better word, inhabited by Grace.

As I entered the passage which communicated with my sisters own room, the
departure from ordinary appearances was explained. Six or seven of the
negresses were kneeling near the door, and I could hear the low, solemn,
earnest voice of Lucy, reading some of the collects and other prayers
suited to the sick-chamber and to the wants of a parting soul. Lucy's
voice was music itself, but never before had it sounded so plaintively
sweet. The lowest intonation was distinctly audible, as if the dear,
devout creature felt that the Being she addressed was not to be approached
in any other manner, while the trembling earnestness of the tones betrayed
the depth of feeling with which each syllable escaped from the heart. Talk
of liturgies impairing the fervour of prayer! This may be the fact with
those who are immersed in themselves while communing with God, and cannot
consent even to pray without placing their own thoughts and language,
however ill-digested and crude, uppermost in the business of the moment.
Do not such persons know that, as respects united worship, their own
prayers are, to all intents and purposes, a formulary to their listeners,
with the disadvantage of being received without preparation or direction
to the mind?--nay, too often substituting a critical and prurient
curiosity for humble and intelligent prayer? In these later times, when
Christianity is re-assuming the character of the quarrels of sects, and,
as an old man who has lived, and hopes to die, in communion with the
Anglo-American church, I do not wish to exculpate my own particular branch
of the Catholic body from blame; but, in these later times, when
Christianity is returning to its truculency, forgetful of the chiefest of
virtues, Charity, I have often recalled the scene of that solemn
noon-tide, and asked myself the question, "if any man could have heard
Lucy, as I did, on that occasion, concluding with the petition which
Christ himself gave to his disciples as a comprehensive rule, if not