the late liturgy, which was replete with commemorations of the departed (forty-nine rubles for commemoration per mass), for the life-giving, renewing communion of the Holy Mysteries and the communion of six women and one man, and the commemoration of the departed at the litia. I thank the Lord, who has repeatedly granted me salvation and deliverance from bitter temptations in the houses of Gorinova (the seamstresses), the Balykins and Alexandra Ivanovna, the watchwoman in the Duma; Then, along the way, the Lord repeatedly delivered me during my repentance, and especially when I came home at seven and a half o’clock in the evening, the Lord delivered me from mortal cramped conditions, from mortal mental torment. At three o'clock, upon my arrival from the gymnasium, the Lord sovereignly delivered me from great sorrow and distress over anger at the beggars who came to me - once, another time over conscientious torment due to concealing the amount of money from my wife and appropriating a significant part for myself. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who gave me the word to speak in the Assumption Church; I wrote it at one o'clock in the morning until two. I served Matins and early mass under great, grave temptations from my voluptuous flesh and the devil, but all temptations and stumblings were overcome by the grace of God, and after the most difficult struggles the Lord restorated me with the communion of His life-giving Mysteries, and after every temptation and fall the Lord restored me. Having little sleep at night was especially difficult during the ministry. But when I fell asleep at home at twelve and one o’clock, I felt very at ease, and a prayer service was served at the naval officer’s house in the former Westphalen with great courage, without stumbling, cheerfully. Glory to the Lord who strengthens me. Thou hast perceived thy good in thy belly, and Lazarus has also received evil [Luke 16:25]. Your good - that is, what you considered good in your madness, in your self-love: love of money, lust, vanity (purphyry and fine linen), pride, peace, gaiety, extravagance - and did not consider love for God and neighbor, mercy, alms, abstinence, prayer, thanksgiving to God, patience, self-sacrifice as good. You lived for your own pleasure, you did not want to know God and virtue - for this you suffer, and Lazarus, who endured illness, poverty, and suffering with patience, without grumbling, is consoled here. Early mass from Sidorov in the Assumption Church. The most merciful Lord again began to have mercy and save me from early morning: during Matins, He saved me through a deep prayer of repentance for my pride, hard-heartedness and anger towards the poor, from mortal oppression before the Six Psalms; in the Assumption Church during mass, He repeatedly delivered me from the remorse of the devil, and during the requiem and after it, by His grace, I emerged triumphant and victorious from the church of God. Tuesday. And today, during Matins, the Lord delivered me from the fierce torment that befell me with the righteous judgment of God for being upset with the beggar, retired lieutenant Durnev, who asked for alms for clothes and shoes; Having gotten excited and reasoning, I gave him one ruble so that, having bought clothes, he would work and no longer come to me to ask. Having become irritated with him, I myself fell into the torment of the devil, and only through zealous repentance and tears and frequent [falling] with undoubted faith at the throne (at the Intercession) did I ask the Lord for forgiveness, peace, freedom, a living stream of grace. After Matins, when the beggars followed me, I was again irritated with them, again I was punished for that, and after strong repentance, the mercy of the Lord again followed in me, after I came home in cramped conditions and sorrow, I fervently prayed to the Lord for mercy, forgiveness of my hard-heartedness, stinginess, love of money, lust, ill will, envy, anger, impatience. It's true for you, Lord, but it's a shame for me. (I did not give alms to the two girls, telling them to send their mothers to me.) This day was filled with the mercies of God from morning to evening, namely: the Lord’s deliverance from my evil passions and from their evil torment. Evening. Six o'clock. I thank the Lord, who has now had mercy on me for my deep, tearful repentance in my anger and irritation, and who has changed my heart from evil to good, from mortified to living, from troubled to peaceful. The Lord accomplished a glorious salvation in me: from being dead in my sins He made me alive, granting me the salvation of rebirth! Great is Your mercy, Lord, glory to You. When I then went from home to St. Andrew's guardianship to the council, then in the kitchen I was instantly tempted by the evil one through one instant glance, and the adversary hunter tied me up and killed me (in an instant), and I, seeing my misfortune, and at a time when calm, sublimity and freedom of spirit were needed, began to diligently condemn myself, repent and ask for mercy from the Lord, may he forgive me the heartfelt desire to sin and He will bestow upon me His Divine grace, and the Lord heard me in His unspeakable mercy, and delivered me from deadly sweetness and defilement, and gave me purification and a living and sanctifying stream of the grace of the Holy Spirit, peace