CHAPTER VI.

"I WILL COME AGAIN, MY DEAR."

"I wish my friend, Glengall, were at home," said Mr. Graydon,

leaning back in the chair by the study fire. "He'd give you a mount

while you were waiting for Johnny Maher's little mare. The hounds

meet at Lettergort to-day."

He looked wistfully through the bare trees on the lawn, as though

he saw in imagination the scarlet horsemen pounding away after the

streaming line of hounds.

His pupil thrust into a book a sketch of Pamela which he had been

making absent-mindedly.

"Why don't you hunt, sir?" he asked, with sympathy.

"So I do, my lad, when I can. But I can't afford to keep a horse,

and there aren't many mounts to be had here. Glengall is going to

set up stables when he comes back, and I'll have the run of them, I

suppose. He's a good fellow--one wouldn't mind being obliged to him."

"The mare'll be a good one when she's broken," said the young man.

"The best in the world for Irish fences, if she does look a bit

roughish."

"You'll ride her for me, when I am away at Christmas, to get her

mouth in?"

"Thank you, my lad; I should like to." Mr. Graydon's eye kindled

with pleasure. "But I didn't know you were going. It seems a longish

way to go home for Christmas."

"My mother would like to see me."

"To be sure, to be sure. I quite understand, and, of course, there

are friends in London you naturally want to see."

"No one very particularly, sir."

"Ah, well! it will be a holiday from this dull place."

"No, I assure you, sir. It is partly because I have some--some

business I want to settle. It is really true that there is no one

I go to see whom I regard more than the friends I shall be leaving

behind."

Sir Anthony blushed hotly over this avowal, but his unsuspicious

host only saw in it the shamefacedness with which a man, and

especially a young man, makes a display of his feelings.

"Now, that is kind of you," he said, looking at his pupil

benignantly. "I am sure our Christmas will be dull without you. Do

the girls know you are going? They won't like it, eh? And they will

be disappointed that you will not be here for the Vandaleur affair."

"I am coming back for that, sir."

"I am glad. It is really the children's first outing. It is a dull

enough affair for young people, but then they will wear their pretty

frocks and see strange faces. We are such quiet people, Trevithick,

that even Vandaleur's big dinner and reception, which comes off

regularly whenever there is a general election in sight"--Mr.

Graydon broke off to laugh and rub his hands--"is an event for us.

But we are forgetting our Tacitus, my boy. Let us get back to the

old fellow."

At that moment there was the sound of a horn, and, with the shout of

a boy, Mr. Graydon was up.

"Come along, Trevithick," he cried, rushing away, hatless and

coatless. "We shall get a glimpse of them. What a day for a scent!

They are sure to find at Larry's Spinney."

His words came back to his pupil, who was getting under weigh more

leisurely.

"Dear old boy!" he muttered to himself. "It's not surprising my

father never forgot him. I wonder why the mater regards him with so

deadly a hatred, though?"

At lunch Mr. Graydon announced that Sir Anthony was going home for

Christmas. There was a shrill expostulation from Sylvia, and even a

mild protest from Mary, but Pamela said nothing. Perhaps it was not

news to Pamela.

"You will not be here for the skating," said Sylvia aggrievedly;

"that is, if there's going to be any. And I've promised them at

the Rectory that you'd recite at their penny reading and give away

the presents at the Christmas-tree, besides managing the magic

lantern. And, oh!"--the magnitude of the misfortune coming full upon

her--"you're not surely going to miss the Vandaleur dinner?"

"No, Miss Sylvia, I shall be here for it certainly. I wouldn't

miss it for anything; but I object to your engagements for me with

the Rectory people. I'd rather be shot than recite, and--the other

things are beyond me," laughing.

"Never mind, then," said the young lady airily. "Lord Glengall will

do just as well. I shall like to see him distributing the articles.

Besides, he will please the people better than a 'baronite,' and be

of the rale ould blood, too."

"Sylvia!" said her father, with a rebuke in his voice.

"Never mind, papa dear. Sir Anthony understands all about his being

only a 'baronite.' Bridget told him the other day that if the master

had his rights 'tisn't teaching a 'Sir' he'd be."

"So she did," said Sir Anthony.

Mr. Graydon laughed.

"Ah, well, my boy! you mustn't tell your mother what odd people

you've found among the wild Irish--will you?"

"She wouldn't understand a bit, but I'll tell her what dear friends

I have found and made at Carrickmoyle."

He blushed again, and Mr. Graydon thought how well his modesty

became him.

"Ah, well!" he said, "I suppose we must make up our minds to spend

Christmas without you. What are you going to do this afternoon?"

"I'm going to Maher's to see the mare, and put her through her

paces. I'd like to have her stabled here as soon as possible. If

she's ready, she can come at once."

"To be sure. There's stabling for twenty horses here, though the

stalls are bare--worse luck! But we won't let Sheila starve. Shall

we, girls? I'll go bail these children will make a fine pet of her,

Trevithick."

"I shall be all the fonder of her, sir, though I'm well pleased with

her at present."

"She's a sweet little bit of horseflesh," assented Mr. Graydon. "I

think I shall come with you, if you don't object to my company. I've

a bit of business with Johnny myself."

When they returned in time for the afternoon cup of tea, they found

an old yellow barouche standing before the door.

"Ah, Miss Spencer is here," said Mr. Graydon. "She's rather an

oddity, my boy, so prepare to meet one."

"I heard her story from Miss Pamela. It is very sad."

"When I was a boy of thirteen or fourteen I remember her a

brilliantly lovely young woman. That was before that scoundrel came

in her way."

When they entered the drawing-room Miss Spencer was sitting with her

back to them, almost hidden in a deep armchair. The three girls were

sitting or standing about her, all evidently much interested.

"Here is papa, and our guest with him, Miss Spencer," said Mary.

The little old woman came out of her chair with a sudden darting

movement like that of a bird. Her gaze went from Mr. Graydon to the

younger man.

"Oh!" she cried. "Whom did you say?"

She looked at the stranger for a moment with an agony of expectation

in her yet bright eyes, while she fumbled nervously for the

long-handled glasses at her side. When she had found them she peered

at him through them; then dropped them, the expression of her face

changing to indifference.

"I beg your pardon, sir," she said. "I am expecting a friend, and

for a moment I thought you were he."

"How do you do, Miss Spencer?" broke in Mr. Graydon. "I see you have

Stella under the barouche again. I'm glad she has recovered from her

lameness."

"The foot has come all right, thank you," said Miss Spencer,

assuming quite an ordinary manner. "You weren't hunting to-day?"

"No; I must wait till Glengall sets up his stables."

"Ah, Glengall is coming home soon?"

"He expects to reach Plymouth on the eighteenth. He will be at home

for Christmas."

"There'll be nothing in order for him in that old barrack of his."

"He'll stay here while he's getting things straight. He is going

to make a grand place of Glengall. He has plenty of money, and the

heart to spend it, and the practical wit to direct it."

"What will he do with it then? He has neither chick nor child."

"There is always time, Miss Spencer."

The slightly mad, brooding look came back to the little wizened

white face.

"Yes, of course, there is time," she said, dreamily. "I remember

someone--who was it?--who knew Glengall when she was a young woman

and he was a little boy. Glengall can't be old, of course, and any

day people may return--mayn't they?"

"Why, to be sure they may. Glengall did, though he was twenty years

out of the reach of civilisation."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of Glengall. It was of someone much younger,

someone about the age of that young gentleman there."

Trevithick stood in the background and watched her with honest eyes

of wonder and pity. She was smoothing the pink silk of her gown,

while her eyes watched the fire as if she saw something very happy

in it. Her skin was waxen white, and her features sharpened, but the

brilliant eyes kept their beauty, and her little old hands, covered

with rings, were delicately shaped. Her hair was half-white through

the original black, and very oddly her pink bonnet, with its wreath

of roses inside, sat on the streaked hair and over the white face.

She had thrown off a large sable cloak on to the back of her chair.

[Illustration: Trevithick watched her with wonder and pity.]

Sylvia now broke in on Miss Spencer's half-mad mood. She touched one

of the hands tenderly. Trevithick, as he noticed it, thought that

it was the first time he had seen Sylvia's face really soft; and

wonderfully the new expression completed the girl's beauty. So she

will look, he thought, some day, when she is in love, like--like

Pamela. But Pamela's serious face was hidden from him now with a

fire-screen she held in her hand. He had noticed of late that she

seldom looked at him, nor was he displeased. He knew the secret she

was afraid to reveal.

"We are all going to the Vandaleur affair, Miss Spencer," Sylvia

was saying. "It will be on the thirtieth. There are to be great

doings--acres of marquees for the diners, and the winter garden lit

by electricity, and I don't know what besides."

Miss Spencer came back to every-day life with a start.

"To the Vandaleur affair, child! Why, who is going to take you?"

"Papa, of course. He loves a little outing, though he won't admit

it. He says he'd rather stay at home and have a quiet night's work

at his book, and get some hot tea ready for us by the time we come

home."

"Why shouldn't I take you?" said the old lady. "I'm hardly old

enough for a chaperon, of course, still I've the carriage, and

I'd enjoy the function. I haven't been at one since the time Tom

Charteris was master of the hounds. How long ago is that?"

Mr. Graydon, to whom she spoke, answered her without looking at her.

"A goodish few years ago."

"It can't be," said the old lady; "not more than four or five at the

outside. I wore white satin and pearls. That reminds me: what are

you going to wear, minx?"

This to Sylvia, at the same time softly pulling her ear.

"We've got pattern-books of silk stuffs from Dublin. They're

dirt-cheap; but the dressmaking will be the bother. However, I

daresay we'll manage. Mrs. Collins' Nancy, who is a lady's-maid, is

expected home for Christmas. She'll cut the frocks out, and we'll

sew them ourselves. She'll know the fashions."

[Illustration: "I must go, to unravel a tangled skein."]

"Stuff and nonsense, child! Your first public appearance, too."

"It's Pam's also. But you'll see we'll look very nice. I shouldn't

be surprised if the prince fell in love with me."

"What prince? Oh, I see, Cinderella's. But Cinderella went

magnificently to her evening party--not in cheap and nasty stuffs

cobbled up anyhow."

"The prince wouldn't see that. He'd be disconsolate when I

disappeared at twelve o'clock, and he'd send all over the country to

find the fit of my glass slipper, and Molly and Pam would cry tears

of rage because it wouldn't even fit on their toes."

"You're not ball-going, minx."

"It will be just as good. There'll be a beautiful dinner, and

everyone in the county there, and afterwards there will be acres of

beautiful things to see. It is a thousand pities Mr. Vandaleur is an

absentee."

"If he wasn't, he wouldn't have to remind you of his existence now,"

said the old lady cynically. "But am I to be chaperon?"

"Well, I'll tell you what, Miss Spencer," said Mr. Graydon. "If

you'd take charge of these children, I'd be greatly obliged to

you. The fact is that I've to attend a sort of unofficial meeting

of Vandaleur's supporters in the afternoon, and he has hospitably

offered me a bed. So I thought I'd take my bag over and dress there

after the meeting."

"And stay all night? I knew it," cried Sylvia. "Papa pretended it

was such a bother, and all the time he was longing to be in for

every bit of it. Only he didn't know what to do with us."

Mr. Graydon laughed.

"Maybe you wouldn't like it yourself. I shall be button-holed by

Musgrave and Frost and Clitheroe, and every man in the county who

thinks he has a head for politics and wants a patient listener."

"And you will go at it hammer and tongs with the best of them, and

forget you have daughters. I don't suppose you'll even remember at

dinner-time to see whether anyone is asking us if we've an appetite."

"The young fellows will do that. Every boy in the county will be

there, including the 300th from Dangan Barracks."

"I daresay," said Sylvia: "you're always ready to shift your

responsibilities. Never mind, Miss Spencer; I daresay we shall be

able to find someone who will look after us, if it's only a waiter."

"Oh, indeed, you'll find someone to befriend you, never fear. And so

will Pam. And so shall I. But what about Molly?"

"Never mind me, Miss Spencer," said Mary. "It would never do to have

you chaperoning three girls, and I shouldn't enjoy it a bit. I shall

stay up and have tea for you after your cold drive."

"I don't know what girls are coming to," said Miss Spencer; "I

shouldn't like to have to stay at home myself."

"We don't mind Molly," cried her sisters; "she really likes to stay

at home and write her perpetual letters."

"I shouldn't mind having the three of you," went on Miss Spencer;

"we'd pass for four sisters."

"We should never look as lovely as you in that white satin and

pearls," said Sylvia, fondly.

"I was much admired," said Miss Spencer, complacently. "But now I

must be going. I've letters to write before dinner: I don't want to

lose my beauty-sleep sitting up to write them."

