There is a good deal of mould and worm-eating and
cobwebs about the old place. Yet both you and I think it more beautiful now
than it was then. Well, I believe it is, as nearly as possible, the same
with an old face. It has got stained, and weather-beaten, and worn; but if
the organ of truth has been playing on inside the temple of the Lord, which
St. Paul says our bodies are, there is in the old face, though both form
and complexion are gone, just the beauty of the music inside. The wrinkles
and the brownness can't spoil it. A light shines through it all--that of
the indwelling spirit. I wish we all grew old like the old churches."
She did not reply, but I thought I saw in her face that she understood my
mysticism. We had been walking very slowly, had passed through the quaint
lych-gate, and now the old woman had got the key in the lock of the door,
whose archway was figured and fashioned as I have described above, with a
dozen mouldings or more, most of them "carved so curiously."
CHAPTER XV.
THE OLD CHURCH.
The awe that dwells in churches fell upon me as I crossed the threshold--an
awe I never fail to feel--heightened in many cases, no doubt, by the sense
of antiquity and of art, but an awe which I have felt all the same in
crossing the threshold of an old Puritan conventicle, as the place where
men worship and have worshipped the God of their fathers, although for art
there was only the science of common bricklaying, and for beauty staring
ugliness.
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