These nuns have ceased to have women's voices; the quality is at once seraphic and manly.

In their church you are either thrown back I know not how far into the depth of past ages, or shot forward into time to come, as they sing.

They have outpourings of soul and tragical pauses, pathetic murmurs and ecstasies of passion, and sometimes they seem to rush to the assault, and storm certain Psalms at the bayonet's point.

And they do assuredly achieve the most vehement leap that can be imagined from this world into the infinite." "Then it is a very different thing from the Benedictine service of nuns in the Rue Monsieur in Paris ?" "No comparison is possible.

Without wishing to reflect on the musical sincerity of those good Sisters, who sing quite suitably but humanly, as women, it may be asserted that they have neither such knowledge, nor such soul-felt aspiration, nor such voices.