NAVE AND ORGAN, AS DECORATED FOR APRIL 18, 1875. On the modest arch above the door there is a simple tablet with the indication, "Christ Church. 1723." Many with noble names, burned as with fire into the history of our country,-many before and many since the beacon-lights went out, have entered beneath that low arch. Abel Rudhall, in Gloucester, England; a gift to the church from friends in the Old World. It was hung in 1744. The composition of the bells is still the wonder of founders, and their clearness and power the admiration of all who hear them. The smallest is six hundred pounds in weight and the largest fifteen hundred and forty-five, and upon each bell there is a message of some sort, in the quaint old style of long ago. One of them says, "This peal of bells is the gift of a number of generous persons to Christ Church, in Boston, N. E., 1744, R.A." Another, "We are the first ring of bells ever cast for the British Empire in North America ;" and another, "Since generosity has opened our mouths, our tongues shall sing aloud of his praise." Belfry pigeons have made themselves at home in the old tower, and create strange noises moving among the rafters. If you visit the church as a stranger, you will doubtless first have drunken deep of that fountain of memories collected by the late Mr. Drake. Any one will tell you that you must read "Drake's Memories" before you know Boston; and you may shudder, as you pass through the low chamber intersected by its eight bell-ropes, that cut the air like threads of a spider's web, and find yourself creeping up into the dimness and dust of that belfry tower, recalling Drake's statement that a belief has been very popularly held that this chime you are approaching has the power of dispelling evil spirits! But Mr. Drake was mistaken in that statement, as also in the sentence which follows, in which he so eloquently asserts, "The same bells still hang in the belfry, but few have ever heard their caroling of a quiet Sabbath. There they still hang, voiceless and forgotten, waxing in years like the old church itself." The bells do carol on, notwithstanding, on Lord's Day and Christmas and New Year's, besides the other ordinary times of ringing. Before you is the inner door to the church, and to the left a low door opening upon the stairway that leads to the belfry. Will you climb? The way up is very narrow but not very straight; the view from the upper balcony, however, commands the Charles River, Charlestown, Bunker Hill, Breed's Hill, and the Bunker Hill Monument, with all their historic surroundings. It was there that several of the British officers stood to watch the battle of Bunker Hill. And the old belfry too; you would miss much to go away without seeing that-the dusty, cobwebbed belfry, where the famous old chime hangs on the great wooden wheels. After the service, you will wish to wander through Copp's Hill Cemetery; every one who It was only forty-six years before this church visits Christ church goes up there after service. was founded that the first service was permitted in Then you will hear the chime, and the tones will New England, after the recognized order of the sound to you all the sweeter for having seen the Church of England. The first churchmen coming cluster of British bells hanging in that merry, over from the Old World found that those brave dusty contiguity. pioneers who had fled from religious persecution The chime came from the far-famed foundry of and dictation to establish themselves with their grand motto, "Freedom to worship God!" had passed a law making it a criminal offense to observe the English form, or own a Church of England book of prayer, and had even gone so far as to impose a fine of five shillings upon any one who should dare to recognize Christmas Day. Not till 1677, on receiving a second command from the king, did they cease to punish any minister convicted of "repeating written prayers." In 1689 a little wooden chapel was built on the site of the present King's chapel, and in 1722 there was such a demand for more room that the rector of King's chapel joined heartily with his most influential church members to instigate a subscription for a new church to be built at the north end. The Right Honorable Earl of Thanet headed the list with ninety pounds. His Excellency Francis Nicholson, Governor of South Carolina, gave sixty-nine pounds, five cedar posts, and sixty-five planks, "freight free." In the list of subscribers there are also the names of the Hon. Lady Blackett, Peter Faneuil, Leonard Vassall, and several from Antigua and Barbadoes. The entire collection amounted to two thousand one hundred and eighty-four pounds, and the pews sold for twelve hundred and thirty pounds. On the fifteenth of April, 1723, the Rev. Samuel Miles, incumbent of King's chapel, officiated in laying the first stone, closing a most impressive ceremony with the words, " May the gates of hell never prevail against it!" On the twentyninth of December of the same year the church was opened, though not completed, and the Rev. Timothy Cutler, D.D., formerly President of Yale College, preached the first sermon of his long pastorate from the text (Isaiah lvi. 7), “For mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people." The little church is before you! A puritanic oblong, only seventy feet by fifty, and thirty feet high, surrounded on three sides by a broad gallery about twenty feet from the floor. It is altogether puritanic, but also so thoroughly English that there seems very good grounds for the assertion that it was modeled after designs by Sir Christopher Wren. It is but slightly changed from its appearance when first completed. Then there were three aisles and the pews were square; now there are but two and the pews are long. These pews were originally sold to the highest bidder, and all affairs that came