When Sir Anthony came into the drawing-room before dinner, he found

only Pamela stretching her hands to the wood fire in the low grate.

The lover stooped down and kissed them.

"Have you been out?" he asked in a whisper.

"Only to the stables with Sylvia. Your Sheila has come. She is a

dear thing."

"You like her, Pam?"

"Who could help it? She looks so wild and shy, and she is so gentle

at the same time."

"Do you like her because she is mine, Pam? Do you, just a little

because of that? Say you do, Pam."

"Just a little," whispered Pam.

"Why, if you like, she shall be yours, when--when everything has

come right. I think she would carry a lady beautifully. What do you

say, Pam? Would you like her, _then_?"

"Yes," said Pamela, with her eyes very bright.

"You didn't seem to mind my going away at Christmas, Pam. You were

the only one who didn't protest."

"I know you wouldn't go if you could help it."

"Wise little woman. I must go, darling--to unravel a tangled skein.

Afterwards it will be paradise, Pam. I will come back as soon--as

soon as ever I can. I shall be in a fury of impatience till I come

back."

"And I," said Pam, lifting her eyes to her lover, and flooding him

with their light.

"Sweetheart! you were a coquette when I knew you first, Pam. Now you

don't try me as many girls try their lovers."

"I have only love for you now. Ah! what should I do if you did not

come back?"

"I will come back, 'though 'twere ten thousand mile.' I shall be

here for your great function. Do you think I would have you go

without me?"

"I shouldn't care for it without you."

"There will be other men there, Pamela, to see how beautiful you

are. I must be there to guard my own."

"There is no need for that."

"I believe you, my love, you are as much mine as if you were my

wife. And I am as much yours."

"Love can only mean that."

"Ah, my darling! how sweet you are! You wouldn't care for the

admiration of other men, Pam?"

"Only for one."

"It is hard to be wise, Pam, when I am with you. You are too sweet.

It is fortunate I am going."

"When you come back it will be different."

"Yes; you will have to make up to me for my prudence all these

months. I have been good, Pam; I have never asked you for a kiss."

"Yes, you have been good."

"And you, you are a girl in ten thousand. You have never asked me

what stood between us--a shadowy barrier, Pam, but even that must go

before I claim you, my queen. When I come back, Pam! Ah, when I come

back!"

"Here is Molly," said Pam, in a low voice, as her sister entered the

room.

END OF CHAPTER SIX.

[Illustration: GREAT ANNIVERSARIES]

GREAT ANNIVERSARIES

_IN DECEMBER._

By the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling

Hospital.

December is a month of great names. On December 21st, 1117,

according to some authorities, there was born, in a house that stood

on the site of the Mercers' Chapel in Cheapside, Thomas à Becket.

Whether men side with Church or State, and are for or against

Becket, they will hardly deny him the right to be remembered as an

outstanding figure in our history. On the last day of the month died

another great Englishman; like Becket, an Oxford man, and a potent

factor in the religious development of our nation. On December 31st

there passed away at Lutterworth John Wycliffe. His bones, thirteen

years after burial, were dragged from their resting-place and cast

into the River Swift. Thomas Fuller turns that shameful act of

ecclesiastical malice to good use. "Thus," he says, "this brook did

convey his ashes into the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn

into the narrow sea, and this into the wide ocean. And so the ashes

of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed

all the world over." On the 13th of the month, many generations

later, there came into the world Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, an

ecclesiastic of still another type. No modern dean ever identified

himself with his cathedral as Stanley did with Westminster Abbey.

Its national character was always present to his mind. His simple

piety, his good works, his sympathy with Nonconformists, all helped

to make the Dean himself rather a national possession than merely an

ecclesiastic. He died in 1881.

[Illustration: JOHN WYCLIFFE.

(_From the Portrait at King's College._)]

We have had the Church, let us come to the State. It is a rich

month that claims the birth both of William Ewart Gladstone

(December 29th) and of his great rival, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of

Beaconsfield (December 20th). They began their careers under very

different auspices. Eton and Oxford prepared the one for immediate

entry, under favouring circumstances, into Parliamentary life. The

other was educated privately, designed for the law, and first caught

the public eye as an author when he burst upon the world with the

novel, "Vivian Grey." Mr. Gladstone survived his rival seventeen

years.

[Illustration: DEAN STANLEY.

(_Photo: The London Stereoscopic Co._)]

There died on December 14th one whom the British nation can only

number amongst its own worthies by adoption. The death of the Prince

Consort in the prime of life, and just when his very considerable

powers and great devotion were beginning to be understood by those

who at first regarded him with doubt because he was a foreigner,

plunged our Queen into sorrow which long darkened the life of the

Court and was felt by the whole nation. The pure, unblemished life

of the Prince Consort, his sincere desire to advance the welfare of

the people, his ready promotion of the arts and sciences, as well

as his tender devotion to the Queen, have long been understood and

valued by the nation which he served.

[Illustration: JOHN MILTON.

(_From the Miniature by Samuel Cooper._)]

To come to other fields: there was born in London on December 9th,

1608, John Milton. Educated at Cambridge, he early gave free play to

the powers which in their issue have made his name familiar wherever

the English language is spoken. Few remember him as a writer of

polemical treatises on affairs of the State and the Church, or even

as Latin Secretary to Cromwell; but he was an old man and blind when

he gave the world "Paradise Lost."

On the 12th there died Robert Browning, a poet who spoke to his

age as few men have ever done, and spoke of God and the soul, of

the here and the hereafter, with a clearness of faith which was as

distinct as the robust manliness of his character.

[Illustration: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN

(_From the Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller._)]

December 28th is given as the date upon which Westminster Abbey was

consecrated in 1065; and on December 2nd that other minster, St.

Paul's Cathedral, was opened in 1697. Legend says that the same

King Sebert who founded the original St. Paul's also founded the

Abbey at Westminster, whilst another story invokes the aid of King

Offa. There is, however, clear testimony to the establishment of

a Benedictine abbey at Westminster in the time of Edgar; that is

antiquity respectable enough to satisfy most of us. A cathedral

on this site is mentioned by the Venerable Bede as early as 604;

but the actual fabric of St. Paul's has, according to Mr. Loftie,

undergone greater vicissitudes than that of any other cathedral in

England. The present St. Paul's was begun in 1675 and finished in

1710. Its cost was £736,752. Sir Christopher Wren, its architect,

received for his services £200 a year. What were then called "the

new ball and cross" on the cathedral were completed in this same

month in 1821.

[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING.

(_Photo: Cameron and Smith, Mortimer Street, W._)]

An old calendar assures me that on the 15th of this month, in the

year 1802, "societies for abolishing the common method of sweeping

chimneys" were instituted.

On the 20th of this month, in the year 1814, Samuel Marsden landed

in New Zealand--a missionary anniversary worth recalling.

[Illustration: W. E. GLADSTONE

Photo: Samuel Walker.

THE EARL of BEACONSFIELD.

Photo: Hughes-Mullins, Ryde. I.W.

TWO EMINENT STATESMEN BORN IN DECEMBER.]

[Illustration: The Limits of Human Genius]

The Limits of Human Genius

_Pulpit at Gloucester Cathedral._

A Sermon Preached by the Very Rev. H. Donald M. Spence, D.D., Dean

of Gloucester, at the Opening Service of the September (1898)

Meeting of the Three-Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral.

"As for Wisdom, what she is, and how she came up, I will tell

you, and will not hide mysteries from you, but will seek her

out from the beginning of her nativity, and bring the knowledge

of her into Light, and will not pass over Truth."

The surroundings of a custodian of a mediæval cathedral, beautiful

though they are, at the same time are unutterably pathetic. They

tell him, do the pages of the old solemn Book of Stone he is never

weary of turning over and of pondering upon, that the genius of

man has its limits, which it may never pass; that the story of

human progress to higher and ever higher levels is often a delusive

one; that in past ages his forefathers were perhaps as noble and

chivalrous--aye, nobler, more chivalrous than the men of his own

generation--that their imagination was more brilliant and their

hands more cunning; that if in some respects progress is visible, in

others the movement is retrograde.

Again, a great mediæval cathedral like our own glorious Gloucester,

inimitable in its fadeless beauty and matchless strength, surely

deals a very heavy blow to human pride, and it teaches humility to

the most competent and ablest of our number, for it is a conception

belonging to a past age. A great gathering, however, like the

present, numbering some six or seven thousand persons, is for varied

reasons an inspiring one and bids us be trustful--even hopeful.

Dwell we a brief while first on our surroundings. Of all works

devised by human ingenuity and carried on by human skill, the

triumphs of architecture are among the most enduring, afford the

most genuine and purest delight to the greater number of men and

women, are confessedly the most attractive, perhaps the most

instructive, as they are among the most enduring of human creations.

The glories of Luxor and Karnak, which for several thousand years

have been mirrored in the grey-green Nile; the white and gleaming

shrines of Athens the bright and happy, the mighty ruins of Eternal

Rome, are splendid instances.

But perhaps the conspicuous examples of this architecture, the

most loved of human arts and crafts, are, after all, the mediæval

cathedrals. The first object of interest for the modern traveller in

search of health or rest is a cathedral. All sorts and conditions

of men find delight in its contemplation. The delight, of course,

is varied, but the strange and witching beauty appeals to them all.

This appeal to the higher and devotional side of our nature speaks

to every soul, to the unlearned as to the learned, to the mill-hand

as to the scholar. The wanderer from the New World beyond the seas

at once seeks them out, conscious that in them he will find a

beauty and a joy such as he will never see or feel outside their

charmed walls.

I have said that to the custodian of such a cathedral the

surroundings are, if not sad, at least pathetic, for these

magnificent and loved creations of human genius belong to a somewhat

remote past, and, as far as these exquisite buildings are concerned,

save for purposes of necessary repair--repair simply to arrest the

ravages of time--for nearly four hundred years the clink of trowel

and pickaxe has been hushed.

It is scarcely an exaggerated statement which speaks of

architecture, in its noblest sense, as a lost art. Very significant

are the words of one of the greatest of modern architects, who,

after dwelling on the decadence of his loved art, tells us how "It

is a somewhat saddening reflection--but there is no escaping from

the conclusion--that the art which created the glorious abbeys and

minsters, the beautiful parish churches so plentifully dotted over

our country--abbeys, minsters, and churches which the churchmen of

the second half of the nineteenth century so reverently and wisely

restore and seek to copy stone by stone, arch by arch, window by

window, down to the smallest bit of ornament--is a lost art! Men

have come sorrowfully to see that mediæval architecture is the

last link--perhaps the most beautiful as well as the last link--of

that long chain of architectural styles, 'commencing in far-back

ages in Egypt and passing on in continuous course through Assyria,

Persia, Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, and thence taken up by the

infant nations of modern Europe, and by them prolonged through

successive ages of continuous progress till it terminated in the

beautiful thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Gothic, and has never

since produced a link of its own.... Alas! it is the last link

of that mighty chain which had stretched unbroken through nearly

four thousand years--the glorious termination of the history of

original and genuine architecture.'" Well may men love it and seek

to preserve the examples they possess of it, and aim at copying it

as well as they can. These remarkable and melancholy words above

quoted were deliberately spoken by Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A., LL.D.,

in his first lecture on Mediæval Architecture delivered at the Royal

Academy some years ago.

So much for my note of sadness. Now let me strike a different chord.

Such a gathering as the present, I repeat, is an inspiring one, for

it tells me that if one great art dies, He who loves us and has

redeemed us at so great a price, gives His children something in its

place. Now it is strange that amidst all the gorgeous and striking

ceremonial of the mediæval services, with their wealth of colour

and ornament, with all their touching and elaborate symbolism,

music, as it is now understood, was unknown and comparatively

neglected. In the noblest cathedral of the Middle Ages, in the

stateliest Benedictine or Cistercian abbey, while the eye was filled

with sights of solemnity and beauty, each sight containing its

special and peculiar teaching, the ear was comparatively uncared

for. Strangely monotonous and even harsh would chaunt and psalm

and hymn, as rendered in the mighty abbeys of Westminster, Durham,

or Gloucester in the days of the great Plantagenets, of the White

Rose or Red Rose kings, sound to the musically trained ears of the

worshippers of the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed,

music as a great science was unknown in pre-Reformation times. The

most complete anthem-book may be searched through by the curious

scholar, but scarcely a musical composer of any note will be found

in these collections of a date earlier than the reign of Queen

Elizabeth. It would seem as though, when architecture ceased in the

sixteenth century to be a living craft, a new art was discovered and

worked at by men.

A new art! I say these words, strange to some, with emphasis.

