and the massive melody of the organ, would fall with a weight upon me.
At this distance, it thrills through my frame, and plays upon my
heartstrings, with a pleasure both of the sense and spirit. Heaven be
praised, I know nothing of music, as a science; and the most elaborate
harmonies, if they please me, please as simply as a nurse's lullaby.
The strain has ceased, but prolongs itself in my mind, with fanciful
echoes, till I start from my revery, and find that the sermon has
commenced. It is my misfortune seldom to fructify, in a regular way, by
any but printed sermons. The first strong idea, which the preacher
utters, gives birth to a train of thought, and leads me onward, step by
step, quite out of hearing of the good man's voice, unless he be indeed
a son of thunder. At my open window, catching now and then a sentence
of the "parson's saw," I am as well situated as at the foot of the
pulpit stairs. The broken and scattered fragments of this one discourse
will be the texts of many sermons, preached by those colleague
pastors,--colleagues, but often disputants,--my Mind and Heart. The
former pretends to be a scholar, and perplexes me with doctrinal
points; the latter takes me on the score of feeling; and both, like
several other preachers, spend their strength to very little purpose.
I, their sole auditor, cannot always understand them.

Suppose that a few hours have passed, and behold me still behind my
curtain, just before the close of the afternoon service. The hour-hand
on the dial has passed beyond four o'clock. The declining sun is hidden
behind the steeple, and throws its shadow straight across the street, so
that my chamber is darkened, as with a cloud. Around the church-door all
is solitude, and an impenetrable obscurity beyond the threshold. A
commotion is heard. The seats are slammed down, and the pew-doors thrown
back,--a multitude of feet are trampling along the unseen aisles,--and
the congregation bursts suddenly through the portal. Foremost, scampers