Product Synopsis

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1845. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIX. THE ENGLISH CH0BCH.--CONFIRMATION. I look on both sides of this human life-- Its brightness and its shadow. One of the most beautiful and impressive rites of the church, is the confirmation of young people as it is seen in the country. On some bright summer morning, you see troops of village boys and girls come marching into the town, headed by the village clerk, or schoolmaster. First one, then another little regiment of these rural embryo Christians, is seen advancing from different parts towards the principal church. All are in their best array. Their leader, with an air of unusual solemn dignity, marches straight forward, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, but sometimes casting a grave glance behind at his followers. His suit of best black adorns his sturdy person, and his lappels fly wide in the breeze that meets him. His charge come on in garbs of many colours;--the damsels in green and scarlet petticoats; stockings white, black, and grey; gowns of white, bearing testimony to miry roads and provoking brambles; gowns of cotton print of many a dazzling flowery pattern; gowns even of silk in these luxurious days; long, flying pink sashes, and pink, and yellow, and scarlet bunches in bonnets of many a curious make. The lads stride on with slouching paces that have not been learned in drawing and assembly-rooms, but on the barn-floor, beside the loaded waggon, on the heathy sheep-walk, and in the deep fallow field. They are gloriously robed in corduroy breeches, blue worsted stockings, heavy-nailed ancle-boots, green shag waistcoats, neck-handkerchiefs of red, with long corners that flutter in the wind, and coats shaped by some sempiternal tailor, whose fashions know no change. Amid the bustling, spruce inhabitants of the town, the...