For my
part, there are feelings that visit me, in a country church, amid
the beautiful serenity of nature, which I experience nowhere else; and
if not a more religious, I think I am a better man on Sunday than on
any other day of the seven.
During my recent residence in the country, I used frequently to
attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles; its mouldering
monuments; its dark oaken panelling, all reverend with the gloom of
departed years, seemed to fit it for the haunt of solemn meditation;
but being in a wealthy aristocratic neighborhood, the glitter of
fashion penetrated even into the sanctuary; and I felt myself
continually thrown back upon the world by the frigidity and pomp of
the poor worms around me. The only being in the whole congregation who
appeared thoroughly to feel the humble and prostrate piety of a true
Christian was a poor decrepit old woman, bending under the weight of
years and infirmities. She bore the traces of something better than
abject poverty. The lingerings of decent pride were visible in her
appearance. Her dress, though humble in the extreme, was
scrupulously clean. Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded her,
for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but sat alone on
the steps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all love, all
friendship, all society; and to have nothing left her but the hopes of
heaven.
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