Weekly Messenger. Even about the Bible he knew little or nothing
beyond a few favourite chapters; and I am bound to say that, so far as
my experience goes, the character so frequently drawn in romances of
intense Bible students in Dissenting congregations is very rare. At
the same time Mr. Catfield believed himself to be very orthodox, and in
his way was very pious. I could never call him a hypocrite. He was as
sincere as he could be, and yet no religious expression of his was ever
so sincere as the most ordinary expression of the most trifling
pleasure or pain.

The second deacon, Mr. Weeley, was, as he described himself, a builder
and undertaker; more properly an undertaker and carpenter. He was a
thin, tall man, with a tenor voice, and he set the tunes. He was
entirely without energy of any kind, and always seemed oppressed by a
world which was too much for him. He had depended a good deal for
custom upon his chapel connection; and when the attendance at the
chapel fell off, his trade fell off likewise, so that he had to
compound with his creditors. He was a mere shadow, a man of whom
nothing could be said either good or evil.

The third deacon was Mr. Snale, the draper. When I first knew him he
was about thirty-five. He was slim, small, and small-faced, closely
shaven, excepting a pair of little curly whiskers, and he was extremely
neat. He had a little voice too, rather squeaky, and the marked
peculiarity that he hardly ever said anything, no matter how
disagreeable it might be, without stretching as if in a smile his thin
little lips. He kept the principal draper's shop in the town, and even
Church people spent their money with him, because he was so very
genteel compared with the other draper, who was a great red man, and
hung things outside his window. Mr. Snale was married, had children,