Christian religion, or at least for that view of it represented by our Seminary, when that institution was established at Cesarea, a matter of nearly a century ago. But art had not in this instance proved herself the handmaid of religion. The theological buildings, a row of three,—Galilee and Damascus Halls to right and left of the ancient chapel,—rose grimly against the cold Cesarea sky. These buildings were all of brick, red, rectangular, and unrelieved; as barren of ornament or broken lines as a packing-box, and yet curiously possessed of a certain dignity of their own; such as we see in aged country folk unfashionably dressed, but sure of their local position. Not a tremor seemed ever to disturb the calm, red faces of these old buildings, when the pretty chapel and the graceful library of modern taste crept in under the elms of the Seminary green to console the spirit of the[31] contemporary Cesarean, who has visited the Louvre and the Vatican as often as the salary will allow; who has tickets to the Symphony Concerts in Boston, and feels no longer obliged to conceal the fact that he occasionally witnesses a Shakespearean play.

[31]

Helen Carruth, for one, did not object to the old red boxes, and held them in respect; not for their architectural qualities, it must be owned, nor because of the presence therein of a hundred young men for whose united or separate personalities she had never cared a fig. But of the Cesarean sunsets, which are justly famous, she was observant with the enthusiasm of a girl who has so little social occupation that a beautiful landscape is still an object of attention, even of affection. And where does reflected sunset take to itself the particular glory that it takes on Cesarea Hill?

The Professor’s daughter was in the habit of watching from her eastern window to see that row of old buildings take fire from the western sky behind her; window after window, four stories of them, thirty-two to a front on either side, and the solemn disused chapel in the midst. It would have been a pleasant sight to any delicate eye; but to the girl, with her religiously trained imagination and unoccupied fancy, it was a beautiful and a poetic one. She had learned to watch for it on sunny days in her lonely Cesarea winters,—between her visits to New York or Boston. Now[32] Damascus Hall, and now Galilee, received the onset of flame; now this floor reflected it, and now that; certain windows became refracting crystals, and flung the gorgeous color back; certain others drew it in and drank it down into their glowing hearts. One—belonging to a northwest corner room in Galilee Hall—blazed magnificently 

 Prev. P 20/259 next