So the last day of summer came.It was our choice to go to the church, but we had a kind of reception at the boarding-house.The presents were all arranged, and among them none gave more pleasure than the modest tributes of our fellow-boarders, - for there was not one, I believe, who did not send something.The landlady would insist on making an elegant bride-cake, with her own hands; to which Master Benjamin Franklin wished to add certain embellishments out of his private funds, - namely, a Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in white sugar, and two miniature flags with the stars and stripes, which had a very pleasing effect, I assure you.The landlady's daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper's Poems.On a blank leaf was the following, written in a very delicate and careful hand:-Presented to...by...
On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony.
May sunshine ever beam o'er her!
Even the poor relative thought she must do something, and sent a copy of "The Whole Duty of Man," bound in very attractive variegated sheepskin, the edges nicely marbled.From the divinity-student came the loveliest English edition of "Keble's Christian Year." I opened it, when it came, to the FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT, and read that angelic poem, sweeter than anything I can remember since Xavier's "My God, I love thee." - I am not a Churchman, - Idon't believe in planting oaks in flower-pots, - but such a poem as "The Rosebud" makes one's heart a proselyte to the culture it grows from.Talk about it as much as you like, - one's breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion.A man should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers; the fondness for "scenes,"among vulgar saints, contrasts so meanly with that -"God only and good angels look Behind the blissful scene,"-and that other, -