ror's renunciant and impassive
attitude towards them. Certain portions of that bread and wine were
taken into the bishop's hands; and thereafter, with an increasing
mysticity and effusion the rite proceeded. Still in a strain of
inspired supplication, the antiphonal singing developed, from this
point, into a kind of dialogue between the chief minister and the whole
assisting company--

SURSUM CORDA!
HABEMUS AD DOMINUM.
GRATIAS AGAMUS DOMINO DEO NOSTRO!--

It might have been thought the business, the duty or service of young
men more particularly, as they stood there in long ranks, and in severe
and simple vesture of the purest white--a service in which they would
seem to be flying [138] for refuge, as with their precious, their
treacherous and critical youth in their hands, to one--Yes! one like
themselves, who yet claimed their worship, a worship, above all, in the
way of Aurelius, in the way of imitation. Adoramus te Christe, quia per
crucem tuam redemisti mundum!--they cry together. So deep is the
emotion that at moments it seems to Marius as if some there present
apprehend that prayer prevails, that the very object of this pathetic
crying himself draws near. From the first there had been the sense, an
increasing assurance, of one coming:--actually with them now, according
to the oft-repeated affirmation or petition, Dominus vobiscum! Some at
least were quite sure of it; and the confidence of this remnant fired
the hearts, and gave meaning to the bold, ecstatic worship, of all the
rest about them.

Prompted especially by the suggestions of that mysterious old Jewish
psalmody, so new to him--lesson and hymn--and catching therewith a
portion of the enthusiasm of those beside him, Marius could discern
dimly, behind the solemn recitation which now followed, at once a
narrative and a prayer, the most touching image truly that had ever
come within the scope of his mental or physical gaze. It was the image
of a young man giving up voluntarily, one by one, for the greatest of
ends, the greatest gifts; actually parting with himself, above all,
with the serenity, the divine serenity, of his [139] own soul; yet from
the midst of his desolation crying out upon the greatness of his
success, as if foreseeing this very worship.* As centre of the
supposed facts which for these people were become so constraining a
motive of hopefulness, of activity, that image seemed to display itself
with an overwhelming c