In the opposite gable was another
door that had been forced open, and, as they stepped across the sill, a
crack, like ice first stepped upon, went splitting the long and lofty
vacancy with warning rumbles.
Now the whole interior, in fine perspective, stood exposed, at least
seventy-five by fifty feet, like a majestic hall unbroken by any
side-galleries, and with double stories of windows shedding a hazy
light, and, at the distant end, a low pulpit, with spacious altar. The
walls of this neglected temple were two feet thick, and its high ceiling
was kept from falling down by ten rude wooden props of recent rough
carpentry; the pews were stately, high-fenced things, numbered in white
letters on a black ground, and each four-sided, to contain ten persons;
the rotting damask cushions in many of them told of a former
aristocracy, while now all the congregation could be assembled in a
single pew, and worship was unknown but once a year, when the bishop
came to read his liturgy to dust and desolation.
So, on the opposite western cape of the Chesapeake, shivered the Roman
priests of Calvert's foundation, in the waste of old St. Mary's; the
folds had left the shepherds, and fifty people only came to worship in
the kirk of the earliest Presbyterians.
Two tall, once considered elegant, stoves were nearly midway up the
cracking church-floor; and Mary, the free woman, had made a fire in one
of them, and the pine wood was roaring, and the long height of pipe was
smoking.
Pages:
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540