One who has indeed a right to speak of music[1] thus voices my

assertion. While telling us that certain grand forms of music loom

out of the darkness of the earlier centuries of our era, the famous

musician to whom I refer adds that little of what we understand of

music existed before the later years of the fifteenth century. It

was no mere renaissance, for that which had never been born could

not be born again.

[1] Professor Hullah, in his "Lectures on the History of Modern

Music," delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain,

published 1884. See, too, Professor Hullah's Royal Institution

Lecture on the Transition Period of Musical History (1876).

In case some should think that too strong expressions are here

used, it may be well to quote some of Professor Hullah's own

words, which he used in the above-mentioned lecture at the Royal

Institution:--"Music is a new art.... What we now call music ...

what answers to our definition of music, has come into being only

within comparatively few years; almost within the memory of men

living." "I should say that in the scholastic music there was no

art, and in the popular music no science; whence it is that the

former has ceased to please, and the latter has for the most part

perished utterly."

It was a new art which charmed and delighted men as they listened to

the magic of the sounds evoked by the majesty of the compositions

of Palestrina, or by the sweetness of the music of Marenzio. It is

true, as I said, that certain grand forms of music loom out of the

darkness of the remote past--shadowy forms--and the rare composers

and writers of the music of the past are, as far as music is

concerned, but the shadow of names now. I allude, as famous examples

of these shadows of names, to names such as Gregory and Isidore,

Hucbald and the eleventh-century _maestro_, Guido Aretino.

With extraordinary rapidity developed the new craft. To give here

some familiar landmarks--

Henry VIII. was reigning before Josquin Deprès, whom all musicians

revere as one of the earliest, certainly the most renowned, of the

pioneers of modern music, became generally known in Europe. Josquin

Deprès was born somewhere about the year 1466, dying about 1515,

some ten or fifteen years before Palestrina was born. Luther said of

him, "Other musicians do what they can with notes; Josquin does what

he likes with them." The Abbate Baini alludes to him as "the idol of

Europe"; and again writes, "Nothing is beautiful unless it be the

work of Josquin."

The famous Roman School of music only dates from 1540. The oratorio,

even in its more simple forms, made its appearance some seventy

years later.

Not until the last years of our Queen Elizabeth were the names of

Palestrina and Marenzio, those great early composers, conspicuous,

and the Queen so loved of Englishmen had long fallen asleep before

Carissimi, the earliest master of the sacred cantata in its many

forms, gave his mighty impulse to the new-born art; while the works

of his world-famed pupil Scarlatti, and of our own English Purcell,

belong to the art-records of the days of William and Mary and Queen

Anne. See how the whole of the marvellous story of music--as we

understand music--belongs to quite recent days!

All through the eighteenth century, when the Georges reigned,

architecture slept its well-nigh dreamless sleep. But the new art of

music grew with each succeeding year, while the men whose names will

never die lived and wrote.

It was this eighteenth century which saw a Beethoven, a Handel, a

Bach, a Haydn, and a Mozart. As masters of the new-born craft none

can be conceived greater.

The century now closing boasts, however, a long line of true

followers and worthy disciples of those great ones, men whose names

are household words in every European city.

But my brief record, necessarily dry and bald, of a momentous

change in the teaching of the world would be incomplete without one

word on the glorious instrument--the voice, so to speak--of these

masters of a new art, the organ. The first organ known in Western

Europe traditionally was sent to Pepin in France by the Emperor of

Constantinople in 759, but Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, in his poem

on Virginity, some half a century earlier, apparently describes

what appears to have been the organ. Elphege, Abbot of Winchester

in the tenth century, is said to have caused a very large organ to

be constructed; but, with this solitary exception, all the mediæval

organs seem to have been small and comparatively unimportant

instruments. The oldest organ-cases preserved do not date back

further than the last years of the fifteenth century, and these by

the side of modern organs are insignificant in size. Viollet le Duc,

in his great work, gives us a picture of the Perpignan organ, one of

the earliest (early in the sixteenth century). From this date the

size rapidly increased.

In the "Rites of Durham," where a great mediæval church is described

at the period of the Dissolution (1530-40), there were three organs

in use in the abbey church, the principal one being only used at

"principall Feasts," the pipes being "very faire and partly gilded."

"Only two organs in England," says the "Rites," "of the same

makinge, one in Yorke and another in Paules."

[Illustration: LISTENERS AT THE THREE-CHOIR FESTIVAL.]

The most magnificent organ-case in Europe is the one in St.

Janskirk at Bois le Duc, and, like the vast majority of the great

organ-cases, is Renaissance in style. Viollet le Duc sums up the

question in the following sentence:--

"It does not appear that great organs were in use before the

fifteenth century, and it was only towards the close of the

fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries that the idea of

building organs of dimensions hitherto unknown was first conceived."

The organ, as we now know it, was born among us at the same date

when architecture died. Like the music of the Middle Ages, in the

days when these vast and peerless buildings arose, it is true the

organ was not unknown; but, like mediæval music, it was a small,

poor thing compared with the stupendous instrument we know and love.

There was no great organ before the last years of the fifteenth

century, when the Tudors reigned. The sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries witnessed its development, and acknowledged its surpassing

grandeur, and recognised its fitness as one of the chief handmaids

of the new great art.

Now the secret of the men who built this lordly abbey is lost; never

again will such a triumph of, alas! a dead art arise to charm and

to delight, to instruct and inspire the children of men. But we

may still preserve and reverently use this rare and noble legacy

of a vanished age as a shrine and a peerless teaching-home--a

prayer-home, in which are taught the great evangelical truths

by which Christian men live and breathe and have their being,

the saving knowledge of the work of the Precious Blood, the glad

Redemption-story, the story loved of men; the story which never

ages, never palls, but which, like dew, descends on each succeeding

generation of believers, and gives them new stores of faith and hope

and love. This--these things--we try to do, and not without success,

for as God's bright glory-cloud once brooded over the sacred

desert-tent and the holy Jerusalem Temple, so now upon our beloved

and ancient cathedral, with its almost countless services of praise

and prayer and teaching, God's blessing surely rests.

"It sleeps," does our cathedral, as one has lately said in words

beautiful as true--"it sleeps with its splendid dreams upon its

lifted face." But it has, too, its many wakeful working hours. Not

the least memorable of these will strike this week, when the charmed

strains of Handel and Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, and

of the great Englishmen, Gibbons and Boyce and Walmisley and Wesley,

and last, but not least, of Hubert Parry, peal through these fretted

vaults, "lingering and wandering on" among these wondrous chambers

of inspired imagery; while the almost prophetic words of that truest

English song-man Wordsworth become history:--

"Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore

Of nicely calculated less or more;

So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense

These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof

Self-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells,

Where light and shade repose, where music dwells

Lingering and wandering on as loth to die--

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof

That they were born for immortality."

[Illustration: Decorative]

[Illustration: A Hero in Disguise]

A HERO IN DISGUISE

A Complete Story. By M. Westrup.

The girl was little, slender, insignificant--only her love made her

heroic. The man was big, broad, one to be noticed in a crowd, and

his love made him as helpless as a little child.

They stood opposite each other in the poor, shabby little room. His

eyes devoured her face wildly, incredulously, but her eyes were

fixed on a great hole in the faded carpet.

Her mind was chaotic, for with his eager words of love rang others,

bewildering her. Side by side with his passionate outpouring of his

love for her, his longing to have her for his own, to live for her

and work for her, were other words--words of ambition and great

aspirations, words of intending travel into far-away countries, of

hardships and discomforts to be borne for the sake of the book that

was to be written--the book that was to bring fame and satisfaction

to the writer of it.

And these words rang with a deep note of earnestness and strength,

and overpowered those eager, present tones that were pleading to her

so wildly.

"I called you Kathleen Mavourneen last night, you remember, and you

smiled and blushed!" he protested, roughly. "Why did you do it?

Kathleen, you _do_ love me, you do! Why don't you speak to me? I

tell you, I have seen it in your eyes. Why do you deny it now?"

She shook her head, and her heart cried in agony, "How long? How

long?"

"Won't you try, then?" with a humbleness that was not natural to

him. "Oh, Kitty, little Kitty, I cannot live without you!"

He held out his arms to her despairingly.

"I have a singing lesson to give at one o'clock," she said.

His arms fell to his sides. The sun streamed in on to the pretty,

pale, downbent face of the girl, and on to the white, haggard face

of the man who stood opposite.

There were no shadows in the little room--it was all glare and

shabbiness.

"I will go," he said, and then his eyes caught fire; "but you are

a flirt! Do you hear, a paltry, heartless flirt! You have led me

on--played with me. You have made your eyes soft, your lips sweet,

to amuse yourself at my expense! How do you do it?" with a little

cynical laugh. "It's really clever--of its kind--you know----"

He moved towards the door.

"I beg your pardon," he said icily. "I should not have spoken so to

a woman. Good-bye."

"You will begin your travels now?" she said.

He laughed.

"Why keep up the pretence?" he said; "it's rather late now to

pretend any interest in my life."

She was silent.

At the door he paused.

He was a proud man, and he had an iron will.

But his love made him helpless and weak as a little child.

"Kathleen," he breathed, "you are sure?"

A moment she stood still and rigid as a statue.

"Little one, I love you so----" His voice was soft and caressing;

but her love made her heroic. She raised her head. "I am sure," she

said steadily.

* * * * *

The girl sat in a corner of the warm, gorgeous drawing-room, and

wished vaguely that people would not nod and stare at her so

energetically. She was used to it now, and tired of it.

She had never liked it, but fame brings notoriety in its train, and

notoriety brings nods and whispers and stares.

She was dressed beautifully. She had always liked pretty things, and

now she could have as many as she wanted.

The man stood over in a doorway and watched her with cynical eyes.

He had not seen her for five years, and as he stood there another

man lounged up and spoke to him.

"Looking at _la belle Philomèle_?" he said; "she's quite the rage,

you know. Ever heard her sing? You're only just back from the wilds,

aren't you? Oh, well, of course you'll go to St. James's Hall

to-morrow? She's going to sing, you know. Her voice is splendid. I

never go to hear her myself--makes me feel I'm a miserable sinner

somehow--does, 'pon my word. I've heard her twice, and then I

dropped it. Don't like feeling small, you know."

He lounged away again, and the man with the cynical eyes still

watched her.

Her head was turned away from him--only a soft, fair cheek and

little ear nestling in a soft mass of hair, a white throat, and a

lot of pale chiffon and silk, could he see. And suddenly the cheek

and even neck were flooded with a red blush, and then they looked

whiter than before. He wondered, and smiled bitterly as he did so.

And the girl's eyes remained fixed, eager, fascinated, on the long

looking-glass before her.

But she was not looking at herself.

Afterwards he sought her.

"You were wise," he said mockingly, and her eyes grew dark with pain.

He took the seat beside her and played with the costly fan he had

picked up.

[Illustration: "You were wise," he said, mockingly.]

"I must congratulate you," he said indifferently. "This"--with

a comprehensive wave towards her dress and the diamonds at her

throat--"is better than the old days."

"Yes."

"But perhaps you have forgotten so long as--what is it?--ten--no,

five years ago?"

"No."

He furled and unfurled the fan in silence, and wondered who had

given her the Parma violets in her hair.

"Your--book?" she said timidly.

He stared at her blankly.

She reddened slowly.

"You--you--were going to--to travel, and write about it--strange

places----" she faltered.

"Oh, ah! yes, I believe I was--five years ago."

Her face was white again now.

"You _have_ travelled?" she ventured at last.

"Oh, yes! I've done nothing else for five years. I've shot tigers,

bears--I've lived with Chinamen and negroes--chummed with cannibals

once--oh!"--with a laugh--"I've had a fine time!"

Her eyes were wistful.

Her hostess brought up a man to be introduced, and when she turned

again, the chair was empty.

She did not see him again for two weeks.

There was an added pathos in the beautiful voice.

_La belle Philomèle_ brought tears to many thousands of eyes, but

her own were dry and restless. It was dawning on her that she had

made a mistake--five years ago.

"Seen Hugh Hawksleigh?" she heard one man say to another. "Never

been so disappointed in a chap in my life. Years ago he promised

great things. Those articles of his on 'Foreign Ways and Doings'

made quite a sensation, you know. And there was some talk of wild

travels and a book that was going to be _the_ book of the day. The

travels are all right, but where's the book?"

"The usual thing--a woman," drawled the other. "Didn't you know?

Some pretty coquette--the usual game--but the cost was heavier than

usual--to him. It knocked it out of him, you know. I never saw a

fellow so hard hit. That was five years ago, and he's never written

a line since. Poor fellow!"

The knowledge that she had made a mistake five years ago was growing

plainer to her.

