AFTER HER VISIT TO A LONDON CHURCH.
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BY MRS. B. C. HALL.
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“My dear Aunt,—I have often longed to turn my pen to the paper, but no one, only the Almighty, knows how hurried, and bustled, and bothered I am, getting myself up to understand every thing, or to make believe to do so, which comes to much the same thing for a while anyhow, which I daresay you don’t understand, and so best for you, Aunt dear!
“I’m with the lady still, and likely to remain, for she’s both kind and helpless, and is well enough to do without a nurse, (she says,) though if I’m not that no one ever was. She’s not fractious, poor dear! only humorsome, and does not care to stay long in one place—restless-like; I have my trials with her too in many little ways—I didn’t want her to know I could read, because she might ask me to read prayers and things contrary to my religion, but unfortunately, I said I could write, and that let her into it—she was ’cute enough to know that I must read first.
“We were a while in a place, they call it by the name of Bath; it’s a mighty unnatural city, where the could water comes up out of the earth in a continued boil, and you wouldn’t see a carriage with a pair of horses in a week’s walk, for it’s the men are horses there and draw the sick creatures, that bathe in, and then drink, the hot water, up and down the hills, and you’d think it a holy place, for every second gentleman you meet is a priest or a minister; yes, indeed, they must be a mighty delicate set of gentlemen in England, for there’s a power of them in Bath. My mistress never meddles with my religion, only folds her spectacles in the Bible and leaves it in my way—but I take no notice. I can hardly expect you to believe me, but the water comes as I tell you hot out of the earth; there must be a fire under it somewhere; but who can tell where that fire is, or who looks after it? The inhabitants, I’m sure, live in greater terror of an explosion than they let on to the poor innocents that do be looking after their health; and maybe that’s the reason they fill up the town with the Clargy to keep all quiet; sure it’s them we send for ourselves when any thing unnatural is going on; if you mind[[10]] when the underground noises were heard in Castle Croft, they sent for his Reverence Father Joyce at once, and kept him ever so long about the place, and no one heard a stir of noise since! so maybe, the holy men are useful that way in Bath, to keep down the spirits of the waters in their right place.
“I told you my lady was fidgetty-like, and she very soon got tired of Bath and would come to London. Now, dear, I’ll leave it to another time to say what I’ve got to say about London—and remember, sure if I wrote for a hundred years, I could not insense you into what it is, or what it is like. Aunt, it’s full up of people! underground, overground, high up, down low—people—people in misery and sin, people in plenty and pleasure; it’s never still by day or night, for at night, the very breathing of such thousands and thousands of people, is like to stifled thunder; it’s full of a pale withered-up sort of life in one place, and it is blooming like a fresh May morning only a stone’s-throw from the same, in another; it’s a city of contradictions—it’s the grandest place upon the face of the earth, if it was only for the multitudes of living immortal creatures it contains, and it’s the meanest place in the universe:—they make money out of the very scrapings of the streets!—and, bless your kind heart! it’s yourself that would be troubled to see the people driving on, and on, and on forever, without rest, and all so solid like. And, aunt, but it’s lonesome to be surrounded by such thousands of people without knowing one of them from Adam, only all black strangers, no one to bid you good morrow morning, or say, God save you; for their manners are not our manners; they’re a fine, kind-hearted people, but they’re mortal fearful you should think so. The first lodging we were in, I thought to be very kind and mannerly to the mistress of the house, and so when I met her the next day I dropped her a curtsey—and says I, ‘The top of the morning to ye, Ma’am;’ well, instead of returning my civility, she told my mistress I’d insulted her; you see they’re an unaccountable people, but it’s not that I wanted to write about. Aunt, dear, I know you’re anxious about how I get on with my ‘duty’ and I took your advice and resolved to walk in my own way, and when I told my mistress I’d like to get leave to go to my duty, she told me she was well satisfied with the way I was going on, I was doing my duty perfectly; so I thanked her for her good opinion, but said I wanted to make a clean breast, if I could find out a proper Clergy to make it to; and then she smiled her faint, quiet smile, just for all