ESTHER

_A Novel_




Published in 1884 by Henry Holt and Company




_Chapter I_


The new church of St. John's, on Fifth Avenue, was thronged the morning
of the last Sunday of October, in the year 1880. Sitting in the gallery,
beneath the unfinished frescoes, and looking down the nave, one caught
an effect of autumn gardens, a suggestion of chrysanthemums and
geraniums, or of October woods, dashed with scarlet oaks and yellow
maples. As a display of austerity the show was a failure, but if
cheerful content and innocent adornment please the Author of the lilies
and roses, there was reason to hope that this first service at St.
John's found favor in his sight, even though it showed no victory over
the world or the flesh in this part of the United States. The sun came
in through the figure of St. John in his crimson and green garments of
glass, and scattered more color where colors already rivaled the flowers
of a prize show; while huge prophets and evangelists in flowing robes
looked down from the red walls on a display of human vanities that would
have called out a vehement Lamentation of Jeremiah or Song of Solomon,