All the village sang, knowing the psalms very well, and I noticed that
their Latin was nearer German than French; but what was most pleasing
of all was to hear from all the men and women together that very noble
good-night and salutation to God which begins--

_Te, lucis ante terminum._

My whole mind was taken up and transfigured by this collective act,
and I saw for a moment the Catholic Church quite plain, and I
remembered Europe, and the centuries. Then there left me altogether
that attitude of difficulty and combat which, for us others, is always
associated with the Faith. The cities dwindled in my imagination, and
I took less heed of the modern noise. I went out with them into the
clear evening and the cool. I found my cigar and lit it again, and
musing much more deeply than before, not without tears, I considered
the nature of Belief.

Of its nature it breeds a reaction and an indifference. Those who
believe nothing but only think and judge cannot understand this. Of
its nature it struggles with us. And we, we, when our youth is full on
us, invariably reject it and set out in the sunlight content with
natural things. Then for a long time we are like men who follow down
the cleft of a mountain and the peaks are hidden from us and
forgotten. It takes years to reach the dry plain, and then we look
back and see our home.

What is it, do you think, that causes the return? I think it is the
problem of living; for every day, every experience of evil, demands a
solution. That solution is provided by the memory of the great scheme
which at last we remember. Our childhood pierces through again ... But