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It was sung throughout.
Almost the whole of the service was sung. Never had Benediction seemed
so beautiful, so pathetic, so appealing, so irresistible.
By the time the _Tantum ergo_ had been reached and the sweet female
voices, over the soft swell of the organ, were rising to the vaulted
roof in sorrowful reparation for the sins of all sinners in the world
who did not pray for themselves, the religious life was calling to me as
it had never called before.
"Come away from the world," it seemed to say. "Obedience to your
heavenly Father cancels all duty to your earthly one. Leave everything
you fear behind you, and find peace and light and love."
The service was over, the nuns had dropped their veils and gone out as
slowly and noiselessly as they had come in (the last of them with her
head down): the sacristan with his long rod was extinguishing the
candles on the altar; the church was growing dark and a lay-sister in
black was rattling a bunch of keys at the door behind me before I moved
from my place beside the rails.


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