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A few old china cups; some modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers playing three Spanish guitars; or a party of boors carousing: each boor with one leg painfully elevated in the air, by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety; several sets of chessmen, two or three flutes, a few fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very dark ground; some gaudily-bound prayer-books and testaments, two rows of silver watches quite as clumsy and almost as large as Ferguson’s first; numerous old-fashioned table and tea spoons, displayed, fan-like, in half-dozens; strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps; cards of rings and brooches, fastened and labelled separately, like the insects in the British Museum; cheap silver penholders and snuff-boxes, with a masonic star, complete the jewellery department; while five or six beds in smeary clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description, form the more useful, though even less ornamental, part, of the articles exposed for sale.
Though rebuilt a hundred years ago, on the site of an earlier church, it has remained loyal to its history, and is the true child of the eighteenth century. Is it not fitting that the communion-plate presented by Queen Caroline should be treasured here? That the sexton should still show you, even with a cold indifference, the stately prayer-books which once contained prayers for the king?
Nothing came of our hopes for a rest-day. Shortly after 5 a.m. we were ready for the march. A fine rain was falling as we passed through village after village. We saw the villagers with frightened faces hurrying to church, carrying prayer-books. Notices from the Belgian Government were placarded on the houses, warning the people to avoid every kind of hostility towards the Germans."
He instantly responded to the smile; and then they both got very red; and, in their delicious shyness, they turned their heads on their prayer-books, and looked in opposite directions. This did not last long, however. The desire for another look seized them simultaneously, and they turned their faces to each other, and smiled again the moment their eyes met.
Bad and sad and mad as idolatry is, it reads a rebuke to many of us, who keep life and religion quite apart, and lock up our Christianity in our pews with our prayer-books and hymnaries. Think of the material sacrifices made by idolaters, in costly offerings, in painful self-tortures, and in many other ways, and the niggardliness and self-indulgence of so many so-called Christians.
You would not think it when you saw her big carriage rattling up to the drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of her plumes, lappets, and diamonds, waving over her ladyship's sandy hair and majestical hooked nose; you would not think it when you hear 'Lady Susan Scraper's carriage' bawled out at midnight so as to disturb all Belgravia: you would not think it when she comes rustling into church, the obsequious John behind with the bag of Prayer-books.
I ask his forgiveness. What glass there is here! what mirrors! Why am I not a millionaire! ... Next year let us all take a summer cottage in Venice. The air is full of the vibration of church bells: my dear Tunguses, let us all embrace Catholicism. If only you knew how lovely the organs are in the churches, what sculptures there are here, what Italian women on their knees with prayer-books!
Clover's eyes wandered to a corner where stood a small parlor organ, and over it a shelf of books. She rose to examine them. To her surprise they were all hymnals and Church of England prayer-books. There were no others. She wondered what it meant. Clarence had given up his own bedroom to Phil, and was to chum with his friend.
It contained Anglican books, stationery, texts, and fancy goods: little plaster angels on brackets, Gothic-framed pictures of saints, ebony crosses that were almost crucifixes, prayer-books that were almost missals. He felt very shy of looking at the girl in the desk; she was so pretty that he could not believe it possible that she should belong to him.
And he touched the walls, and they widened out, and she saw the organ which was playing; she saw the old pictures of the preachers and the preachers' wives. The congregation sat in cushioned seats, and sang out of their prayer-books. For the church itself had come to the poor girl in her narrow chamber, or else she had come into the church.
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