by awe and reverence,--a selfish, earthward-looking devotion to the
"least-erected spirit that fell from paradise." I grow weary of seeing
man and mechanism reduced to a common level, moved by the same impulse,
answering to the same bell-call. A nightmare of materialism broods over
all. I long at times to hear a voice crying through the streets like
that of one of the old prophets proclaiming the great first truth,--that
the Lord alone is God.

Yet is there not another side to the picture? High over sounding
workshops spires glisten in the sun,--silent fingers pointing heavenward.
The workshops themselves are instinct with other and subtler processes
than cotton-spinning or carpet-weaving. Each human being who watches
beside jack or power loom feels more or less intensely that it is a
solemn thing to live. Here are sin and sorrow, yearnings for lost peace,
outgushing gratitude of forgiven spirits, hopes and fears, which stretch
beyond the horizon of time into eternity. Death is here. The graveyard
utters its warning. Over all bends the eternal heaven in its silence and
mystery. Nature, even here, is mightier than Art, and God is above all.
Underneath the din of labor and the sounds of traffic, a voice, felt
rather than beard, reaches the heart, prompting the same fearful
questions which stirred the soul of the world's oldest poet,--"If a man
die, shall he live again?" "Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?"
Out of the depths of burdened and weary hearts comes up the agonizing
inquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" "Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?"

As a matter of course, in a city like this, composed of all classes of
our many-sided population, a great variety of religious sects have their
representatives in Lowell. The young city is dotted over with "steeple
houses," most of them of the Yankee order of architecture. The