ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE PROCESSION. 49 



the time when the leaders of the procession emerged 

 from the cloisters into the north aisle to that in which the 

 last of the long stream ascended the steps of the choir, 

 nearly half-an-hour elapsed. And throughout the whole 

 of this time the glorious strains of Dean Alford's hymn 

 were taken up again and again by fresh bodies of voices, 

 each pair of choristers joining in the chorus as they 

 reached a specified spot, and ceasing as they set foot on 

 the last step of the ascent to the choir, and passed under 

 the screen to their seats within. The effect of such a 

 hymn, sung by such a body of voices in such a building 

 as the grand old Cathedral of Canterbury, was utterly 

 beyond the power of words to describe. Scarcely a 

 member of the congregation but was visibly moved, and 

 long before the last of the five " brigades," into which 

 the choristers were divided, had entered the choir, it was 

 felt that no such festival had ever before been held 

 within the walls of the stately Norman building. 



Of course this magnificent result was not obtained 

 without an infinity of preliminary labour. And even 

 the arrangements for the procession itself were exceed- 

 ingly complicated. The original four hundred voices 

 had now risen to more than a thousand, a very large 

 proportion of which belonged to surpliced choristers. 

 All these had to be so arranged that throughout the 

 procession the due balance of the parts might be pre- 

 served; and at the same time some plan had to be 

 devised, by means of which no member of the procession 

 might at any moment be out of sight of the precentor's 

 baton. 



