on business, and for opening these an apology was always offered that
it was possible they might contain some announcement of sickness. If
on cursory inspection they appeared to be ordinary letters, although
they might be from relations or friends, they were put away.

After family prayer and breakfast the business of the day began with
the Sunday-school at nine o'clock. We were taught our Catechism and
Bible there till a quarter past ten. We were then marched across the
road into the chapel, a large old-fashioned building dating from the
time of Charles II. The floor was covered with high pews. The roof
was supported by three or four tall wooden pillars which ran from the
ground to the ceiling, and the galleries by shorter pillars. There was
a large oak pulpit on one side against the wall, and down below,
immediately under the minister, was the "singing pew," where the
singers and musicians sat, the musicians being performers on the
clarionet, flute, violin, and violoncello. Right in front was a long
enclosure, called the communion pew, which was usually occupied by a
number of the poorer members of the congregation.

There were three services every Sunday, besides intermitting prayer-
meetings, but these I did not as yet attend. Each service consisted of
a hymn, reading the Bible, another hymn, a prayer, the sermon, a third
hymn, and a short final prayer. The reading of the Bible was
unaccompanied with any observations or explanations, and I do not
remember that I ever once heard a mistranslation corrected.

The first, or long prayer, as it was called, was a horrible hypocrisy,
and it was a sore tax on the preacher to get through it. Anything more
totally unlike the model recommended to us in the New Testament cannot
well be imagined. It generally began with a confession that we were