THE COUNTRY SUNDAY. 53 



1)( long to the same persuasion, and there are well-to-do 

 ])i oplc in the crowd. It is the cast of mind that makes 

 \\\r. worshipper, not the worldly position. 



It is written, but perhaps it is not true, that in old 

 times — not very old times — the parish clergyman had a 

 legal right, by which every person in the parish was 

 compelled to appear once on a Sunday in the church. 

 Those who did not come were fined a shilling. 



Now look at the Shillings this Sunday morning 

 flowing of their own free will along the crooked lanes, 

 and over the stiles, and through the hops, and down the 

 hill to the chapel which can offer no bribe and can 

 impose no fine. 



Old women — wonder 'tis how they live on nothing a 

 day — still manage to keep a decent black dress and come 

 to chapel with a penny in their pockets in spite of their 

 age and infirmities. The nearest innkeeper, himself a 

 most godly man, has work enough to do to receive the 

 horses and traps and pony-carriages and stow them 

 away before service begins, when he will stride from the 

 stable to the pew. Then begins the hollow and flute- 

 like modulation of a pitch-pipe within the great building. 

 One of the members of the congregation who is a 

 musician is setting the ears of the people to the tune of 

 the hymn that is about to be given forth. The verse is 

 read, and then rises the full swell of hundreds of voices ; 

 and while they sing let us think what a strange thing 

 the old pitch-pipe — no organ, no harmonium — what a 

 strange thing the whole scene is, with its Cromwellian 

 air in the midst of the modern fields. 



This is a picture, and not a disputation : as to what 

 they teach or preach inside Bethel, it is nothing to me ; 

 ithis paper has not the slightest theological bias. 



You may tell when the service is nearly over by the 



