"But how beautiful! oh, how beautiful it would be if we could!" she said. "Oh, it would be lovely if all the good and true could see each other, and stand side by side! I long for visible unity—and do you think, Mr. Henderson, we could unite in more beautiful forms than ours?"
"No; I do not," said I; "for me, for you, for many like us, these are the true forms, and the best; but we must remember that others have just as sacred associations, and are as dearly attached to other modes of worship as we to these."
"Then you really do prefer them yourself?"
"Well, Miss Van Arsdel, I unite with the church of my father and mother, because I was brought up in it; yet if I were to choose another, it would be yours."
She looked pleased, and I added: "It seems to me one of the most beautiful things about it is a daily service."
"Yes," she said, "and it is pleasant to have churches where you feel that worship is daily offered, whether people attend or not. There was something sacred and beautiful about the Church of St. Peter's in Rome—to think that at every hour of day or night worship was going on in it. I used to like to think of it when I awoke nights—that they were praying and adoring there—in this cold, dreary world; it seems as if it was like a Father's house, always light, and warm, and open."
"There is a beauty and use in all these forms and images," I said; "and I think if we are wise, we may take comfort in them all, without being enslaved by any."
Here our interview closed, as with a graceful salutation she left me at the door of her house.
The smile she gave me was so bright and heart-warm, that it lightened all my work through the day; a subtle sense of a new and charming companionship began to shed itself through all my labors, and, unconsciously and unwatched, commenced that process of double thought which made everything I read or wrote suggest something I wanted to say to her. The reader will not, therefore, wonder that I proved my sense of the beauty of a daily morning service by going with great regularity after this, and as regularly walking home with my enchanting companion.