In the middle of the nave, moreover, there was another galaxy of
wax candles burning around an immense pall of black velvet, embroidered
with silver, which seemed to cover, not only a coffin, but a sarcophagus,
or something still more huge.
The organ was rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass, accompanied with
heavy chanting of priests, out of which sometimes rose the clear, young
voices of choristers, like light flashing out of the gloom. The church,
between the arches, along the nave, and round the altar, was hung with
broad expanses of black cloth; and all the priests had their sacred
vestments covered with black. They looked exceedingly well; I never saw
anything half so well got up on the stage. Some of these ecclesiastical
figures were very stately and noble, and knelt and bowed, and bore aloft
the cross, and swung the censers in a way that I liked to see.
The ceremonies of the Catholic Church were a superb work of art, or
perhaps a true growth of man's religious nature; and so long as men felt
their original meaning, they must have been full of awe and glory.
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