Across pale, pictur'd faces, gashes Showed where their godless blades had thrust Profane defiance; and with ashes Strewn was the altar, and encrust Was chalice, pyx, and urn with rust.
No lamp shed forth its sacred glimmer, No incense breathed its hallowed fume; And as the rudded eve grew dimmer, Shadows as ghostly as the tomb Wrapped choir and nave and aisle in gloom.
Anon athwart the murk came stealing Far floatings of a chanted hymn, Up-borne in gusto from floor to ceiling, As faintly a procession dim Out of the darkness seemed to swim.
Onward it wended--nor did falter, Till from their midmost, one cried--"Who Bethought him of the quenchéd altar? Alas! how guide the service through? Would God might light the lamp anew!"
"_Amen!_" came through the silence drifting: And from the train, therewith, out stole A little acolyte, who, lifting His surplice hem, displayed a coal That glowed, yet left the garment whole.
"_Christus illuminator!_" kneeling, The astonied Bishop cried. "From whom Can light else come? Thyself revealing. Flash forth that faith to chase our gloom, Which burns and yet doth not consume!
"Such faith is thine, O Lambert! Kindle Thereat the altar-lamp, and let Its lustre, henceforth, never dwindle!" He took the coal, the light reset, And there, they tell, 'tis burning yet.
One of the earliest records of modern history in regard to the race which peopled the old England and the New refers to its beauty. Most of us have heard the story: how three young captives, brought from an almost unknown island on the verge of civilization, and indeed at the western limit of the then known world, were exposed for sale in Rome, and how Gregory the Great, not yet Pope, seeing them, was struck by their beauty and asked what they were, and being told, _Angli_ (English), replied "_Non Angli, sed angeli_" (not Angles, but angels); which was a tolerable pun for a future Pope and saint. This was twelve hundred years ago; and since that time the English race has enjoyed the reputation (subject to some carping criticism, due to the self-love of other peoples) of being the handsomest in the world. It is well deserved; indeed, if it were not, it would long ago have been jealously extinguished. Not improbably, however, the impression made upon Gregory was greatly due to the fair complexion, blue eyes, and golden brown hair of the English captives, which, indeed, are mentioned in the story. For southern Europe is peopled with dark-skinned, dark-haired races; and the superior beauty of the blonde type was recognized by the painters, who always, from the earliest days, represented angels as of that type. The Devil was painted black so much as a matter of course that his pictured appearance gave rise to a well-known proverb; ordinary mortals were represented as more or less dark; celestial people were white and golden-haired; whence the epithet "divinely fair." When therefore the good Gregory saw the fair, blue-eyed English youths, his comparison was at once suggested, and his pun was almost made to his hand. And I am inclined to believe that it is of much later origin, although he ought to have made it; just as Sidney Smith ought to have said to Landseer, when he asked the Reverend wit to sit for his portrait, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do the thing?" and as the innkeeper ought to have said to Mr. Seward that he was not Governor of New York, but "Thurlow Weed, by thunder?" but did not. In each of these cases, however, and in all such, a significant fact is at the bottom of the story, which otherwise would have no reason for its being.