of persons who, till half-a-century ago, had
reigned as God's temporal Vicegerents with the consent of their
subjects. They were unrecognised, now, save by Him from whom they drew
their sovereignty--pinnacles clustering and hanging from a dome, from
which the walls had been withdrawn. These were men and women who had
learned at last that power comes from above, and their title to rule
came not from their subjects but from the Supreme Ruler of
all--shepherds without sheep, captains without soldiers to command. It
was piteous--horribly piteous, yet inspiring. The act of faith was so
sublime; and Percy's heart quickened as he understood it. These, then,
men and women like himself, were not ashamed to appeal from man to God,
to assume insignia which the world regarded as playthings, but which to
them were emblems of supernatural commission. Was there not mirrored
here, he asked himself, some far-off shadow of One Who rode on the colt
of an ass amid the sneers of the great and the enthusiasm of
children?...

* * * * *

It was yet more kindling as the mass went on, and he saw the male
sovereigns come down to do their services at the altar, and to go to and
fro between it and the Throne. There they went bareheaded, the stately
silent figures. The English king, once again _Fidei Defensor_, bore the
train in place of the old king of Spain, who, with the Austrian Emperor,
alone of all European sovereigns, had preserved the unbroken continuity
of faith. The old man leaned over his fald-stool, mumbling and weeping,
even crying out now and again in love and devotion, as, like Simeon, he
saw his Salvation. The Austrian Emperor twice administered the Lavabo;
the German sovereign, who had lost his throne and all but his life upon
his conversion four years before, by a new privilege placed and withdrew
the cushion, as his Lord kneeled before the Lord of them both. So
movement by movement the gorgeous drama was enacted; the murmuring of
the crowds died to a stillness that was but one wordless prayer as the
tiny White Disc rose between the white hands, and the thin angelic music
pealed in the dome. For here was the one hope of these thousands, as
mighty and as little as once within the Manger. There was none other
that fought for them but only God. Surely then, if the blood of men and
the tears of women could not avail to move the Judge and Observer of all
from His silence, surely at least here the bloodless Death of His only
Son, that