FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116  
117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   >>   >|  
ic towers, massive and rich, or taper spires rising majestically above the cloistered arches, buttresses, and pinnacles, of these monuments of the piety, consummate skill, and humility of our ancestors; for no modern black board, with gilt letters, proclaims the name of their founders, who have sought a simple, perchance a nameless, tomb within the sacred walls they have reared. Pass within that lofty doorway; and the silence, the stillness, the vastness within, awe the heart! From the care and turmoil without, one step has placed us lonely as in a desert;--from the surges of life to the presence of the dead, who sleep around as if under the more immediate keeping of the Mighty One in His holy temple! And if, entering, a solitary memorial of the more clouded faith which they inherited from their fathers--the jewel, dimmed by its frail setting--should meet the eye, start not, with the pride of knowledge, from the meek petition, "Ora pro me," enscrolled beneath that mitred effigy, worn by the thoughtless feet of the generations passed away; but believe, and fear not to do so, that "it is accepted according to that a man hath," and that the sincere devotion of the heart, even when erroneously expressed, through _involuntary_ ignorance, shall not be rejected by that just Being who seeks not to reap where He hath not sowed; but that it may come up as holy incense before Him, when our cold, unloving, orthodox prayers, backed by our heathenish lives, and meaner offerings on the altar of our God, shall return, blighted and blighting, into our own bosoms. Or should you be too petrified with pious horror at this--Popery, as with your longest, dismalest face, you will style it--to think with any charity of those who dwelt but in the twilight of your open day--the very verger, sleek, round, and smiling, as he stands by you in his sake-robes, shall, in his honest zeal, supply an antidote for the evil, moralizing on the vanity of such supplications, and winding up his simple homily with the significant--"Where the tree falleth, there it shall lie!" Think on that, rigid critic, and take heed how _you_ fall!--nor, if you have the capacity for finding "good in every thing," will you disdain to learn the lesson of instruction, which your own heart had failed to supply, from so lowly a source. But you still curl your sanctimonious lip, and shrug your pious shoulders, in intimation of your knowing vastly better than your poor, ignorant fo
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116  
117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

supply

 

simple

 

longest

 
horror
 
towers
 

petrified

 
Popery
 

twilight

 

charity

 

dismalest


return
 

incense

 

orthodox

 

unloving

 

prayers

 
backed
 

blighted

 

blighting

 

ignorant

 
heathenish

meaner

 
offerings
 

bosoms

 

disdain

 

finding

 

capacity

 

lesson

 
instruction
 

sanctimonious

 

intimation


shoulders

 

vastly

 

failed

 

source

 

critic

 

honest

 

antidote

 

knowing

 

smiling

 

stands


moralizing

 

falleth

 

significant

 

vanity

 

supplications

 

winding

 
homily
 

verger

 

erroneously

 

turmoil