be speaking with bated breath, or, if moving, walking on tiptoe. It was
the supper-hour --

"Soft hour which wakes the wish and melts the heart."

Royalty, followed by the imperial presence of ambassadors, and escorted
by a group of dazzli, not a casual incident of it. There is not a duty
of existence, not a joy or sorrow which the services of the Church do
not assert, or with which they do not sympathize. Tell me, now; you
have, I was glad to hear, attended the services of the Church of late,
since you have been under this admirable roof. Have you not then found
some consolation?"

"Yes; without doubt I have been often solaced." And Lothair sighed.

"What the soul is to man, the Church is to the world," said the
cardinal. "It is the link between us and the Divine nature. It came
from heaven complete; it has never changed, and it can never alter. Its
ceremonies are types of celestial truths; its services are suited to all
the moods of man; they strengthen him in his wisdom and his purity, and
control and save him in the hour of passion and temptation. Taken as a
whole, with all its ministrations, its orders, its offices, and the
divine splendor of its ritual, it secures us on earth some adumbration
of that ineffable glory which awaits the faithful in heaven, where the
blessed Mother of God and ten thousand saints perpetually guard over no
with Divine intercession."

"I was not taught these things in my boyhood," said Lothair.

"And you might reproach me, and reasonably, as your guardian, for my