ABSTRACT
I HEARD* La messe militaire, on Sunday last, at a church where all the national guard of Rouen attended. The service began with the loudest thunder of drums and trumpets, and seemed more like a signal for battle than for devotion; but the music soon fattened into the most soothing sounds, which flowed from the organ, clarinets, flutes and hautboys; the priests chanted, and the people made responses. The wax tapers were lighted, holy water was sprinkled on the ground, incense was burnt at the altar, and the elevation of the host was announced by the found of the drum; upon which the people knelt down, and the priest prostrated his face towards the earth. There is something affecting in the pomp and solemnity of these ceremonies. Indeed, the Roman Catholic worship, though a sad stumbling-block to reason, is striking to the imagination. I have more than once heard the service for the dead performed, and never can hear it without emotion; without feeling that in those melancholy reparations, which bury every hope of the survivor in the relentless grave, the heart that can delude itself with the belief, that its prayers may avail any thing to the departed object of its affections, must find consolation in thus uniting a tribute of tenderness, with the performance of a religious duty.
