Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/299

286 merchandise are transubstantiated to arches, columns, statues, pictures. Ribbons stretch into fair galleries from pillar to pillar, lighter and more graceful than Cologne or Strasburg can boast in their architectural romance, writ in poetic stone, and the poor tape of the shop is now a stairway climbing round a column of the transept and winding into the dome far out of sight, till the mind, outrunning that other disciple, the eye, takes wing to follow its aerial ramp, which ends only in the lights of day streaming in at the top and colouring the walls, storied all over with the pictured glory of heavenly scenes. The counter has become the choir and chancel; the desk is the great high altar. The roar of the street—where market-wagons, rays, omnibuses, coaches, carts, gigs, mix in one continuous uproar from morn till eve — is now subdued into music, sweeter and sublimer too than the Pope ever heard in his Sistine chapel, nay, though he were composed for by Beethoven and Mozart, and sung to and aided by all the great masters of heroic song, from old Timotheus, who 'raised a mortal to the skies," to St Cecilia, who "drew in angel down." What manly and womanly voices sing forth the psalm of everlasting life, while the spheral melody of heaven is the organ-chant which they all follow! A visionary lover comes forth, — his form a manly fact, seen daily from the window of her shop, his love a maidenly dream of many a natural and waking hour. He comes from the high altar ; it is the Desire of all nations, the Saviour himself, the second Adam, the King of glory. He leads her through this church of love, built of sleep and beauty, takes her within the vail to the holy of holies, where dwells the Eternal ; therein, that which is in part is done away, and the mortal maid and immortal lover are made one for ever and ever.

Sleep on, maiden ! and take thy rest till the morning star usurp the evening's place; nay, till the sexton toll his bell for Sunday prayers! I will not wake thee forth from such a dream, but thank the dear God who watches over those who rise early and sit up late, who giveth to his beloved even in their sleep!

Late on the same Saturday night, Jeremiah Welltodo, senior partner of the firm of Welltodo & Co., a wealthy