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"Why did he do that?" asked Lawless, nodding towards the point. "Why do they swing the censers at the Mass?" interjected Pierre. "Man has signs for memories, and one man seeing another's sign will remember his own." "You stay because you like it at King's House?" asked Lawless of Adderley. The other stretched himself lazily to the fire and, "I am at home," he said. "I have no cares.
Thereupon Croesus offered up a vast sacrifice to the Delphian deity. Three thousand oxen were slain, and a great sacrificial pile was built, on which were placed splendid robes and tunics of purple, with couches and censers of gold and silver, all to be committed to the flames.
Augustine the monks came forth with the cross and tapers and eight censers and conducted the body into the church, where it lay in state until all the vigils were performed by the different orders, after which it was deposited in the family tomb of the Ponces in the same church, and the ten banners were suspended over the sepulchre.* * Cura de los Palacios, c.104.
Hard by this altar lay the basins, and the vials, and the censers, and the caldrons, made of gold; but the other vessels, made for the use of the sacrifices, were all of brass. And such was the construction of the tabernacle; and these were the vessels thereto belonging. Concerning The Garments Of The Priests, And Of The High Priest. Such was therefore the habit of the rest.
A few only of the members of these deputations wore the modest white robe of the simple priest; most of them were invested with the panther-skin which was worn by the prophets. Each bore a staff decorated with roses, lilies, and green branches, and many carried censers in the form of a golden arm with incense in the hollow of the hand, to be burnt before the king.
There were twelve of these statues, sculptured with great art, and they were borne along on elevated pedestals, with censers, and incense, and various ceremonies of homage, while vast multitudes of spectators lined the way. There was a thirteenth statue, more magnificent than the other twelve, which represented Philip himself in the character of a god.
Many and many a time, in fancy, I have lain in the marble bath, and breathed the slumbrous fragrance of Eastern spices that filled the air; then passed through a weird and complicated system of pulling and hauling, and drenching and scrubbing, by a gang of naked savages who loomed vast and vaguely through the steaming mists, like demons; then rested for a while on a divan fit for a king; then passed through another complex ordeal, and one more fearful than the first; and, finally, swathed in soft fabrics, been conveyed to a princely saloon and laid on a bed of eider down, where eunuchs, gorgeous of costume, fanned me while I drowsed and dreamed, or contentedly gazed at the rich hangings of the apartment, the soft carpets, the sumptuous furniture, the pictures, and drank delicious coffee, smoked the soothing narghili, and dropped, at the last, into tranquil repose, lulled by sensuous odors from unseen censers, by the gentle influence of the narghili's Persian tobacco, and by the music of fountains that counterfeited the pattering of summer rain.
The procession passed the doorway: men bearing banners with sacred texts, acolytes swinging censers, a figure of the Saviour carved in wood borne aloft, the Cure under a silk canopy, and a long line of habitants following with sacred song. People fell upon their knees in the street as the procession passed, and the Cure's face was bent here and there, his hand raised in blessing.
If doves have a sixth sense that warns them before they hear the hawk's cry, or discern the shadow of his circling wings, and if mice, dumb in a cat's claws, surmise the exact value of the preliminary caresses, the graceful antics, the fatal fondling of the velvet paw, so we, the prey of legal 'Justice' know instinctively what the swinging of censers, and the chanting of her high priest mean, when he draws near us.
There was no rood-loft, no confessional, no pictures of the Virgin and saints, nothing to indicate the unscriptural adoration of the wafer, or masses for the dead. The most diligent search was made for beads and pyxes, censers and crucifixes; not a fragment of either could be discovered. At the eastern end we saw a plain, unornamental chancel; in the nave are stone seats attached to the walls.
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