24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY [CHAP. iv. 



had on its east side one of the great east windows of the 

 church, and on the north side a smaller one, both with 

 small panes ill-leaded, and one with a very insufficiently 

 fastened small window, our Sunday devotions in winter 

 were anything but comfortable. 



I believe the rural congregation behaved with great pro- 

 priety, though certainly on one occasion it struck me that 

 a reverence during the creed at the name of Pontius Pilate 

 on the part of the wife of my father's farm-bailiff, was 

 somewhat out of place. But we were free from such lapses 

 in decency of arrangement as occurred elsewhere. The 

 pigeons did not roost in the tower, neither did a turkey sit 

 on her eggs in the pulpit, which, considering that the time 

 of incubation for the turkey hen is four weeks, must have 

 interfered considerably with the due performance of service. 

 Neither were we, so far as I remember, scandalised by 

 attendance of dogs in church, whether avowedly accom- 

 panying their masters or making a voyage of discovery as to 

 where their clerical owner might have vanished. And 

 certainly we did not have the disgraceful circumstance 

 which occurred in another church with which I was 

 acquainted, of two ladies of good social position in the 

 parish walking up to the rails of the communion table to 

 receive the sacrament, followed by their great Newfound- 

 land dog ! 



One practice certainly objectionable, but perhaps not 

 unusual in country parishes where the church was also 

 used as the week-day schoolroom was putting the bags 

 holding the provisions which the children brought with 

 them for their dinners on the communion table. I do not 

 think that this was so very shocking, for no irreverence was 

 intended. A table was a table in those days, and not an 

 " Altar," and looking back on the matter it does not appear 

 clear where else the food could have been safely placed. I 

 fancy there was no regular vestry and, excepting the floor, 

 or the seats of the pews, there does not seem to me to have 

 been any other place of moderately safe deposit. However, 

 by and by a room was hired as a schoolroom, and the 

 church was freed from the presence of the children and 

 their dinners. I well remember our going over in form to 

 hold some sort of an examination, which was wound up by 

 my father (who was certainly better fitted to examine 

 witnesses from the magistrate's bench than to probe for 

 what information our little uncivilised urchins possessed) 

 electrifying the audience by desiring to know whether his 



