th, nor
even to his popularity, for people who rather dislike a clergyman, and
disapprove of his service, will say a louder Amen at his giving of
thanks if his own feelings have a touch of fire, than they would to that
of a more perfunctory parson whom they liked better. As is the
heartiness of the priest, so is the heartiness of the people--with such
strictness that one is disposed almost to credit some of it to actual
magnetism. _Response_ is no empty word in public worship.

It was no empty word on this occasion. From the ancient clerk (who kept
a life-interest in what were now the duties of a choir) to some gaping
farm-lads at my back, everybody said and sang to the utmost of his
ability. I may add that Isaac and I involuntarily displayed a zeal which
was in excess of our Sunday customs; and if my tongue moved glibly
enough with the choir, the bee-master found many an elderly parishioner
besides himself and the clerk who "took" both prayer and praise at such
independent paces as suited their individual scholarship, spectacles,
and notions of reverence.

It crowned my satisfaction when I found that there was to be a
collection. The hymn to which the churchwardens moved about, gathering
the pence, whose numbers and noisiness seemed in keeping with the rest
of the service, was a well-known one to us all. It was the favourite
evening hymn of the district. I knew every syllable of it, for Jem and I
always sang hymns (and invariably this one) with my dear mother, on
Sunday evening after supper. When we were good, we liked it, and,
picking one favourite after another, we often sang nearly through the
hymn-book. When we were naughty, we displayed a good deal of skill in
making derisive faces behind my mother's back, as she sat at the piano,
without betraying ourselves, and in getting our tongues out and in again
during the natural pauses and convolutions of the tune. But these
occasional fits of boyish profanity did not hinder me from having an
equally boyish fund of reverence and enthusiasm at the bottom of my
heart, and it was with proud and pleasurable emotions that I heard the
old clerk give forth the familiar first lines,

"Soon shall the evening star with silver ray
Shed its mild lustre o'er this sacred day,"

and got my threepenny-bit ready between my finger and thumb.

Away went the organ, which was played by the vicar's eldest
daughter--away went the vicar's second daughter, who "led the singing"
f