Magdalen Graeme looked at and perused the brief records of these
monuments successively, and paused over that of Father Eustace. "In a
good hour for thyself," she said, "but oh! in an evil hour for the
Church, wert thou called from us. Let thy spirit be with us, holy
man--encourage thy successor to tread in thy footsteps--give him thy
bold and inventive capacity, thy zeal and thy discretion--even
_thy_ piety exceeds not his." As she spoke, a side door, which
closed a passage from the Abbot's house into the church, was thrown
open, that the Fathers might enter the choir, and conduct to the high
altar the Superior whom they had elected.
In former times, this was one of the most splendid of the many
pageants which the hierarchy of Rome had devised to attract the
veneration of the faithful. The period during which the Abbacy
remained vacant, was a state of mourning, or, as their emblematical
phrase expressed it, of widowhood; a melancholy term, which was
changed into rejoicing and triumph when a new Superior was chosen.
When the folding doors were on such solemn occasions thrown open, and
the new Abbot appeared on the threshold in full-blown dignity, with
ring and mitre, and dalmatique and crosier, his hoary standard-bearers
and his juvenile dispensers of incense preceding him, and the
venerable train of monks behind him, with all besides which could
announce the supreme authority to which he was now raised, his
appearance was a signal for the magnificent _jubilate_ to rise
from the organ and music-loft, and to be joined by the corresponding
bursts of Alleluiah from the whole assembled congregation.
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