before the church were settled by a vote of the pews. Only one vote was allowed to each, and no non-holder had a voice. In 1726 the vestry voted that a new pew be built on the north side of the altar for Mr. Miles, "he paying as much for said pew as any other person." Then they voted that a pew be built for the use of Captain Wells, "ranging with Captain Temple's," and a few years later a very large pew was constructed and handsomely lined, "being supplied with six prayer-books, for the use of the gentleman of Honduras who sent gifts of log-wood to the parish." The pulpit then stood on the north side of the middle aisle, perched at a level with the gallery and balanced upon the same "Prince of Wales feathers" that now support it. But the feathers were then above the reading-desk, and the reading-desk itself above the desk of the clerk, who was a very important personage in those early days. There were certified orders hung about the church to the effect that "no naills nor pinns be put in the pillars nor the front of the gallerys with a design to hang hatts on.' An old fellow was paid three pounds a year to keep the boys in the gallery in order, and the vestry voted to impose a fine upon any member "who doth not appear within two hours after the time set for a meeting." Above the illuminated text in the chancel, dimly seen beyond the shivering shadows that fill the nave, where the light falls softly down about the altar, one reads the dedication of a century and a half ago, "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Above this is a heavy drapery in dark oil colors, with the golden halo crowning the oval. Below it is the "descent of the Holy Spirit," the dove above three little cherubs with fat little faces and tiny little wings appearing in three little niches; the work of the artist Johnson. Below them is the conception of the Lord breaking the bread and blessing the wine, by Mr. Penniman. The face of the Saviour, while not so strong as some that have a much wider fame, is one of the most tender and loving in its delicate delineation, one of the sweetest to look upon and study for years, and one of the truest realizations of the ideal head that brush ever put upon canvas. Below this there are four oblong tablets illuminated in old text. The inner ones are comparatively modern, filling the place that was previously the door leading from the vestry to the pulpit; but the outer ones were originally placed there. During the first years of its life, the church had but a single silver cup in its communion service. It is the smaller of the two chalices, upon which are the words, "The gift of Captain Thomas Tudor to Christ Church, in Boston, 1724." Then the gold and silver received at the regular collections were set aside for the purpose of increasing the plate, and after the offerings of Thanksgiving Day, November 13, 1729, had been added, the whole amount was melted down and cast into the two flagons marked "Belonging to Christ Church, Boston, New England, 1729." Every one of the many pieces of the present service bears an inscription and the donor's name. One of the two flagons, the large chalice, and the receiving-plate are of especial interest as "The gift of His Majesty, King George II., to Christ Church, at Boston, in New England, at the request of his Excellency Governor Belcher, 1733." In 1786 this entire service of plate was pledged for the debts of the church, but was fortunately redeemed without loss. Besides the plate, King George II. presented to the church the large folio Bible and the two folio prayer-books, bound in Turkey leather, that are now in use, and "twelve other prayer-books bound in calf, with book-marks made of the ribbon worn by the Legion of Honor and decorated with gold fringe, an altar piece, cushions, carpets, damask, and two surplices of fine Holland." The royal Bible and Turkey-covered prayerbooks were consigned to a closet when party feeling rose too high for them, but later they were brought out again. The royal coats of arms and the objectionable parts in one of the prayer-books have been pasted over, while in the other the American form was printed in exact imitation of the rest of the book and inserted entire in the old covers. The Bible was printed in Oxford, in 1717, and is a remarkable specimen of typography and a most valuable collection of old engravings; while among bibliographers it is widely known as one of the famous "vinegar Bibles," on account of an error in the page-heading of the twentieth chapter of Luke, which reads, "The parables of the vinegar." There are red lines running perpendicularly through the centre. of each page and horizontal lines beneath each page-heading in both Bible and prayer-book that are the work of pen and ink. gallery. And there, looking down upon us from over the fence, we recognize the benign face of our father Washington. It is that famous marble bust-the first one that was made of Washington that was cut from life by an Italian artist whose name has unfortunately perished before his fame. It was presented to the church by Shubael Bell, and was carried in state in the procession at the death of the first President. As a work of art, it may not be astonishing, but it certainly is not bad. It is strong and bold; full of character and energy. It looks like a leader, while it lacks COMMUNION SERVICE ARRANGED ON THE ALTAR TABLE. There is a little gallery clinging to the rear wall of the church, half-way up between the main gallery and the roof. You can hardly discover it even when you know that it is there. The only entrance is through a low door opening from the tower behind the organ, and there, upon narrow planks, so cramped that even the shortest legs could not have bent to them without difficulty, without any King George cushions or even unplaned boards for backs, the blacks and slaves of