heroine, bade her keep them with respect, not only as memorials of the great event that day commemorated, but also precious in themselves, although inanimate, having received the especially invoked blessing of Heaven for the use of the faithful.

CHAPTER V.

Thou framer of the light and dark,
Steer though the tempest thine own ark:
Amid the howling wintry sea

We are in port, if we have thee.

Ah, by thine own sad burthen borne,

So meekly up the hill of scorn,

Teach thou thy priests their daily cross
To bear as thine, nor court its loss.

KEBLE.

DURING the two following days, General Carrington and his daughter attended their accustomed early mass, and were each occupied with the devotions appropriate to this holy and mournful week in private; but on the evening of Wednesday, their friend, the Abate, was again with them by appointment, and they together went to the Sistine chapel, to attend the office of "Tenebræ," which, as its name obviously implies, was intended to be celebrated in the darkness of night. The Abate felt assured, and Geraldine could not differ from him, that the Tenebræ of Wednesday was not the vigil, but the matins and lauds of Maundy Thursday, chanted directly after midnight by most of the religious orders, till a mitigation was allowed to some, of deferring the nocturns till the office of lauds at daybreak, and to others of chanting the office over night.

"From the days of the apostles," said the Abate, "the Church has prescribed for her clergy a divine

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office, that is, a duty of attendance upon the Lord: this duty is prayer. Amongst the ancients the night was divided into four watches, and the day into four stations so that the military who were appointed to the guard duty relieved each other at the termination of each watch or station. The Church militant of Christ imitated the vigilance and zeal of the soldiery of the earthly monarch. Like David, our fervent Christians arose at midnight to give praise to the Lord. Pliny the younger, Lucian, and Ammianus Marcellinus, mention the custom of the Christians of watching and singing at midnight; and Lactantius tells us they did so to prepare for the arrival of their king and God. But it appears, from St. John Chrysostom, that the laity were not called to these night offices, except on Sundays and other solemn occasions. In the monasteries only, and amongst the clergy, the "course," as it was termed, was regularly performed: and as the canons regulated the time, and manner of its performance, the hours, and subsequently the office, was known by the appellation of the "Canonical Hours."

Geraldine remembered, and repeated to the Abate from the "Mores Catholici," "How holy is the Catholic night, the night of the middle ages, the time in which saints, dispersed all over the earth, are assembled to chant the same sacred hymns, and to commemorate the same great deliverance."

"Beautiful as true," said the Abate; "the faithful used especially to assemble at midnight, for the nocturns of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, of Holy Week, but for some centuries, the office has been celebrated on the preceding evening: for thus it was in the early habits of our predecessors, though to us moderns, it is the afternoon of our day.'

"There is a difference of opinion, I believe," said the General to his daughter, "respecting the reason

for extinguishing the candles, one after another. Some informing us, that the candles, which are ranged along the sides of the triangle, represent the patriarchs, and prophets, who, under the law of nature, and the written law, gave the world the light of that partial revelation which they had received, and then died; the last being St. John the Baptist, while the Saviour, who was not extinguished by his temporary death, is represented by the remaining light, which is carried to the back of the altar, and concealed; during which the prayer is in mournful and respectful silence, the psalm beseeching mercy (Miserere), is sung, the last petition is made, and the convulsions of nature at the Saviour's death, are commemorated by the overthrow of stones and other heavy weights behind the altar. Do you incline to their interpretation, Signor Abate, or to that which is more generally received, of the candles representing the burning light of faith in the apostles, which in the hour of trial was extinguished, and that all left their lord and master, save our blessed lady, who is represented by the concealed but still burning light?"

"I incline to the former exposition," said the Abate; "but there is something peculiarly mournful and touching in the last view of the subject, and it seems to be the most popularly received. I fear," continued he, "that the Signora will find the service tedious; for the nocturns are chanted in the most simple and ancient style, every ornament being omitted, that might distract the mind from the mournful tribute due to this commemoration of Him, who was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity."

"I shall not, by the blessing of God, find the Tenebræ service tedious," said Geraldine; "and I have been told that the recitation of the Lamenta

tion,' which precedes the far-famed Miserere,' is most affecting in its appeal to the heart."

"It is so," said the Abate, "and after the mournful dwelling of one voice upon the few wild notes of the continued lamentation, the effect is truly fine of the harmony at the close; Jerusalem! Jerusalem! return thou to the Lord thy God." "

Geraldine did not find the service tedious, for her mind and heart were occupied. The one voice in the Lamentation, with the irresistibly moving chorus, as the Abate had described it, was the more striking, from her never having heard before that species of chant. Nothing, however, to which she then, or had ever listened, could approach the effect produced on her whole being, when, after an impressive pause, the unearthly strain arose of the "Miserere!" The consciousness of place and of time was lost! That she now heard the wail of departed spirits, from the prison of their purification, was the most defined of her feelings, and this impression strengthened as the strain continued, till she found herself in mental aspirations for their admittance into the angelic choir, to which their voices seemed already attuned. As the sounds died away, the pontiff read, in a low impressive voice, the concluding prayer; and when he paused, the light by which he had read disappeared, while the last and most exquisite harmony arose in deeper, more intense supplication, and loud strokes, which reverberated through the chapel, commemorating the veil of the temple being rent in twain, closed in deep awe the service.

In the primitive ages of the Church, it was customary to bring public penitents before the bishop, after matins on Holy Thursday; and after the penitential psalms, with appropriate prayers and litanies, had been said or sung, they received the first abso