Each believer brings what he can: a scrap of green, a branch of blossoms, a handful of hyacinths, making the night sweet with their perfume, or a bunch of simple violets gathered along the wayside—first dear messengers of spring.
When the service is over, in long processions the worshippers return to their homes, one and all carefully shading the tapers, for it is lucky to bring them lighted back to the house.
No more light shines now from the church windows; all is swathed in darkness; the church itself stands out a huge mass of shade against the sky.
But the graveyard beyond is a garden of light! Have all the stars fallen from the heavens to console those lying beneath the sod? or is it only the tiny tapers still bravely burning, burning for the dead?...
*
*—*
There are some wonderful old churches in the country, stately buildings, rich and venerable, full of treasures carefully preserved from out the past.
I have visited all these churches, inquiring into their history, admiring their perfect proportions, closely examining their costly embroideries, their carvings, their silver lamps, their enamelled crosses, their Bibles bound in gold.
But, in spite of their beauty, none of the greater buildings attract me so strongly as those little village churches I have hunted up in the far-away corners of the land.
One part of the country is especially rich in these quaint little buildings: it is a part I dearly love. No railway desecrates its tranquil valleys, no modern improvement has destroyed its simple charm. Here the hand of civilisation has marred no original beauty; no well-meaning painter has touched up the faded frescoes on ancient walls. A corner of the earth that has preserved its personality; being difficult to reach, it has remained unchanged, unspoilt.
The axe has not felled its glorious forests, the enterprising speculator has built no hideous hotels, no places of entertainment; no monstrous advertisements disfigure its green meadows, its fertile inclines.