Despite the fact that Hawthorne did not belong to any church, he apparently still
kept the Sabbath and in this passage acknowledges his "instinct of faith."
For my own part, whether I see it scattered down among tangled woods,
or beaming broad across the fields, or hemmed in between brick buildings, or
tracing out the figure of the casement on my chamber floor, still I recognize
the Sabbath sunshine. --And ever let me recognize it! Some illusions, and this
among them, are the shadows of great truths. Doubts may flit around me, or seem
to close their evil wings, and settle down; but, so long as I imagine that the
earth is hallowed, and the light of heaven retains its sanctity, on the Sabbath--while
that blessed sunshine lives within me--never can my soul have lost the instinct
of its faith. If it have gone astray, it will return again.
