(that
world of new, refining sentiment having set its seal even on
childhood), they retained certainly no stain or trace of anything
subterranean this morning, in the alacrity of their worship--as ready
as if they had been at play--stretching forth their hands, crying,
chanting in a resonant voice, and with boldly upturned faces, Christe
Eleison!

For the silence--silence, amid those lights of early morning to which
Marius had always been constitutionally impressible, as having in them
a certain reproachful austerity--was broken suddenly by resounding
cries of Kyrie Eleison! Christe Eleison! repeated alternately, again
and again, until the bishop, rising from his chair, made sign that this
prayer should cease. But the voices burst out once more presently, in
richer and more varied melody, though still of an antiphonal character;
the men, the women and children, the deacons, the people, answering one
another, somewhat after the manner of a Greek chorus. But again with
what a novelty of poetic accent; what a genuine expansion of heart;
what profound intimations for the [133] intellect, as the meaning of
the words grew upon him! Cum grandi affectu et compunctione
dicatur--says an ancient eucharistic order; and certainly, the mystic
tone of this praying and singing was one with the expression of
deliverance, of grateful assurance and sincerity, upon the faces of
those assembled. As if some searching correction, a regeneration of
the body by the spirit, had begun, and was already gone a great way,
the countenances of men, women, and children alike had a brightness on
them which he could fancy reflected upon himself--an amenity, a mystic
amiability and unction, which found its way most readily of all to the
hearts of children themselves. The religious poetry of those Hebrew
psalms--Benedixisti Domine terram tuam: Dixit Dominus Domino meo, sede
a dextris meis--was certainly in marvellous accord with the lyrical
instinct of his own character. Those august hymns, he thought, must
thereafter ever remain by him as among the well-tested powers in things
to soothe and fortify the soul. One could never grow tired of them!

In the old pagan worship there had been little to call the
understanding into play. Here, on the other hand, the utterance, the
eloquence, the music of worship conveyed, as Marius readily understood,
a fact or series of facts, for intellectual reception. That became
evident, more especially, in those les