some exceedingly poor people at the
place, but the mass appear to be individuals not particularly
hampered in making provision for their general meals. Lune-street
chapel is the fashionable Wesleyan tabernacle of Preston; the better
end of those whose minds have been touched, through either tradition
or actual conviction, with the beauties of Methodism, frequent it.
There is more silk than winsey, more cloth than hodden grey, and a
good deal more false hair and artificial teeth in the building on a
Sunday than can be found by fair searching at any other Wesleyan
chapel in the town. A sincere desire to "flee from the wrath to come
and be saved from their sins"--the only condition which John Wesley
insisted upon for admission into his societies--does not prevent
some of the members from attending determinedly to the bedizenments,
conceits, and spangles of this very wicked speck in the planetary
system.

In the congregation there are many most excellent, hardworking,
thoroughly sincere men and women, who would be both useful and
ornamental to any body of Christians under the sun; but there are in
addition, as there are in every building set apart for the purposes
of piety, several who have "more frill than shirt," and much "more
cry than wool" about them--rectified, beautifully self-righteous,
children who would "sugar over" a very ugly personage ten hours out
of the twelve every day, and then at night thank the Lord for all
his mercies. In Lune-street Chapel faction used to run high and
wilfulness was a gem which many of the members wore very near their
hearts; but much of the old feudal spirit of party fighting has died
out, and there are signs of pious resignation and loving kindness in
the flock, which would at one time have been rare jewels. A somewhat
lofty isolation is still manifested here and there; a few regular
attenders appear heavily oppressed with the idea that they are not
only as good as anybody else but much better. Still this is only
human nature and no process of convertibility to the most celestial
of substances can in this world entirely subdue it. The bruising
deacon who said that grace was a good thing, but that that knocking
down an impertinent member was a better didn't miss the bull's eye
of natural philosophy very far. The observation was not redolent of
much Christian spirit; but it evinced that which many of the saints
are troubled with--human nature.

Lune-street chapel contains standing, s