was of a hemlock frame,
covered with pine clap-boards, and painted white. Of late years, the
paint had been of a most fleeting quality, the oil seeming to evaporate,
instead of striking in and setting, leaving the colouring matter in a
somewhat decomposed condition, to rub off by friction and wash away in
the rains. The house was a stiff, formal parallelogram, resembling a man
with high shoulders, appearing to be "stuck up." It had two rows of
formal, short and ungraceful windows, _that_ being a point in orthodoxy
at the period of its erection. It had a tower, uncouth, and in some
respects too large and others too small, if one can reconcile the
contradiction; but there are anomalies of this sort in art, as well as
in nature. On top of this tower stood a long-legged belfry, which had
got a very dangerous, though a very common, propensity in ecclesiastical
matters; in other words, it had begun to "cant." It was this diversion
from the perpendicular which had suggested the necessity of erecting a
new edifice, and the building in which the "lecture" on feudal tenures
and aristocracy was now to be delivered.

The new meeting-house at Little Nest was a much more pretending edifice
than its predecessor. It was also of wood, but a bold diverging from
"first principles" had been ventured on, not only in physical, but in
the moral church. The last was "new-school;" as, indeed, was the first.
What "new-school" means, in a spiritual sense, I do not exactly know,
but I suppose it to be some improvement on some other improvement of the
more ancient and venerable dogmas of the sect to which it belongs. These
improvements on improvements are rather common among us, and are
favourably viewed by a great number under the name of progress; though
he who stands at a little distance can, half the time, discover that the
parties in progress very often come out at the precise spot from which
they started.

For my part, I find so much wisdom in the bible--so profound a knowledge
of human nature, and of its tendencies--counsel so comprehensive and so
safe, and this solely in reference to the things of this life, that I do
not believe everything is progress in the right direction because it
sets us in motion on paths that are not two thousand years old! I
believe that we have quite as much that ought to be kept, as of that
which ought to be thrown away; and while I admit the vast number of
abuses that have grown up in the old world, under the