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One's eyes rest upon it as upon a perfect resting-place. If Gagri has an organic life, this church must be its beating heart. I came to Gagri one Saturday afternoon after the first two hundred and fifty miles tramping of my pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and at this little church I witnessed a strange sight.
Russian churches, having no chairs, have the appearance of being almost empty. In the centre of this emptiness at Gagri church two trestles were put up, and the open coffin placed upon them; in the coffin, lying in a bed of fresh flowers and dressed in delicate white garments, was a little dead child.
I had more thrills in them than in the most lonely resting-places in the open. Some distance from Gagri I found an old ruined dwelling, floorless, almost roofless, but still affording shelter. I had many misgivings as I lay there. Was the house haunted? Was it some one else's shelter? Had some family lived there and all died out?
There are some beings so full of life that even the glutton Death must disgorge them. In the little town of Gagri on the Caucasian shore of the Black Sea there is a beautiful and wonderful church surviving from the sixth century, a work of pristine Christianity. It is but the size of a cottage, and just the shape of a child's Noah's Ark, but made of great rough-hewn blocks of grey stone.
I hastened back on to the deck, where, in spite of the raging of the elements, I felt more comfortable than among these well-bred Christians. In the course of the day we stopped at Bambur, Pizunta, Gagri, Adlar, and other places. Near Bambur I observed majestic groups of rocks. 20th September.
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