followers of the king; and so our dreams of greatness and
permanence are fulfilled.

The whole church was very neat and spruce; it had suffered a
restoration lately. The walls were stripped of their old plaster
and pointed, so that the inside is now rougher than the outside, a
thing the ancient builders never intended. The altar is fairly
draped with good hangings behind, and the chancel fitted with new
oak stalls and seats, all as neat as a new pin. As I lingered in
the church, reading the simple monuments, a rosy, burly vicar came
briskly in, and seeing me there, courteously showed me all the
treasures of his house, like Hezekiah. He took me into the belfry,
and there, piled up against the wall, were some splendid Georgian
columns and architraves, richly carved in dark brown wood. I asked
what it was. "Oh, a horrible pompous thing," he said; "it was
behind the altar--most pagan and unsuitable; we had it all out as
soon as I came. The first moment I entered the church, I said to
myself, 'THAT must go,' and I have succeeded, though it was hard
enough to collect the money, and actually some of the old people
here objected." I did not feel it was worth while to cast cold
water on the good man's satisfaction--but the pity of it! I do not
suppose that a couple of thousand pounds could have reproduced it;
and it is simply heart-rending to see such a noble monument of
piety and careful love sacrificed to a wave of so-called
ecclesiastical taste. The vicar's chief pride was a new window, by
a fashionable modern firm; quite unobjectionable in design, and
with good colour, but desperately uninteresting. It represented
some mild, unemphatic, attenuated saints, all exactly alike,
languidly and decorously conversing together, weighed down by heavy
drapery, as though wrapped in bales of carpets. In the lower