Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
It's a marvel! It's really a marvel!" "Education!" sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding up his cassock to his waist. "It's not for us to compare ourselves with him. We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned education. Yes, he's a real man, there is no denying that." "And you listen how he'll read the Gospel in Latin at mass to-day!
The Sub-Prior took the letters, which had come by an express messenger from the Primate of Scotland, who still laboured to uphold the tottering fabric of the system under which he was at length buried, and, stepping towards the lamp, read them with an air of deep and settled attention the Sacristan and Father Nicholas looked as helplessly at each other, as the denizens of the poultry-yard when the hawk soars over it.
Following him, a venerable old man comes tottering along, personating the acolyth, the bell-ringer, the sacristan, or other church dignitary, as may be necessary, croning out in his dreary voice, as he swings the burning censor, the second to the chants of the priest.
This little church, so small as to be almost a casket, is tucked away among old houses on a canal off the Rio di S. Marina, and it might be visited after SS. Giovanni e Paolo as a contrast to the vastness of that "Pathéon de Venise," as the sacristan likes to call it.
But the nuns were shut into their cells, beyond the cloister; the good people of Worcester city slept peacefully, not dreaming of the despairing figure running to and fro beneath them tottering, stumbling, falling, arising to fall again, yet hurrying blindly onwards; and the Cathedral Sacristan, when questioned, confessed that, hearing cries and rappings coming from the crypt at a late hour, he speedily locked the outer gate, said an "Ave," and went home to supper; well knowing that, at such a time, none save spirits of evil would be wandering below, in so great torment.
There was the well of the monastery, and without a word the sacristan hove the heavy chest from his shoulders into its black depths, and the splash and bubble of its falling came up to us. "That is safe," said the prior; "now for ourselves."
The Sacristan advised us to put on a boat; but the warden, whom thou knowest to be a godless man, has sworn the devil tear him, but that if they put on a boat on the laird's stream, he will rive her board from board and then some say we should compound the claim for a small sum in silver."
The sacristan said that the chapel was never used for anything but funeral services, and he led the way out into the cemetery, where he wished to display the sepultural devices.
The church was no longer deserted. An immense crowd pressed into it, drawn thither by the pomp of the grand funeral of which the beadle had spoken to the sacristan two hours before. It was with the greatest difficulty that Frances could reach the door of the church, now hung with sumptuous drapery.
A few yards after leaving the campo we come on the right to the little church of S. Giovanni Crisostomo where there are two unusually delightful pictures: a Sebastiano del Piombo and a Bellini, with a keen little sacristan who enjoys displaying their beauties and places you in the best light. The Bellini is his last signed work, and was painted when the old man was in his eighty-fifth year.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking