Dr. Sharp, of Boston, who, I said, was one of the noticeables of the throng in the library of Brown University. That revered minister of Christ is no more; and the grave at Mount Auburn has closed over all that was mortal of the father of Boston ministers. I am not now about to sketch this eminent and excellent man. To nearly all my readers, that small, spare figure, with the closely buttoned-up-coat, that head of silver whiteness, that benevolent brow, those small, cleanly cut eyelids, and blueish orbs beneath, that lengthened nose, that kind, flexible mouth, and indeed the whole external man, must be as familiar as any thing else of yesterday. Truly did Dr. Wayland say of him, on the occasion of his funeral discourse, (and with the extract I will conclude this chapter):

"There was scarcely ever a character which stood so little in need of delineation, for it was broad and open as the day. His intellect was clear and practical; the bias of his mind was strongly conservative; as a preacher his elocution was solemn, earnest and impressive. Cowper's portrait of a Christian minister seemed to be continually before his mind. His style was natural, perspicuous and forcible. He rarely failed to hold to the last the fixed attention of his audience. The ancients had said that the charm of oratory was in the elements of the character of the orator. Most true was this of Dr. Sharp. Forty years had he labored here, and not a shadow of a spot had passed across his character. He seemed surrounded by a moral atmosphere, which transformed the minds of other men into his own character."

CHAPTER V.

SABBATH MORNING.

A COSMOPOLITAN CREED. REV. MR.

FLORAL

MINER'S CHURCH. PIETY AND POLITENESS. DECORATION. A SKETCH OF THE PREACHER AND THE SERVICE.

IT is Sabbath morning. Early sunbeams are slanting through the screen of flowers and foliage that adorn my window, my city window, and outspread on a table lie three volumes: THE BOOK, Jeremy Taylor's works, and Herbert's poems. Gentle showers have fallen during the night, but now

Heaven is clear,

And all the clouds are gone!"

so that we may well exclaim,

"Sweet day so clear, so calm, so bright!

The bridal of the earth and sky!"

A Sabbatic stillness hangs over the very streets, which is only now and then broken by the sound of the "churchgoing bell," and that harmonizes with rather than disturbs the scene. Little children troop by toward school, their "twinkling feet," making soft music as they go. I am not ashamed to own that the "bonnie wee things"

are especial favorites of mine. A tiny tap of the door elicits the customary "come in," and the "neat-handed Phillis" of our little realm of a room, enters with the claret-colored coat well brushed, and boots with "shining morning" surface. And now a visitor arrives, a friend with whom we have engaged to visit some church in Boston, and which of them is the most important matter to be settled.

As we stroll leisurely beneath the trees of the Common, through the over-arching boughs of which streams sunshine that paves, as it were, flickering mosaic, the grass below; and the massive grandeur of whose shade relieves heaven's glare of blue overhead, my friend (who, by the way, is a church-member) ingeniously tries to draw me out, and satisfy himself as to my own private and particular religious opinions.

So as he quietly and almost carelessly asks, "And to what denomination may you yourself happen to belong?"

I stop suddenly in my walk, look him full in the face, and reply, "To none."

He looks at me with surprise, and, I fancy, with disapprobation; we silently resume our stroll.

"To all, I should rather say," I added, "for I desire to survey every man's creed with respect. In my faith I am thoroughly Cosmopolitan. My maxim is to pay that respect to the religious notions of others, which I desire they should concede to my own. I might just as well quarrel with a man for having a different nose from

mine, as for his embracing opposite theological tenets. Pope was not far wrong when he said,

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,

He can't be wrong whose life is in the right."

My companion shook his head; it was evident that he did not consider Pope orthodox. I proceeded:

66 Sir," I said, "there is nothing I detest so much as exclusiveness in religion, or, in other words, bigotrycall it which you will. For my own part I could worship among (though not with) any sect "professing and calling themselves christians." Nay, sir, I would go farther, I indeed have done so. I am not ashamed to confess that I have felt devotional in a Mohammedan mosque, a Jew's synagogue, a Romish cathedral, and a Quaker meeting-house, (perhaps the least so in the latter.) And why should it be otherwise? To my mind, a conscientious Hindoo who believes in his shaster; acts according to the light given him; and dies in that belief, ignorant of the atonement, is as likely to be happy hereafter, as the bishop of this or that, who also walks uprightly in the sunshine of his own faith. There is a positive and a negative unbelief, but we regard this too little, and are apt to set ourselves up as models of perfection."

"But," remarked my friend, rather shocked, I fear, "do you not think it advisable to identify yourself with some one sect. Surely there must exist bodies of christians, some with whom you could feel yourself at home; and if you wish excitement there are

"Stay, stay," said I. "That is just what I do not want. It is a great fault of the day that audiences to a great extent would have all their thinking done for them; or they would have the speaker to conduct them through a perfect series of spasms and excitements. It is the sad feature of men, in this age, that they cannot endure silence, and quiet, and spiritual rest and peace: the railway whistle is heard through the very temple itself the shout of the engine is even in the house of the Lord! the fault is not all the pulpit's. To many, even, there is no life but in storm; they have no notion. of a kingdom of God coming without observation. My heart has bled for many an amiable, beautiful, gentle spirit, wedded to its thoughts and books, unable to cope with the active energies of the times; the prey of ferocious deacons and grumbling persons. Oh, those deacons, those tribunes of the congregations- many, many instances have I known where the instructor of the people has been wholly subverted by a jealous spirit, a thirsting for authority, a yearning for something new." "Are you not too severe upon the worshippers in our temples?" asked my companion.

"Not a whit," I went on to say, "not a particle. The truth, indeed, is, that the worship of the Divine occupies too often, even here in Boston, but a small portion of the temple duty, (as, reader, in the course of these articles I shall prove.) It is frequently a sacrifice to genius, if it is there; to eloquence, to thought, if they are there; the ancient idea of the temple was sacrifice to God! Is it so? Thus the pulpit has