The Buildings Are There; That Is A Solid Fact,
Take What View You Like Of Them, Or Take None At All.
There are men about
country roads with shaven crown and cassock whose dark Continental faces
have an unmistakable stamp of priesthood; faces that might be pictured
with those of the monks of old Spain.
Women in long black cloaks, black
hoods and white coif, women with long black rosaries hanging from the
girdle, go to and fro among the wheat and the clover. One rubs one's
eyes. Are these the days of Friar Laurence and Juliet? Shall we meet the
mitred abbot with his sumpter mule? Shall we meet the mailed knights? In
some places whole villages belong to English monks, and there is not a
man or woman in them who is not a Catholic; there are even small country
towns which by dint of time, money, and territorial influence have been
re-absorbed, and are now as completely Catholic as they were before Henry
VIII. In these half-village half-towns you may chance on a busy market
day to come across a great building abutting on the street, and may
listen to the organ and the chant; there is incense and gorgeous
ceremony, the golden tinkle of the altar-bell. Bow your head, it is the
host; cross yourself, it is the mass. The butcher and the dealer are busy
with the sheep, but it is a saint's day. By-and-by no doubt we shall have
a village Lourdes at home, and miracles and pilgrimages and offerings and
shrines:
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