Page:Religion of a Sceptic (IA religionofscepti00powy).djvu/29

smoke-dark picture upon the walls of its far-travelled caravan.

And the centre of this picture is the Celebration of the Mass, whether Roman or Greek or English!

If you conceived of some great cosmic drama that had in it the sublimity of "Prometheus Bound," the grandeur of "King Lear," the huge concords of the music of Beethoven; and then added to such a work all that was most wistful and tender in the spirit of the old country ballads, you would still find that you had fallen short of conveying to the mind the sort of beauty which is contained in this extraordinary gesture.

But to understand the Mass, to be affected by the Mass, it is not in the least necessary that you should hold any particular view of the miracle of Transubstantiation.

You may doubt whether there is any miracle. It is enough that this great drama has been performed for so many centuries that it has created round it an enchanted circle of man's reverence for man, into which all spectators of it, however sceptical, seem bound to come, if they have not hardened their hearts against the burden of their own race.

For the Mass, however and whenever it is celebrated, remains an eternal witness to a certain quite definite human experience; an experience