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Updated: June 14, 2025
Immediately below the Virgin, on the right, is the figure of St. Thomas, with hands outstretched, receiving the mystic girdle: below is the entombment; Mary lies extended on a pall above a sarcophagus. In the centre stands Christ, holding in his arms the emancipated soul; he is attended by eight angels. St. John is at the head of the Virgin, and near him an angel swings a censer; St.
On these altars there are consecrated spheres, made by magic art, resembling the circle of the sun; and when the sun rises, these orbs seem to be inflamed, and whirl round with a great noise . In their orisons, every person carries a censer, in which he burns incense in honour of the sun.
Here were statues to Diana and Apollo, and to the household Juno not meant for worship of course not but simply to conform to the general usages of good society; and so far had this complaisance been carried, that the shrine of a peerless Venus was adorned with garlands and votive offerings, and an exquisitely wrought silver censer diffused its perfume on the marble altar in front.
The clergy had exchanged the missal and censer for the battle-axe, and had become secularized and brutalized by the conflict. The learning of the Order was dead. The Latin language, the tongue of the Church, of literature, of education, was almost extinct.
Tonsured monks with sandaled feet, in gowns of brown, girt with hempen cord; censer bearers, cross bearers, brazier bearers, and choir boys in white embroidered surplices and skirts of scarlet; priests in black; bishops in purple; and higher dignitaries in capes of fur and long-trained robes, all these marched round and round bearing lighted candles and chanting the ritual to the strains of the organ, and then proceeded toward the Latin Chapel.
Then the chief priest goes forwards to a red table or altar, richly adorned, on which the name of the khan is written; and taking a censer, containing rich spices and perfumes, he perfumes the altar or table with great reverence, in honour of the khan, and returns to his place in the assembly.
Youth and the pulse of rioting blood are yours again, until, as you near the heights, you become strangely calmed by the voiceless silence of it all, a silence so holy that it seems the whole world about you is swinging its censer before an altar in some dim remote cathedral!
Contrary to what takes place in Paris, where the censer, swung before the altar, sounds against its chains, and is like the clear tinkling of a horse which, as he lifts his head, shakes his curb and bit, the censer at La Trappe remained immovable before the altar, and smoked by itself behind the officiants.
The Consecrated Host, shrined in a silver vessel formed like a chalice, was borne by a priest under a silken canopy; and to this the other clergymen present offered up incense from a censer, whilst they circumambulated the chapel inside and out, if the day was fine.
On the altar stood the figure of the Virgin with the child Jesus, surrounded by lights and flowers; priests in festive garb were chanting, and choir boys, beautifully attired, swung the silver censer. What splendour, what magnificence did he see here!
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