Let it be remembered, in the light of what follows, that the vast majority of the people there believed this, were waiting for this—they believed that when the priest said the Prayer of Consecration, our Lord Himself had come suddenly among them.
Throughout the rite there was a growing sense and assurance of One coming. Most of them were quite sure of it.
Human hearts, worn with the troubles of the week, sick to death, it may be, of a hard material lot, now bowed in contrition and repentance, or were filled with a certain Hope. Everything in this world was as nothing, because, upon the altar before which the priest was bending so low, they believed that God had come.
In what way, or how, they did not know and could not have explained. Did they imagine it week after week as they knelt in church? Most of them knew that it was no imagination or delusion that caught at their hearts, that changed the air of the building in a swift moment, that caught up heart and soul and spirit in one great outpouring of love and faith and adoration.
Was this a fable, as folks sometimes told them? This which dissolved and broke the chains of bodily sense, banished the world, and enfolded them with its awful sweetness, its immeasurable joy? What else in life had power to do this, power to hurry away clogging, material things as in a mighty spiritual wind, to show them once more the stupendous sacrifice of the Saviour—what else but the indubitable presence of our Lord?
The priest held up the Host.
At that supreme moment, Doctor Hibbert, whose state of mind may be taken as typical of many others there, bent in humble adoration and contrition.
An absolute silence lay over the church; there was not the slightest sound or movement in it.
A chair was pushed harshly over the tiles, there was a heavy shuffling of feet. Such sounds in that holy moment affected some of the worshippers as a physical blow might have done.
But few people looked up. Many of them did not hear the sound, their ears being tuned to harmonies that were not of this world.