were visible.

"And who knows," he thought moodily, "how long they will go on
intoning their dreary Latin doggerel? Priestcraft and Sham!
There's no escape from it anywhere, not even in the wilds of
Caucasus! I wonder if the man I seek is really here, or whether
after all I have been misled? There are so many contradictory
stories told about him that one doesn't know what to believe. It
seems incredible that he should be a monk; it is such an
altogether foolish ending to an intellectual career. For whatever
may be the form of faith professed by this particular fraternity,
the absurdity of the whole system of religion remains the same.
Religion's day is done; the very sense of worship is a mere coward
instinct--a relic of barbarism which is being gradually eradicated
from our natures by the progress of civilization. The world knows
by this time that creation is an empty jest; we are all beginning
to understand its bathos! And if we must grant that there is some
mischievous supreme Farceur who, safely shrouded in invisibility,
continues to perpetrate so poor and purposeless a joke for his own
amusement and our torture, we need not, for that matter, admire
his wit or flatter his ingenuity! For life is nothing but vexation
and suffering; are we dogs that we should lick the hand that
crushes us?"

At that moment, the chanting suddenly ceased. The organ went on,
as though musically meditating to itself in minor cords, through
which soft upper notes, like touches of light on a dark landscape,
flickered ripplingly,--one monk separated himself from the
clustered group, and stepping slowly up to the altar, confronted
the rest of his brethren. The fiery Cross shone radiantly behind