stir the imagination or the devotional sense, the simple people
worship. On Sunday, they are put upon a diet of spiritual bread and
water. Personally, I should desire more generous food. But the
labouring people listen attentively, till once they fall asleep, and
they wake up to receive the benediction with a feeling of having done
their duty. They know they ought to go to chapel, and they go. I go
likewise, from habit, although I have long ago lost the power of
following a discourse. In my pew, and whilst the clergyman is going
on, I think of the strangest things--of the tree at the window, of the
congregation of the dead outside, of the wheat-fields and the
corn-fields beyond and all around. And the odd thing is, that it is
during sermon only that my mind flies off at a tangent and busies
itself with things removed from the place and the circumstances.
Whenever it is finished fancy returns from her wanderings, and I am
alive to the objects around me. The clergyman knows my humour, and is
good Christian enough to forgive me; and he smiles good-humouredly when
I ask him to let me have the chapel keys, that I may enter, when in the
mood, and preach a sermon to myself. To my mind, an empty chapel is
impressive; a crowded one, comparatively a commonplace affair. Alone,
I could choose my own text, and my silent discourse would not be
without its practical applications.

An idle life I live in this place, as the world counts it; but then I
have the satisfaction of differing from the world as to the meaning of
idleness. A windmill twirling its arms all day is admirable only when
there is corn to grind. Twirling its arms for the mere barren pleasure
of twirling them, or for the sake of looking busy, does not deserve any
rapturous paean of praise. I must be made happy after my own fashion,
not after the fashion of other people. Here I can live as I please,
here I can throw the reins on the neck of my whim. Here I play with my