Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/65

Rh We lived at S. Martin above Vevey, and I was taken occasionally on Sunday to the church, where I sat through the Zwinglian-Calvinistic service. The cold in the church was extreme, but the cold of the service was more trying. The men sat through the performance with their hats on, which they removed only for the Lord's Prayer. They sat through the psalm-singing, and sat through such extempore prayers as the pastor was pleased to put up, as also through the sermon.

There were glazed boxes between the pillars raised on high—to the usual level of galleries—and in these sat the gentlefolk and ladies, who raised or lowered the sashes as they liked; occasionally "to do the civil" they let them down and listened, or pretended to listen for a few minutes; and then up went the sashes again, and they drew their chairs together and chatted round, I think, a stove in each compartment. Thus in these chambers the pâte tendre secludes itself, as in glass cabinets away from the crockery of common ware. Sometimes some of the gentlefolk would visit another box, shake hands and chat, whilst the preacher sawed on at his discourse, much as at an opera friends visit one another's loge.

"Mother," said I, "do you think those ugly fellows whose faces we have seen painted in the churches"—I alluded to the portraits of the Reformers—"will ever go to heaven?"

"Most assuredly they will," answered my mother in surprise.

"Then, mother," said I, "they will make heaven smell like a pail of Sauerkraut."

I give these early impressions and expressions to show how that later ideas and feelings with regard to religion are seeded early in the mind to germinate later. Of one thing I am convinced, that the religious bent of my mind was acquired at this very early age, and was due to nothing other than revulsion against the ugliness that characterized Protestant worship, if that can be called worship which consists in fretting the seats of the trousers instead of the knees. As to Roman Catholic services, I never for many years attended any, and consequently knew nothing of Mass and Vespers. Of one thing I did become aware, and it was a point that very greatly impressed me: the way in which the Catholics frequented their churches for private prayer and worship. What Protestant would dream of resorting to one of his meeting houses