At the end of the fortnight she met him and asked him to come and

see her.

He smiled, and did not come.

Her eyes grew too big for the small, sad face.

She met him again, and asked him why he had not come.

He looked down into the sweet, true eyes, and his love weakened his

will again.

He promised he would come. He came, and stayed five minutes. He

looked at her sternly as he greeted her.

"Why do you want me?" he said, and watched the colour come and go in

her cheeks with pitiless eyes.

"We--used--to be--friends," she whispered.

He laughed.

"Never! I never felt friendship for you," he said, "nor you for

me. You forget. Five years is a long time, but I have a retentive

memory. I forget nothing."

"Nor I," she murmured.

"No? Then why do you ask me to come and see you?"

She did not answer.

He looked round the pretty shaded room.

He laughed again.

"There is a difference," he said, "in you too."

She looked up quickly.

"I am the same," she said, knowing her own heart.

"Are you?" His eyes grew stormy. "Listen," he said, in a low, tense

voice: "I am five years wiser than I was--then. I will not be a tool

again. You have ruined my life--doesn't that content you? I would

have staked my life on your goodness and purity--once. I dare not

believe in any woman since you, with your angel's eyes, are false.

I was full of ambition and hope once; you killed both. I tried to

write--after. I could not. I shall never do anything now--never be

anything. I despise myself, and it's not a nice feeling to live

with. It makes men desperate. I love you still. Do you understand? I

have loved you all the time, and I loathe myself for it." His voice

changed. "You may triumph," he said, "but now you understand--I will

not come again."

She stretched out her arms after him, but he was gone. And she knew

now quite clearly that she had made a mistake five years ago.

For three weeks and a half she did not see him.

Then she saw him when he thought he was alone.

She studied his face with eyes that ached at what they saw. Then she

went forward and touched him gently on his arm.

"Well?" he said.

"Will you come," she said in a low voice, "to see me----"

"Thanks, no."

His eyes rested bitterly on her rich gown.

It came across him again how wise she had been. Tied to him, she

could not have been as she was now.

"I have something I must say to you," she said tremulously; "will

you come--just this once?"

He looked down into the soft eyes with the beautiful light in them.

"I would rather not," he said gently.

The weariness in his eyes brought a sob to her throat.

"Ah, do!" she entreated; "I will never ask you again."

He looked at her with searching incredulity.

Then he turned away.

Just so had she looked five years ago.

She laid a small, despairing hand on his.

The iciness of it went to his heart.

"I will come," he said gently, and went away.

* * * * *

When he came, he wondered at the agitation in her small white face.

Her eyes were burning.

He waited silently.

She twisted her hands restlessly together, and he saw that she was

trembling.

He drew a chair forward.

"Won't you sit down?" he said.

She sat down in a nest of softest cushions.

"I--I----" she began, and put up her hand to her throat, "I want

to--to--to explain."

His face darkened.

She got up restlessly and faced him.

He thought of that time when they had faced each other before--in

the shabby, glaring little room--and his face hardened.

"When you----" she began; "I thought it was for you--I had heard you

say----"

"Are you going back five years?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then would you mind _not_?" he said. "There can be no good in it,

and to me at least it is not a pleasant subject."

"I must!" she burst out. "Oh! cannot you help me? It is so hard!"

She held out her hands pathetically.

A deep colour came into his tanned face, and he stood still, looking

at her strangely.

"I think I will go," he said; "there is no use in prolonging this."

"Do you--love--me still?" she cried suddenly.

He turned on her in a white passion of anger.

"Not content yet?" he breathed. "What are you made of? Do you

want me to show you all my degradation? Why? Oh, Kitty, Kitty, be

merciful! Be true to those eyes of yours----"

He stopped abruptly and moved over to the door.

"Hugh, I love you!"

It was the veriest whisper, but it stayed his steps, and brought a

great light leaping to his eyes.

The light died down.

"It is too late!" he said, and turned away.

"Hugh, listen--I loved you always--five years ago. It was for your

sake----"

He turned again.

"Kitty?" he said uncertainly.

She went on bravely, always heroic through her love.

"I was poor--insignificant; you were ambitious--clever. I had heard

your longings after greatness. Hugh, how could you travel into those

wild countries with me? I knew you would give it up, and how could I

bear that? To be a drag, a hindrance to you! And in the coming years

I thought you would regret---- Hugh, you were poor, too, though not

so poor as I. I did it for you--it nearly killed me, Hugh. I was ill

after, but it was for you!"

Her voice died away into silence.

He stood very still, and his face was white and bloodless.

But in his eyes there was a great reverence.

"Forgive me!" he said.

She smiled softly.

"Oh, yes," she said.

The cynicism had gone from his face, and the hardness and bitterness

too.

[Illustration: "Oh, cannot you help me? It is so hard!"]

She looked at him wistfully. He turned away from her eyes and hid

his face in his hands.

"It was a mistake," he said, slowly, dully.

"Yes."

Still she waited.

He looked up, and she strove to read his face in vain.

Sad it was, and set, and yet there was a light there too.

He took her hands gently in his.

"Kathleen," he said earnestly, "God knows what I think of you. I can

work now. Good-bye, dear."

She raised her eyes to his--mystified and anxious.

He answered them, very gently, but with a firmness there was no

gainsaying.

"You are famous," he said; "when I have made a name I will come to

you. Will you wait, Kitty?"

"For ever, Hugh," she answered, understanding him so well that that

was all she said.

He bent and kissed her hands.

* * * * *

She knelt at the side of his bed, heedless of the presence of the

nurse at the other end of the room, and her tears wetted his hand.

The right hand and arm were swathed in bandages.

He smiled sadly as he looked at her.

"I am a failure," he said.

"Ah, no, no! All England is ringing with your name. Hugh"--she

raised a face all alight with a proud joy--"you are famous now!"

A little flush rose to his white face.

"Pshaw!" he said, "rescuing a woman and a few children from being

burnt to death. Anyone would have done it."

"Ah, no, Hugh! Brave men shrank from that awful sea and burning

ship!"

He was silent, looking at his bandaged hand.

"I must learn to write with my left hand," he said.

She bent nearer.

"Let me write for you," she whispered; "let me finish your book,

Hugh, while you dictate it to me. I do not sing now in public, you

know."

"Yes, I know."

He drew her closer to him and rested his cheek against her soft hair.

"I said I would not come to you till I had made a name," he said. "I

am a wreck now! I shall be a wreck for a long while----"

"Ah, dear, but you are famous!" she interposed lovingly.

He sighed.

"I cannot do without you any longer, Kitty. I am beaten at last.

Will you take a wreck?"

"I will take _you_, Hugh, a famous----"

"A famous wreck," he finished with a smile.

[Illustration: "Let me write for you," she whispered.]

[Illustration: THE PULPIT MANNER]

THE PULPIT MANNER

CHARACTERISTIC GESTURES OF GREAT PREACHERS.

=By F. M. Holmes.=

First let us look at Dr. Joseph Parker. His sermons are constantly

attended by ministers of all denominations, including clergymen of

the Church of England; and no stronger testimony, we take it, could

be given to a man's extraordinary preaching power than that year

after year he continually attracts other preachers.

Dr. Parker, it is almost needless to explain, is the eminent

Congregational minister of the City Temple in London, and he

occupies the unique position of having maintained for thirty years

a noonday service every Thursday in addition to his usual Sunday

services. To this Thursday service come persons from the ends of the

earth, and ministers and laymen of various religious persuasions. On

one occasion the sittings of a conference belonging to one of the

minor Methodist bodies seemed seriously imperilled because so many

of the delegates desired to go and hear Dr. Parker.

What is the secret of his widely attractive power? The answer comes

in a word--he is intensely dramatic. We do not mean theatrical.

He chooses a clear message to deliver, and that message--that

paramount thought--is driven home to his hearers in a manner that

forces itself upon every mind, no matter how reluctant. He uses

short, pithy sentences, and heightens and emphasises their effect by

suitable modulations of voice, by deliberate or rapid utterance as

the words may require, and by vigorous and appropriate gesture. He

speaks only the very pith and point of what he has to say, and then

says it in the clearest and most suitably effective manner that he

can possibly command. It is the thing itself we hear, rather than

talk or argument all round and about it.

[Illustration: DR. PARKER.]

Thus, on one occasion, his theme was found in the text, "Jesus in

the midst." "Where is the midst?" he asked in a clear and striking,

sonorous voice that commanded attention at once. These were his

opening words, and after a pause he proceeded in the same manner and

in similar short, striking sentences to point to different ideas of

"the midst," and to declare that Christ was, or should be, in the

midst of the literature, science, philosophy, and business of the

day. Unless ministers preached Christ, said he, they had better be

silent.

[ILLUSTRATION: BISHOP OF RIPON. ARCHDEACON SINCLAIR.

DEAN LEFROY. BISHOP OF STEPNEY.]

There is nothing new in this, you will say. No doubt Dr. Parker

would tell you that he does not wish to preach anything new; but no

one can watch him critically without concluding that he constantly

studies not only what he shall say, but how he shall say it in the

most striking and effective manner.

As a dramatic preacher, we might also instance the Rev. J. H.

Jowett, who has succeeded the late Dr. Dale at Carr's Lane

Congregational Church, Birmingham. To his Oxford scholarship Mr.

Jowett has united an assiduous cultivation of a fine voice and

vigorous yet graceful and suitable gesture, which render him a most

striking and fascinating preacher.

But turning now to other styles, if Dr. Parker is one of the most

dramatic, Dr. Boyd Carpenter, the learned Bishop of Ripon, is one of

the most eloquent of preachers. He is also one of the most rapid.

He seems so fully charged with his subject that the words pour from

his lips like a torrent; his body turns first to one side and then

to the other, and anon leans forward in front, as though propelled

by the energy of the thought within. His hand is often held up

before him with the index finger pointing, as though to lead his

audience on to the next thought, and to prevent their interest or

attention from flagging. But, rapid and fluent as he is, it must

not be thought that he is superficial; on the contrary, there is

every evidence that the discourse is well thought out, and based

on a solid framework of reason, while the language is eloquent and

rhetorical. And it is, as it were, to mark the network of logical

deduction within the words that the index finger is brought so fully

into play. We judge that his voice is naturally somewhat thin and

poor, but by careful use and perhaps assiduous cultivation, and by

the most beautifully clear articulation, Dr. Boyd Carpenter can make

himself heard in St. Paul's with what appears to be perfect ease.

There is no straining of the voice and no shouting; but in a quiet

though forcible manner he sends his voice round the huge building.

Further, it has been pointed out to me that he will not commence his

discourse until the congregation have settled themselves down into

absolute quietness, and all the rustling of dresses, and coughing,

and fidgeting are stilled. Under these circumstances his voice

would, of course, carry far better in a large church.

Somewhat similar in manner is Canon Barker, of Marylebone,

who, in the energetic expression of the thought with which he

seems surcharged, bends forward sometimes so deeply towards the

congregation as to give, the impression that he is about to dive out

of the pulpit. But his style is that of the special pleader, the

advocate and the debater; it is as though he desires to argue out

everything to its logical conclusion, rather than to sway or move

his audience by eloquence and emotional appeals.

[Illustration: PREBENDARY WEBB-PEPLOE.]

Dean Lefroy of Norwich is also a debater; perhaps, a more keen

debater than Canon Barker, and he is also a rhetorician. He delights

to preach a strongly evangelical "Gospel" sermon, and to embellish

it with rhetoric and declaim it with passionate earnestness. It is

evident he thoroughly believes in his theme, he seeks to impress it

on his audience by vigorous, earnest, passionate utterance, in which

his energetic gestures are often of the most decided character.

A curious characteristic of his preaching has been related to me

by a friend. "You cannot listen to Lefroy for five minutes," said

he, "without violently taking sides either for or against him. You

are either intensely in favour of him or find yourself becoming

almost vehemently opposed"--a testimony, we take it that the Dean

is a decided, downright, assertive and aggressive preacher rather

than persuasive and emotional. He has instituted a Nave service at

Norwich Cathedral, at which he often preaches himself, and attracts

enormous congregations.

[Illustration: JOHN MCNEIL.]

Still continuing to glance at those whom we may call rapid and

fluent preachers, Prebendary Webb-Peploe comes to mind. He is not

so energetic as some others, but the rapidity of his utterance, the

fluency of his expression, and his great command of language, would

rival that of almost any speaker. He and many others would probably

utter three times as many words in a given time as Dr. Parker or

Archdeacon Sinclair.

[Illustration: IAN MACLAREN

(_Dr. John Watson._)]

The latter is slow, deliberate, and dignified in his utterances,

rarely using gesture and affecting a grave and somewhat sonorous

voice; but the Archdeacon's sermons are always most carefully

prepared, and indicate considerable study and research.

