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- 8020
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7961
- text
- thought I was walking down a block in Broadway. I began to think that
all this talk about travel was a humbug; and that he who lives in a
nut-shell, lives in an epitome of the universe, and has but little to
see beyond him.
It is true, that I often thought of London’s being only seven or eight
hours’ travel by railroad from where I was; and that _there,_ surely,
must be a world of wonders waiting my eyes: but more of London anon.
Sundays were the days upon which I made my longest explorations. I rose
bright and early, with my whole plan of operations in my head. First
walking into some dock hitherto unexamined, and then to breakfast. Then
a walk through the more fashionable streets, to see the people going to
church; and then I myself went to church, selecting the goodliest
edifice, and the tallest Kentuckian of a spire I could find.
For I am an admirer of church architecture; and though, perhaps, the
sums spent in erecting magnificent cathedrals might better go to the
founding of charities, yet since these structures are built, those who
disapprove of them in one sense, may as well have the benefit of them
in another.
It is a most Christian thing, and a matter most sweet to dwell upon and
simmer over in solitude, that any poor sinner may go to church wherever
he pleases; and that even St. Peter’s in Rome is open to him, as to a
cardinal; that St. Paul’s in London is not shut against him; and that
the Broadway Tabernacle, in New York, opens all her broad aisles to
him, and will not even have doors and thresholds to her pews, the
better to allure him by an unbounded invitation. I say, this
consideration of the hospitality and democracy in churches, is a most
Christian and charming thought. It speaks whole volumes of folios, and
Vatican libraries, for Christianity; it is more eloquent, and goes
farther home than all the sermons of Massillon, Jeremy Taylor, Wesley,
and Archbishop Tillotson.
Nothing daunted, therefore, by thinking of my being a stranger in the
land; nothing daunted by the architectural superiority and costliness
of any Liverpool church; or by the streams of silk dresses and fine
broadcloth coats flowing into the aisles, I used humbly to present
myself before the sexton, as a candidate for admission. He would stare
a little, perhaps (one of them once hesitated), but in the end, what
could he do but show me into a pew; not the most commodious of pews, to
be sure; nor commandingly located; nor within very plain sight or
hearing of the pulpit. No; it was remarkable, that there was always
some confounded pillar or obstinate angle of the wall in the way; and I
used to think, that the sextons of Liverpool must have held a secret
meeting on my account, and resolved to apportion me the most
inconvenient pew in the churches under their charge. However, they
always gave me a seat of some sort or other; sometimes even on an oaken
bench in the open air of the aisle, where I would sit, dividing the
attention of the congregation between myself and the clergyman. The
whole congregation seemed to know that I was a foreigner of
distinction.
It was sweet to hear the service read, the organ roll, the sermon
preached—just as the same things were going on three thousand five
hundred miles off, at home! But then, the prayer in behalf of her
majesty the Queen, somewhat threw me back. Nevertheless, I joined in
that prayer, and invoked for the lady the best wishes of a poor Yankee.
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