t all was--gigantic headlines, and four columns of print broken
by startling title phrases in capital letters, after the fashion set by
America a hundred years ago. No better way even yet had been found of
misinforming the unintelligent.

He looked at the top. It was the English edition of the _Era_. Then he
read the headlines. They ran as follows:

"THE NATIONAL WORSHIP. BEWILDERING SPLENDOUR. RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. THE
ABBEY AND GOD. CATHOLIC FANATIC. EX-PRIESTS AS FUNCTIONARIES."

He ran his eyes down the page, reading the vivid little phrases, and
drawing from the whole a kind of impressionist view of the scenes in the
Abbey on the previous day, of which he had already been informed by the
telegraph, and the discussion of which had been the purpose of his
interview just now with the Holy Father.

There plainly was no additional news; and he was laying the paper down
when his eye caught a name.

"It is understood that Mr. Francis, the _ceremoniarius_ (to whom the
thanks of all are due for his reverent zeal and skill), will proceed
shortly to the northern towns to lecture on the Ritual. It is
interesting to reflect that this gentleman only a few months ago was
officiating at a Catholic altar. He was assisted in his labours by
twenty-four confreres with the same experience behind them."

"Good God!" said Percy aloud. Then he laid the paper down.

But his thoughts had soon left this renegade behind, and once more he
was running over in his mind the significance of the whole affair, and
the advice that he had thought it his duty to give just now upstairs.

Briefly, there was no use in disputing the fact that the inauguration of
Pantheistic worship had been as stupendous a success in England as in
Germany. France, by the way, was still too busy with the cult of human
individuals, to develop larger ideas.

But England was deeper; and, somehow, in spite of prophecy, the affair
had taken place without even a touch of bathos or grotesqueness. It had
been said that England was too solid and too humorous. Yet there had
been extraordinary scenes the day before. A great murmur of enthusiasm
had rolled round the Abbey from end to end as the gorgeous curtains ran
back, and the huge masculine figure, majestic and overwhelming, coloured
with exquisite art, had stood out above the blaze of candles against the
tall screen that shrouded the shrine. Markenheim had done his work well;
and Mr. Brand's passionate discourse had well