early days, and of not very long ago, were obliged to sit in humble and constant recognition of their innate and undoubted degradation, if they either desired or were obliged to worship the God of all in the church where the first signal-lights of freedom and liberty were hung. To the right of the altar is a high and ungainly wooden fence shutting off the farther corner of the church, making an ugly little vestry under the that sort of "cherry-tree" halo that modern artists insist upon throwing about the head of Washington, and the square rigid jaw that was so painfully exaggerated by a set of ill-fitting false teeth. There are any number of records and legends attesting to the accuracy of this likeness. When Lafayette first entered the church, he looked at it, and is said to have exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, "Why, there is my dear old friend!"' The organ was placed there in 1759, but, like the tree and truth, it has not even the general odor of mild decay. Through its first year of duty it was in the hands of a native of Boston, who was well educated in the profession, but who, for the sake of the church, gave his services gratis. Every puny little gas-jets by which they are now surone was delighted with his skill, and, thus en-rounded, while they remember in their uselessness couraged, he ventured to suggest a small salary for how the water in the modern meter has sometimes the second year. This so enraged the authorities run low, or ice formed in the supply-pipe, and of the church that with the customary gratitude they have been called out again for their unfailing they only waited till the first responsible man of light of other days. the congregation sailed for the Old World, to instruct him to bring back with him an organist, "one who had some trade, if possible a barber, -whom the congregation might improve in his occupation." Arranged before this organ, upon little spindling pedestals, like overgrown muezzin on Mohammedan minarets, are four gaudy little angels. Drake calls them cherubim. They are certainly more like angels than mortals, at least, for they are neither male nor female figures. They are dressed in carved robes of many brilliant colors and are a little over two feet high, with chubby cheeks puffed out to their utmost capacity, and rosy lips pressed closely about the tips of long wooden trumpets. Their hair falls in luxurious masses over their shoulders, from which burst heavily-feathered pinions in such an unfortunate way as to leave no possibility for those little creatures to undress without first taking off their wings. These angels were presented to the church by a certain Captain Grushea, who, in his privateer, the Queen of Hungary, amassed an immense fortune for those early days. He once came upon a Spanish vessel on board of which he found these figures on their way to a Catholic church in Canada; and because the booty was so large that he thought proper to make some return to the gods who had favored his stealing, or, more probably, because there was no other way of disposing of this comparatively worthless part of his prize, he presented the figures to the church. Horrible things they are, and why they are kept there is one of Lord Dundreary's problems. Just at their feet a quaint old clock is hung in the front rail of the organ gallery. The ancient chandeliers hanging in the nave are another evidence of the munificence of Captain Grushea, and were taken while upon the same trip to Canadian Catholics. They are suspended from the roof in the good old-fashioned way; a triple tier of great brass balls and a double row of long branching arms supporting unlighted tapers, bidding defiance to dust and frowning upon the But the Boston Protestants thought the polished brass of their Catholic brothers too bright and gaudy for their puritanic modesty, so they covered the chandeliers with a preparation that in color resembles the contents of an old snuff-box, intended to represent a fashionable bronze. And now, if you will, the crypt. The entrance is through the Sunday-school-room, in the rear. As you pass through the chapel, you will notice upon the wall a copy of Hunt's "Light of the World," "with the glory-crowned hair," standing with the glimmering lantern in his hand, "knocking, knocking, ever knocking," by the high wall, at that gate that is "ivy-gnarled and weed-bejangled; dusty, rusty, and forgotten." A short time ago, an apparently well-educated gentleman, who was accompanying several ladies through the church, stopped before this picture, and in all good faith suggested that it must be a likeness of Paul Revere waking up Robert Newman, to have him go and display the lanterns in the tower. Ugh! You shiver ! Of course you do, as you look through the old iron gate down into the long galleries of tombs. There is a double bank in the centre and a line entirely surrounding it, with a narrow gallery running between. The shadows are denser than above, severed here and there by a narrow shaft of warm light in which the dust dances up and down as though it had never heard of such a thing as attraction and gravitation. And sometimes, all together, the little particles will rush away into the shadows and new ones come out of the shadows to take their place. You may think it a spirit passing down that way, and possibly you are right. There are thirty tombs filled full of coffins; that is all. There are large coffins and little ones, and all sorts and shapes of them. And they are piled in pell-mell upon each other till the vaults are nearly full. There are plain pine board coffins and faint imitations of rich and costly hard-woods; but while the pine boards that have been on duty for a century and a half are as sound as the day they were made into coffins, though every nail and screw has rusted out of them, the rose-wood and mahog |