Among the grave and sedate preachers we might also place Dr. John

Watson ("Ian Maclaren"), of Sefton Park Presbyterian Church,

Liverpool; his sermons are full of thought, and, as might be

expected, exhibit an excellent literary finish.

Now, if we take Archdeacon Sinclair and Dr. John Watson as examples

of more deliberate and sedate preachers, we may regard the Rev. John

McNeil, the well-known Presbyterian minister, as an instance of the

colloquial preacher.

Not that his voice is low-pitched, as used in conversation. Mr.

McNeil has done what few preachers could physically undertake: he

has preached twice a day for a fortnight in the Albert Hall at

Kensington, the largest hall in London, and capable of holding

about ten thousand persons; and he has repeatedly filled the huge

Agricultural Hall at Islington, numbers being turned away from

lack of room. His voice, indeed, seems capable of filling the

largest hall without effort. But his style is easy, unaffected,

conversational, though sometimes, with both arms outstretched, he

bursts forth into loud and impassioned appeals. There is no doubt a

large section of the public who like this easy and colloquial style,

especially if it come quite naturally to the speaker.

[Illustration: DR. MCLAREN.]

And now another celebrated figure rises on the scene, the

eminent Baptist minister, Dr. McLaren of Manchester. Refined,

scholarly, brimming over with knowledge, and a master of beautiful

illustration, there is no doubt that he takes rank as one of the

very greatest preachers of the day. Like other great speakers, he

has evidently studied the art of preaching.

[Illustration: DR. HORTON. HUGH PRICE HUGHES. J. R. JOWETT.

SILVESTER HORNE.]

At a meeting at the Holborn Restaurant to celebrate his ministerial

jubilee in April, 1896, he said he had determined, at the outset of

his career, to concentrate his mind on the work of the ministry and

not fritter away his energies over many minor engagements. He had

always endeavoured to make his ministry one of Gospel exposition; he

had preached Christ because he believed that men needed redemption,

and he had preached without doubts and hesitations. It was Thomas

Binney who had taught him how to preach.

Undoubtedly Dr. McLaren has succeeded in his aim as an expositor

of the Scriptures, for that is regarded as one of his chief

characteristics. A favourite gesture of Dr. McLaren's--at all events

in his earlier days--was to squeeze up a handkerchief, no doubt

quite unconsciously, in his right hand by the nervous energy he was

putting forth in his discourse, and then suddenly his hand would

dart out to mark some emphatic passage as though he were about to

throw the handkerchief at the congregation; but needless to add the

handkerchief was never thrown.

Like Dr. McLaren, Dr. Whyte, of Free St. George's, Edinburgh, has

a great command of beautiful and striking illustrations. "He is

the most wonderful preacher in Scotland," declared an enthusiastic

Scot to me on one occasion. "Mr. Gladstone used often to hear him,

and Lord Rosebery does now." Dr. Whyte makes great use of the

imagination in his discourses and employs frequent gestures, but

graceful, emphatic and always to suit the action to the word and

the word to the action. "One illustration," said a gentleman, "I

remember some time ago. Dr. Whyte was preaching about tribulation,

and he showed that the word came from _tribulum_, which is a Latin

name for a roller or sledge for thrashing out corn, and in the same

way tribulation sifted men as wheat." How like a platitude this may

sound when summarised down to a line; but the point is that the idea

of the beneficial purpose of tribulation had been so firmly fixed in

the hearer's mind that he remembered it, and perchance in some dark

hour it had been to him a "cup of strength in some great agony."

Is not that, after all, one of the great aims and one of the great

tests of good speaking--to fix some idea, some truth firmly in the

hearer's mind so that it is never forgotten?

As a robust, manly preacher few, if any, we suspect, can surpass

Dean Hole of Rochester. He has a tall, commanding presence--he is

over six feet high--a bright, animated countenance, and a most

genial manner. When some years ago he held the living of Caunton,

Notts, he used to journey periodically to Liverpool, where his

midday addresses to commercial men were most successful and

exercised great influence. He does not employ much gesture, but his

fine voice, sparkling eye and manly, straightforward utterances,

based on reason and logic, always command deep attention.

[Illustration: DR. WHYTE.]

His appeal is rather to reason than to the emotions, and by way

of contrast we may glance at Canon Wilberforce, who is fluent and

fervent, and affords one of the best examples of the emotional

preacher. It would seem as though he set himself to arouse and stir

up all the feelings of his congregation and lead them into what

he conceives to be the right channel. Often choosing most unusual

texts, he can yet make direct and pointed appeals from the pulpit,

touching the greatest hopes and deepest trusts of human nature,

and yet can employ as illustrations the greatest events and the

newest discoveries of the day. He uses but little gesture, in this

respect being somewhat different from the eminent Wesleyan, the Rev.

Hugh Price Hughes, who might also be classed as an emotional--we

had almost said passionate--preacher. In fluency and fervour he

is probably surpassed by none. Possessed of a remarkably clear,

vibrating, and penetrating voice, which seems as though it could

thrill through any building, however large, there is no chance of

anyone dozing when he is in the pulpit. When pleading some cause or

denouncing some wrong, his feelings seem to get the better of him,

and he slashes away with his voice in a perfect hurricane of verbal

blows.

[Illustration: DR. CLIFFORD.]

Quite as emotional and quite as fluent is Dr. Clifford of Westbourne

Park Baptist Church. His command of language is extraordinary,

and with a mind less clear and well-regulated this great fluency

might prove a snare; but his discourses are always remarkably

well-arranged, his "points" are clear, and his meanings driven home

with remarkable emphasis. His congregations are immense, and his

hearers are devoted to him. His gestures often follow his words,

and one--probably quite unconscious--is, it must be confessed, not

graceful, even if forcible: it is a drawing back of his arms, and

then shooting them out both together as if appealing to the people.

His voice is exceptionally clear, penetrating, and resonant; and in

all very popular preachers much is due to the voice.

[Illustration: DEAN HOLE.]

The Bishop of Stepney, who may be described as bearing all the

characteristics of the highly cultured Oxford man, has in addition

a deeply sympathetic musical voice. He does not use much gesture,

but such as he does employ is well suited to the words, while his

illustrations are often drawn from his social and religious work in

the East End. He used frequently to preach in Victoria Park, where

he has readily acknowledged his best supporters were Nonconformists.

[Illustration: CANON BARKER. CANON WILBERFORCE.]

Another eminent preacher whom we may also describe as exhibiting all

the characteristics of Oxford culture is Dr. Horton of Lyndhurst

Road Congregational Church, Hampstead. Possessed, like the Bishop

of Stepney, of a remarkably sympathetic voice, he modulates and

varies it to suit the subject and the words, and his gesture,

never redundant, has lately been reduced almost to extinction. At

the sermon which he preached before the Congregational Union at

its autumnal assembly at Birmingham in 1897, his style was almost

severely quiet, but the effect of his thrilling voice and sometimes

awesome whispered tones, his polished literary language, and his

intense earnestness--as he declared that the ideal Christian must be

in constant touch with God, and yet in constant touch with men--was

very great, and appealed both to reason and emotion. Indeed, both

of these find their place in his sermons. Dr. Horton has mastered

the art of always being interesting, no matter what his theme; and

it would seem as though in his discourses he makes an effort to

really interest and to reach all sorts and conditions of men.

Another Congregational minister who exhibits much of the Oxford

manner is the Rev. Silvester Horne, of Kensington; but, in addition,

he seems possessed of a fiery zeal and fervent enthusiasm that will,

it is feared, wear him out physically before his day is fully spent,

unless he carefully husbands his nervous energy. Already, although

a young man, he has had to take rest for a whole year because of

ill-health. That inner fire, that mental energy, that disciplined

enthusiasm, which light up his face so brilliantly and animate his

suitable and graceful gesture, are far too precious a possession to

be quenched too quickly; but there are few or none of the younger

preachers of the day who have promise of a more brilliant future.

And now a word in conclusion for one who is perhaps the greatest

philosophical preacher of the time--Dr. Fairbairn of Mansfield

College at Oxford. His memory is marvellous, his power of choice

and accurate verbal expression is wonderful; he can speak for hours

without a note, and though sometimes a sentence should appear

involved and complicated, it will finish admirably, and, if read

in a verbatim report afterwards, will have all the finish of a

literary production wrought out in the quiet of the study. He uses

but little gesture, an occasional opening out of hands and arms, as

though to present and lay before the audience the thought which he

is uttering, seems nearly all. In fact, it would appear that he is

so absorbed in the abstract thought, the argument, the philosophy he

is working out before you, that he thinks nothing of the manner in

which he utters it.

We do not pretend to have exhausted the list of famous preachers, or

even to have glanced at all the different types; but these will be

sufficient to indicate the variety that prevails, and to show that

there is an art of preaching which, like other arts, needs to be

assiduously cultivated, and well repays those who intelligently do

so.

A MOTHER'S BIBLE.

A pathetic incident occurred some years ago in connection with one

of our wars abroad. A youth who had been wounded, and who died in

the field hospital, clutched in his last hours an old worn copy of

the Bible, on the flyleaf of which were inscribed these touching

lines:--

TO MY BOY.

Remember, love, who gave you this,

When other days shall come,

When she who had thy earliest kiss

Sleeps in her narrow home.

Remember! 'twas a mother gave

The gift to one she'd die to save.

A mother sought a pledge of love,

The holiest, for her son;

And from the gift of God above

She chose a godly one--

She chose for her beloved boy

The source of light and life and joy.

And bade him keep the gift, that when

The parting hour should come

They might have hope, and meet again

In an eternal home:

She said his faith in that should be

Sweet incense to her memory.

And should the scoffer in his pride

Laugh his fond faith to scorn,

And bid him cast the pledge aside

Which he from youth had borne--

She bade him pause and ask his breast

If he or she had loved him best.

A mother's blessing on her son

Goes with this holy thing,

The love that would retain the one

Must to the other cling.

Remember! 'tis no idle toy,

Thy mother's gift! Remember, boy!

[Illustration: ROGER PETTINGDALE]

ROGER PETTINGDALE

_A RUSTIC LOVE-STORY._

By H. A. Davies.

Across the fields from the church--through the clover meadow first,

into the broad wheat-field next, and thence over the pasture lands,

all yellow with the glint of buttercups--you will come to the

Pettingdale farm. A thrill and a song and an aching went through

my blood all together when I looked on the block of buildings the

other day. How sweet-and-bitter is remembrance; how musical to the

heart, and yet how sad with yearning! For the sight of that rugged

old chimney standing square and grim and familiar upon the grey

roof of the house; the red-tiled barns clustering behind, plain and

prosperous; the sweep of the waving corn-fields towards the setting

sun; caused my heart to surge with swift memories, long since buried

and forgotten beneath the stress of life. How peaceful were the old

days amidst these very fields! When the heart is young, ah! then's

the time for music; and what echoes of far-off melodies--songs

of old summers past and gone--does the scene awaken! There's the

orchard where I spent such rare hours. Here are the hedges where we

went a-nutting. Yonder is the oak-tree which we used to climb, Frank

Pettingdale and I. It is still the same sturdy tree, keeping gnarled

and knotted guard over the same creaking gateway, just as in the old

days!

Wherever my eyes fell there were thorns and roses for the heart all

in one moment. It was in the old upland field that Clara Pettingdale

and I as children used to wander, hand in hand, amongst the

buttercups. She has long slept, poor Clara, in that corner of the

churchyard where lie generations of Pettingdales past and gone--a

long line of sturdy yeomen.

The full light of the sun falls upon the courtyard of the farmhouse.

It has a broad frontage, long and low and quaint, with irregular

gables and overhanging eaves and deep, mullioned windows. The

house runs queerly on two sides of the courtyard, one wing being

at right angles to the other. It is beautifully clean and prim,

with its whitewashed walls, its freshly painted woodwork, and

its geraniums growing in green boxes on every window-sill. On

the third side of the yard run the granary and the cider-house;

while the fourth, save for an ivy-covered wall, which gives way to

the entrance gates in one corner, is open to the gentle vista of

countryside which stretches away before the house. What a pleasant

old courtyard it is--so cool in the summer that the panting dogs

love to throw themselves upon its stones; so sheltered in winter

that the blustering nor'-easters touch it not; so prosperous-looking

always, with its well-kept flags laid from end to end, as level and

smooth as a billiard-table, and as spotless as the floor of the

farm kitchen. How the polished milk-cans glisten and blink upon

the wall! How the white sills of the old-fashioned windows gleam

in the sunlight! The whole place seems to breathe of scouring and

buckets, and scrubbing brushes and vigorous arms. Every morning the

yard is washed down by the house-boy (it used to be Elijah in my

day, but he is now a bearded man, and labours outside, and a young

Ezra is the present knight of the bucket); every morning the cans

are scoured and the tubs are scrubbed, and the step before the door

is free-stoned, and the flowers are watered, and the house seems to

smile a glistening, watery smile, as though it had just lifted its

head from its morning dip to bid you the time of day. There was ever

a charm to me about Pettingdale and its paved courtyard. I mind me

well what a brave and romantic sound to my young ears was that of

the horse's hoofs ringing and clamping upon the stones as he was

brought up to the door on market days with the high yellow dogcart

behind him; or the clatter of the wheels across the yard as Roger

Pettingdale drove out through the broad gateway, a fine old figure

with his white hair, and his aquiline nose, and his broad, well-set

shoulders.

