It
was the sublimest thing I ever heard, and I don't know that there's
anything to match it for dignity and solemnity in any religious rite. It
made the tears come, for I thought how those people were of a church of
missionaries and martyrs from the beginning, and I felt as if I were
standing in sight and hearing of the first Christians after Christ. It
was as if He were risen there 'in the midst of them.'"
Rulledge looked round on the rest of us, with an air of acquiring merit
from the Bostonian's poetry, but Minver's gravity was proof against the
chance of mocking Rulledge, and I think we all felt alike. Wanhope
seemed especially interested, though he said nothing.
"When I went home I told my wife about it as well as I could, but,
though she entered into the spirit of it, she was rather preoccupied.
The children had all wakened, as they did sometimes, in a body, and were
storming joyfully around the rooms, as if it were Christmas; and she was
trying to get them dressed. 'Do tell them what Easter is like; they've
never seen it kept before,' she said; and I tried to do so, while I took
a hand, as a young father will, and tried to get them into their
clothes.
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