Between the Mills and this formidable Mouth of the Lion, is the Quaker
Meeting House, a modest, sober-hued building on a triangular green, on
which, before it was fenced in, the boys delighted to play ball on the
days and at the hours (for the Quakers have meeting Thursday also) on
which the grave worshippers were not filing into what cannot fairly be
called the house of silence, because it has been known to echo to
exhortations as earnest, if not as vehement as one may hear from any
pulpit. Still, there are sometimes long intervals of silence, and then
the consciousness that silent self-examination is one purpose of the
coming together, gives an impressiveness to the simple surroundings. It
must have been here that Mr. Whittier learned to interpret so
wonderfully that silent prayer of Agassiz for guidance when he opened
his famous school from which he was so soon called to a higher life.

"Then the Master in his place
Bowed his head a little space
And the leaves by soft airs stirred
Lapse of wave and cry of bird
Left the solemn hush unbroken
Of that wordless prayer unspoken
While its wish, on earth unsaid,
Rose to Heaven interpreted.
As in life's best hours we hear
By the spirit's finer ear
His low voice within us, thus
The All-Father heareth us:
And his holy ear we pain
With our noisy words and vain.
Not for him our violence
Storming at the gates of sense,