e Church,
might be the cause of his passing a few weeks or even months away; but
year in, year out, he gave of his very best to Eversley for thirty-three
years, and to it he returned from his journeys with all the more ardour
to resume his work among his own people. The church was dilapidated, the
Rectory was badly drained, the parish had been neglected by an absentee
rector. For long periods together Kingsley was too poor to afford a
curate: when he had one, the luxury was paid for by extra labour in
taking private pupils. He had disappointments and anxieties, but his
courage never faltered. He concentrated his energies on steady progress
in things material and moral, and whatever his hand found to do, he did
it with his might.

[Note 31: For a few weeks in 1844 he was curate of Pimperne in
Dorset.]

The church and its services called for instant attention. The Holy
Communion had been celebrated only three times a year; the other
services were few and irregular; on Sundays the church was empty and the
alehouse was full. The building was badly kept, the churchyard let out
for grazing, the whole place destitute of reverence. What the service
came to be under the new Rector we can read on the testimony of many
visitors. The intensity of his devotion at all times, the inspiration
which the great festivals of the Church particularly roused in him,
changed all this rapidly. He did all he could to draw his parishioners
to church; but he had no rigid Puritanical views about the Sabbath. A
Staff-College officer, who frequently visited him on Sundays, tells us
of 'the genial, happy, unreserved intercourse of those Sunday afternoons
spent at the Rectory, and how the villagers were free to play their
cricket--"Paason he do'ant objec'--not 'e--as loik as not, 'e'll come
and look on".' All his life he supported the movement for opening
museums to the public on Sundays, and this at a time when few of the
clergy were bold enough to speak on his side. The Church was not his
only organ for teaching. He started schools and informal classes. In
winter he would sometimes give up his leisure to such work every evening
of the week. The Rectory, for all its books and bottles, its
fishing-rods and curious specimens, was not a mere refuge for his own
work and his own hobbies, but a centre of light and warmth where all his
parishioners might come and find a welcome. He was one of the first to
start 'Penny Readings' in his parish, to lighten th