"So help me God."
"But the strange thing is," Mark said to one of his fellow candidates,
"nobody asks us to take the oath of allegiance to God."
"We do that when we're baptized," said the other, a serious young man
who feared that Mark was being flippant.
"Personally," Mark concluded, "I think the solemn profession of a monk
speaks more directly to the soul."
And this was the feeling that Mark had throughout the Ordination of the
Deacons notwithstanding that the Bishop of Silchester in cope and mitre
was an awe-inspiring figure in his own Chapel. But when Mark heard him
say:
_Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the
Church of God_,
he was caught up to the Seventh Heaven and prayed that, when a year
hence he should be kneeling thus to hear those words uttered to him and
to feel upon his head those hands imposed, he should receive the Holy
Ghost more worthily than lately he had received authority to execute the
office of a Deacon in the Church of God.
Suddenly at the back of the chapel Mark caught sight of Miriam, who must
have travelled down from Oxfordshire last night to be present at his
Ordination. His mind went back to that Whit-Sunday in Meade Cantorum
nearly ten years ago.
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