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ces she never more might see; listened for tripping little feet she never more might hear; but, dear children, peace came gently down upon her heart, like dew upon the closed flowers, and she said, with bowed head, "'Tis well." NEW-YORK SUNDAY. Dear children: There is the bell for church; but Sunday is not _Sunday_, here in New-York. I wish I were going to church in the country with you, where everything is quiet, and sweet, and holy,--where people go to church to worship God, and not to see and to show the fashions. No, it is not Sunday here, if the bells _do_ say so. Why? Because there's a woman, at the corner of that street, spreading out on her stall, apples and candy, and bananas, and oranges, and cookies, and sugar-toys, and melons, and cocoa-nuts, and ginger beer; because there's a cigar shop--(the shutters, closed to be sure,) but with the door wide open, and the owner already beginning to trade with customers; because, there's a man selling bouquets, and a confectioner's saloon open, and people eating ice-creams in it; and little ragged news boys, who have been screeching ever since day-light, "New York Herald--Times--Sunday Despatch--dreadful collision and _lass o' life_--Times, Despatch, and Herald"--and drunken men whom you meet at every few blocks, and people going everywhere but into the church doors. Well, you go into a city church,--it is not like _yours_ in the country, where the blessed sunlight shines cheerfully in, and the sweet breeze wafts through the open windows the breath of clover blossoms and new mown hay; where the minister preaches to poor people, who are not forced to carry a _dictionary_ to church; where people don't frown and hastily button the pew door when a stranger comes in; where neighbors smile kindly on each other, and never gather up the folds of their dress lest it should sweep against a shilling de-laine; where good "Old Hundred" and "St. Martins" are sung, instead of twistified, finical, modern tunes, that old-fashioned folks can't follow; where the minister is not too stately to pat the little children on the head coming out the porch, or to give them a pleasant smile to make them feel that they are part of his parish; where they all walk home, not over crowded, dusty pavements, but under the leafy trees, with hearts filled with a quiet joy, seeing "the cattle on a thousand hills," the springs which run among the hills, "and the birds which build their houses i
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