"In the Cathedral," they answered. "Are we not in the Cathedral?"
"You are, and you are not!" he said. "This is part of the Cathedral. But it is only the Crypt. The Church cemetery and the Cathedral school. The choir children are trained here. But the true Cathedral is above; and, of necessity, when the choristers are trained, they are called up to join the services there."
When the children heard this they understood it all.
Thankfully they went to learn their part in the Psalm with the choir children.
And knowing the Crypt to be only a crypt, its gloom was wonderfully brightened to them. Its stray sunbeams grew clear and golden, now that they were understood to be only earnests of the golden day above. Its broken hymns grew tenfold sweeter, now that they were felt to be but the learning of the anthems to be sung above.
Precious was every hard lesson of the singing, precious every thin silver thread of the light, for they were the foretaste or the preparation of the moment when the door of the true Temple should open, and the shadows flee away.
BURIED WITH CHRIST.
Moans of sharpest agony,
Faintly moaning ceaselessly,
"Earth is all one grave to me!"
Greenest fields but churchyard turf,
Sunniest seas but deadly surf;
Purest skies one vaulted tomb,
Death in all homes most at home.
Moans of sharpest agony!
Back from far they came to me,
Echoed from the crystal sea,
As a chant of victory;
From the sea's translucent verge
Back in triumph pealed the dirge:—
"Earth is all one grave to thee?
What besides could earth now be,
Since He died upon the tree,
Since He died on earth for thee?
Since beneath it He lay, dim,
Cold and still each tortured limb,
Buried are His own with Him,
Yet the dirge is all a hymn.
Wouldst thou take the crypt's chill damps,
And its few sepulchral lamps,
For His temple spaces high,
For His depths of starry sky?
Wouldest thou? Not so would they
Who one moment breathe His day,
Who for one brief moment's space
Have the vision of His face.
Earth has light for earth's great strife,—
Where He liveth, there is Life.
"Earth is all one grave to thee?
Yet lift up thine eyes and see!
For the stone is rolled away,
And He standeth there to-day;
Patiently by thee will stay
Till thy heart 'Rabboni' say!
(He will not forget the clay,
Thine, nor theirs, by night or day.)
That 'Rabboni!' faint through fears,
Sobbed in agony of tears,—
That alone thy heart can clear
Those far-off Amens to hear,
That alone can tune thy heart
In those songs to take her part.