Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 2).djvu/153

Rh even from those which lie twelve leagues off, processions of the communities arrived; eight young girls crowned with flowers bore the portrait of the Madonna of their church, singing all those hymns, which sound so beautifully in the mountain dialect in their tunes: Thus they walked round the church and one procession after another brought many with spiritual songs into our temple, here the strange visitor must bow low before ours, who then in a chaunt thanked and praised the Lord, in the song which our young women here sing most enchantingly in alternate chorusses. Thus all the processions bring in their mother of God quite similar to the theories of the ancient Greeks, and retired again in praise and thanks. This ceremony, which to the wise may only appear puerile, has, since I have been able to observe the people here, always produced much good and salutary fruit. The common man (though what do I say, who among us that calls himself the educated,)