When I reached the house, not a soul was visible.  The men had all gone to church, and were to be seen in the distance, coming, along the road, singly and in a melancholy manner, not a sign of the customary, thoughtless merriment of a negro escaping a single individual among them; but it was usual for some of the black Venuses to be seen sunning themselves at that season, exhibiting their summer finery to each other and their admirers.  Not one was now visible.  All the front of the house, the lawn, the kitchens, of which there were no less than three, and the kitchen yards; in short, every familiar haunt of the dwelling was deserted and empty.  This boded evil; and, throwing the bridle over a post, I walked hurriedly towards the part of the building, or buildings, would be a better word, inhabited by Grace.

As I entered the passage which communicated with my sisters own room, the departure from ordinary appearances was explained.  Six or seven of the negresses were kneeling near the door, and I could hear the low, solemn, earnest voice of Lucy, reading some of the collects and other prayers suited to the sick-chamber and to the wants of a parting soul.  Lucy’s voice was music itself, but never before had it sounded so plaintively sweet.  The lowest intonation was distinctly audible, as if the dear, devout creature felt that the Being she addressed was not to be approached in any other manner, while the trembling earnestness of the tones betrayed the depth of feeling with which each syllable escaped from the heart.  Talk of liturgies impairing the fervour of prayer!  This may be the fact with those who are immersed in themselves while communing with God, and cannot consent even to pray without placing their own thoughts and language, however ill-digested and crude, uppermost in the business of the moment.  Do not such persons know that, as respects united worship, their own prayers are, to all intents and purposes, a formulary to their listeners, with the disadvantage of being received without preparation or direction to the mind?—­nay, too often substituting a critical and prurient curiosity for humble and intelligent prayer?  In these later times, when Christianity is re-assuming the character of the quarrels of sects, and, as an old man who has lived, and hopes to die, in communion with the Anglo-American church, I do not wish to exculpate my own particular branch of the Catholic body from blame; but, in these later times, when Christianity is returning to its truculency, forgetful of the chiefest of virtues, Charity, I have often recalled the scene of that solemn noon-tide, and asked myself the question, “if any man could have heard Lucy, as I did, on that occasion, concluding with the petition which Christ himself gave to his disciples as a comprehensive rule, if not absolutely as a formulary, and imagine the heart could not fully accompany words that had been previously prescribed?”