What? Is a common cooking-stove an
altar? Yes, verily, in lineal descent. Examine an ancient altar
and you will see its sacrificial stone scored and guttered to catch
the dripping from the roasting meat. Who is the priestess, after
an order older than Melchisedec's, but she that ministers to us
that most comfortable sacrament, wherein we are made partakers not
alone of the outward and visible food which we do carnally press
with our teeth, but also of that inward and spiritual sustenance,
the patient and enduring love of wife and mother, without which
there can be no such thing as home? All other sacraments wherein
men break the bread of amity together are but copies of this pattern,
the Blessed Sacrament of the Household Altar, the first and primal
one of all, the one that shall perdure, please God! throughout all
ages of ages.
The flames die down. The timbers sink together with a softer
fall. The air grows chill. We fetch a sigh. We cannot bear to
look at that mute figure of the priestess seated on the sordid heap
of broken furniture, her sleeping baby pressed against her breast,
her gaze fixed - but seeing naught - upon her ruined temple. We
do not like to think upon such things. We do not like to think at
all. Is there nothing more to laugh at?
The firemen, having all borrowed the makings of a cigarette from
each other, put on their hats and coats, left on the hook-and-ladder
truck in the custody of a trusted member.
Pages:
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161