Читать книгу Phemie Frost's Experiences - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 26

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ST. ALBANS may be a High Church, though I couldn't see it; but it certainly isn't very sizeable; and as for coldness, the very curls on my head shivered as if they grew there.

Cold, yes; I should think that church was cold; but you never saw anything more beautiful than the picture it made when we went in. Right before us was a white altar—not a communion table like ours at home, but a little platform with steps to it, set thick with candles, and loaded down with wreaths of white flowers. I tell you, sisters, it seemed to me as if the angels must have been down overnight, and moulded those flowers out of the drifted snow, and breathed life into them, they looked so pure.

On each side of this altar was a great, large candle, five feet high, and thick as a young tree, burning with a slow, steady fire, and some of the smaller candles twinkled like stars among the flowers.

All overhead and down the walls of this little meeting-house were great wreaths of ground pine, ivy and hemlock, crowded with lights and sprinkled with flowers, and these flung shadows on the walls more lovely than the wreaths themselves.

I was chilled through and through, but I don't think it was that which brought all these solemn feelings into my mind, for the tears that had frozen on my cheeks ran freely now, and my eyes kept filling again. I'm sure I can't tell the reason, only that everything was so still and beautiful.

The pews in St. Albans have no cushions, and everybody can sit in them, only there is a placard on each, inviting the poor to sit down for nothing, but telling those that have money to give it, to support the church; which is just what our meeting-houses do, though they only chuck the plate at you, without a written warning.

Cousin E. E. and I sat down in one of the pews, and slid our knees to a board running along in front, to kneel on, and covered up our faces a minute or two; then we looked up, and there, close by the altar, stood the minister; but, oh, goodness! how he was dressed out. He had on, first, a black silk gown, with great bishop-sleeves, then a white linen dress, that I should think was a night-gown, only it was on a man, and it isn't many women who would like to lend such things to be used in meeting-time. Over that he wore a white satin cape.

Cousin E. E. pronounces it cope, but she does finefy her words so since she came to York.

On that was worked a cross, in gold and silk, like a Free Mason's apron in some respects. He held a book open in his hand. I could see that he was shaking with chilliness, and the words rattled like icicles from his lips. Close by him stood a boy, dressed in a red frock, with a white one over it.

I whispered and asked Cousin E. E. what his name was; she answered back—"Acolyte," which was a name I never heard before.

After a while the congregation began to move out of the pews, a few at a time, and crowd up to the minister. Then they knelt down before him, and he gave them bread and wine close to the altar, instead of having it handed about as they do in our Presbyterian meeting-houses. Cousin E. E. went up with the rest, and wanted me to go with her, but I could not bring myself to partake of the Lord's Supper from a man in his shirt-sleeves, and with a silk cape on; so I shook my head and sat still, watching the altar.

After they had done coming up to him, the minister knelt down and prayed awhile; then he got up, and the boy in red shirt and white frock handed him a black hat, with four corners, which he put on his head; then he took something from the altar and walked through a side door, still wearing his double-cocked hat. The boy followed him out, and then a man came round among the pews with a plate, in which Cousin E. E. dropped a gold piece with a ringing noise that made people look round. I followed up with five cents, and was astonished to see how little ring it had after the gold; nobody looked round at me.

It was broad daylight when we came out of that little meeting-house, and not quite so cold as it had been; but still I was glad to keep my muff up to my face, and we walked toward home like a house afire.

"Well, how did you like the service?" says Cousin E. E., as we shivered along—"impressive, isn't it?"

"Very," says I; "only do tell me what it was all about. This getting up and sitting down and bowing at nothing is more than I can understand."

"Oh," says she, "I ought to remember you came from a Congregational part of the country."

"And Methodist—to say nothing of Baptists and Quakers," says I.

"Yes, I mean all that," says she; "but the church, as a church, is but little understood among you."

"Well, as you came from the same place, you ought to know," says I, rebuking her city airs in my most austere manner.

"Well, yes," says she; "but one doesn't hear much of the true church so far in the mountains. Even you seemed puzzled by a good many things this morning."

"Well, yes," says I—"the four-cornered cocked hat, for instance."

"The four-cornered cocked hat!" says she, stopping short on the sidewalk. "What do you mean? That was the barette."

"Oh," says I, "that is what they call it! Well, then, the four-cornered cocked barette—what does the minister wear that for? It isn't generally considered good manners for men to wear hats in meeting."

"Oh, there is a clerical reason I can't quite explain, but it is a part of the ceremony."

"Just so," says I—"and the night-gown."

"Surplice, you mean," says E. E.; "oh, that is worn everywhere, in High and Low Church alike."

"Well," says I, "there may be a reason for such things, but a respectable black coat is what I've been used to."

"Yes, I know," says she; "but some people prefer the surplice and cope."

"Now tell me," says I, "what on earth has a minister to do with a woman's satin cape, all crimlicued off with gold and silk work?" I put an emphasis on the word cape, to rebuke her finefied way of pronouncing it.

"It is a part of the clerical paraphernalia, and gives richness to the vestments," says she. "But the altar—I felt sure that you would be pleased with that."

"Yes," says I; "the white flowers, the candles, and the evergreens were beautiful. But the red and white boy was too much for me; then his name—Acolyte—I never heard anything like it."

Just then we reached home, and shivered into the house to warm ourselves. Cousin Dempster was not up yet, and that child was sound asleep. It seemed to me as if we had been downstairs a week; but there was the Christmas tree, just loaded with presents; and there was the marble man and woman, looking cold as we were. And there we stood, hungry and shivering, for the help had all gone out to "early service," and forgot to heap coal on the furnace; and the end was, we just got into our cold beds again, and shivered ourselves to sleep. I dreamed that a man, all in black and white, with a four-cornered hat on—one tassel hanging over his eyes, and another down his back—with something like a flash of fire about his neck, was burying me ten thousand feet deep in a snow-drift, and pounding me down with a candle as big round as my waist. Then it seemed to me that I got out, somehow, and was trying to warm my hands by the red frock of that boy, Acolyte, who faded into nothing before my eyes, and left me sound asleep as if I had never been to early service in my life.