I never saw the attention of a congregation more strongly
excited, and I really wished, in Christian charity, that
something better had rewarded it.
There are a vast number of churches and chapels in the city, in
proportion to its extent, and several that are large and well-
built; the Unitarian church is the handsomest I have ever seen
dedicated to that mode of worship. But the prettiest among them
is a little _bijou_ of a thing belonging to the Catholic college.
The institution is dedicated to St. Mary, but this little chapel
looks, though in the midst of a city, as if it should have been
sacred to St. John of the wilderness. There is a sequestered
little garden behind it, hardly large enough to plant cabbages
in, which yet contains a Mount Calvary, bearing a lofty cross.
The tiny path which leads up to this sacred spot, is not much
wider than a sheep-track, and its cedars are but shrubs, but all
is in proportion; and notwithstanding its fairy dimensions, there
is something of holiness, and quiet beauty about it, that excites
the imagination strangely. The little chapel itself has the same
touching and impressive character. A solitary lamp, whose glare
is tempered by delicately painted glass, hangs before the altar.
The light of day enters dimly, yet richly, through crimson
curtains, and the silence with which the well-lined doors opened
from time to time, admitting a youth of the establishment, who,
with noiseless tread, approached the altar, and kneeling, offered
a whispered prayer, and retired, had something in it more
calculated, perhaps, to generate holy thoughts, than even the
swelling anthem heard beneath the resounding dome of St.
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