Phemie Frost's ExperiencesStephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
General
Phemie Frost's Experiences
Stephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
Fiction
Sisters, we never spoke a word all the way to St. Stephen's Church,
which is not a mite higher, and not near so handsome as a good many
other meeting-houses we had to pass. A crowd of people were going in,
and we followed into the darkness; for the whole space was full of
gloom, like a foggy sunset. Here and there lights shone out like stars
in a cloud, just enough to make the gloom strike home. The church was
shaped like a cross, and had more than one altar in it. That which stood
at the head of the broad aisle had just lights enough around it to make
its whiteness ghostly, and to tremble over a great picture back of it,
where figures in some harrowing scene seemed to come and go in the foggy
air.
Yes, the air was foggy and thick, with sweet-smelling smoke, that came
from some brass lamps a couple of little boys were a swinging back and
forth by chains linked to them; and there, standing right in front of
the altar, was a man all draped out in black robes, and a white
overdress, praying. Sisters, it was awful solemn; I couldn't but just
keep from sobbing right out.
"Look!" says E. E.; "isn't the chapel of the Virgin beautiful?"
I did look; and there at my left stood an altar covered with flowers,
and blazing with lights starting up like a crown of glory through the
darkness.
"Why is that altar so bright, while all the rest of the meeting-house is
almost dark?" I whispers to E. E.
"That is the chapel of the Virgin, and there lies the body of Christ."
"The body of Christ!" says I, with a start.
"Yes," says she, bowing her head. "You cannot see it, for the flowers
cover it, as we strew them over the graves of those we love; but the
holy body of our Lord is there, waiting for the resurrection."
"Waiting for the resurrection!" says I. "How can you say that, E. E.,
when our Lord was resurrected almost nineteen hundred years ago?"
"Oh!" says she, shaking her head and whispering, "that was so; but the
body of Christ is there this minute, under the flowers."
"Cousin E. E., are you crazy? Do you believe that in earnest?"
"I do," says she a-folding her hands and dropping down her head.
"But how--how can it be?"
"I cannot explain, dear cousin; but it is so. It is, indeed."
"E. E., are you a Roman Catholic?--do they believe that?"
"Every one of 'em."
"And are you a Roman Catholic?"
"Not yet," says she; "you know well enough that I belong to the
Episcopal Church; but my pilgrimage is not ended."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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