Into this
little space a few dumb and shrinking witnesses of the past have been
huddled: the old communion-table, two ancient harpsichords, a single
pew-door, a wooden samp-mortar, and a huge, half-ruinous loom; and some
engraved portraits of ancient ministers hang upon the walls. When I
visited the place, a party of young men and women were there, who
hopelessly scattered any slight dust of revery that might have settled
on me from the ancient beams, and sent the ghosts fleeing before their
light laughter. The young women fingered the old harpsichords, and
incontinently thrummed upon them; and one cried, "Play a waltz!" She was
a pretty creature; and, as her gay tone mingled with the rattle of
protesting strings in the worn-out instrument, one might easily have
divined how dire a fate would have been hers, in the days when men not
only believed in bewitchment, but made it punishable. Then a young man
who had clung for guidance amid her spells to the little printed
pamphlet that describes the church, read aloud from its pages,
seriously: "'Nowhere else in this land may one find so ancient and
worshipful a shrine. Within these walls, silent with the remembered
presence of Endicott, Skelton, Higginson, Roger Williams, and their
grave compeers, the very day seems haunted, and the sunshine falls but
soberly in.'"
"O don't!" besought the siren, again. "We're not in a solemn state."
And, whether it was the spell of her voice or not, I confess the
sunshine did not seem to me either haunted or sober.
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