Only in places where some sham religion or other glozed over our
tragedies and excused our sins. Certainly to see all the men, women,
and children of a place taking Catholicism for granted was a new
sight, and so I put my cigar carefully down under a stone on the top
of the wall and went in with them. I then saw that what they were at
was vespers.
All the village sang, knowing the psalms very well, and I noticed that
their Latin was nearer German than French; but what was most pleasing
of all was to hear from all the men and women together that very noble
good-night and salutation to God which begins -
_Te, lucis ante terminum._
My whole mind was taken up and transfigured by this collective act,
and I saw for a moment the Catholic Church quite plain, and I
remembered Europe, and the centuries. Then there left me altogether
that attitude of difficulty and combat which, for us others, is always
associated with the Faith. The cities dwindled in my imagination, and
I took less heed of the modern noise. I went out with them into the
clear evening and the cool. I found my cigar and lit it again, and
musing much more deeply than before, not without tears, I considered
the nature of Belief.
