the most forlorn and neglected building in the parish; shew that you take a delight in repairing, that you do it for conscience-sake-as an act of worship; act yourself, and teach others to act, upon higher principles than those on which the covetous, cold-hearted world around us acts, and all the rest will follow in due course. Depend upon it, Christian charity, Christian liberality, is not extinct; it only wants to be called forth. The spirit which endowed cathedrals yet lingers among us. The time will come when the people will once more offer willingly; and then we may restore nobly all that in the miseries of the rebellion, and under Puritan misrule, was laid even with the dust."

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Ah, then, Mr. Warlingham," said Mildred with eagerness, you would fill your windows with painted glass, renew the oak carvings, and restore the broken tombs and tabernacle-work to their ancient beauty?" “To be sure I would, and will, if I can find the

means.

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Well, I hope when you come to this part of your task, you will abolish that unsightly mass of pews, which, I must say, disfigures your church at present."

I will try hard," said I; "but there is more of pride and prejudice, and little, mean, bad passions to be contended with on this subject of pews, than almost any other connected with the Church. And, strange to say, the passion for pews is restricted to one class only. To the highest and the lowest in worldly rank it seems a matter of indifference (so far

as my experience goes), how they are accommodated; they are quite satisfied with open sittings. It is the middle class who are the great sticklers for pews. Why and wherefore they should love to squeeze themselves together by fours and sixes in large packing-boxes, except that they fancy there is something dignified in exclusiveness, I never could conceive. I am quite sure they would be ashamed to be so huddled together in their own parlours."

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Yet they cannot but know that in God's house we are all equal?"

One would suppose so," said I; and I hope by degrees all members of the Church will be brought to feel that there is something very inconsistent with Christian humility in the use of pews. When I find a person inclined to assert the contrary, I bid them read the beginning of the second chapter of the epistle of St. James it seems to meet the question exactly."

"Well, Mr. Warlingham," observed Mark, I think you are quite right on that point; but you must excuse me for saying, that all this restoring and ornamenting which you talk of, seems to me a very unimportant matter; it is laying too great a stress upon little things."

Certainly it would be so, if you omitted those of greater importance; but I am all along supposing them to be duly attended to. It has been well remarked, that he is no true philosopher, nor a true Christian, who attends not to little things;' and South puts the matter upon the true footing, when he says,

'I can account nothing little in any church which has the stamp of undoubted authority, and the practice of primitive antiquity, as well as the reason and decency of the thing itself to warrant and support it.'

"But, after all, Mr. Warlingham, the best temples and the costliest which we can offer to God are our sanctified souls and bodies. The Almighty is looking at our hearts, and at the spirit in which we offer our prayers; not at the church in which they are offered, nor at the forms which accompany them."

"Of course," I replied. "But, then, as Hooker says, 'God, who requireth the one as necessary, accepteth the other also as being an honourable work.' No doubt He would hear earnest prayer offered by us in an open field or on a hill-side; no doubt a clergyman may do his duties as well in a dirty surplice as in a clean one; no doubt the waters of holy baptism may be as efficacious when poured from a broken pipkin, as from the font of sculptured marble; no doubt the benefits of the blessed sacrament of the eucharist may reach the hearts of the faithful as surely, though the elements were delivered from a pewter cup and platter, as from the paten and chalice of pure gold. But is there not something which is absolutely revolting in the thought that creatures sustained by God's bounty, and daily receiving from Him a thousand blessings, should grudge to dedicate to His service of that which He has given them? should be sparing, and niggardly, and ungenerous? that while God's house and services are

thus dishonoured by slovenliness and poverty, our own houses are crammed with luxuries? Should we not shudder at the bare thought of having our dwellings in the same condition as our churches? O, shame, shame, shame! that we should act as though the worst of every thing, and the cheapest of every thing were good enough for God! that we should give ourselves the benefit of our extravagance, and Him of our frugality! Not such was the feeling of the saints of old, who built and endowed our churches and cathedrals; not such the feeling of the reformers, who bequeathed us the homily 'for repairing, and keeping clean, and comely adorning of churches;' not such the feeling of David, when he reproached himself, and said, See, now I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains;'l not such the feeling of Haggai, when he uttered his stern expostulation, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste ?'"'2

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"But how," said Mark Fullerton, are persons of limited fortunes, those who do not dwell in houses ' ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion,'how are they to find means of contributing as largely to church-building and church-restoring, as, in your view of the case, duty requires ?"

Where there is a will, there is a way. When Erasmus was poor and wanted books, he said his plan should be to buy books, and then clothes. And if we are really zealous to promote God's glory, our 2 Hag. i. 4.

1 2 Sam. vii. 2.