"You will hear no more crying and sobbing," says she, "everything will be bright and beautiful; no more penitential psalms; no more darkness. Christ has risen!"
My heart rose and swelled, like a frozen apple thrown into hot water, when I got into the meeting. It was raining like fury out of doors, but inside everything blazed with glory. The great white altar flashed and flamed with snow-white candles, bunched like stars in tall candlesticks, branched off with gold. Two great candles, as thick as your waist, burned like pillars of snow afire inside, on each side of the steps. Up amongst the golden candlesticks were two square Maltese crosses—like the cross we are used to, only one end is cut off short to match the others—all of white flowers, with just a little red at the tips, as if a few drops of innocent blood had stained them. Then there were beautiful half-moons made of milk-white flowers lying on beds of purple flowers, but there was no other color on that altar.
On an altar which I had not seen in the darkness, when I was there before, a lamb—as large as life, made out of flowers so white that it seemed as if they must have grown in heaven itself—stood among the lights that shone, like crowded stars, out from behind it. Across its shoulders this lamb carried a cross so blood-red, that it chilled me through and through.
Above this altar hung a great cross six feet high, which seemed to float in the air. It was made of gas-drops that quivered into each other, and struck out colors that the fire seemed to have drank up from the flowers, and turned into light that was glorious.
Over this cross floated a crown of fire, that seemed to tremble and shake with every gust of air, as if it had just floated down from heaven, and, meeting the cross, hovered over it.
I had but just time enough to see all this, when from the other side of the great altar, came a lot of boys, walking two and two, with white shoes on their feet, and white dresses—I should have called them frocks if it had been girls that wore them—all fastened with crimson buttons, and crimson silk scarfs were thrown across their shoulders. Then came a lot more, dressed in scarlet frocks and white shoes; and after them another class in white, with purple scarfs across their shoulders.
These boys—they were real handsome little fellows—stood themselves around the altar. Then came two men, all in black and white, and after them four others, dressed like kings and princes, all in scarlet and gold, and lace and precious stones.
These men knelt down on the steps of the altar. Then everybody in the meeting-house knelt too. After a few minutes they got up, and out from somewhere in the meeting-house, a low roar of music burst over us, and with it came a rush of voices singing out, "Lord, have mercy on us! Lord, have mercy on us."
Then there was a lull, and after that a whole torrent of gushing music, with an undertone of rolling sounds, and out of the noise came these words that seemed to catch up one's heart and fly away with it:
"Glory to God on high, peace and good-will to men!"