After the service is finished, the wagons, that have been disposed on either side of the road, are drawn up before the door.  The old Squire meantime is sure to have a little chat with the parson before he leaves; in the course of which the parson takes occasion to say that his wife is a little ailing,—­“a slight touch,” he thinks, “of the rheumatiz.”  One of the children too has been troubled with the “summer complaint” for a day or two; but he thinks that a dose of catnip, under Providence, will effect a cure.  The younger and unmarried men, with red wagons flaming upon bright yellow wheels, make great efforts to drive off in the van; and they spin frightfully near some of the fat, sour-faced women, who remark in a quiet, but not very Christian tone, that they “fear the elder’s sermon hasn’t done the young bucks much good.”  It is much to be feared in truth that it has not.

In ten minutes the old church is thoroughly deserted; the neighbor who keeps the key has locked up for another week the creaking door; and nothing of the service remains within except—­Dr. Dwight’s Version,—­the long music-books,—­crumbs of gingerbread, and refuse stalks of despoiled fennel.

And yet under the influence of that old, weather-stained temple are perhaps growing up—­though you do not once fancy it—­souls possessed of an energy, an industry, and a respect for virtue, which will make them stronger for the real work of life than all the elegant children of a city.  One lesson, which even the rudest churches of New England teach,—­with all their harshness, and all their repulsive severity of form,—­is the lesson of Self-Denial.  Once armed with that, and manhood is strong.  The soul that possesses the consciousness of mastering passion, is endowed with an element of force that can never harmonize with defeat.  Difficulties it wears like a summer garment, and flings away at the first approach of the winter of Need.

Let not any one suppose, then, that in this detail of the country life through which our hero is led, I would cast obloquy or a sneer upon its simplicity, or upon its lack of refinement.  Goodness and strength in this world are quite as apt to wear rough coats as fine ones.  And the words of thorough and self-sacrificing kindness are far more often dressed in the uncouth sounds of retired life than in the polished utterance of the town.  Heaven has not made warm hearts and honest hearts distinguishable by the quality of the covering.  True diamonds need no work of the artificer to reflect and multiply their rays.  Goodness is more within than without; and purity is of nearer kin to the soul than to the body.

——­And, Clarence, it may well happen that later in life—­under the gorgeous ceilings of Venetian churches, or at some splendid mass in Notre Dame, with embroidered coats and costly silks around you—­your thoughts will run back to that little storm-beaten church, and to the willow waving in its yard, with a Hope that glows, and with a tear that you embalm!