And last of all came a narrative which, with a thousand tender memories, every one appeared to know by heart, displaying, in all the vividness of a picture for the eye, the mournful figure of him towards whom this whole act of worship still consistently turned--a figure which seemed to have absorbed, like some rich tincture in his garment, all that was deep-felt and impassioned in the experiences of the past.
It was the anniversary of his birth as a little child they celebrated to-day.

Astiterunt reges terrae: so the Gradual, the "Song of Degrees," proceeded, the young men on the steps of the altar responding in deep, clear, antiphon or chorus-- Astiterunt reges terrae-- Adversus sanctum puerum tuum, Jesum: Nunc, Domine, da servis tuis loqui verbum tuum-- Et signa fieri, per nomen sancti pueri Jesu.
And the proper action of the rite itself, like a [135] half-opened book to be read by the duly initiated mind took up those suggestions, and carried them forward into the present, as having reference to a power still efficacious, still after some mystic sense even now in action among the people there assembled.

The entire office, indeed, with its interchange of lessons, hymns, prayer, silence, was itself like a single piece of highly composite, dramatic music; a "song of degrees," rising steadily to a climax.

Notwithstanding the absence of any central image visible to the eye, the entire ceremonial process, like the place in which it was enacted, was weighty with symbolic significance, seemed to express a single leading motive.

The mystery, if such in fact it was, centered indeed in the actions of one visible person, distinguished among the assistants, who stood ranged in semicircle around him, by the extreme fineness of his white vestments, and the pointed cap with the golden ornaments upon his head.
Nor had Marius ever seen the pontifical character, as he conceived it--sicut unguentum in capite, descendens in oram vestimenti--so fully realised, as in the expression, the manner and voice, of this novel pontiff, as he took his seat on the white chair placed for him by the young men, and received his long staff into his hand, or moved his hands--hands which seemed endowed in very deed with some mysterious power--at the Lavabo, or at the various benedictions, or [136] to bless certain objects on the table before him, chanting in cadence of a grave sweetness the leading parts of the rite.