Suppose that a few hours have passed , and behold me still behind my curtain just before the close of the afternoon service . The hour-hand on the dial has passed beyond four o'clock . The declining sun is hidden behind the steeple and throws its shadow straight across the street ; so that my chamber is darkened as with a cloud . Around the church door all is solitude , and an impenetrable obscurity beyond the threshold . A commotion is heard . The seats are slammed down and the pew doors thrown back ; a multitude of feet are trampling along the unseen aisles , and the congregation bursts suddenly through the portal . Foremost scampers a rabble of boys , behind whom moves a dense and dark phalanx of grown men , and lastly a crowd of females with young children and a few scattered husbands . This instantaneous outbreak of life into loneliness is one of the pleasantest scenes of the day . Some of the good people are rubbing their eyes , thereby intimating that they have been wrapped , as it were , in a sort of holy trance by the fervor of their devotion . There is a young man , a third-rate coxcomb , whose first care is always to flourish a white handkerchief and brush the seat of a tight pair of black silk pantaloons which shine as if varnished . They must have been made of the stuff called `` everlasting , '' or perhaps of the same piece as Christian 's garments in the Pilgrim 's Progress , for he put them on two summers ago and has not yet worn the gloss off . I have taken a great liking to those black silk pantaloons . But now , with nods and greetings among friends , each matron takes her husband 's arm and paces gravely homeward , while the girls also flutter away after arranging sunset walks with their favored bachelors . The Sabbath eve is the eve of love . At length the whole congregation is dispersed . No ; here , with faces as glossy as black satin , come two sable ladies and a sable gentleman , and close in their rear the minister , who softens his severe visage and bestows a kind word on each . Poor souls ! To them the most captivating picture of bliss in heaven is `` There we shall be white ! '' All is solitude again . But hark !
A broken warbling of voices , and now , attuning its grandeur to their sweetness , a stately peal XXXXX the organ .
across along before behind by for of to while with