The chapel was lighted in winter by immense chandeliers with tiers of
candles all round. These required perpetual snuffing, and I can see
the old man going round the chandeliers in the middle of the service
with a mighty pair of snuffers which opened and shut with a loud click.
How I envied him because he had semi-secular occupation which prevented
that terrible drowsiness! How I envied the pew-opener, who was allowed
to stand at the vestry door, and could slip into the vestry every now
and then, or even into the burial-ground if he heard irreverent boys
playing there! The atmosphere of the chapel on hot nights was most
foul, and this added to my discomfort. Oftentimes in winter, when no
doors or windows were open, I have seen the glass panes streaming with
wet inside, and women carried out fainting.

On rare occasions I was allowed to go with my father when he went into
the villages to preach. As a deacon he was also a lay-preacher, and I
had the ride in the gig out and home, and tea at a farm-house.

Perhaps I shall not have a better opportunity to say that, with all
these drawbacks, my religious education did confer upon me some
positive advantages. The first was a rigid regard for truthfulness.
My parents never would endure a lie or the least equivocation. The
second was purity of life, and I look upon this as a simply
incalculable gain. Impurity was not an excusable weakness in the
society in which I lived; it was a sin for which dreadful punishment
was reserved. The reason for my virtue may have been a wrong reason,
but, anyhow, I was saved, and being saved, much more was saved than
health and peace of mind.

To this day I do not know where to find a weapon strong enough to
subdue the tendency to impurity in young men; and although I cannot