Villages in France viewed from a distance seem so restful and idyllic.  There is no sound of strife, no trace of rivalry, no vain pride; only white houses—­the homes of good men and gentle women, and cherub children; and all the church-steeples truly point to God.  Yet on closer view—­but what of that!

When I reached the town, the church whose spire I had seen from the distance beckoned me first.  I turned off from the wide thoroughfare, intending just to get a glance at the outside of the building as I passed.  But the great iron gates thrown invitingly open, and a rusty, dusty dog of Flanders lying in the entry waiting for his master, told me that there was service within.  So I entered, passing through the noiseless, swinging door, and into the dim twilight of the house of prayer.  A score of people were there, and standing in the aisle was a white-robed priest.  He was speaking, and his voice came so gently, so sure withal, so exquisitely modulated, that I paused and, leaning against a pillar, listened.  I think it was the first time I ever heard a preacher speaking in a large church who did not speak so loud that an echo chased his sentences round and round the vaulted dome and strangled the sense.  The tone was conversational and the manner so free from canting conventionality that I moved up closer to get a view of the face.

It was too dark to see well, but I came under the spell of the man’s earnest eloquence.  The sacred stillness, the falling night, the odor from incense and banks of flowers piled about the feet of an image of the Holy Virgin—­evidently brought by the peasantry, having nothing else to give—­made a combination of melting conditions that would have subdued a heart of stone.

The preacher ceased to speak, and as he raised his hands in benediction, I, involuntarily, with the other worshipers, knelt on the stone floor and bowed my head in silent reverie.

Suddenly, I was aroused by a crashing noise at my elbow, and glancing round saw that an old man near me had merely dropped his cane.  A heavy cudgel it was that falling on the stone flagging sent a thundering reverberation through the vaulted chambers.

The worshipers were slipping out, one by one, and soon no one was left but the old man of the cudgel and myself.  He wore wooden shoes, and was holding the cordwood fast between his knees, rolling his hat nervously in his big hands.  “He’s a stranger, too,” I said to myself; “he is the man who owns the rusty dog of Flanders, and he is waiting to give the priest some message!”

I leaned over towards my neighbor and asked, “The priest—­what is his name?”

“Father Francis, Monsieur!” and the old man swayed back and forward in his seat as if moved by some inward emotion, still fingering his hat.

Just then the priest came out from behind the altar, wearing a black robe instead of the white one.  He moved down with a sort of quiet majesty straight towards us.  We arose as one man; it was as though some one had pressed a button.