and freedom, and I vividly felt the mercy of God and came with a bright face to the council of highly educated and charitable people. Glory to the Lord! I thank the gracious and merciful God, who accepted my repentance after my anger at the dirty dog, at the child and at the wife for keeping her in the room. My heart was mortally inflamed with anger, and I was in cramped conditions and sorrow, but having come to the church and in unfeigned repentance, venerating the throne several times with faith, I received healing, a change of heart into meekness, kindness, silence and space. Six o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who mercifully delivered me from my passions and their deadly consequences: from anger and hard-heartedness towards the poor (deliverance in church through the prayer of repentance at Vespers) and even earlier in the gymnasium (from anger and hard-heartedness), when I went upstairs from teacher Titkov, and who twice delivered me in the apartment of the gardener Dometiy Semenov during a prayer service from the movement of voluptuousness. I thank the Lord for the living streams of the Holy Spirit, who cleansed me and sanctified me. What kind of faith, since the times of the apostles, has turned out to be completely sufficient in its purity and rightness as revealed by God, fully capable of cleansing humanity from sin, sanctifying, enlightening, renewing, establishing, deifying, desecrating and leading to God and to eternal life and uniting with God forever and ever? Which of the existing faiths has turned out to be such a master at saving humanity, making it new from the old? – Christian faith, Orthodox. Not a single faith, not a single Christian denomination can boast of this great skill, this ability, this truly divine power! Why? Because all Divine powers for life and piety are given to us in the Orthodox faith [2 Pet. 1:3], and in other faiths and confessions these Divine powers are arbitrarily and boldly rejected by the people themselves through false wisdom of men. I thank the Lord, who worked in me the greatest powers of salvation during the all-night vigil, and especially after the all-night vigil, after I, due to the action of the enemy, could not utter the words of the prayer: correct our steps to do Thy commandments 106, was mortally wounded by invisible evildoers and in repentance for my sins with the hope of pardon, I fell to the holy throne of God (that of the Forerunner). Instantly the Lord destroyed the machinations of the enemy in me, drove away death and made heavenly life shine forth. What lofty theology is contained in our Orthodox worship, what divine floridity, what fiery feeling, what spirit of repentance, sacredness, the truth of God breathes in prayers, psalms, hymns, stichera and canons! What richness and diversity of the content of the service, how many forms of sacred songs and litanies full of spirit and life, how much light, fire, spiritual power! What wonderful, divine beauty of the word! What a heavenly life-giving spirit is in him, a spirit of tenderness, meekness, salvation, love! And how instructive and impressive it is for us, Orthodox Christians, in all its details! As a result of the abundant meat-eating at dinner, I weakened and cooled my heart and made it the devil’s playground, in addition, my body weakened, and I was ready to fall at the beginning of the all-night vigil during the censing of the church, some kind of whirling was happening! On the first day of November (Sunday) at night there was a prodigal desecration; I woke up, prayed to the Lord to cleanse me from filth, and lay down again. Got up at four and a half o'clock, wrote a sermon, got tired, walked, prayed (akathists and canons); It was extremely difficult at mass, both from lack of sleep and mental and physical fatigue (writing a sermon), and even more from the temptation of the night. But through intense repentant prayer, the Lord had mercy on me and performed a miracle of salvation and His power in me, taking away from my heart the hellish tightness, confusion, extreme disposition to sleep, weakness and bestowing vigor, strength, lightness, peace. The temptations of Satan were terrible, but they were all overcome by the mercy and power of Christ. Received life-giving communion; I did not read all of the pulpit: the devil snatched away the goodwill of those who love the splendor of the house of God and the end of prayer; preached a sermon; While I was leaving, the devil caught me and broke me again; while consuming the Holy Gifts, I overcame him by the grace of Christ. Well, what despondency, shame and distress he brings upon me! And I must be cheerful, not lose heart, look calm and cheerful, with dignity. At the prayer service of battalion 89 Zabegaev (in Kryukov’s house), I served poorly because Shebashov’s wine overpowered me. I received sixty rubles from him for beggars by accident. God bless! You are marvelous, Lord, in your provision for the poor and for me. I gave four rubles six years ago to Zabegaev, and he returned sixty to me. The bounties of the Lord. Kontakion for the Feast of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, tone 3. Tune (Church Glorious) - for free; in vain. Dmenie (Church Glav.) – arrogance. General Troparion to the Saint, tone 8. Borzoi (Old Russian) – fast, hasty. Prayer of the first hour “Christ, the true Light.”