“The years roll on and the spiritual more and more overshadows the material.  The little spark of the Divine life dwelling in the heart has developed and permeated the whole being.  The soul seems chained and hampered by its surroundings.  Like a bird it beats itself against its prison walls, until at length it wings its way heavenward.

“And then that ancient hymn, which before had wedded itself in my imagination to the music, pealed forth in all its grandeur, and I seemed to hear the songs of men united to the purer strains of angelic music: 

    ’Uni trinoque Domino
    Sit sempiterna gloria
    Qui vitam sine termino
    Nobis donet in patria.’

“The music ceased and we awoke as from a dream, and, remembering why we had come, rushed up to the organ loft, only to find it in perfect darkness.”

IV.

In relating his experience in the cathedral, and in attempting to describe the music he had heard, Dr. F. grew excited and even dramatic, and his voice had quite a ring of triumph in it as he recited the “O Salutaris”—­to my mind, the grandest of all the old Latin hymns, lost for many years to our Church, but at length restored in our native tongue.

He paused for a few moments to recover himself and then continued.

“On the morrow I resolved, if possible, to write from memory the complete Service as we had heard it.  During the day, being much occupied, I was only able to jot down phrases which recurred to my memory.  The principal themes were well impressed upon my mind, and, although my treatment of them was sure to differ in many ways from the original, I felt more justified than formerly in attempting what seemed rather a piece of presumption.

“After a fairly early dinner I settled down in my study about 6.30 p.m., determined to work right on until my task was finished.

“My success did not please me.  Several times I rose and tried the score over upon the piano.  There was no doubt about it, the main ideas were there, but still there was everything lacking.  The whole affair was weak, unworthy of my own reputation, and doubly unworthy of the great writer who had written the Credo.  Time after time I studied that fragment, and strove to find out what it was that gave it such vigour and force, but it was useless.  That was undoubtedly the work of a great genius, and everything I had written was nothing short of a libel upon myself, strung together so as to be quite correct in harmony and counterpoint, but full, nevertheless, of nothing but commonplaces.

“In thorough disgust I gave it up altogether, when suddenly I remembered there was no Kyrie in the Service we had heard.

“A something prompted me to supply the want out of my own mind.  All I strove was to make the style blend with the Credo; in every other respect it was perfectly original, and when finished gave me great cause to be pleased with my own work.