Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/339

 be Christmas-day, he preaches again: he preaches on a subject which calls up images of the beauteous easternland, or of eternity. By this time, twilight and gloom prevailed through the church: only a couple of waxlights upon the altar throw wondrous and mighty shadows through the aisles: the angel that hangs down from the roof above the baptismal font is awoke into a solemn life by the shadows and the rays, and seems almost in the act of ascension: through the windows, the stars or the moon are beginning to peer: aloft, in the pulpit, which is now hid in gloom, the priest is inflamed and possessed by the sacred burden of glad tidings which he is announcing: he is lost and insensible to all besides; and from amidst the darkness which surrounds him, he pours down his thunders, with tears and agitation, reasoning of future worlds, and of the heaven of heavens, and whatsoever else can most powerfully shake the heart and the affections.

Descending from his pulpit in these holy fervors, he now, perhaps, takes a walk: it is about four o'clock: and he walks beneath a sky lit up by the shifting northern lights, that to his eye appear but an Aurora striking upwards from the eternal morning of the south, or as a forest composed of saintly thickets, like the fiery bushes of Moses, that are round the throne of God.

Thus, if it be the afternoon of Christmas-day: but it it be any other afternoon, visitors, perhaps, come and bring their well-bred, grown-up daughters; like the fashionable world in London, he dines at sunset; that is to say, like the un-fashionable world of London, he dines at two o'clock; and he drinks coffee by moonlight; and the parsonage-house becomes an enchanted palace of pleasure gleaming with twihght, starhght, and moonlight. Or, per-