In a word, the building had been modernized, with improved furnaces and gas lighting apparatus, new carpets, new cushions and large galleries, etc., so that when again I saw the edifice some months later it seemed not only a new and more gorgeous house of worship, with the glory as of the second temple, but everything was so shining and and clean, that it struck me as being an unusual sin to do what the small boy is so tempted to do,--to scratch the varnish on the pew backs. It is true that the very brightness of that varnish challenged the average urchin to see if he had not about him a pin, or the nib of a broken steel pen, to make his initials visible, or possibly some music. No carpet, or terry, or pew cushions ever seen on earth before, as I imagined, could be of a richer red, and beside the white enamelled front of the pulpit platform, nothing ever appeared whiter or glossier. The pulpit itself was carved in foliations, all as glistening white as if, though in reality wood, it were polished marble. In later years this altar-like pulpit gave way to a square structure of more massive dimensions, Doric in outline and simplicity, that extended across the whole space between the columns. That end of the sacred edifice to which our eyes first turned and longest dwelt, seemed to have passed through a veritable transfiguration. My boyish fancy, struck by the biblical phrase, suggested its shining whiteness as having been blanched by "fuller's earth"--to me an entirely unknown and mystic substance. As for the red velvet, on which the big Bible lay open, nothing before or since seemed to have richer gloss or texture, or more strikingly huge tassels. Two fluted white marble Ionic columns rose from the pulpit floor space to the ceiling. Back against the wall, instead of the old sofa, ten or twelve feet long, of veneered mahogany, with cushions covered with horse hair cloth, was a modern and more jauntily carved article of half the old length and apparently less comfortable. But what has comfort to say, as against fashion? Hanging beside the sofa, against the wall, on a white porcelain knob, was the very large oval fan of crow feathers, which, while to the ungodly it represented a rather narrow handled ace of spades, was then the thoroughly orthodox ornament of a pulpit, with which the preacher was expected to cool his brow without chilling his zeal on hot days in summer. Indeed there were some very hot days, when, glued to the overheated cushion, the small boy envied "the freedom of irreligion of the flies." As to the physical activity of the pastor, while preaching it was very vigorous, but it was too graceful to approach closely the reputed ideal of Abraham Lincoln, who liked to have a parson discourse "as if he were fighting bees". Nevertheless the fan, at restful moments, when he was seated, came into requisition as often as did the historic white handkerchief in time of oratorical action.