"Our Mother the Church hath never a child
To honour before the rest,
But she singeth the same for mighty kings,
And the veriest babe on her breast;
And the bishop goes down to his narrow bed
As the ploughman's child is laid,
And alike she blesseth the dark brow'd serf,
And the chief in his robe array'd.
"And ever the bells in the green churchyard
Are tolling to tell you this:—
Go pray in the church, while pray ye can,
That so ye may sleep in bliss."
Christian Ballads.
"It is an awful thing to stand
With either world on either hand,
Upon the intermediate ground
Which doth the sense and spirit bound.
Woe worth the man who doth not fear
When spirits of the dead are near."
The Baptistery.
GRAVE-STONES
A golden haze in the eastern sky told that the sun which had set in all his glory an hour before was now giving a bright Easter Day to Christians in other lands. The evening service was ended, and a joyful peal had just rung out from the tower of St. Catherine's,—for such was the custom there on all the great festivals of the Church,—the low hum of voices which lately rose from a group of villagers gathered near the churchyard gate was hushed; there was a pause of perfect stillness; and then the old tenor began its deep, solemn tolling for the burial of a little child. The Vicar and his friend Mr. Acres, who had been walking slowly to and fro on the churchyard path, stopped suddenly on hearing the first single beat of the burial knell, and at the same instant they saw, far down the village lane, the flickering light of the two torches borne by those who headed the little procession of Lizzie's funeral. They, too, seemed to have caught the spell, and stood mutely contemplating the scene before them. At length Mr. Acres broke silence by saying, "I know of but few Parishes where, like our own, the funerals of the poor take place by torch-light; it is, to say the least, a very picturesque custom."