The congregation sat on cushioned seats, and sang out of their
prayer-books. For the church itself had come to the poor girl in her
narrow chamber, or else she had come into the church. She sat in the
pew with the clergyman's family, and when they had ended the psalm and
looked up, they nodded and said, "It is right that thou art come!"

"It was through mercy!" she said.

And the organ pealed, and the children's voices in the choir sounded
sweet and soft. The clear sunshine streamed warmly through the window
into the pew where Karen sat. Her heart was so full of sunshine and
peace, and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunshine to God, and
there no one asked after the _red shoes_.

* * * * *

Hans Christian Andersen is an excellent allegorist, and has very
ingeniously woven together a most interesting fabric in this story of
Karen, who, I am sure, every child cannot fail to see is a fabulous
heroine. And yet there is something so simple and touching in the whole
story, from beginning to end, that one can scarcely read it without
weeping over her sufferings, and wondering in their hearts at the
severity of her punishment.

In former times there was a real belief in supernatural things among the
simple-minded, a belief which, it seems to me, was much more in
accordance with the Christian character than the senseless unbelief in
every thing which cannot be explained according to natural laws, which
is certainly very much the case at the present day among the wise and
learned, and much more to be regretted than the credulousness of other