[Illustration: His hair went snow-white early in life.]

He is still outwardly the same. One could hardly detect a single

point of change in him, save that his face is more furrowed and his

eyes deeper set. His hair went snow-white early in life. Generations

of Pettingdales have been subject to the same peculiarity. Thus it

is that the long step from forty to sixty-five has wrought little

difference in Roger Pettingdale. His body is as erect, his step as

firm, his voice as sonorous as ever. He was ever a well-known figure

at all the county markets and agricultural meetings, and it might be

twenty-five years agone for all the change that one can see in him.

Among other men he was always noticeable, with his tall figure, his

white hair, his clean-shaven, well-cut face, and that wide-rimmed

silk hat which he always affected. As he moved amongst the crowd I

have heard men say, "Who is that?" and others answer, "Don't you

know him? Why, surely everybody knows _him_? He's Roger Pettingdale."

He is elected on all the local bodies. Thus he is a guardian of the

poor, a member of the School Board, vice-chairman of the County

Council, and the people's churchwarden at the parish church. There

is no man amongst all those he meets in these capacities whose words

are listened to with more respect. That solid weight, that hallmark

of sound judgment which always attends upon sheer common-sense, is

apparent in every opinion he utters. He forms his judgments first,

and speaks afterwards. While other men are impulsively throwing

themselves into useless controversy on this or that vexed question,

Roger Pettingdale is silently weighing the _pros_ and _cons_ of

the matter in his own mind; and when he speaks there is usually

nothing more to be said. He chops no logic; he simply argues

with the sledge-hammer of common-sense, backed up by the blunt,

uncompromising sincerity of an honest and fair-dealing mind. His

tolerance, his breadth of vision, his power of seeing the other side

of the question, his scorn of all shams and pretences, have made his

name a password for integrity and sound judgment. "You will always

get a fair hearing from Roger Pettingdale," people say. "Does Roger

Pettingdale think so? Oh, then, there must be something in it."

In his home life, in the control of his farm, in his own daily

affairs, there is the same straightforwardness, the same sincerity,

the same well-balanced judgment and acumen. "There never was a

year, as I remember, when we didn't have plenty of hay to begin

conditioning on," said one of his labourers the other day. "Now,

at the next farm they've never got enough." That is only a small

instance of the perfection of method which marks every department of

the prosperous farm.

At home he is essentially a plain man, this sturdy farmer. There

is no nonsense about him, although he can claim blood with one of

the oldest families in the county. Yet he has a proper pride, in

a manly, direct kind of way, as you shall see. He has had four

children, two boys and two girls, in giving birth to the youngest

of whom his wife died. James, the eldest, is his right hand in the

farm management, and will some day be head of the family, as the

Pettingdales have succeeded, son to father, for generations out of

mind. Mary, the second, you shall hear more of anon. Frank, the

third, my old playmate, early in life took the fancy that he would

like to be a soldier. Roger Pettingdale has ever been a wise and a

tolerant father, studying well the nature of each of his children.

He unerringly knew Frank's proud and stubborn character.

"You want to be a soldier?" he said. "Well, I could have wished it

otherwise, Frank. It would have been a pleasure to me to see you

settle down on the farm. But we will not argue the point. Let it

stand for twelve months, and then talk to me about it."

Twelve months did not change Frank's resolve. When he mentioned

it again, a drawn look passed over Roger Pettingdale's face for a

moment--a look of keen pain--for he loved his children. Then he drew

himself up to his full height.

"You are still of the same mind, Frank! Then I have nothing more to

say. I am not going to attempt to dictate to you what your calling

should be. You have to live your own life, and as you make your bed

you must lie on it. Remember that, my lad. If you decide to go as a

soldier, you shall go in a proper fashion, lad. You shall have your

commission. No son of mine shall enter the ranks."

And have his commission Frank did. I looked at the tablet in the old

church the other day with a surging heart. It is a brass tablet, the

lettering of which has been recently renovated.

TO THE MEMORY OF

LIEUTENANT FRANK PETTINGDALE,

WHO FELL IN ACTION IN THE

BATTLE OF TEL-EL-KEBIR.

That was all. There was no vainglorious recounting of the brave

deed in the performance of which Frank was cut down. He fell "in

action." That was all. It was Roger Pettingdale all over--simple and

direct and manly. And were not the laconic words far more eloquent

than all the ornate elegiacs that poets might have written, just as

Roger Pettingdale's silent grief when the news reached him was far

more eloquent than all the passionate outbursts of frenzied sorrow

that one could conceive?

The fourth child, Clara, as I have already said, sleeps in the

churchyard. She died when she was a fair-haired girl of ten--as

bright and promising a maiden as one could wish to see. But she was

ever fragile, like her mother, and suddenly she faded away, leaving

a great gap in the home life at the Pettingdale farm.

As to Mary, the second child, she was nineteen years of age, and

newly returned from school, when Edward Leigh, the son of old Squire

Leigh, of the Hall, came home from his travels round the world.

These two, who had only distantly known each other as children,

met for the first time after many years--she a sweet-looking,

fresh-coloured girl, in the first blush of womanhood; and he a

manly, well-set young fellow with a pleasant, sincere face and

straightforward blue eyes. It was the old story! Twang goes the

bow of the roguish little archer, and to some heart or another the

world all at once becomes rose-colour. The old story! They saw each

other on a Sunday morning across the church. She, sitting in the

Pettingdale pew, mentally noted that there was a young man at the

Squire's side who could be no other than his newly returned son; and

he, from his corner underneath the dingy, ponderous coat-of-arms

of the Leigh family, looked upon her in her simple dress of white.

The sun, striking through the window to her right, glinted upon her

brown hair, which always curled so prettily about her forehead. He

thought, as he looked, that she was the sweetest, daintiest maiden

he had ever seen, and he fell in love with her.

He made no secret of his passion. Beating about the bush was

entirely foreign to Edward Leigh. The choleric old Squire went

off into a fit of apoplectic rage when he heard how things stood.

The veins swelled in his forehead, and that pugnacious under-lip

of his stood out and drew itself over the upper lip and the teeth

with a tight grip. But Edward had all the old Leigh blood in him.

"I love her, father," he said quietly, looking the Squire straight

in the face, and the old man's heart sank within him as he met the

steady glance of those blue eyes. Fits of passion, threats, fiery

denunciations--they were all of no avail. Edward was never once

other than respectful. He would stand with shoulders squared and

head uplifted, bearing the storm in perfect calm and silence, and

then would look his father in the face and say--"Father, I love

her"; and the Squire would clench his fist and march to and fro,

furiously stamping his feet upon the floor.

[Illustration: "Father, I love her."]

In one culminating fit of choleric rage the Squire rode over to the

farm. He found Roger Pettingdale in the corn-field, looking at the

growing wheat.

[Illustration: "Forgive me!"]

"Look here, Pettingdale," he burst forth fiercely. "This nonsense

must be stopped. Are you an idiot, that you cannot see what is going

on, or are you in the scheme to entrap my----"

Roger Pettingdale turned round upon him.

"I beg your pardon, Squire Leigh?" he said quietly, as one who had

not heard aright.

"Tut! Nonsense!" retorted the Squire. "Don't 'beg-your-pardon' me!

You know full well what I mean. Are you blind? I say it must be

stopped! You know full well that that precious son of mine has gone

stark mad over that chit of a girl of yours!"

"And what of that, Squire Leigh?" replied Roger Pettingdale, drawing

himself to his full height and looking at the Squire from underneath

his heavy eyebrows. "If that precious son of yours has gone stark

mad over my daughter, what of that?"

"Why, this," thundered the Squire: "that it must be stopped!"

"Very well, why don't you stop it?" replied Roger Pettingdale.

The retort, perfectly cool and natural, laid bare all the Squire's

impotence at one stroke, and drove him well-nigh to frenzy. His eyes

shot fire, and those veins in his forehead swelled as though they

would burst.

"It is not my daughter who is coming to the Hall after your son,"

Roger Pettingdale went on. "It is your son who is coming here after

my daughter. You seem to forget that point. You say it must be

stopped. And I repeat--Why don't you stop it?"

"It is as I thought," shouted the enraged Squire. "You are all in

it--all of you. All in the scheme to entrap him! A pretty plot,

don't you call it, for a man who poses as a Christian?"

In a blind access of fury he took a step forward and raised his

riding-whip. And then his shaking arm fell to his side, for Roger

Pettingdale had laid a hand upon his shoulder, and was confronting

him with grave, kindly, pitying eyes.

"You are in anger, Squire Leigh," he said, with simple dignity,

"else I should take your words as an insult. Be sure that the

Pettingdales have not fallen so low, nor their womenkind either,

that they need to trap the son of Squire Leigh. But I tell you this,

as man to man: if your son truly loves my daughter, and if she

loves him in return, I will put no bar before my child's happiness;

no, not for you, nor for all the Leighs in the world. We come of

as good a stock as you, Squire! Remember that! More money and more

land maybe you have--but not more pride of family. I care naught

for your money or your land. Thank God! I have prospered beyond all

expectation. And I tell you again, straight to your face, if your

son comes to me and asks for my daughter's hand, and I find it is

for her happiness, I shall say 'Yes.'"

"I shall disinherit him!" burst forth the Squire; "he shall not have

a penny--not a brass farthing!"

"I shall tell him," continued Roger Pettingdale, "that if he would

win my daughter, he must first make a position for himself in the

world, independently of aught you can do for or against him; and

that shall be the test of his sincerity."

Then he turned away, and the Squire, his face livid with passion,

marched off, savagely cutting at the wheat-ears with his

riding-whip. And when he mounted his horse at the corner of the

field, he dug his spurs so viciously into her that she bounded and

reared, and almost threw him.

Well, the long and short of it was that Edward Leigh was not found

wanting in the test which was imposed upon him.

"You are quite right, sir," he said to Roger Pettingdale; "the

condition is a reasonable one. I ask for nothing more than the

chance of proving that I am in earnest."

He went to London, studied under his father's old college friend,

John Wetherell, the well-known Queen's Counsel, and in five years

was making fair headway in the courts as a barrister. And the

strange part of it was that the choleric old Squire--who has a good

heart underneath his rough exterior--seeing his son's name in the

papers from time to time, felt his paternal pride rising within him

despite his stubborn resentment. Perhaps, too, he felt lonely in his

old age. At all events, he went over to the farm one day, and asked

to see Mary.

"I shall fight against it no longer, my dear," he said, holding

out his hand. "The lad has proved his grit, and the woman who

can call forth such steady love in a man is more than worthy of

being mistress of the Hall. I am an old man, and have no time left

for bitternesses. Forgive me, and you will find me as staunch in

friendship as you have found me frank in enmity."

Mary is now Mary Leigh, of Leigh Hall, and a sweeter, gentler, more

winsome mistress you could not find in the whole land. You may often

see the old Squire leaning upon her shoulder--a bent, white-haired

figure--as they walk in the grounds.

* * * * *

Among all the seasons of the year, I think there is none that Roger

Pettingdale loves so well as the time of harvest. You may see him

standing at the gateway, looking in meditation down the long shimmer

and sheen of the golden wheat-field as the wind ripples over it.

"I love to gaze at fields white with corn," he said to me once.

"They seem to breathe rich promises of that full fruition to which

our own lives shall come if we live them well and uprightly."

At the last harvest thanksgiving service in the village church I was

present for the sake of old times, and from my place behind Roger

Pettingdale I saw him lost in meditation, with eyes fixed upon the

chancel window. And when he stood up to sing he was still rapt in

thought; but suddenly he joined in the sweet old hymn so lustily and

with such a full heart that it did me good to hear him.

"The valleys stand so thick with corn

That even they are singing."

THE ART OF READING.

By the Ven. Archdeacon Diggle, M.A.

Reading aloud is more commonly regarded as an accomplishment than

an art. In truth, it is both. It is an art in that it cannot be

left to its own guidance, but requires both an acquaintance with

rules and familiarity with their practice to bring it to perfection.

