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So rang forth the supplication, echoing from rock and fell, as the people of Claudiodunumstreamed forth in the May sunshine to invoke a blessing on the cornlands, olives, andvineyards that won vantage-ground on the terraces carefully kept up on the slopes of thewonderful needle-shaped hills of Auvergne.Very recently had the Church of Gaul commenced the custom of going forth, on the dayspreceding the Ascension feast, to chant Litanies, calling down the Divine protection on fieldand fold, corn and wine, basket and store. It had been begun in a time of deadly peril fromfamine and earthquake, wild beast and wilder foes, and it had been adopted in theneighbouring dioceses as a regular habit, as indeed it continued throughout the WesternChurch during the fourteen subsequent centuries.