- end_line
- 5587
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.879Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5523
- text
- approach to my strange look-out, through perfect solitude, and along
rude and dusty ways, enhanced the theatric wonder of the populous
spectacle of this sumptuous sanctuary. Book in hand, responses on my
tongue, standing in the very posture of devotion, I could not rid my
soul of the intrusive thought, that, through some necromancer’s glass, I
looked down upon some sly enchanter’s show.
At length the lessons being read, the chants chanted, the white-robed
priest, a noble-looking man, with a form like the incomparable Talma’s,
gave out from the reading-desk the hymn before the sermon, and then
through a side-door vanished from the scene. In good time I saw the same
Talma-like and noble-looking man reappear through the same side-door,
his white apparel wholly changed for black.
By the melodious tone and persuasive gesture of the speaker, and the
all-approving attention of the throng, I knew the sermon must be
eloquent and well adapted to an opulent auditory; but owing to the
priest’s changed position from the reading-desk to the pulpit, I could
not so distinctly hear him now as in the previous rites. The text,
however, repeated at the outset, and often after quoted, I could not but
plainly catch: ‘Ye are the salt of the earth.’
At length the benediction was pronounced over the mass of low-inclining
foreheads; hushed silence, intense motionlessness followed for a moment,
as if the congregation were one of buried, not of living men; when,
suddenly, miraculously, like the general rising at the Resurrection, the
whole host came to their feet, amid a simultaneous roll, like a great
drum-beat, from the enrapturing, overpowering organ. Then, in three
freshets--all gay, sprightly nods and becks--the gilded brooks poured
down the gilded aisles.
Time for me, too, to go, thought I, as snatching one last look upon the
imposing scene, I clasped my book and put it in my pocket. The best
thing I can do just now is to slide out unperceived amid the general
crowd. Hurrying down the great length of ladder, I soon found myself at
the base of the last stone step of the final flight; but started
aghast--the door was locked! The bell-ringer, or more probably that for
ever prying, suspicious-looking, beadle-faced man has done this. He
would not let me in at all at first, and now, with the greatest
inconsistency, he will not let me out. But what is to be done? Shall I
knock on the door? That will never do. It will only frighten the crowd
streaming by, and no one can adequately respond to my summons, except
the beadle-faced man; and if he sees me, he will recognise me, and
perhaps roundly rate me--poor, humble worshipper--before the entire
public. No, I won’t knock. But what then?
For a long time I thought and thought, till at last all was hushed
again. Presently a clicking sound admonished me that the church was
being closed. In sudden desperation, I gave a rap on the door. But too
late. It was not heard. I was left alone and solitary in a temple which
but a moment before was more populous than many villages.
A strange trepidation of gloom and loneliness gradually stole over me.
Hardly conscious of what I did, I reascended the stone steps; higher and
higher still, and only paused when once more I felt the hot-air blast
from the wire-woven screen. Snatching another peep down into the vast
arena, I started at its hushed desertness. The long ranges of grouped
columns down the nave, the clusterings of them into copses about the
corners of the transept; together with the subdued, dim-streaming light
from the autumnal glasses; all assumed a secluded and deep-wooded air. I
seemed gazing from Pisgah into the forests of old Canaan. A Puseyitish
painting of a Madonna and Child, adorning a lower window, seemed showing
to me the sole tenants of this painted wilderness--the true Hagar and
her Ishmael.
- title
- Chunk 4