It is an accomplishment in that it is a means of completing our

equipment for happy social life. Good reading yields not only profit

but pleasure to others. It is one means of throwing brightness into

home-life to gather the children together and read really well to

them. And what a sweet delight it is in the ward of a hospital, or

among the inmates of a workhouse, or by the bedside of some dearly

loved invalid, to be able, by reading in soft, gentle, refreshing

tones, to charm away the monotony and the weariness, perhaps for

awhile to relieve even the pain, of the lonely and the suffering! We

might shed sunshine into the darkness of many a life if, instead of

spending our leisure hours in _ennui_ on ourselves, we devoted them

to reading aloud to others.

Reading aloud is good for ourselves both physically and morally. It

is good morally, for if we never read anything unfit for reading

aloud we shall not be likely to read anything morally deteriorating.

And physically, reading aloud is a benignant exercise. It widens

the chest, opens the lungs, strengthens the throat, and does good

to all the breathing organs. It is a mistake to suppose that using

the voice weakens it. Abuse or misuse of the vocal organs, as of any

other organs, injures them; but by proper use and exercise they are

strengthened and improved. Speakers and preachers have bad throats

not because they use their throat too much, but because they use it

badly. They force and torment it, instead of training it to natural

action and giving it free, full play. And who shall blame them? At

school they were taught to spell and mind their stops; but how to

breathe and manage the voice when reading, they probably were not

taught a single rule. In many instances teachers themselves are

wholly ignorant of the art and therefore incapable of teaching it.

And so it comes to pass that, unless either outward circumstance

or innate common-sense turn our attention in later life to the

management of the vocal organs, we never learn to read aloud without

weariness and with pleasure. It is mainly through lack of early

training that, of all useful and delightful accomplishments, the art

of reading aloud is one of the least practised and most rare.

[Illustration: (_Photo: Russell and Sons, Baker Street, W._)

ARCHDEACON DIGGLE.]

Yet it is an art which, in some degree, may be acquired by the

majority of people; very many could, by a little training and

perseverance, even excel in it. Of course, the art admits of many

degrees of excellence. But without reaching the splendid summits of

the art, attainable only by the highly gifted few, ordinary persons

may learn to read sufficiently well to gratify both themselves and

others, if they will take pains to learn and practise a few simple

rules.

The first requirement is to master the physics of the art: to learn

to breathe in through the nostrils and out through the mouth,

never to speak on an inflowing breath, quickly to fill the lungs

and slowly to empty them, never to gasp or strain after sound, not

to attempt the higher notes until the lower have been completely

mastered, to rely more on the lower than the higher notes, to teach

the lips and front portion of the mouth to do their fair share of

work equally with the larynx and the vocal cords. A moustache is an

impediment to easy and distinct reading. It hinders the air from

passing in free, full flow up the nostrils, and it troubles the

waves of sound as they issue from the mouth; causing indistinctness,

more or less flat and thick, in enunciation.

Clearness of enunciation ranks next in importance after easy,

natural, flexible production of voice, and largely depends on it,

for there can be no clear, crisp, distinct enunciation of words,

unless the tools by which words are made, viz. the organs of voice,

are kept sharp and well burnished. Moreover, for the attainment

of limpid and finely articulated enunciation careful training is

required both in the melody and modulation of sounds.

Precision and beauty of enunciation are much assisted by habitual

practice of the graduated series of all the tones from the keynote

to its octave. Do not sing when you are reading, but, in order to

read well, first learn to sing; otherwise your reading will be flat

and monotonous, without light and shade, instead of being fresh,

richly modulated, and melodious.

The next requirement of good reading is to learn the relative value

of the letters, and the right handling of the syllables, of which

words are composed.

This study is both interesting and attractive, for, as Plato

observes, letters themselves have a clear significance. The letter

_r_ is expressive of motion, the letters _d_ and _t_ of binding and

rest, the letter _l_ of smoothness, _n_ of inwardness, the letter

_e_ of length and the letter _o_ of roundness.[2] Letters run in

families, and each family has its own characteristic significance of

sound. Some letters belong to the lips, others to the throat, others

employ the whole mouth. Vowels and final consonants are the letters

which demand most care and support in good reading. For the most

part, vowels should be rich and full, and the final consonant well

sustained.

[2] _Cf._ Jowett's Plato, I. 311.

If letters in themselves are expressive and significant,

collocations of letters in syllables and words are clearly more

significant still. "By various degrees of strength or weakness,

emphasis or pitch, length or shortness, they become the natural

expressions both of the stronger and the finer parts of human

feeling and thought." To read well, therefore, it is necessary to

give intelligent and ready heed to the relative weight of words,

to notice whether consonants are massed together to increase their

density, or vowels are freely interspersed to leaven and make

them light. True enunciation largely depends on a careful study

of the natural formation of words and a right appreciation of the

proportionate value of their several syllables.

Reading, however, is frequently spoiled by pedantry and exaggerated

minuteness. In seeking to avoid slovenliness readers often fall into

foppery. Good reading goes at an easy pace, it is neither too fast

nor too slow; it neither counts the letters nor omits them, neither

jumbles syllables together nor anatomises words. The good reader

reads so that intelligent listeners can spell his words, but he does

not read as if spelling them himself. He avoids the extremes both

of negligence and nicety, and constantly remembers that whatever is

overdone is badly done. Avoid ostentation. No rule in reading is

more fundamental than this.

Near akin to ostentation is the taint of false and histrionic

emphasis. Colourless reading, bad though it be, is better than

tawdry reading. Especially in all reading of a religious or sacred

character should affectation and dramatic artifices be reverently

avoided.

To read the Bible in church as if playing a part on the stage is as

inappropriate and irreligious as to read like one in haste to catch

a train.

Each kind of subject demands its own proper style in reading. Prose

should not be read like poetry; nor all kinds either of prose or

poetry alike. As in writing, each species should be dressed in

language from its own wardrobe; so in reading, each several kind

should receive its own appropriate tone, and travel at its own

appropriate speed. To read everything alike is to read nothing--or

at most only one thing--well.

[Illustration: Charming away the monotony and the weariness.]

Great authors are by no means invariably good readers, even of

their own productions. Lord Tennyson read some of his own glorious

poems beautifully; but others he read either droningly or with too

much singsong. Dickens read his own works with wonderful power and

realisation. Wordsworth read his own verse admirably; but we are

told that neither Coleridge nor Southey could read verse well: "They

read as if crying or wailing lugubriously."

Reading, therefore, is an art which doubtless requires, for

the attainment of excellence, some degree of histrionic

gifts--imagination, imitation, fervour, and passion.

Similarly with oratory and authorship. Both these arts are distinct

from that of reading; as each of these again is distinct from the

other.

It is curious, indeed, how few among great authors are great

orators; or, among great orators, great authors. The gifts which

tell in writing--condensation, terseness, finish--are not the

gifts which tell most in speaking. In speaking, the essentials are

clearness of enunciation, sympathy with the audience, copiousness

of illustration, directness of statement, uninvolved reasoning. The

merits which impart value to a book--wealth of fact, niceness in

balancing opposing considerations, delicacy of assertion, depth and

sweep of argument--may easily become ineffective in the delivery of

a speech. Hence, therefore, whereas a good speaker is occasionally

a good writer, owing to his rare combination of different orders

of talent, it more frequently happens that the one set of talents

is given to one man to enrich them in seclusion, and the other to

another man to use them with publicity.

In like manner with reading; it is an art by itself. It is natural

to suppose that no one could possibly read an author's works so

well as the author's self, because no one can understand them so

intimately as their own creator. Yet experience proves this to be

not the case; and for a reason which at first sight is not wholly

apparent. It is just because they are his own that, as a rule, he

cannot read them well. He may have a richly cultivated voice, clear

enunciation, a varied power of modulation; he may even be able to

read the works of others well, yet be a failure in reading what he

himself has written. Why is this? Partly, perhaps, it is due to

an unavoidable self-consciousness in reading his own works; and

self-consciousness is the ruin of good reading. "Forget thyself"

is a necessary condition of good reading. Partly, perhaps, it is

due to over-absorption in the memory of sensations and sentiments

which overpowered him when he wrote in the solitude of his chamber,

but which are somewhat unnatural and overstrained for exhibition

before a concourse of auditors. But probably the principal reason

is that one of the greatest charms of good reading arises from the

co-operation of two spirits toward one end--the spirit of the author

and the spirit of the reader. The reader of another's works seeks

actively to express the spirit of his author, yet unintentionally

he is expressing his own spirit also. The author enters into him

and he throws himself into the author; his reading, therefore, is

the union, the marriage, the interpenetration and expression of two

spirits--the author's and his own. However interesting, therefore,

and delightful it may be to hear an author read his own works,

yet is there always lacking the dash and force and suggestiveness

produced when a great author is interpreted by a great reader. The

author merely reproduces his original meaning in what he wrote;

the reader, through the agency of his own independent personality,

idealises and diversifies that meaning.

Idealisation is one of the most beautiful effects of the fine art of

reading. The most ordinary poem or piece of prose, when idealised

by an accomplished artist in reading, grows lovely and sweet. And

one way of learning to read well ourselves is to sit at the feet of

some of these great masters of reading. Until we have heard a great

reader read it is next to impossible to conceive what a fine and

noble art true reading is. On the other hand, we can never become

good readers by merely listening to others, any more than we can

become good musicians by hearing others play.

In the art of reading, others may be our models; none but ourselves

can be our makers. Listening to others may show us how the thing

can best be done, but without doing the thing ourselves the thing

can never be truly learned by us. Sometimes, indeed, listening to

others has an effect quite the opposite of a model for imitation.

"Pausanias tells us of an ancient player on the harp who was wont to

make his scholars go to hear one who played badly that they might

learn to hate his discords and false measures." In like manner, one

way of learning to read well is to hear others read badly.

The art of reading aloud culminates in the expression of the

spiritual through the medium of the physical. As sculpture aspires

to express its ideals in stone, and painting in colour, and music

in sound, so reading embodies its ideals in uttered words. A

well-trained voice, clearness of enunciation, rhythm and flexibility

of articulation--these are the physical framework of the art of

reading aloud. Without first acquiring these the reader is as

impotent as the painter without colour or the sculptor without

stone. But the physics of reading are nothing more than its material

framework. Unless the reader is inspired with ideals, reading will

never rise to the dignity and glory of an art with him. He may be

as a house-painter with his brush, or a mason with his stone--an

industrious and useful artificer, but not an artist in his work.

MIDGET CHURCHES

By J. A. Reid.

The subject of church architecture is ever a fascinating one.

Millions of money and an immense amount of time and labour have been

spent in erecting places of worship, some of which are magnificent

structures capable of seating several thousands. On the other hand,

small, humble edifices sometimes suffice to meet the requirements of

the worshippers; and it is with these that we here propose to deal.

Which of the midget churches is the smallest it is somewhat

difficult to say; but it is believed that the smallest church in

England is the truly miniature church of Lullington, in Sussex.

It is a primitive and quaint building, constructed of flint with

stone quoins, with a roof of red tiles. It can boast of a little

weather-boarded turret at its west end; but its bell does not toll

now, and the birds of the air have long since found the turret a

convenient nesting-place. The church is but sixteen feet square. The

pulpit is a pew, with panelled sides and door, and the furniture is

of the plainest. Five, narrow, diamond-paned windows throw a scanty

light upon the interior, in which there is accommodation for thirty

persons--quite sufficient for the population of the village.

[Illustration: (_Photo: H. J. Unwin, Hailsham._)

LULLINGTON CHURCH.

(_Sixteen feet square._)]

A somewhat larger edifice is the very interesting church of

Wythburn, in Cumberland, the dimensions of which are--nave (length),

thirty-nine feet; height of walls, ten feet; and width, fifteen

feet. This was the original church, erected about one hundred and

sixty years ago, and is of the simplest description. The roof is

constructed of old ships' timber, and the windows are square holes

with wooden frames. The chancel is eighteen feet long by fifteen

feet by ten feet. The beautiful little east window is by Henry

Holiday, and was put in to the memory of the late vicar. What

a magnificent site for a church! The poets have thus expressed

themselves with regard to this humble but beautifully situated

church:--

Canon H. D. Rawnsley wrote:

"We cannot stay--for life is but an Inn,

A halfway house--and, lo! the graves how near!

Yet mighty minds have hither come for cheer

Before the upward path they dared begin.

Here Gray the pilgrim rested pale and thin,

Here Wilson laughed, and Wordsworth murmured here.

Here Coleridge mused, and ere he crossed the mere

Hence Arnold viewed the Goal he hoped to win.

