ee, and much more experienced than my Lord Bacon and
most of the world's teachers.--Old books are books of the world's youth,
and new books are fruits of its age. How many of all these old folios
round me are like so many old cupels! The gold has passed out of them
long ago, but their pores are full of the dross with which it was
mingled.

And so Iris--having thrown off that first lasso, which not only fetters,
but _chokes_ those whom it can hold, so that they give themselves up
trembling and breathless to the great soul-subduer, who has them by the
windpipe--had settled a brief creed for herself, in which love of the
neighbor, whom we have seen, was the first article, and love of the
Creator, whom we have not seen, grew out of this as its natural
development, being necessarily second in order of time to the first
unselfish emotions which we feel for the fellow-creatures who surround
us in our early years.

The child must have some place to worship. What would a young girl be
who never mingled her voice with the songs and prayers that rose all
around her with every returning day of rest? And Iris was free to
choose. Sometimes one and sometimes another would offer to carry her to
this or that place of worship; and when the doors were hospitably
opened, she would often go meekly in by herself. It was a curious fact,
that two churches as remote from each other in doctrine as could well be
divided her affections.

The Church of Saint Polycarp had very much the look of a Roman Catholic
chapel. I do not wish to run the risk of giving names to the
ecclesiastical furniture which gave it such a Romish aspect; but there
were pictures, and inscriptions in antiquated characters, and there were
reading-stands, and flowers on the altar, and other elegant
arrangements. Then there were boys to sing alternately in choirs
responsive to each other, and there was much bowing, with very loud
responding, and a long service and a short sermon, and a bag, such as
Judas used to hold in the old pictures, was carried round to receive
contributions. Everything was done not only "decently and in order,"
but, perhaps one might say, with a certain air of magnifying their
office on the part of the dignified clergymen, often two or three in
number. The music and the free welcome were grateful to Iris, and she
forgot her prejudices at the door of the chapel. For this was a church
with open doors, with seats for all classes and all colors alike,--a
c