n the
branches;" where the golden sun goes down, not on the bloated drunkard
and noisy Sabbath breaker, but on the hale old man "of silver hairs,"
teaching the cherub on his knee to lisp the evening hymn--upon kneeling
groups under cottage roofs, where envy and hatred and ill-will find no
resting place for their swift and evil feet. That is what Aunt Fanny
calls _Sunday_.

Children, there is one thing I like in New-York: almost all the
churches have "the ivy green" clambering over the windows and turrets,
and pretty willow trees drooping their graceful branches about the
doorways. I love to see it, because I love the beautiful, and because
it is pleasant to get even a glimpse of nature in the artificial city.
But I _don't_ like the stained glass windows. I don't like to see the
congregation with green eyes and pink noses and blue cheeks and yellow
lips. It excites my troublesome bump of mirthfulness, (and that's
wrong, you know, in church;) beside, I catch myself examining the
windows, to see if there are any two of them alike, and counting the
red and pink and blue diamonds, and squares, and wondering whether,
were they transposed this way and that way, the effect would not be
better. And then I know that most of those windows are so arranged that
they can't be opened, to let in the fresh air, and that gives me a
stifled feeling, and I involuntarily untie my bonnet strings, and draw
a long breath, to see if my breathing apparatus is all right!

No, I don't like these modern _improvements_ (?) in churches: in fact,
to tell you the truth, I had rather worship, like the old Covenanters,
among the green hills--the blue sky for a roof, the gnarled old tree
trunks for pillars, the branches for galleries, and the birds for an
orchestra; and unless the minister preached because his heart was _so
full of love to God that he couldn't help_ preaching, I should rather
hear my _Maker_ preach to me, in the soft whisper of the leaves, the
happy hum of the tiny insect, and the low, soft murmur of the stream.

Now, my dear children, don't mistake me. It is our duty to go to
church; and it is wrong to think of anything else in church but
worshipping God; but there's so much display, and show, and fashion
now-a-days, in the churches--so much to distract the thoughts--so much
hollow pretension to piety, that I sometimes feel, as I told you, that
I would rather worship amid the green hills, like the old persecuted
Covenanters. Oh! there