eft
the organ-loft vacant, making no further use of it than to satisfy our
Gothic cravings. As for choir,--several of the singers of the church
volunteered to sit together in the front side-seats, and as there was no
place for an organ, they gallantly rallied round a melodeon,--or perhaps
it is a cabinet organ,--a charming instrument, and, as everybody knows,
entirely in keeping with the pillars, arches, and great spaces of a real
Gothic edifice. It is the union of simplicity with grandeur, for which
we have all been looking. I need not say to those who have ever heard a
melodeon, that there is nothing like it. It is rare, even in the finest
churches on the Continent. And we had congregational singing. And it
went very well indeed. One of the advantages of pure congregational
singing, is that you can join in the singing whether you have a voice
or not. The disadvantage is, that your neighbor can do the same. It is
strange what an uncommonly poor lot of voices there is, even among good
people. But we enjoy it. If you do not enjoy it, you can change your
seat until you get among a good lot.

So far, everything went well. But it was next discovered that it was
difficult to hear the minister, who had a very handsome little desk in
the apse, somewhat distant from the bulk of the congregation; still, we
could most of us see him on a clear day. The church was admirably built
for echoes, and the centre of the house was very favorable to them. When
you sat in the centre of the house, it sometimes seemed as if three or
four ministers were speaking.

It is usually so in cathedrals; the Right Reverend So-and-So is
assisted by the very Reverend Such-and-Such, and the good deal Reverend
Thus-and-Thus, and so on. But a good deal of the minister's voice
appeared to go up into the groined arches, and, as there was no one up
there, some of his best things were lost. We also had a notion that some
of it went into the cavernous organ-loft. It would have been all right
if there had been a choir there, for choirs usually need more preaching,
and pay less heed to it, than any other part of the congregation. Well,
we drew a sort of screen over the organ-loft; but the result was not
as marked as we had hoped. We next devised a sounding-board,--a sort of
mammoth clamshell, painted white,--and erected it behind the minister.
It had a good effect on the minister. It kept him up straight to his
work. So long as he kept his head exactly in the focu