seems to me to be a cold and austere atmosphere, far
different from the atmosphere of the mosques or of any Roman Catholic
church. It sometimes rather repels me, and generally make me feel
either dull or sad. But in this immensely old church of Abu Sargah the
atmosphere of melancholy aids the imagination.

In Coptic churches there is generally a great deal of woodwork made into
lattices, and into the screens which mark the divisions, usually four,
but occasionally five, which each church contains, and, which are set
apart for the altar, for the priests, singers, and ministrants, for
the male portion of the congregation, and for the women, who sit by
themselves. These divisions, so different from the wide spaciousness and
airiness of the mosques, where only pillars and columns partly break
up the perspective, give to Coptic buildings an air of secrecy and of
mystery, which, however, is often rather repellent than alluring. In the
high wooden lattices there are narrow doors, and in the division which
contains the altar the door is concealed by a curtain embroidered with
a large cross. The Mohammedans who created the mosques showed marvellous
taste. Copts are often lacking in taste, as they have proved here and
there in Abu Sargah. Above one curious and unlatticed screen, near to
a matted dais, droops a hideous banner, red, purple, and yellow, with a
white cross. Peeping in, through an oblong aperture, one sees a sort of
minute circus, in the form of a half-moon, containing a table with an
ugly red-and-white striped cloth. There the Eucharist, which must be
preceded by confession, is celebrated. The pulpit is of rosewood, inlaid
with ivory and ebony, and in what is called the "haikal-screen" there
are some fine specimens of carved ebony.

As I wandered about over the tattered carpets and the crumbling matting,
under the peaked roof, as I looked up at the flat-roofed galleries, or
examined the sculpture and ivory mosaics that, bleared by the passing
of centuries, seemed to be fading away under my very eyes, as upon every
side I was confronted by the hoary wooden lattices in which the dust
found a home and rested undisturbed, and as I thought of the narrow
alleys of grey and silent dwellings through which I had come to this
strange and melancholy "Temple of the Father," I seemed to feel upon my
breast the weight of the years that had passed since pious hands erected
this home of prayer in which now no one was praying. But I