.

At church we occupied, at least, one-third of the whole of one side of
the gallery. Two hundred and fifty boys and young men, with their
attending masters and ushers, could not but fill a large space, and, of
course, would form no unimportant feature in the audience. Mr Root and
the little boys were always placed in the lower and front seats. There
we sat, poor dear little puppets, with our eyes strained on the
prayerbooks, always in the wrong place, during the offertory, and, after
the sermon had begun, repeating the text over and over again, whilst the
preaching continued, lest we should forget it; whilst all this time the
bigger boys in the rear were studying novels, or playing at odd-and-even
for nuts, marbles, or halfpence. I well know that the mathematical
master used, invariably, to solve his hard problems on fly-leaves in his
prayer-book during service, for I have repeatedly seen there his
laborious calculations in minutely small figures; and he never opened
his prayer-book but at church--as perhaps he thought, with the old woman
of Smollett, that it was a species of impiety to study such works
anywhere else. Whilst all this was going on in the back rows, Mr Root,
in the full-blown glory of his Sunday paraphernalia, and well powdered,
attended exclusively to the holiness and devout comportment of his
little chapter of innocents. Tablet in hand, every wandering look was
noted down; and alas the consequences to me were dreadfully painful.

The absolution absolved me not. The "Te Deum laudamus" was to me more a
source of tears than of praise; and the "O be joyful in the Lord" has
often made me intensely sorrowful in the school-room. In all honesty, I
don't think that, for a whole half-year, I once escaped my Sunday
flogging. It came as regularly as the baked rice-puddings. I began to
look upon the thing as a matter of course; and, if any person should
doubt the credibility of this, or any other account of these my
school-boy days, happily there are several now living who can vouch for
its veracity, and if I am dared to the proof by anyone by whose
conviction I should feel honoured, that proof will I most certainly
give.

I have stated all this, from what I believe to be a true reverence for
worship, to make the offices of religion a balm and a blessing, to prove
that there is a cherishing warmth in the glory of light that surrounds
the throne of Exhaustless Benevolence, and that the Deity cannot be