needn't bother yourself. He's all right with
the Saviour,--more so nor many other people, maybe."

"Well, but, James, this is a church consecrated to the service of God."

"Ah! how do you know? Very likely o' nights--for he's up there when
you're abed and asleep--he's a looking into heaven through that there
glass, and, sees God and the blessed angels."

"Really, James, can you be so ignorant as not to know that God is a
Spirit? I am astonished at you." And Mrs. Bullen passed on without a
single doubt in her mind that there was a single weak spot in her
creed, or that anybody could question its intelligibility and coherence
who would not also question the multiplication-table. She told her
husband when she got home that it was really dreadful to think that the
poor had such low views of the Divine Being. How degraded! No wonder
they were so immoral. Bullen, however, did not trouble himself much
about these matters. He assented to what his wife said, but then he
called "spirit" "sperrit," to her annoyance, and she could not get him
to comprehend what she meant by "entirely immaterial," although it was
so plain.

Mr. Armstrong, as we have said, was in front of Miriam. He had brought
a small telescope to that point to be tested, for exactly eight miles
away was a church-tower with a clock, and he wished to see if he could
tell the time by it. Miriam was about to avoid him, but he recognised
her and beckoned to her.

"Ah! Mrs. Farrow, is it you? Would yon like to look through my glass?"

He adjusted it for her, and she saw the hour quite plainly.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "that is wonderful!"

"Yes, it is pretty well. We will now put him in his box. For the box
I have to thank Mr. Farrow. He is one of the neatest hands at that
kind of work I know, although it is not exactly his trade. I never was
much of a joiner."

Miriam was a little surprised. She knew that her husband was clever
with his tools, but she had never set any value on his labours. Now,
however, she was really struck with the well-polished mahogany and the
piece of brass neatly let into the lid, and when she heard Mr.
Armstrong's praises she began to think a little differently.

"Ah!" he continued, "it is so difficult now to get anybody to take any
interest in such a job as that. I have got another box at home made by
a professed cabinetmaker, and it is really disgraceful. It will never
be right, although I have had it altered two o