our. Some are animated by a love of art--simple
men, who might have rivalled with the Greeks in ages of more
cultivation. Others, again, are well-known carvers, brought for hire
from distant towns and countries beyond the sea. But to-day, and for
some days past, the sound of hammer and chisel has been silent in
the choir. Monks have bustled about the nave, dressing it up with
holly-boughs and bushes of yew, and preparing a stage for the sacred
play they are going to exhibit on the feast day. Christmas is not
like Corpus Christi, and now the market-place stands inches deep in
snow, so that the Miracles must be enacted beneath a roof instead of
in the open air. And what place so appropriate as the cathedral,
where poor people may have warmth and shelter while they see the
show? Besides, the gloomy old church, with its windows darkened by
the falling snow, lends itself to candlelight effects that will
enhance the splendour of the scene. Everything is ready. The incense
of morning mass yet lingers round the altar. The voice of the friar
who told the people from the pulpit the story of Christ's birth, has
hardly ceased to echo. Time has just been given for a mid-day
dinner, and for the shepherds and farm lads to troop in from the
country-side. The monks are ready at the wooden stage to draw its
curtain, and all the nave is full of eager faces. There you may see
the smith and carpenter, the butcher's wife, the country priest, and
the grey cowled friar. Scores of workmen, whose home the cathedral
for the time is made, are also here, and you may know the artists by
their thoughtful foreheads and keen eyes. That young monk carved
Madonna and her Son above the southern porch. Beside him stands the
master mason, whose strong arms have hewn gigantic images of
prophets and apostles for the pinnacles outside the choir; and the
little man with cunning eyes between the two is he who cuts such
quaint hobgoblins for the gargoyles. He has a vein of satire in him,
and his humour overflows into the stone. Many and many a grim beast
and hideous head has he hidden among vine-leaves and trellis-work
upon the porches. Those who know him well are loth to anger him, for
fear their sons and sons' sons should laugh at them for ever
caricatured in solid stone.

Hark! there sounds the bell. The curtain is drawn, and the candles
blaze brightly round the wooden stage. What is this first scene? We
have God in Heaven, dressed like a Pope with triple cro