rch-yard, after the silence of Death,--the long waiting, listening
for the slowly gathering voice of praise, that, one fair day in time,
time, shall transfuse the reverent souls, until the voice of the dew God
sends down shall be heard dropping on the grassy sod, and welcomed as
the prelude to the archangel's grand semibreve that will usher in the
sublime Psalm of Everlasting Life?

Wait on, souls! it is good to wait the voice of the Lord God Almighty,
who holdeth the earth in the hollow of His hand,--His hand, that we may
feel for, when the way is dark, whose living fibres thrill both heart
and soul. Yes, God's hand is never away from earth. I reached out anew
for it in that dismal pathway through which I had come, and it guided me
into this quiet, peaceful place, full of morning rays.

I did not stop to think all this; I felt it; for feeling is swifter than
thought. Thought is the tree; feeling, the blossom thereof. I closed the
panelling behind me, leaving the church as it had been on the day when,
I saw the little hungry mouse treading sacred places. I went down the
aisle; and as I passed by the hempen rope in the vestibule that so often
had set the bell a-ringing, a longing came to do it now, to tell the
village-people, by voice of sacred bell, that there was a new-born
worship come down from Heaven. But I did not. I hurried on, and went
out, locking the door after me. The March morning was cold. I missed the
shawl I had left. My hair was as much astir as Aaron's had been one
morning, not long before, and I truly believe there was as much of
theology in it. No one was abroad. People sleep late on Sunday mornings.
The east was blossoming into a magnificent sunflower.

Looking at myself, as I began my walk, I laughed aloud. I was still
carrying a lighted lamp,--for the wind, like the village-people, slept
at sunrise. I comforted myself by thinking of a predecessor somewhat
famous for a like deed, and bent upon a like errand. The man that I
searched for I should surely find, and honest, too; for it was Aaron.

The parsonage was cruelly inhospitable. No door was left unfastened. I
knocked at a window opening on the veranda. I gave the signal-knock that
Sophie and I had listened and opened to, unhesitatingly, for many years.
It needed nothing more. Instantly I heard Sophie say,--"That's Anna's
knock"; and immediately thereafter the curtain was put aside, and
Sophie's precious face and azure eyes peeped out. She looked