Some one has said that there is a consolation in being well dressed that even religion can not afford. It was with the consciousness of this feeling that Lizzie Sarkies knelt by her husband's side at midnight mass in the Church of the Holy Innocents.
It was New Year's Eve, and the young year was being welcomed in with all the pomp and ceremony of the Roman Catholic ritual. The old year was dying. It had covered its face with its mantle of broken hopes, of resolves unkept, of withered lives. With the New Year would come fresh hope and high resolve. The pages of the past were to be turned down, the fair white sheets of a new record opened, the Most High would lend an attentive ear to the voice of His people calling from the deep. The church was full. Of those who were spared from the dangers of the past some were here to thank the Godhead for his mercy, and to pray as humble creatures should for the light that never comes. There were others with dead hearts, hearts that had gotten the "dry-rot" into them. These came because the others came, because their ears were tickled by the music. Their lips murmured prayers that found no echoes in their souls, and as they looked upon the Host they gave no thought to the past. As for the future, with such as these the future has no lesson to learn. Sufficient for them was it that they lived, and sinned, and died.
Lizzie, and many others beside her, occupied a place midway between these two classes. They had not as yet chosen their seats finally. As the solemn notes of the organ joined the silver voices of the choir Lizzie felt the full magnetic power of the music, and prayed with her heart of hearts. When from behind the high altar the low murmur of the prayers trickled down the aisles and buzzed in her ears, Lizzie's bright eyes wandered round the church up to the gallery, where the choir of dark-robed nuns sat; away into the dim colonnades, over the ghostly sea of heads; to the right, where close-cropped, straight-backed, and stalwart of limb, were ranged a contingent of the Royal Irish, then in garrison at Bombay; in front, where sat Madame Eglantine, the celebratedmodiste, with a creation of forget-me-nots on her head. At all these Lizzie stared, and was comforted.
How pleasant this was after the deadly monotony of the tabernacle! Here all the rough edges were smoothed off, the corners rounded neatly; there all was granite of the hardest.
The banners swayed their silken folds. From her niche in the wall the Blessed Virgin, done in wax, gazed down upon her with lustreless eyes. The tinsel looked like gold. The incense breathed its subtle and intoxicating perfume into her brain.
And now the priests walked in solemn procession up the aisle, the organ pealed forth, and the joyous voices of the choir joined in the hymn of adoration.
At a bound Lizzie's heart went back from earth to heaven. She thrilled with a holy fervour as the music filled the church. Her eyes were full of tears.
Suddenly the voices of the choir died away. The priests had bowed before the altar, and were praying in secret. The organ wailed tremulously. Lizzie stood leaning on the seat in front of her, almost breathless with excitement.
All at once from the gallery a single voice took up the anthem--full, clear, and sweet. It seemed as if it were the answer of heaven to the prayers of the Faithful.
"Christe cum sit hinc exireDu per matron me venireAd palmam victoriæ."
"Christe cum sit hinc exire
Du per matron me venire
Ad palmam victoriæ."
Lizzie turned her eyes toward the spot whence the voice came. The light shone full on the dark-robed figure, on the upturned face, thin and pale, and on the sad gray eyes of the singer.
"Ad palmam victoriæ."
"Ad palmam victoriæ."
As the words reached her, Lizzie felt the light of a sudden recognition. She turned to her husband and pulled him by the coat-sleeve.
"Jim," she said, "look up! See who is singing!"