the intellect could follow the words, and assent with a hearty Amen. The
minister was a minister to man of the Word of God, an interpreter of His
gospel to man.

But here was a worship unlike all this in almost every detail. The priest
was addressing God, not man; therefore he did so in a low voice, and in a
tongue as Campion had said on the scaffold "that they both understood."
It was comparatively unimportant whether man followed it word for word,
for (and here the second radical difference lay) the point of the worship
for the people lay, not in an intellectual apprehension of the words, but
in a voluntary assent to and participation in the supreme act to which
the words were indeed necessary but subordinate. It was the thing that
was done; not the words that were said, that was mighty with God. Here,
as these Catholics round Isabel at any rate understood it, and as she too
began to perceive it too, though dimly and obscurely, was the sublime
mystery of the Cross presented to God. As He looked down well pleased
into the silence and darkness of Calvary, and saw there the act
accomplished by which the world was redeemed, so here (this handful of
disciples believed), He looked down into the silence and twilight of this
little lobby, and saw that same mystery accomplished at the hands of one
who in virtue of his participation in the priesthood of the Son of God
was empowered to pronounce these heart-shaking words by which the Body
that hung on Calvary, and the Blood that dripped from it there, were
again spread before His eyes, under the forms of bread and wine.

Much of this faith of course was still dark to Isabel; but yet she
understood enough; and when the murmur of the priest died to a throbbing
silence, and the worshippers sank in yet more profound adoration, and
then with terrible effort and a quick gasp or two of pain, those wrenched
bandaged hands rose trembling in the air with Something that glimmered
white between them; the Puritan girl too drooped her head, and lifted up
her heart, and entreated the Most High and most Merciful to look down on
the Mystery of Redemption accomplished on earth; and for the sake of the
Well-Beloved to send down His Grace on the Catholic Church; to strengthen
and save the living; to give rest and peace to the dead; and especially
to remember her dear brother Anthony, and Hubert whom she loved; and
Mistress Margaret and Lady Maxwell, and this faithful household: and the
poor battere