"Are you two coming, or are you not?" cried Phil from the hall below. "The procession is ready to start, and woe to stragglers! If service began at twelve instead of eleven o'clock, Jack, you'd still be late. Come on, Betty."
"I declare, if you aren't all the greatest pack of naggers!" exclaimed Jack, impatiently, throwing down the blacking brushes and snatching up his hat; then he raced after us down the stairs and brought up the rear as we filed out of the front door.
There are always so many of us to go to church—all of us children (except Alan, who goes to the children's service in the afternoon), and Miss Marston and papa—that we do make, as Phil says, a regular procession as we walk down the avenue and across the park to the old brown church every Sunday. I don't mind going in the procession, nor does Jack,—unless he's very late; but Nora thinks it's horrid, and Phil and Felix always hang back for the very last, and try to look as if they didn't belong to us at all. Nannie and Mädel go with papa, Kathie and Paul with Miss Marston, and the rest of us straggle along as we like until we get to the church. It's brown and very large, and has a good deal of ivy growing all over it. It's the church where Murray Unsworth and Helen Vassah stood sponsors for their little cousin Paul; they go there and their grandfather and grandmother.
Papa likes to sit away up front; so up the middle aisle we go,—oh, how the boys and Nora hate this part!—and file into the first two pews. We are always early, and sometimes it does seem so long before service begins. Jack and I sit at the upper end of the first pew, and I couldn't tell you how many times we have read the Creed and Commandments that are printed back of the chancel, and the memorials on each side. Then we look out the hymns for the day, and read them all through. Jack likes to do this; he has all sorts of odd ideas about them; for instance, he says that when he sings,
"Christian! dost thou see them
On the holy ground,
How the powers of darkness
Rage thy steps around?
Christian! up and smite them,
Counting gain but loss;
In the strength that cometh
By the holy cross,"
he somehow always thinks of the picture in papa's study of St. Michael and the Angel. He says he can see, right in his mind, the great beautiful angel of light triumphant in the strength of God, and under his feet the stormy evil face of the conquered Lucifer. I've got so now that I too think of the picture when I sing the hymn, and of the hymn when I look at the picture.
Then in the other hymn, where it says,
"Finding, following, keeping, struggling,
Is He sure to bless?
'Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs,
Answer, Yes,'"
Jack says he sees—just like a picture—a steep hill up which a whole lot of people are striving, with all their might, to climb; they're poor and tired and sick and lame, but they struggle bravely on; and by the beautiful gates at the top of the hill stands One grand and white and shining, wearing a golden crown. He bends forward and takes hold of each tired traveller as soon as he is within reach, and helps him safe within the gates; and in the hands that do this are "wound-prints." Jack always shuts his eyes and lowers his voice when he tells us about this thought of his; only Nannie and I know of it, and while I am hearing about it I always feel quiet.