Whence come they ? Where do they build their nests , and seek their food ? Why , having airy wings , do they not follow summer around the earth , instead of making themselves the playmates of the storm , and fluttering on the dreary verge of the winter 's eve ? Every Sabbath morning in the summer time I thrust back the curtain , to watch the sunrise stealing down a steeple , which stands opposite my chamber-window . First , the weathercock begins to flash ; then , a fainter lustre gives the spire an airy aspect ; next it encroaches on the tower , and causes the index of the dial to glisten like gold , as it points to the gilded figure of the hour . Now , the loftiest window gleams , and now the lower . The carved framework of the portal is marked strongly out . At length , the morning glory , in its descent from heaven , comes down the stone steps , one by one ; and there stands the steeple , glowing with fresh radiance , while the shades of twilight still hide themselves among the nooks of the adjacent buildings . Methinks , though the same sun brightens it every fair morning , yet the steeple has a peculiar robe of brightness for the Sabbath . By dwelling near a church , a person soon contracts an attachment for the edifice . We naturally personify it , and conceive its massive walls and its dim emptiness to be instinct with a calm , and meditative , and somewhat melancholy spirit . But the steeple stands foremost , in our thoughts , as well as locally . It impresses us as a giant , with a mind comprehensive and discriminating enough to care for the great and small concerns of all the town . Hourly , while it speaks a moral to the few that think , it reminds thousands of busy individuals of their separate and most secret affairs . It is the steeple , too , that flings abroad the hurried and irregular accents of general alarm ; neither have gladness and festivity found a better utterance , than by its tongue ; and when the dead are slowly passing to their home , the steeple has a melancholy voice to bid them welcome . Yet , in spite of this connection with human interests , what a moral loneliness , on week-days , broods round about its stately height ! It has no kindred with the houses above which it towers ; it looks down into the narrow thoroughfare , the lonelier , because the crowd are elbowing their passage at its base . A glance at the body of the church deepens this impression . Within , by the light of distant windows , amid refracted shadows , we discern the vacant pews and empty galleries , the silent organ , the voiceless pulpit , and the clock , which tells to solitude how time is passing . Time , -- where man lives not , -- what is it but eternity ?
And in the church , we might suppose , are garnered up , throughout the week , all thoughts and feelings that have reference to eternity , until the holy day XXXXX round again , to let them forth .
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