I came, as the traveller had come, into the cathedral.  It was not yet within half an hour of the feast.  There was still room to be found, though with every moment the nave and the aisles grew fuller, until one doubted how at the end so great a throng could be dismissed.  They were of all kinds.  Some few were strangers holding in their hands books about the building.  Some few were devout men on travel, and praying at this great office on the way:  men from the islands, men from the places that Spain has redeemed for the future in the new world.  I saw an Irishman near me, and two West Indians also, half negro, like the third of the kings that came to worship at the manger where Our Lord was born.  For two hours and nearly three I saw and wondered at that immense concourse.  The tribunes were full, the whole choir was black, moving with the celebrants, and all the church floor beyond and around me was covered and dark with expectant men.

The Bourdon that had summoned the traveller and driven mad so many despairs, sounded above me upon this day with amplitude and yet with menace.  The silence was a solace when it ceased to boom.  The Creed, the oldest of our chaunts, filled and completed those walls; it was as though at last a battle had been joined, and in that issue a great relief ran through the crowd.

* * * * *

From such a temple I came out at last.  They had thrown the western doors wide open, the doors whose hinges man scarcely could have hammered and to whose miracle legend has lent its aid; the midday, now captured by the sun, came right into the hollow simplicity of the nave, and caught the river of people as they flowed outwards; but even that and the cry of the Benediction from the altar gave no greater peace than an appeal to combat.  In the air outside that other power stood waiting to conquer or to fail.

I came out, as from a camp, into the civilian debate, the atmosphere of the spectators.  The permanent and toppling influence against which this bulwark of ours, the Faith, was reared (as we say) by God Himself, shouted in half the prints, in half the houses.  I sat down to read and compare (as it should be one’s custom when one is among real and determining things) the writings of the extreme, that is of the leading men.  I chose the two pamphleteers who are of equal weight in this war, but of whom one only is known as yet to us in England, and that the least.

I read their battle-cries.  Their style was excellent; their good faith shone even in their style.

Since I had been upon phrases all these hours I separated and remembered the principal words of each.  One said:  “They will break their teeth against it.  The Catholic Church is not to perish, for she has allies from outside Time.”  The other said:  “How long will the death of this crucified god linger?  How long will his agony crush men with its despair?”

But I read these two writers for my entertainment only, and in order to be acquainted with men around me; for on the quarrel between them I had long ago made up my mind.