The congregation at Cannon-street Chapel is made up of tolerably
respectable materials. It is no common Dissenting rendezvous for
ill-clad screamers and roaring enthusiasts. Neither fanatics nor
ejaculators find an abiding place in it. Not many poor people join
the charmed circle. A middle-class, shopkeeping halo largely
environs the assemblage. There is a good deal of pride, vanity,
scent, and silk-rustling astir in it every Sunday, just as there is
in every sacred throng; and the oriental, theory of caste is not
altogether ignored. The ordinary elements of every Christian
congregation are necessarily visible here--backsliders and newly-
caught communicants; ancient women duly converted and moderately
fond of tea, snuff, and charity; people who cough continually, and
will do so in their graves if not closely watched; parties, with the
Fates against them, who fly off periodically into fainting fits;
contented individuals, whose gastric juice flows evenly, who can
sleep through the most impassioned sermon with the utmost serenity;
weather-beaten orthodox souls who have been recipients of ever so
much daily grace for half a life time, and fancy they are
particularly near paradise; lofty and isolated beings who have a
fixed notion that they are quite as respectable if not as pious as
other people; easy-going well-dressed creatures "whose life glides
away in a mild and amiable conflict between the claims of piety and
good breeding."

But the bulk are of a substantial, medium-going description--
practical, sharp, respectable, and naturally inclined towards a
free, well got up, reasonable theology. There is nothing inflamed in
them--nothing indicative of either a very thick or very thin skin.
Any of them will lend you a hymn book, and whilst none of them may