WHY are our churches shut with jealous care, | |
| Bolted and barred against our bosom’s yearning, | |
| Save for the few short hours of sabbath prayer, | |
| With the bell’s tolling statedly returning? | |
| Why are they shut? | 5 |
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| If with diurnal drudgeries o’erwrought, | |
| Or sick of dissipation’s dull vagaries, | |
| We wish to snatch one little space for thought, | |
| Or holy respite in our sanctuaries, | |
| Why are they shut? | 10 |
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| What! shall the church, the house of prayer, no more | |
| Give tacit notice from its fastened portals, | |
| That for six days ’t is useless to adore, | |
| Since God will hold no communings with mortals? | |
| Why are they shut? | 15 |
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| Are there no sinners in the churchless week, | |
| Who wish to sanctify a vowed repentance? | |
| Are there no hearts bereft which fain would seek | |
| The only balm for Death’s unpitying sentence? | |
| Why are they shut? | 20 |
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| Are there no poor, no wronged, no heirs of grief, | |
| No sick, who, when their strength or courage falters, | |
| Long for a moment’s respite or relief, | |
| By kneeling at the God of mercy’s altars? | |
| Why are they shut? | 25 |
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| Are there no wicked, whom, if tempted in, | |
| Some qualm of conscience or devout suggestion | |
| Might suddenly redeem from future sin? | |
| O, if there be, how solemn is the question, | |
| Why are they shut? | 30 |
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| In foreign climes mechanics leave their tasks | |
| To breathe a passing prayer in their cathedrals: | |
| There they have week-day shrines, and no one asks, | |
| When he would kneel to them and count his bead-rolls, | |
| Why are they shut? | 35 |
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| Seeing them enter sad and disconcerted, | |
| To quit those cheering fanes with looks of gladness,— | |
| How often have my thoughts to ours reverted! | |
| How oft have I exclaimed in tones of sadness, | |
| Why are they shut? | 40 |
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| For who within a parish church can stroll, | |
| Wrapt in its week-day stillness and vacation, | |
| Nor feel that in the very air his soul | |
| Receives a sweet and hallowing lustration? | |
| Why are they shut? | 45 |
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| The vacant pews, blank aisles, and empty choir, | |
| All in a deep sepulchral silence shrouded, | |
| An awe more solemn and intense inspire, | |
| Than when with sabbath congregations crowded. | |
| Why are they shut? | 50 |
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| The echoes of our footsteps, as we tread | |
| On hollow graves, are spiritual voices; | |
| And holding mental converse with the dead, | |
| In holy reveries our soul rejoices. | |
| Why are they shut? | 55 |
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| If there be one—one only—who might share | |
| This sanctifying week-day adoration, | |
| Were but our churches open to his prayer, | |
| Why—I demand with earnest iteration— | |
| Why are they shut? | 60 |
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