324 THE CHURCH
central service of the Church—the Mass—was one great mimetic
rite, and
in the ceremonial of the Mass there was set forth every detail and
every aspect of the atonement of mankind. Not a dogma was omitted,
not the minutest event in Christ's passion but was commemorated
there. From an art symbolism had been transformed into a science.
Every faculty of man, every property of nature had been captured
and subdued for that supreme drama of worship. Music and silence,
colour and distance, light and darkness, imagery and gesture, all
contributed to the final result. The church itself, even the humblest,
was the poor man's service book----All helped to make real the un-
seen things that are eternal. Earth was " crammed with heaven and
every common bush afire with God".1
We must not stress unduly the statement that the church was
"the poor man's service book", for the church could only show
a limited number of Biblical episodes, and many important
aspects of the teaching,of Christ were not easily conveyed in
paint. Nevertheless, the wavering and credulous mind was much
impressed by the wall paintings which showed in crude colours
some of the major events of Biblical history, often depicted with
such a realism that our softer age rapidly covers them up when
they are now disclosed at a cleaning or restoration of a church.
The horrors of hell, or the anguish of the Crucifixion, came
home to the peasant, either soon or late, as week by week his
wandering gaze fell upon them, and half-remembered snatches
of sermons reminded him of that "fearful place and a dyrke
wher-in appered a fornace all brennyng within; and that fyr had
not elles to brenne bot fendes and quyke sowlys ".2 Such scenes
as these, or that of the Last Judgment, could not but have their
effect, and men felt about them the presence of an unseen yet
all-pervading deity, attended by his cohorts of angels, and ever
at war with the powers of darkness.
Further help was less general and less certain in its effect.
Symbolism was much used in medieval ceremonial, but most of
it had no very clear interpretation, especially for the peasant, so
that its force was dissipated and it became the occasion for the
most absurd deductions. In any case very little of it appeared in
the humble village churches—certainly not sufficient to be as
1 Manning, op. cit. 12.
1 Revelations of S. Birgitta (E.E.T.S.), 44.