eld, in their season, and the
fairest flowers of the year, in due succession, were clustered every
Sunday morning over the preacher's desk. Slight, thin-tissued blossoms
of pink and blue and virgin white in early spring, then the
full-breasted and deep-hearted roses of summer, then the velvet-robed
crimson and yellow flowers of autumn, and in the winter delicate exotics
that grew under skies of glass in the false summers of our crystal
palaces without knowing that it was the dreadful winter of New England
which was rattling the doors and frosting the panes,--the whole year
told its history of life and growth and beauty from that simple desk.
There was always at least one good sermon,--this floral homily. There
was at least one good prayer,--that brief space when all were silent,
after the manner of the Friends at their devotions.

Here, too, Iris found an atmosphere of peace and love. The same gentle,
thoughtful faces, the same cheerful but reverential spirit, the same
quiet, the same life of active benevolence. But in all else how
different from the Church of Saint Polycarp! No clerical costume, no
ceremonial forms, no carefully trained choirs. A liturgy they have, to
be sure, which does not scruple to borrow from the time-honored manuals
of devotion, but also does not hesitate to change its expressions to its
own liking.

Perhaps the good people seem a little easy with each other;--they are
apt to nod cheerfully, and have even been known to whisper before the
minister came in. But it is a relief to get rid of that old
Sunday--no,--_Sabbath_ face, which suggests the idea that the first day
of the week is commemorative of some most mournful event. The truth is,
these people meet very much as a family does for its devotions, not
putting off their humanity in the least, considering it on the whole
quite a cheerful matter to come together for prayer and song and good
counsel from kind and wise lips. And if they are freer in their demeanor
than some very precise congregations, they have not the air of a worldly
set of people. Clearly they have _not_ come to advertise their tailors
and milliners, nor for the sake of exchanging criticisms on the literary
character of the sermon they may hear. There is no restlessness and no
restraint among this quiet, cheerful people. One thing that keeps them
calm and happy during the season so evidently trying to many
congregations is, that they join very generally in the singing. In this