PARIS AT PRAYERS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 205, 3 October 1914, Page 8

PARIS AT PRAYERS.

i CHANT OF THE MISERERE. |l !AT THE FEET OF JOAN OF ABC. \ [Ey Alphonse Oonrlander, "Express" . Correspondent.] PARIS, August 12. With in Notre Dame there is peace and an exquisite beauty and calm. Paris passes in to pray in the serenity of cool and.lofty aisles, where the sun-' slight, striking through the windows ot' [stained glass, spreads their colours over [the grey, and rose-tinted stone of the [walls. | No tourists come there to-day. No Sidle visitors tread the pavement into, startling echoes, with guides to tell ahem all the dates, all the deeds that. Shave taken place within the cathedral, fllere in Notre Dame is the sanctuary Ifrom the hot Paris beyond the wide, [open gates, where Charlemagne lords fit bv the Seine on liis bronze horse.

All sense of war departs before the of rest and peace that seems to stretch far into the pale and distant depths of cool grey columns bathed in a pallid light. Impossible, within these walls, to think of the clash of battle, of armies marching to the shock of war, of nations and institutions and civilisation falling to ruin! And those glorious wheel windows, divine kaleidoscopes of blue and scarlet, and all the colours that man has thought .of, are here unbroken and untouched, throbbing with harmony, chords of colour which the sun turns to an amazing and vibrant melody.

The Lights 6f Heaven. They put out the lights of heaven when they separated Church from State; but in the hour of travail, when the human heart needs comfort, the lights of heaven have been kindled iagain. The Archbishop of Paris lias ; blessed the troops, and the religious [heart of Paris /pulses again in all its Ichvjrches, and nowhere so deeply as in Notre Dame. It is afternoon. Outside the city is somnolent in the heat of the day. Through tip great bronze gates, open now for aIF comers, the cry of a newspaper seller comes like a phautom cry from an unreal world: "La Patrie . .La Patrie." Within the sound is lost, in the swelling music, of a choir hidden behind the altar, sweet voices lost somewhere in the' pale recesses of 'mystical pillars. They seem to come out . of, the very stone itself, as if the Cathedral were alive and singing "Ora pro Nobis . Ora pro Nobis."

The saints in their chapels,-as silent, as eternal tombs, kneel 111 stone attitudes of prayer as though they were praying night and day perpetually for victory for France, and the sun urges its way through the coloured paths of glass and rests in luminous haloes about their heads, and Avarins their stone forms to life. The candles burn about them like star points, twinkling in the vastness beneath the roof that dwarfs the figure of man; and the music rises like incense out of invisible depths. Now comes a womau of the markets, corpulent and ruddy faced, fresh from her bartering. She has a son and a husband somewhere on the eastern frontier, to-day, perhaps dead tomorrow. She kneels/before the Virgin, and burns a little candle and prays, and even as she prays another figure creeps silently up and kneels beside her —a young girl of the middle class, daintily dressed, as they all are. Prayers for Victory.

Her lips do not move, but she kneels with clasped hands, and never takes her eyes from the merciful, pitiful face of the Virgin with her Babe. She is praying with her heart, praying for the safety of someone she loves and the victory of France.

One by one the people come inside to the calm of the cathedral—people of all classes, and they fling themselves down with a sigh of relief before the saints. The statue of Joan of Are shines white and pure and triumphant, and many look at the virgin warrior and feel that faith*will deliver them. These are the days of guns and steel, submarines striking through sea depths, and aeroplanes threatening from the skies, yet lives eternally in the hearts of these people, and there is a sweet solace in prayer. ' At the far end of the cathedral, in a small chapel, they are holding services all day. While warriors fight, priests and choirs chant their prayers. Priests in robes of gold and brocade, and priests in black cassock and lace surplices. ".Ora pro Nobis . . . Ora pro Nobis > t '

The gilded censer swings to and fro in a, scented rhythm, and the candles /lame in the half light of the chapel, where v like some scene on a remote stage, the group, of priests stand with books in their hands, and the white choir sings so beautifully that the music heals the troubled soul. On the Bare Stones. *

There is an organ, and so wonderfully do the yoices blend that at times th*ey seem like an organ, and at others it seems that the organ has all the tremulous, living quality of a human voiee. Women kneel on the bare stones before the chapel, old women who must remember the last war and the terrors of the and old men who have given their best sons to France. Here and there I see a young couple, the girl with wet and tearful eyes, the man with set lips, .as if he were keeping back his tears until he is alone, kneeling and praying hand in hand. They are to be 'separated to-morrow.

She will remain behind. He has his card in his pocket, telling him to join his regiment. Who knows when they will meet again—who but Saint Clotilde, before whom the caudles burn like steadfast hopes that cannot be put out.

The solemn chant of the Miserere rolls in waves of music through the cathedral, and the people bow their heads as the priest lifts the Host—then the candles are dimmed for a moment, and the priests and choir move in a procession towards the Sacristy, where the door closes on them. But the people remain and pray; and it is so in all the churches of France.

Here in Notre Dame, where au English Henry and a Scottish Mary were crowned in the distant centuries, all is peace and exquisite beauty and calm. Paris passes in to pray in the hour of Armageddon.