“Quite, thanks.  Do you see in front there, between the two tapers, Louise
and Madame de C-------?  Is it allowable in any one to come to church got
up like that?”

“Oh!  I have never believed much in the piety of Madame de C-------.  You
know her history—­the story of the screen?  I will tell it you later.  Ah!
there is the verger.”

The verger shows his bald head in the pulpit of truth.  He arranges the seat, adjusts the kneeling-stool, then withdraws and allows the Abbe Gelon, who is somewhat pale from Lenten fasting, but striking, as he always is, in dignity, elegance, and unction.  A momentary flutter passes through the congregation, then they settle down comfortably.  The noise dies away, and all eyes are eagerly looking toward the face of the preacher.  With his eyes turned to heaven, the latter stands upright and motionless; a light from above may be divined in his inspired look; his beautiful, white hands, encircled at the wrists by fine lace, are carelessly placed on the red velvet cushion of the pulpit.  He waits a few moments, coughs twice, unfolds his handkerchief, deposits his square hat in a corner, and, bending forward, lets fall from his lips in those sweet slow, persuasive tones, by which he is known, the first words of his sermon, “Ladies!”

With this single word he has already won all hearts.  Slowly he casts over his audience a mellow glance, which penetrates and attracts; then, having uttered a few Latin words which he has the tact to translate quickly into French, he continues: 

“What is it to abstain?  Why should we abstain?  How should we abstain?  Those are the three points, ladies, I shall proceed to discuss.”

He blows his nose, coughs; a holy thrill stirs every heart.  How will he treat this magnificent subject?  Let us listen.

Is it not true, Madame, that your heart is piously stirred, and that at this moment you feel an actual thirst for abstinence and mortification?

The holy precincts are bathed in a soft obscurity, similar to that of your boudoir, and inducing revery.

I know not how much of the ineffable and of the vaguely exhilarating penetrates your being.  But the voice of this handsome and venerated old man has, amidst the deep silence, something deliciously heavenly about it.  Mysterious echoes repeat from the far end of the temple each of his words, and in the dim light of the sanctuary the golden candlesticks glitter like precious stones.  The old stained-glass windows with their symbolic figures become suddenly illuminated, a flood of light and sunshine spreads through the church like a sheet of fire.  Are the heavens opening?  Is the Spirit from on high descending among us?

While lost in pious revery, which soothes and lulls, one gazes with ecstasy on the fanciful details of the sculptures which vanish in the groined roof above, and on the quaint pipes of the organ with its hundred voices.  The beliefs of childhood piously inculcated in your heart suddenly reawaken; a vague perfume of incense again penetrates the air.  The stone pillars shoot up to infinite heights, and from these celestial arches depends the golden lamp which sways to and fro in space, diffusing its eternal light.  Truly, God is great.