318 A Walk from 



edge-tools are evenning everything in Christendom 

 to one dead level of uniformity. The railroads and 

 telegraphs are all working to the same end. All 

 these agencies of modern civilization at first lay their 

 innovating hands upon large cities or commercial 

 centres. Thence they work outward slowly and 

 transform the appearance and habits of the country. 

 The transformations I have noticed in England since 

 1846, are wonderful, utilitarian, and productive of 

 absolute and rigid comfort to the people ; still, I 

 must confess, they inspire in me a sentiment akin 

 to that which our village fathers experienced when 

 the old church in which they worshipped from child- 

 hood was pulled down to make room for a better one. 



To every American, sympathising with these senti- 

 ments, it must be interesting to visit such a rural 

 little city as Bipon, and find populations that cling 

 with reverence and affection to the old Saxon institu- 

 tions of Alfred. It will make him feel that he stands 

 in the unbroken lineage of the centuries, to hear the 

 wakeman's horn, and to know that it has been blown, 

 spring, summer, autumn and winter, in all weathers, 

 in weal and in woe, for a thousand years. As Old 

 England is driven farther and farther back from 

 London, Manchester, Liverpool, and other great im- 

 proving towns, she will find refuge and residence 



