Simpson who was saying the mass) looked upon as he turned round
after the gospel to make his little sermon. From end to end the tiny
chapel was full, packed so that few could kneel and none sit down. The
two doors were open, and here two faces peered in; and behind, rank
after rank down the steps and along the little passage, the folk stood
or knelt, out of sight of both priest and altar, and almost out of
sound. The sanctuary was full of children--whose round-eyed, solemn
faces looked up at him--children who knew little or nothing of what was
passing, except that they were there to worship God, but who, for all
that, received impressions and associations that could never thereafter
wholly leave them. The chapel was still completely dark, for the faint
light of dawn was excluded by the heavy hangings over the windows; and
there was but the light of the two tapers to show the people to one
another and the priest to them all.

It was an inspiriting sight to him then--and one which well rewarded him
for his labours, since there was not a class from gentlemen to labourers
who was not represented there. The FitzHerberts, the Babingtons, the
Fentons--these, with their servants and guests, accounted for perhaps
half of the folk. From the shadow by the door peeped out the faces of
John Merton and his wife and son; beneath the window was the solemn face
of Mr. Manners the lawyer, with his daughter beside him, Robin Audrey
beside her, and Dick his servant behind him. Surely, thought the young
priest, the Faith could not be in its final decay, with such a gathering
as this.

His little sermon was plain enough for the most foolish there. He spoke
of Christ's Resurrection; of how death had no power to hold Him, nor
pains nor prison to detain Him; and he spoke, too, of that mystical life
of His which He yet lived in His body, which was the Church; of how
Death, too, stretched forth his hands against Him there, and yet had no
more force to hold Him than in His natural life lived on earth near
sixteen hundred years ago; how a Resurrection awaited Him here in
England as in Jerusalem, if His friends would be constant and
courageous, not faithless, but believing.

"Even here," he said, "in this upper chamber, where we are gathered for
fear of the Jews, comes Jesus and stands in the midst, the doors being
shut. Upon this altar He will be presently, the Lamb slain yet the Lamb
victorious, to give us all that peace which the world can neit