really worth while? One is discouraged by seeing that people who possess an ornate ritual, seem to care little for it. I do not speak of the dull, who cannot appreciate it: even those who do appreciate it soon come to take it all as a matter of course. Laboriously put people on a higher level; they grow accustomed to it, and the actual enjoyment is gradually toned down to just the old degree. Having gained the higher level, we think we shall sit down. and rest why not sit down and rest now? We are just as happy as we shall be anywhere. And how much must be fought through to gain the higher level! Not merely hard and discouraging work; but misapprehension, misrepresentation, obloquy, strife, loss of friends. Quiet men, desiring no more than peacefully to slip through life, doing their work as in their Taskmaster's eye, find themselves shown up by name in clever and sarcastic, sometimes lying and malignant, articles in newspapers. Human beings, themselves incapable of frankness or magnanimity, persist in suspecting such of far farther and wickeder ends than they avow. Unhappy associations exist in confused minds between things that have nothing to do with one another. You really want to have an organ: to get your people to stand at praise and kneel at prayer to persuade them to pause in silent prayer on entering church; and the like on leaving it, instead of rushing out as though the sacred edifice were on fire. But from these facts some will have it

that you desire to abolish the New Testament, or else that you are 'half a Roman Catholic' (how I hate the phrase !): and peaceful mortals, shrinking from strife, sensitive to abuse, sore at being suspected with cruel injustice, come to sigh a weary sigh, and to sit down sorrowfully, declining the thankless task of the moral pioneer. Humble as is the present writer, desiring no better than to 'prosper in the shade' and be let alone to work hard, he has seen himself denounced in print as (I.) a Socinian; (II.) a Broad Churchman; (III.) a High Churchman ; (IV.) a Low Churchman; (V.) a Half Roman Catholic; (VI.) a Puritan desiring that all cathedrals should be pulled down and red brick meeting-houses built instead; (VII.) a dishonest Trimmer between different opinions; (VIII.) a virulent accuser of the Church to which he belongs; (IX.) a wicked man who has got his Church to sing the Te Deum' (a well-known Socinian composition); (X.) a person who 'performs marriages in church with full choral accompaniments;' (XI.) a person who is always going to see Cathedrals; (XII.) an Infidel who writes in Fraser's Magazine; (XIII.) a person who got his Church to call a hymn-book a Hymnal. He has known printed papers bearing the like charges to be diligently circulated in his parish with a zeal worthy of a better cause; though he is not aware that they have ever done him any harm. Might not insignificance be allowed to pass unnoticed? And if these

6

troubles befall the molehill, what shall become of Ben Nevis? What wonder if many are cowed into a sorrowful reticence? Or, having spoken, wish they had held their tongue?

At the afternoon service that day did the writer go to St. Martin's. It was a noble church, and may again be made one; but evil hands were laid on it in the lowest season of architectural taste; and (save the beautiful spire) its builders would not know it. It has been cased outwardly in red brick; and the clerestory (still apparent from within) has been externally roofed over. Entering, you see what the church may yet be. There is a narrow centre alley, broad side-aisles, with galleries, especially offensive. Right in front of the altar is set the pulpit of dark oak, with reading-desks in front. The congregation was small: the service was poorly done. But with all the disadvantage of the empty church, the clergyman gave a really admirable sermon. There had been (I thought) somewhat too much of the gushing in his reading of the prayers; but only good could be said of his preaching. Black-robed and banded, in the garb familiar to the Scotch eye, without a scrap of manuscript to guide, with unfailing fluency, with clearness, point, interest, and heart, he riveted the writer's attention from first word to last. The day was October 15. If I were the patron of a good living, I know who should have it. If the patron of such a living would be guided by me, he would enquire

at St. Martin's, Birmingham. I know not the preacher's name, nor even whether he be one of the regular But I am sure I am not mistaken in saying I heard a zealous, able, and good man that day.

curates.

Then

Again at evensong to St. Philip's. Now it was well filled. Again the music was beautiful. There were three clergymen a young man with a long cassock and a short surplice (may they be a great comfort and help to him) intoned the prayers in a loud and specially pleasant voice. I beheld him with interest. and sympathy, and thought of All Saints in London. Let nothing be said of the sermon : it was well meant. That clergyman's vocation is not that of a preacher. It was not the doctrine that was amiss: there was nothing said of a doctrinal nature to which I could not say Amen. It was the Decent Debility. the young man with the short surplice said the blessing near the altar steps: with hands clasped on his breast as he said the first part of it; and, as he said the latter part, holding up his right hand with two fingers extended, in a fashion very familiar in many places, but still infrequent in Anglican churches. I gazed, and thought of the photograph of one of the two prelates of Glengarry Church. Walking home, I wondered with great wonder how a bishop could stand up before a camera and sham the solemn act of blessing. If such a photograph were taken, the bishop should have been unconscious of the fact. Perhaps he may have been. It may be said, in passing, that the face

of that really illustrious man, often beaming with good humour, bears an unhappy expression in that famous picture. I fear that a stranger, ignorant of the language, would have deemed the bishop was hurling a curse. But, as the blessing would do little good, the curse would do no harm.

Thus the Sunday evening passed away-the uncongenial Sunday evening at an inn. The tables in the great sitting-room were strewn with newspapers ; but the writer begs to say he did not read any of them. He raises no question of right or wrong, but he knows what is good for him. Let there be one Sabbatical day, in which to get away from the weary worry! Surely the world is with us quite enough, at least.

Next day was sunshiny and pleasant.

Birmingham

is still the base of operations. A very good thing about Birmingham is that it is so easy to get away from it. Soon after ten o'clock we glide forth from the huge shed, and follow the line which in my schoolboy days was called the Grand Junction; stop for a little space amid the smoke of Wallsall ; then passing forth from the awful blasted tract north of Birmingham, we are at the quiet little city of Lichfield. Let us cross a field by a little foot-path; then, through narrow streets, make for the spot marked by three spires, the only English church which has three spires. Straight on on the left the market-place, with a solemn and even hang-dog statue of Samuel Johnson;