THE COUNTRY SUNDAY. 59 



have perhaps been trained as missionaries, often dis- 

 course of Buddha with a very long and unctuous ' Boo.' 

 The ancient Roman censor who tried by laws and 

 persuasions to induce the inhabitants of Rome to marry, 

 yet could not succeed in inducing them to submit to 

 what they considered a sacrifice for the benefit of the 

 state, would have been delighted with the marrying 

 tendencies of the chapel people. A venerable old gen- 

 tleman — a great pillar of the body- — after the decease of 

 his first wife married her sister, and again, upon her re- 

 moval, married his cook. Another great prop — elderly 

 indeed, but still upright and iron-grey, a most powerfully 

 made man, who always spoke as if his words were in- 

 deed law — rule-of-thumb law — has married three sisters 

 in succession, and has had offspring by all. Their exact 

 degrees of consanguinity I cannot tell you, or whether 

 they call each other brothers and sisters, or cousins. 

 This is certain, however, that whether such marriages be 

 legal or not, they are as such regarded and as such ac- 

 cepted in every sense by the society to which these 

 gentlemen belong. Another gentleman now has his 

 fourth wife, and he, too, is a most strenuous believer, 

 and not his bitterest enemy can rake up the smallest 

 accusation against his character. He, too, is a strong 

 and upright man, fully capable of another wife if time 

 should chance to bring it about. Now, the odd part of 

 it is that, having married four times, and each time in 

 the same village, where all the families are more or less 

 connected, he is more or less related to every single in- 

 dividual in the parish. First, there are his own blood 

 relations and his wives' blood relations, and then there 

 are their relations' relations, and next his sons and 

 daughters have married and introduced a fresh roll, 

 and I really do not think either he or anybody else 



