A Childs Book of Saints | Page 6

cadences of voices of unearthly loveliness. They seemed to proceed
from the choir about him, and from the nave and transept and aisles;
from the pictured windows and from the clerestory and from the
vaulted roofs. Under his knees he felt that the crypt was throbbing and
droning like a huge organ.
Sometimes the song came from one part of the Minster, and then all the
rest of the vast building was silent; then the music was taken up, as it
were in response, in another part; and yet again voices and instruments
would blend in one indescribable volume of harmony, which made the
huge pile thrill and vibrate from roof to pavement.
As Thomas listened, his eyes became accustomed to the celestial light
which encompassed him, and he saw--he could scarce credit his senses
that he saw--the little carved angels of the oak stalls in the choir
clashing their cymbals and playing their psalteries.
He rose to his feet, bewildered and half terrified. At that moment the
mighty roll of unison ceased, and from many parts of the church there
came a concord of clear high voices, like a warbling of silver trumpets,
and Thomas heard the words they sang. And the words were these--

Tibi omnes Angeli. To Thee all Angels cry aloud.
So close to him were two of these voices that Thomas looked up to the
spandrels in the choir, and he saw that it was the carved angels leaning
out of the spandrels that were singing. And as they sang the breath
came from their stone lips white and vaporous into the frosty air.
He trembled with awe and astonishment, but the wonder of what was
happening drew him towards the altar. The beautiful tabernacle work of
the altar screen contained a double range of niches filled with the
statues of saints and kings; and these, he saw, were singing. He passed
slowly onward with his arms outstretched, like a blind man who does
not know the way he is treading.
The figures on the painted glass of the lancets were singing.
The winged heads of the baby angels over the marble memorial slabs
were singing.
The lions and griffons and mythical beasts of the finials were singing.
The effigies of dead abbots and priors were singing on their tombs in
bay and chantry.
The figures in the frescoes on the walls were singing.
On the painted ceiling westward of the tower the verses of the Te Deum,
inscribed in letters of gold above the shields of kings and princes and
barons, were visible in the divine light, and the very words of these
verses were singing, like living things.
And the breath of all these as they sang turned to a smoke as of incense
in the wintry air, and floated about the high pillars of the Minster.
Suddenly the music ceased, all save the deep organ-drone.
Then Thomas heard the marvellous antiphon repeated in the bitter
darkness outside; and that music, he knew, must be the response of the
galleries of stone kings and queens, of abbots and virgin martyrs, over

the western portals, and of the monstrous gargoyles along the eaves.
When the music ceased in the outer darkness, it was taken up again in
the interior of the Minster.
At last there came one stupendous united cry of all the singers, and in
that cry even the organ-drone of the crypt, and the clamour of the brute
stones of pavement and pillar, of wall and roof, broke into words
articulate. And the words were these:
Per singulos dies, benedicimus Te. Day by day: we magnify Thee, And
we worship Thy name: ever world without end.
As the wind of the summer changes into the sorrowful wail of the
yellowing woods, so the strains of joyous worship changed into a wail
of supplication; and as he caught the words, Thomas too raised his
voice in wild entreaty:
Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri. O Lord, have mercy upon us:
have mercy upon us.
And then his senses failed him, and he sank to the ground in a long
swoon.
When he came to himself all was still, and all was dark save for the
little yellow flower of light in the sanctuary lamp.
As he crept back to his cell he saw with unsealed eyes how churlishly
he had grudged God the glory of man's genius and the service of His
dumb creatures, the metal of the hills, and the stone of the quarry, and
the timber of the forest; for now he knew that at all seasons, and
whether men heard the music or not, the ear of God was filled by day
and by night with an everlasting song from each stone of the vast
Minster:
We magnify Thee, And we worship Thy