By 1565, the end of the period I am considering, sung vespers on Sundays and feast days had become the norm rather than the exception in the Jesuit churches to which a sufficiently large community was attached.

He recalled that on Oct. 15, 1764, as he "sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefoot friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter," he first formed an idea"of writing the decline and fall of the city."

But she couldn't die, she had to sing vespers with Sister Anne.

Everyone was invited to attend Mass and sung vespers in the community's church; the nuns' silver voices were soothing, and the dorm seemed quieter than most.

The robins were singing vespers in the high treetops, filling the golden air with their jubilant voices.

Gibbon conceived the idea of his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," he tells us, "as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter."

The perfume of lilacs had not changed and the robins still sang vespers in some lost sweet language of elder days.

They have sung vespers at 6pm and mass at 6:30pm every day.