lled "everlasting," or perhaps of the same piece as
Christian's garments in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, for he put them
on two summers ago and has not yet worn the gloss off. I have taken a
great liking to those black silk pantaloons. But now, with nods and
greetings among friends, each matron takes her husband's arm and paces
gravely homeward, while the girls also flutter away after arranging
sunset walks with their favored bachelors. The Sabbath eve is the eve
of love. At length the whole congregation is dispersed. No; here, with
faces as glossy as black satin, come two sable ladies and a sable
gentleman, and close in their rear the minister, who softens his
severe visage and bestows a kind word on each. Poor souls! To them the
most captivating picture of bliss in heaven is "There we shall be
white!"

All is solitude again. But hark! A broken warbling of voices, and now,
attuning its grandeur to their sweetness, a stately peal of the organ.
Who are the choristers? Let me dream that the angels who came down
from heaven this blessed morn to blend themselves with the worship of
the truly good are playing and singing their farewell to the earth. On
the wings of that rich melody they were borne upward.

This, gentle reader, is merely a flight of poetry. A few of the
singing-men and singing-women had lingered behind their fellows and
raised their voices fitfully and blew a careless note upon the organ.
Yet it lifted my soul higher than all their former strains. They are
gone--the sons and daughters of Music--and the gray sexton is just
closing the portal. For six days more there will be no face of man in
the pews and aisles and galleries, nor a voice in the pulpit, nor
music in the choir. Was it worth while to rear this massive edifice to
be a desert in the heart of the town and populous only for a few hours
of each seventh day? Oh, but the church is a symbol of religion. May
its site, which was consecrated on the day when the first tree was
felled, be kept holy for ever, a spot of solitude and peace amid the
trouble and vanity of our week-day world! There is a moral, and a
religion too, even in the silent walls. And may the steeple still
point heavenward and be decked with the hallowed sunshine of the
Sabbath morn!

THE WEDDING-KNELL.

There is a certain church, in the city of New York which I have always
regarded with peculiar interest on account of a marriage there
solemnized under very singular circumstances