Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/170

186 himself, surrounded by legions of the heavenly host, had already consecrated the church. This was on the 8th of September, 948; and on the 8th of September, 1856, I went in the earliest dawn, with my traveling companions, to the celebrated church. The morning was damp and cold, but the stars, gleaming through the clouds, seemed to divide them and to give us hope of a clear day.

The monastry is a large and palatial building. In the church itself it was so dark that we could see nothing of its celebrated beauty and pomp. Numerous groups of pilgrims stood, or had fallen on their knees in every part of the church, but more especially around the little chapel in the centre aisle, through the gilded grating of which a little image of the Virgin, of black wood, with the child Jesus, also black, may be seen Toy the light of small, yellow, wax candles which the devotees have lighted and placed there. Both images are adorned with golden crowns and precious stones. Their countenances are unusually pretty and agreeable, but it produced a most strange effect to see a jet-black Virgin and child. They were considerably smaller than life size. Not a hymn, not a note of the organ was heard at this early hour. Nothing was heard but the dull murmuring of the pilgrims' “Pater Nosters” and “Ave Marias!”

All around St. Meinrad's chapel—the chapel which contains the Virgin—the church became more and more thronged with devotees. As the day dawned we went out. In the square before the monastery stands a splendid fountain which pours forth its unceasing water from fourteen pipes. We noticed several