20–26 August 1838

What is more alive among works of art than our plain old wooden church, built a century and a quarter ago, with the ancient New Eng- land spire ? I pass it at night, and stand and listen to the beats of the clock— like heart-beats ; not sounding, as Elizabeth Hoar well observed, . so much like tickings, as like a step. It is the step of Time. You catch the sound first by looking up at the clock-face, and then you see this wooden tower rising thus alone, but stable and aged, towards the midnight stars. It has affiance and privilege with them. Not less than the marble cathedral it had its origin in sublime aspirations, in the august religion of man. Not less than those stars to which it points, it began to be in the soul.