When John of Fulda became Prior of Hethholme, says the old chronicle,
he brought with him to the Abbey many rare and costly books--beautiful
illuminated missals and psalters and portions of the Old and New
Testament. And he presented rich vestments to the Minster; albs of
fine linen, and copes embroidered with flowers of gold. In the west
front he built two great arched windows filled with marvellous storied
glass. The shrine of St. Egwin he repaired at vast outlay, adorning it
with garlands in gold and silver, but the colour of the flowers was in
coloured gems, and in like fashion the little birds in the nooks of the
foliage. Stalls and benches of carved oak he placed in the choir; and
many other noble works he had wrought in his zeal for the glory of
God's house.
In all the western land was there no more fair or stately Minster than
this of the Black Monks, with the peaceful township on one side, and on
the other the sweet meadows and the acres of wheat and barley sloping
down to the slow river, and beyond the river the clearings in the
ancient forest.
But Thomas the Sub-prior was grieved and troubled in his mind by the
richness and the beauty of all he saw about him, and by the Prior's
eagerness to be ever adding some new work in stone, or oak, or metal,
or jewels.
"Surely," he said to himself, "these things are unprofitable--less to
the honour of God than to the pleasure of the eye and the pride of life
and the luxury of our house! Had so much treasure not been wasted on
these vanities of bright colour and carved stone, our dole to the poor
of Christ might have been fourfold, and they filled with good things.
But now let our almoner do what best he may, I doubt not many a leper
sleeps cold, and many a poor man goes lean with hunger."
This the Sub-prior said, not because his heart was quick with
fellowship for the poor, but because he was of a narrow and gloomy and
grudging nature, and he could conceive of no true service of God which
was not one of fasting and praying, of fear and trembling, of
joylessness and mortification.
Now you must know that the greatest of the monks and the hermits and
the holy men were not of this kind. In their love of God they were
blithe of heart, and filled with a rare sweetness and tranquillity of
soul, and they looked on the goodly earth with deep joy, and they had a
tender care for the wild creatures of wood and water. But Thomas had
yet much to learn of the beauty of holiness.
Often in the bleak dark hours of the night he would leave his cell and
steal into the Minster, to fling himself on the cold stones before the
high altar; and there he would remain, shivering and praying, till his
strength failed him.
It happened one winter night, when the thoughts I have spoken of had
grown very bitter in his mind, Thomas guided his steps by the glimmer
of the sanctuary lamp to his accustomed place in the choir. Falling on
his knees, he laid himself on his face with the palms of his
outstretched hands flat on the icy pavement. And as he lay there,
taking a cruel joy in the freezing cold and the torture of his body, he
became gradually aware of a sound of far-away yet most heavenly music.
He raised himself to his knees to listen, and to his amazement he
perceived that the whole Minster was pervaded by a faint mysterious
light, which was every instant growing brighter and clearer. And as
the light increased the music grew louder and sweeter, and he knew that
it was within the sacred walls. But it was no mortal minstrelsy.
The strains he heard were the minglings of angelic instruments, and the
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 name: ever world without end._