However I was not called upon to assert the great Reformation. A more simple, quiet, and impressive service I never witnessed anywhere; and although there was no roof overhead, and little enclosure on either side, the view of the sky, and the passing of the wind, and the sense of antiquity around us were in harmony, as it seemed to me, with the conditions of humility, and mortality, and hopefulness. The strictest Puritan could have found fault with little except the red crosses worn by all the congregation, and a few triangles and wreaths of white flowers. And the man who can find any fault with these must consider himself too faultless to worship any other being.
First came the women, only seven or eight in number, veiled not very heavily, and cloaked in cheerful raiment. And the last of these was Dariel, looking as if she had never dreamed of anything uncelestial, while the loveliness of her figure gleamed through the folds of her flowing mantle; even as the flexure and the texture of an agate glisten through the cloudy pretext of their coat to hide them. "Who shall understand these things?" thought I, "there is no one on earth fit to approach her; yet the Lord cannot have meant her to be always by herself." And then I thought of Hafer--Prince indeed! Prince of darkness, and nothing else--and I looked about, with anything but religious peace inside me. However I could perceive no sign of any wickedness high or low; and every heart except my own sang a grateful and worshipful tune to the Lord.
Even to me it was a quiet and devout proceeding, when Imar (not as one who preaches to a crowd of animals below him, but like a man speaking to and on behalf of men--not abject, though beneath a cloud) began the simple offering of our love, and trust, and loyalty. To me it was grander than it might have been to those who could criticise it; for I could not object to anything, because I did not comprehend a word. Nevertheless it did me good, inasmuch as it did the others good; and if a man lives in himself alone, he will not find much good there, I fear. And when they began their final hymn of high thanksgiving, and hopeful trust that our Maker will not be as hard upon us as we are upon one another, the sound of great rejoicing--which our Christians never indulge in--filled the valley, and went up the heights, such as we are bidden to gaze at, while we stick to the dismal hollows. I knew that I was only of a dull prosaic order, but felt for the moment above myself, with the other fellows lifting me.