At the long church-service for this day, the organ is silent, the voices being supported by hautboys and bassoons. All the altars are covered with purple or grey curtains. The holy vestments, during this week, are of the first-mentioned colour, except on Friday, when it is changed for black. The four accounts of our Saviour’s passion appointed as gospels for this day, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, are dramatized in the following manner. Outside of the gilt-iron railing, which incloses the presbytery, are two large pulpits of the same materials, from one of which, at the daily high-mass, the subdeacon chaunts the epistle, as the deacon does the gospel from the other. A moveable platform with a desk, is placed between the pulpits on the _Passion-days_; and three priests or deacons, in _albes_ (the white vestment, over which the dalmatic is worn by the latter, and the chasuble by the former) appear on these elevated posts, at the time when the gospel should be said. These officiating ministers are chosen among the singers in holy orders; one a bass, another a tenor, and the third a counter-tenor. The tenor chaunts the narrative, without changing from the key note, and makes a pause whenever he comes to the words of the interlocutors mentioned by the Evangelist. In those passages the words of our Saviour are sung by the bass, in a solemn strain. The counter-tenor, in a more florid style, personates the inferior characters, such as Peter, the Maid, and Pontius Pilate. The cries of the priests and the multitude, are imitated by the band of musicians within the choir. PASSION-WEDNESDAY. The mass begins within a white veil, which conceals the officiating priest and ministers, and the service proceeds in this manner till the words “the veil of the temple was rent in twain” are chaunted. At this moment the veil disappears, as if by enchantment, and the ears of the congregation are stunned with the noise of concealed fireworks, which are meant to imitate an earthquake.