Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/231

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206 WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

six days and nights, and see if she does not bless the gray goose-quill, and the art of the scnbe, w.th a fervor heretofore unknown.

Our first Sabbath service in the world s great me tropolis was at Westminster Abbey. There, md the Juldering dust of the mighty dead, we ought surdy to have listened, with deepened devotion, to the sub lime prayers, and solemn instructions of a sermon from the words of our divine Lord, - Marvel not that I said unto you, ye must be born again."

Our initiatory view of this wonderful pile wascursory, bavin* decided to attend the afternoon s worship at bt. Paul s, which, from our hotel in Hanover Square, was distant between three and four miles Repeated v>s,ts, and more thorough examinations, lightened our sent m ents of wonder and of awe. To select or dehneae par- ticular monuments, seems invidious and unjus to the emotions that spring up in this great palace of tombs

Methou^ht Bacon said to us from h,s marble pedes tal "After all our wanderings, religion is the haven and sabbath of man s contemplations." Milton, rn ms Ljesty, seemed to burst forth in that thnlhng adjura- tion,

Avenge, Lord ! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie bleaching on the Alpine mountains cole

The smile upon Prior s lip seemed indicative of flu sweetness that sometimes flowed from his lyre ; and 1 hope to be forgiven that, standing by the pure white

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