Twice Told Tales | Page 5

I thrust back the curtain to
watch the sunrise stealing down a steeple which stands opposite my
chamber window. First the weathercock begins to flash; then a fainter
lustre gives the spire an airy aspect; next it encroaches on the tower and
causes the index of the dial to glisten like gold as it points to the gilded
figure of the hour. Now the loftiest window gleams, and now the lower.
The carved framework of the portal is marked strongly out. At length
the morning glory in its descent from heaven comes down the stone
steps one by one, and there stands the steeple glowing with fresh
radiance, while the shades of twilight still hide themselves among the
nooks of the adjacent buildings. Methinks though the same sun
brightens it every fair morning, yet the steeple has a peculiar robe of
brightness for the Sabbath.
By dwelling near a church a person soon contracts an attachment for
the edifice. We naturally personify it, and conceive its massy walls and
its dim emptiness to be instinct with a calm and meditative and
somewhat melancholy spirit. But the steeple stands foremost in our
thoughts, as well as locally. It impresses us as a giant with a mind
comprehensive and discriminating enough to care for the great and
small concerns of all the town. Hourly, while it speaks a moral to the
few that think, it reminds thousands of busy individuals of their
separate and most secret affairs. It is the steeple, too, that flings abroad
the hurried and irregular accents of general alarm; neither have
gladness and festivity found a better utterance than by its tongue; and
when the dead are slowly passing to their home, the steeple has a
melancholy voice to bid them welcome. Yet, in spite of this connection
with human interests, what a moral loneliness on week-days broods
round about its stately height! It has no kindred with the houses above

which it towers; it looks down into the narrow thoroughfare--the
lonelier because the crowd are elbowing their passage at its base. A
glance at the body of the church deepens this impression. Within, by
the light of distant windows, amid refracted shadows we discern the
vacant pews and empty galleries, the silent organ, the voiceless pulpit
and the clock which tells to solitude how time is passing. Time--where
man lives not--what is it but eternity? And in the church, we might
suppose, are garnered up throughout the week all thoughts and feelings
that have reference to eternity, until the holy day comes round again to
let them forth. Might not, then, its more appropriate site be in the
outskirts of the town, with space for old trees to wave around it and
throw their solemn shadows over a quiet green? We will say more of
this hereafter.
But on the Sabbath I watch the earliest sunshine and fancy that a holier
brightness marks the day when there shall be no buzz of voices on the
Exchange nor traffic in the shops, nor crowd nor business anywhere but
at church. Many have fancied so. For my own part, whether I see it
scattered down among tangled woods, or beaming broad across the
fields, or hemmed in between brick buildings, or tracing out the figure
of the casement on my chamber floor, still I recognize the Sabbath
sunshine. And ever let me recognize it! Some illusions--and this among
them--are the shadows of great truths. Doubts may flit around me or
seem to close their evil wings and settle down, but so long as I imagine
that the earth is hallowed and the light of heaven retains its sanctity on
the Sabbath--while that blessed sunshine lives within me--never can my
soul have lost the instinct of its faith. If it have gone astray, it will
return again.
I love to spend such pleasant Sabbaths from morning till night behind
the curtain of my open window. Are they spent amiss? Every spot so
near the church as to be visited by the circling shadow of the steeple
should be deemed consecrated ground to-day. With stronger truth be it
said that a devout heart may consecrate a den of thieves, as an evil one
may convert a temple to the same. My heart, perhaps, has no such holy,
nor, I would fain trust, such impious, potency. It must suffice that,
though my form be absent, my inner man goes constantly to church,
while many whose bodily presence fills the accustomed seats have left
their souls at home. But I am there even before my friend the sexton. At

length he comes--a man of kindly but sombre aspect, in dark gray
clothes, and hair of the same mixture. He comes and applies his key to
the wide portal. Now my thoughts may go in among