And we who would Helvellyn's height essay,

Or climb towards the gateway of the mound

Where Dunmail died because his realm was fair,

May join their gracious company who found

Earth's beauty made Life's Inn a House of Prayer,

And speed, refreshed of soul, upon our way."

[Illustration: _Wythburn Church as compared with St. Paul's

Cathedral._

(_Photo: T. Dumble, Keswick._)

WYTHBURN CHURCH.

(_Thirteen yards long, five yards wide._)]

Wordsworth, too, said:

"If Wythburn's modest House of Prayer,

As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,

Had, with its belfry's humble stock,

A little pair that hang in air,

Been mistress also of a clock

(And one, too, not hung in crazy plight),

Twelve strokes that clock would have been telling

Under the brow of old Helvellyn."

And H. Coleridge:

"Humble it is, and meek, and very low,

And speaks its purpose by a single bell:

But God Himself, and He alone, can know

If spiry temples please Him half so well."

We have given two instances of very small churches: let us now refer

to a midget chapel. At Crawshawbooth, a village near Burnley, there

is an extremely interesting diminutive place of worship known as

the Friends' Meeting-House, an old-fashioned building covered with

ivy, and environed by a well-cared-for burial ground. It contains

half a dozen oak benches, on which the worshippers sit. Though these

benches are sufficient to provide seating accommodation for about

sixty, the attendance is rarely more than six. John Bright once

worshipped here, walking from Rochdale, a distance of twelve miles.

This quaint little place is naturally regarded with much interest by

visitors.

It is interesting to point out that there is another Quaker

meeting-house in the hamlet of Jordans, in Buckinghamshire, which

is, if anything, smaller than that already referred to. It has been

called the Shrine of Quakerism, for early in June every year a

gathering of Quakers takes place. Here lie the remains of William

Penn, one of the greatest of Quakers. At a cottage in the vicinity

Milton wrote his "Paradise Lost."

[Illustration: (_Photo: R. W. Lord, Little Lever, near Bolton._)

THE FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE, CRAWSHAWBOOTH.

(_Containing six oak benches to accommodate sixty worshippers._)]

To revert to churches, Kilpeck Church is well worth referring to as

being a lovely little place of worship. The nave is thirty-six feet

by twenty, and the chancel seventeen by sixteen feet ten inches,

the total length being sixty-eight feet and the average breadth

about sixteen feet. It is built upon a Saxon foundation, and Saxon

remains are still to be seen--notably, a "holy-water" stoup that

must be one thousand or eleven hundred years old. It is not possible

to do justice to this beautiful church in a few words, but the

accompanying photograph will give an idea of the quaintness and

beauty of the structure. The sculpture is remarkably interesting.

[Illustration: (_Photo: Poulton and Sons, Lee._)

KILPECK CHURCH.

(_Nave thirty-six feet by twenty._)]

An article on midget places of worship would be incomplete without a

reference to the little lath-and-plaster church of Essex, consisting

of nave, chancel, and a small turret. Hazeleigh Church, as it is

named, stands in the near vicinity of Hazeleigh Hall--once the

home of the Essex family of the Alleynes, one of whom founded the

College of God's Gift at Dulwich. This little church has thus been

described by the Rev. H. R. Wadmore, sometime curate:--

"... A little church beside a wood

Securely sheltered from the sweeping blast;

So quiet, so secure, it seems to be

A very type of rest and all that's still."

[Illustration: (_Photo: R. D. Barrett._)

CHILCOMBE CHURCH.

(_Twelve yards long._)]

This little church of Hazeleigh, owing to its simple character,

differs but slightly from the roadside cottages. It has been styled

"the meanest church in Essex," owing to its unpretentious character.

[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)

THE CAVE CHURCH AT LEDAIG, NEAR OBAN.

(_The most primitive church in the kingdom._)]

A pleasing little church is that of Chilcombe, near Bridport,

Dorsetshire. Chilcombe is mentioned in the Doomsday Book, and at one

time was the property of the Knight Hospitallers of St. John. The

existing church dates from the thirteenth century. It is in the

Roman style, and possesses a good Norman font. The length of the

nave is twenty-two by fourteen feet, the chancel being thirteen by

eleven feet. The owner of the parish and the patron of the living is

Admiral the Hon. M. H. Nelson.

[Illustration: GROVE CHURCH, NEAR LEIGHTON BUZZARD.

(_Capable of seating fifty people._)]

Another remarkably small church is that of St. Peter, on the Castle

Rise, at Cambridge, its dimensions being twenty-five by sixteen

feet. It is of Norman architecture.

England by no means possesses all the diminutive churches and

chapels, and a very quaint and interesting church is that of Ledaig,

near Oban. It is unsectarian, and its congregation numbers, on the

average, twenty-five. It was founded by John Campbell, who was more

familiarly known as "The Bard of Benderlock." He converted a natural

cavern in the cliffs of Ledaig into a place of worship. A portion

of a trunk of a tree, on which Robert Bruce is said to have rested,

serves as a table and reading-desk. Trunks of trees around the sides

of the cavern serve as seats for the worshippers. Mr. Campbell

officiated as minister for many years to a band of faithful Highland

worshippers in this curious church. Mr. Campbell was a remarkable

personality. He was postmaster of Ledaig, and he also gained a

considerable reputation as a poet. He was a much respected man, and

his memory is dear to many.

[Illustration: (_Photo: A. A. Inglis, Edinburgh._)

ST. MARGARET'S CHAPEL, EDINBURGH CASTLE.

(_For some time used as a powder magazine._)]

I would like to refer to a very interesting midget church at

Grove, near Leighton Buzzard, which I had the pleasure of visiting

recently. It is the smallest in the county, and is a gable-roofed,

barn-like fabric, with a door on the north side. In 1883 the little

church was restored throughout, the fine old-fashioned square

pews being replaced by open wooden seats, and it is now capable

of seating about fifty people. Formerly the edifice contained a

"three-decker"--clerk's desk, reading-desk, and pulpit combined. The

churchyard contains many graves, but only one tombstone (eighteenth

century). The dimensions of the church are--length, twenty-nine and

a half feet; width, eighteen feet; height, about forty feet; in

all probability, the church was formerly larger than at present.

Grove is generally considered to be one of the smallest parishes in

England, and one could hardly conceive of a smaller. It consists

practically of a farmhouse and a lock-keeper's cottage.

[Illustration: ST. ROBERT'S CHAPEL, KNARESBOROUGH.

(_Showing figure of a Knight Templar cut in the rock._)

(_Photo: G. E. Arnold, Knaresborough._)]

We must not forget that at the top of Edinburgh Castle is the

historical diminutive chapel of St. Margaret's, which was the

private chapel of the pious Margaret, Queen of Malcolm III., during

her residence in the castle. Until very recently it had been quite

lost sight of, having been converted into a powder magazine and

fallen into disrepair. In 1853, however, it was "discovered" and

put into an efficient state of repair. It is considered to be

the oldest and smallest chapel in Scotland, its dimensions being

sixteen feet six inches by ten feet sixteen inches. The semicircular

chancel is separated from the nave by a well-carved double-round

arch, decorated with Norman zigzag mouldings. It is too small to be

made available for divine service for the troops quartered in the

castle, and the only use that it is now put to is for occasional

baptisms and morning Communion.

[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)

SMALL CHURCH AT ST. ANDREW, GREENSTED, NEAR ONGAR.

(_Believed to include the only remaining portion of a Saxon wooden

church._)]

There are several very small places of worship which are now, alas!

in ruins. At Iona, for instance, on the west coast of Scotland,

are the remains of an extremely small chapel, known as St. Oran's

Chapel. It is very near Iona Cathedral. It is constructed of red

granite, and its external measurements are sixty feet by twenty-two

feet. It is now roofless, and is very old. This little chapel

is believed to have been built by Queen Margaret in 1080. Its

architecture is Romanesque, and it has one low entrance. This humble

edifice is interesting inasmuch as within its walls is the tomb of

Sir Walter Scott's "Lord of the Isles," the friend of Bruce.

[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)

DIMINUTIVE CHAPEL AT POINT IN VIEW, NEAR EXMOUTH.

(_Containing an organ made by the pastor._)]

There is another tiny barn-like edifice at Greenloaning, near

Dunblane. The little church is situated adjacent to a farmhouse, and

seems to have been erected for the benefit of the farm-workers. It

is remarkably small. The scenery in the vicinity is magnificent, and

the church is regarded with much interest by tourists.

St. Anthony's Chapel is another small building also in ruins. It is

interesting owing to its historic surroundings, being in the near

vicinity of Holyrood Palace. It comprises a hermitage, sixteen feet

long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet high, and a Gothic chapel

forty-three feet long, eighteen feet broad, and eighteen feet high.

One of the most remarkable of these little churches is that at

Knaresborough, in Yorkshire, which is a very queer little chapel

elegantly hewn out of the solid rock, the roof being beautifully

ribbed and groined in the Gothic style. At the back of the altar is

a large niche, where an image used to stand, and on one side of it

is a place for the "holy-water" basin. There are also figures of

three heads--designed, it is believed, for an emblematical allusion

to the order of the monks at the once neighbouring priory. Possibly

they were cut by some of the monks. The order was known as Sanctæ

Trinitatis. A few yards away there is another head. It has been

surmised that this is a representation of St. John the Baptist, to

whom the chapel is supposed to be dedicated. There is a cavity in

the floor, in which some ancient relic was rested. The chapel is

ten feet six inches long, nine feet wide, and seven and a half feet

high. Near the entrance is the following inscription:--

"Beneath yon ivy's spreading shade,

For lonely contemplation made,

An ancient chapel stands complete,

Once the hermit's calm retreat

From worldly pomp and sordid care,

To humble penitence and prayer;

The sight is pleasing, all agree--

Do, gentle stranger, turn and see."

The chapel is known as St. Robert's Chapel. St. Robert, the hermit

who used it for devotions, was born about 1160, and was the son

of Sir Toke Flouris, who was mayor of the city of York. In his

youth he was noted for his piety, and he entered the Cistercian

Abbey of Newminster in Northumberland. He was only there eighteen

weeks, however, removing to York, and then to Knaresborough, where

he retired from the world to live a life of contemplation in this

restful spot. He died in the September of 1218. On one side of the

entrance to the chapel, under the ivy, is the figure of a Knight

Templar, cut in the rock, in the act of drawing his sword to defend

the place from the violence of intruders. This is a queer and

remarkable building, and, though not now used as a place of worship,

the reference here made to it may prove interesting.

[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._)

INTERIOR VIEW OF PERIVALE CHURCH.]

The cathedral of St. Asaph, in Flintshire, might be mentioned in

this category as being the smallest cathedral in the country. It

is in the shape of a simple cross in plan, consisting of a choir

transept, nave, with five bays with aisles, and a central tower

forty feet square and one hundred feet high. The choir was built in

1867-68 from the designs of the late Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A., and is

of Early English architecture.

Passing references might also be made to the diminutive church of

Warlingham, in Surrey, which runs the midget church of Wotton in

that county very close; and to Grosmont Church, Monmouth, erected

by Eleanor of Provence, a quaint little structure with an octagonal

tower. There used to be a church known as St. Mildred in the

Poultry, which was removed to Lincolnshire. It formerly occupied a

position in the eastern end of Cheapside, and in 1872 it was taken

to pieces and re-erected at Louth. It is generally considered to be

the smallest church designed by Wren.

At St. Andrew, Greensted, near Ongar, there is a very small church,

and it is a curiosity, inasmuch as it is believed to be a relic of

the only church of Saxon origin built of wood remaining.

There is a small chapel at Point in View, near Exmouth. It is

Congregational, and it provides seating accommodation for eighty

persons, and forms one side of a block, the other three sides being

taken up by four little almshouses, each consisting of two rooms

occupied by four elderly maiden ladies. Over the chapel door is this

motto:--

"One Point in View

We all pursue."

The chapel contains a diminutive organ made by the pastor. In the

vicinity there is a peculiar round house, the property of the

Reichel family. It was a member of this family who founded the

chapel and almshouses.

The little church of St. Nicholas at Hulcote should be mentioned.

It is near Woburn, the seat of the Duke of Bedford. It is rather

difficult to find, at any rate when the foliage is on the trees,

so surrounded is it by them. It was built about the year 1610 by

Richard Chernocke. Its measurements are: length, from the tower to

the chancel step, thirty-nine and a half feet; chancel, eight and a

half feet from step to east; width, sixteen feet three inches. There

are carved oaken panels to many of the seats, and on the north wall,

inside the chancel rails, are some valuable old monuments in memory

of the Chernocke family. It is now between fifteen and twenty years

since the church was used for divine service, but it is still used

for funerals.