cs could still go to mass. And yet
appalling things were threatened in Germany: not less than twelve
thousand persons had already left for Rome; and it was rumoured that
forty thousand would refuse this simple act of homage a few days hence.
It bewildered and angered her to think of it.

For herself the new worship was a crowning sign of the triumph of
Humanity. Her heart had yearned for some such thing as this--some
public corporate profession of what all now believed. She had so
resented the dulness of folk who were content with action and never
considered its springs. Surely this instinct within her was a true one;
she desired to stand with her fellows in some solemn place, consecrated
not by priests but by the will of man; to have as her inspirers sweet
singing and the peal of organs; to utter her sorrow with thousands
beside her at her own feebleness of immolation before the Spirit of all;
to sing aloud her praise of the glory of life, and to offer by sacrifice
and incense an emblematic homage to That from which she drew her being,
and to whom one day she must render it again. Ah! these Christians had
understood human nature, she had told herself a hundred times: it was
true that they had degraded it, darkened light, poisoned thought,
misinterpreted instinct; but they had understood that man must worship
--must worship or sink.

For herself she intended to go at least once a week to the little old
church half-a-mile away from her home, to kneel there before the sunlit
sanctuary, to meditate on sweet mysteries, to present herself to That
which she was yearning to love, and to drink, it might be, new draughts
of life and power.

Ah! but the Bill must pass first.... She clenched her hands on the rail,
and stared steadily before her on the ranks of heads, the open gangways,
the great mace on the table, and heard, above the murmur of the crowd
outside and the dying whispers within, her own heart beat.

She could not see Him, she knew. He would come in from beneath through
the door that none but He might use, straight into the seat beneath the
canopy. But she would hear His voice--that must be joy enough for
her....

Ah! there was silence now outside; the soft roar had died. He had come
then. And through swimming eyes she saw the long ridges of heads rise
beneath her, and through drumming ears heard the murmur of many feet.
All faces looked this way; and she watched them as a mirror to see the
reflected light of Hi