And from his ashes may be made
The violets of his native land.”
The American nation, being young and foolish—a fighter, a doer, a seeker of dollars in the strenuous race called living—does not, in this century cherish as it will centuries hence, such a historical pile as the beautiful old chapel. For a sum, right now there are those who pass it dally who would tear it down to build a stolid stable for their asses. There are others who pass it without a thought, save, perhaps, that ’twere a pity so much good brick should go to waste. There are others who would like to remodel it, turn it into a dwelling, with Queen Anne shingles and a portico in front. In England, such piles as these are their inspiration and their pride—sermons in stones, history in walls, battles in bricks and mortar. It is these that cement the Englishman’s love for his country, its institutions, its laws. It is these which make him love to call it home. We are in the reckless, wild oat stage of money daring, of wealth producing, of gaudiness and strutting display. There is no place among us now for the poet and the scholar, the musician, the dreamer, the preacher. But the time is fast coming when all this will be changed—when to be unread is to be unbred—to be rich is to be rotten. In that day this quaint, epoch-making, history-shingled chapel, this pile of soul-nobleness, this monument to right on the battlefield of might, will outshine all the gilded domes which vulgar wealth has erected as a monument to vanity in the plains of plenty.
Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
And back of the flour, the mill,
And back of the mill is the wheat and the shower,
And the sun—and the Father’s will.
M. D. Babcock.