the world like a thread of moonlight, and said, she understood now that what I meant by ‘duty,’ was going to the Priest, to confession, and gave me leave to go next Sunday to first Mass. So I got my instructions where to go and set off with a light heart. To be sure it did me good to enter a place of my own worship again, and the music was just wonderful—only they made me pay a shilling for a seat, think of that! but I’d have paid ten, if I had it—to get in, my heart warmed so. And the tears came to my eyes, when I see the fine men serving on the altar and such fine blessed candles—all wax. And the rale bowing and turning; and little boys in their little albs that keeps all the saints’ days, running about the streets, the darlings, in all sorts and kinds of mischief. Oh, I was so delighted, and so thankful, and the music and the velvet, and the painted windys with the sun shining through them, and the beautiful things, put me a-past all judgment—if I could have had you there just to see what a picture it was! But by ’n by, I heard one of their reverences in the pulpit, though I was so bewildered I never saw him go there, and I said to myself, ‘Mass can’t be half over yet,’ think-it was soon for the sarmint[[11]],—and then I thought again may be it was the difference of the country, and looking round I saw all the ladies had crosses on their Prayer-books, and that set me right again, for I was sure none but ourselves would have that. Then the organ and the little boys in their little albs began again; and I was fairly transported, for never had I heard such music—not singing-music, but talking-music it was. Oh my heart beat quick with joy, to think how I had got into the right place, and how in the very thick of a nation of heretics, there was every thing natural-like in my own faith. I cried down tears of joy, and indeed others did the same. Then another priest—a fine man intirely—got up into another pulpit, and gave us I must say a fine sarmint, I never could desire a better—and it’s the truth I’m telling you—he spoke of fasts, and saints, and gave out the services on next saints’ days—and reminded us of confession. Oh, aunt darling, don’t you or Father Joyce think bad of it if I say—and it’s thrue as if they were the last words I should write in this world—that no holy priest of Rome could pay greater honor to the saints than himself; or insist finer on confession and fasts, or bow with more devotion to the altar; I don’t care who gainsays it, but he was a fine man. Oh glory! says I, aint I in luck? aint I blessed? aint I happy? and I thought to myself I’d make bould to ask a fine grand ould waiting gentleman, who carried his head high, and was all over fine: I asked him where I could get spaking with any of their reverences? and he said some of the sisters were in the vestry then, as they were going to change the hour of vespers, and, indeed, he was mighty civil, and said if I wanted to ask a Christian question I might wait there, and he took me near the little room where they keep the vestments, and presently a fine, grand lady came out, and I heard her complain how she caught cold at Matins, and one of their reverences came out and bid her good day by the name of ‘Sister Mary,’ and then the grand ould waiting gentleman bustled on bowing (not to the altar, but to the lady), and called out for Lady Jane Style’s carriage. I had a great mind to call out ‘Whist,’[[12]] for I thought it no way to be shouting for carriages at the open door of a holy place. Well; one young priest passed, and another, backing out and making obadience to their Shooparier: and then came two more ladies—‘sisters,’ no doubt, and then another priest. Oh! how my heart would have warmed to them, only they seemed somehow only half way, and at last the Shooparier himself came, and I thought any one could see he was the rale thing; he was the very stamp and moral of Father Joyce, and no cardinal could be more stately—there was a lady, sweet-faced and gentle-looking with him, but when I fell on my knees and asked to speak with him she smiled and went on!
“He bid me stand up, and asked what I wanted.
“ ‘To make a clean breast, your reverence, whenever it’s convanient to you, night or day. Your time is mine, holy father, and I would not delay you long, for I’ve kep’ watch over my thoughts and actions; though, for all that, I’m a grate sinner.’ I spoke as purty as ever I could to the kind gentleman; well, he asked me if I wanted to be a sister, and I said, No—I’d no inclination for a Nunnery, good or bad; and then, ‘My good girl,’ he says—quite solid-like, ‘what is it you do want?’—and something quare came over me, at the changing of his countenance; and I makes answer, ‘May be your reverence would tell me the time for giving it: and as I like to be prepared and do the thing dacent, would your reverence tell me the charge for absolution in this town?’