The services curtailed to half their proper length, yet finding the patience of the listeners all too short!  The degenerate descendants carried the day, however, the most bigoted of their opposers becoming disabled by rheumatism.  The old sexton, resignation to inevitable evils being a lesson he had had much opportunity to learn, submitted with a good grace, though very much of opinion that fires in a church were an absurdity and a waste.  The stoves were provided, and an uncommonly full attendance the next Sabbath showed the very general interest the matter had excited.  How would it seem?  Would any one faint?

There was by no means a superabundance of heat; there was something wrong, but the lack of warmth was a hundred-fold made up in smoke.  No one could see across the church, and the minister loomed up, as if in a dense fog; all eyes were fountains of tears.  At last the old sexton went with a slow and subdued step up to the pulpit, and, wiping his eyes, respectfully inquired, in a whisper, whether there was not a little too much smoke.  This suggestion being very smilingly assented to, he proceeded to extinguish the fires, and for that day the services were not indebted to artificial warmth to promote their effect.

How sad are improvements in places to which our childish recollections cling!  The gushing fulness of unchilled love is lavished even on inanimate and senseless things, in a happy childhood.  How was my heart grieved when the old-fashioned meeting-house was converted into the modern temple!  Time and decay had rendered the tall spire unsafe, yet its fall by force and premeditated purpose seemed a sacrilege.  I felt affronted for the huge weathercock, reclining sulkily against a fence, no more to point his beak to the east with obstinate preference.  I mourned over the broad, old-fashioned dial, on which young eyes could discern the time a mile off.  The old sexton lived to see this change, and at the end of half a century of care under that venerable roof he went to his rest.  The beloved minister, and many, many who sat with trustful and devoted hearts under his teachings, are gone to their reward.  A board from the old pulpit, a piece of the red-damask curtain, and the long wished-for gold vase, are now in my possession.

“SOMETHING THAN BEAUTY DEARER.”

  You ask me if her eyes are fair,
    And touched with heaven’s own blue,
  And if I can her cheek compare
    To the blush-rose’s hue?

  Her clear eye sheds a constant gleam
    Of truth and purest love,
  And wit and reason from it beam,
    Like the light of the stars above. 
  Good-humor, mirth, and fancy throng
    The dimples of her cheek,
  And to condemn the oppressor’s wrong
    Her indignant blush doth speak.

  You ask me if her form is light
    And graceful as the fawn;
  You ask me if her tresses bright
    Are like the golden dawn?