A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)

"I know his courts; I'll enter in, Whatever may oppose;" and so I fancied there would be lions in the way, as there were in the Pilgrim's, at the "House Beautiful"; but I should not be afraid of them; they would no doubt be chained. The last verse began with the lines,-- "I can but perish if I go: I am resolved to try:" and my heart beat a brave echo to the words, as I started off in fancy on a "Pilgrim's Progress" of my own, a happy little dreamer, telling nobody the secret of my imaginary journey, taken in sermon-time. Usually, the hymns for which I cared most suggested Nature in some way,--flowers, trees, skies, and stars. When I repeated,-- "There everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers,"-- I thought of the faintly flushed anemones and white and blue violets, the dear little short-lived children of our shivering spring. They also would surely be found in that heavenly land, blooming on through the cloudless, endless year. And I seemed to smell the spiciness of bay berry and sweet-fern and wild roses and meadow-sweet that grew in fragrant jungles up and down the hillside back of the meeting-house, in another verse which I dearly loved:-- "The hill of Zion yields A thousand sacred sweet, Before we reach the heavenly fields, Or walk the golden streets." We were allowed to take a little nosegay to meeting sometimes: a pink or two (pinks were pink then, not red, nor white, nor even double) and a sprig of camomile; and their blended perfume still seems to be a part of the June Sabbath mornings long passed away.