gorians was familiar
music.

As the Office proceeded, Michael glanced from time to time toward his
companion. At first Barnes had kept an expression of injured boredom,
but with each chant he seemed less able to resist the habits of the
past. Michael felt bound to ascribe to habit his compliance with the
forms and ceremonies, for it was scarcely conceivable that he could any
longer be moved by the appeal of a sensuous worship, still less by the
craving of his soul for God.

Chator's discourse was a simple one delivered with all the spluttering
simplicity he could bring to it. Michael was not sure of the effect upon
the congregation, but himself found it moving in a gently pathetic way.
The sermon had the naive obviousness and the sweet seriousness of a
child telling a long tale of imaginary adventure. It was easy to see
that Chator had never known from the moment of his Ordination, or
indeed from the moment he began to suppose he was thinking for himself,
a single doubt of the absolute truth of his religion, still less of its
expediency. Michael wondered again what effect the sermon was having
upon the congregation, which was sitting all round him woodenly in a
sort of browse. Did one sentence reach it, or was the whole business of
the sermon merely an excuse to sit here basking in the stuffiness of the
homely church? Michael turned a sidelong look at Barnes. Tears were in
his eyes, and he was staring into the gloom of the dingy apse with its
tesselations of dull gold. This was disconcerting to Michael's opinion
of the sermon, for Chator could not be shaking Barnes by his eloquence:
these splutterings of dogma were surely not able to rouse one so deep in
the quagmire of his own corruption. Must he confess that a positive
sanctity abode in this church? He would be glad to believe it did; he
would be glad to imagine that an imperishable temple of truth was
posited among these perishable streets.

The sermon was over, and as the congregation rose to sing the hymn,
Michael was aware, he could not have said how, that these people pouring
forth this sacred jingle were all very weary. They had come here to rest
from the fatigue of dullness, and in a moment now the chill vapors of
the autumn night would wreathe themselves round their journey home.
Sunday was a day of pause when the people of the city had leisure to
sigh out their weariness: it was no shutting of theaters or shops that
made it sad. This congregation was compo