and it was there that a vision grew on his inner understanding, as he
knelt and could not pray.

It is hard and deceptive to write of those subconscious imaginings that
convict the souls of most men some time or another. In that condition
things are largely what we fashion them to be, and one may be thought to
be asserting their ultimate truth in speaking of their influence. But
there is no escaping from the fact that Peter Graham of a lost allegiance
began that Sunday morning to be aware of another claimant. And this is
what dawned upon him, and how.

A French memory gave him a starting-point. Here, at these Low Masses, it
was more abundantly plain than ever that these priests did not conceive
themselves to be serving a congregation, but an altar. One after the
other they moved through a ritual, and spoke low sentences that hardly
reached him, with their eyes holden by that which they did. At first he
was only conscious of this, but then he perceived the essential change
that came over each in his turn. The posturing and speaking was but
introductory to the moment when they raised the Host and knelt before it.
It was as if they were but functionaries ushering in a King, and then
effacing themselves before Him.

Here, then, the Old Testament of Peter's past became to him a
schoolmaster. He heard himself repeating again the comfortable words of
the Prayer-Book service: "Come unto Me...." "God so loved...." "If any
man sin...." Louise's hot declaration forced itself upon him: "It is He
Who is there." And it was then that the eyes of his mind were enlightened
and he saw a vision--not, indeed, of the truth of the Roman Mass (if it
be true), and not of the place of the Sacrament in the Divine scheme of
things, but the conception of a love so great that it shook him as if
it were a storm, and bowed him before it as if he were a reed.

The silent, waiting Jesus.... All these centuries, in every land.... How
He had been mocked, forgotten, spurned, derided, denied, cast out; and
still He waited. Prostitutes of the streets, pardoned in a word, advanced
towards Him, and He knew that so shortly again, within the secret place
of their hearts, He would be crucified; but still He waited. Careless
men, doubtless passion-mastered, came up to Him, and He knew the sort
that came; but still He waited. He, Peter, who had not known He was here
at all, and who had gone wandering off in search of any mistress, spent
many days, turned in by