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A Novel
Published in 1884 by Henry Holt and Company
Chapter I
The new church of St. John's, on Fifth Avenue, was thronged the morningof the last Sunday of October, in the year 1880. Sitting in the gallery,beneath the unfinished frescoes, and looking down the nave, one caughtan effect of autumn gardens, a suggestion of chrysanthemums andgeraniums, or of October woods, dashed with scarlet oaks and yellowmaples. As a display of austerity the show was a failure, but ifcheerful content and innocent adornment please the Author of the liliesand roses, there was reason to hope that this first service at St.John's found favor in his sight, even though it showed no victory overthe world or the flesh in this part of the United States. The sun camein through the figure of St. John in his crimson and green garments ofglass, and scattered more color where colors already rivaled the flowersof a prize show; while huge prophets and evangelists in flowing robeslooked down from the red walls on a display of human vanities that wouldhave called out a vehement Lamentation of Jeremiah or Song of Solomon,had these poets been present in flesh as they were in figure.
Solomon was a brilliant but not an accurate observer; he looked at theworld from the narrow stand-point of his own temple. Here in New York hecould not have truthfully said that all was vanity, for even a moreill-natured satirist than he must have confessed that there was in thisnew temple to-day a perceptible interest in religion. One might almosthave said that religion seemed to be a matter of concern. The audiencewore a look of interest, and, even after their first gaze of admirationand whispered criticism at the splendors of their new church, when atlength the clergyman entered to begin the service, a ripple ofexcitement swept across the field of bonnets until there was almost amurmur as of rustling cornfields within the many colored walls of St.John's.
In a remote pew, hidden under a gallery of the transept, two personslooked on with especial interest. The number of strangers who crowded inafter them forced them to sit closely together, and their low whispersof comment were unheard by their neighbors. Before the service beganthey talked in a secular tone.
"Wharton's window is too high-toned," said the man.
"You all said it would be like Aladdin's," murmured the woman.
"Yes, but he throws away his jewels," rejoined the man. "See the bigprophet over the arch; he looks as though he wanted to come down—and Ithink he ought."
"Did Michael Angelo ever take lessons of Mr. Wharton?" asked the womanseriously, looking up at the figures high above the pulpit.
"He was only a prophet," answered her companion, and, looking in anotherdirection, next asked:
"Who is the angel of Paradise, in the dove-colored wings, sliding up themain aisle?"
"That! O, you know her! It is Miss Leonard. She is lovely, but she isonly an angel of Paris."
"I never saw her before in my life," he replied; "but I know her bonnetwas put on in the Lord's honor for the first time this morning."
"Women should take their bonnets off at the church door, as Mussulmen dotheir shoes," she answered.
"Don't turn Mahommedan, Esther. To be a Puritan is bad enough. Thebonnets match the decorations."
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