Children of the Catacombs, some but "a span long," with features not so much beautiful as heroic (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.