The archway opens
into a solid rock, and a stream of water issues from the threshold. On
entering the visitor is confronted by a great boulder, resembling an
old-fashioned New England pulpit, reaching half way to the ceiling.
The walls are almost perfectly arched, and garnished here and there
with green moss and white lichen. A rift in the rocks extends the
whole length of the chapel, over which trees hang their green foliage,
which, ever rustling and trembling, form a trellis-work with the blue
sky, while the spray rising from behind the rock-worn altar seems like
the sprinkling of holy incense. After all these years I still hear the
voice of those dashing waters and dream again, as I did that day, of
the brook of Cherith where ravens fed the prophet of old. It is said
by Lossing, in his booklet on the Dover Stone Church, that Sacassas,
the mighty sachem of the Pequoids and emperor over many tribes between
the Thames and the Hudson River, was compelled after a disastrous
battle which annihilated his warriors, to fly for safety, and, driven
from point to point, he at last found refuge in this cave, where
undiscovered he subsisted for a few days on berries, until at last he
made his way through the territory of his enemies, the Mahicans, to
the land of the Mohawks.
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