e's them as says the windows be popish
idols."

"Never you mind 'em, lad, ye don't bow down to the glass, nor worship
it. Thy blessed mother would have put it to you better than I can, and
she knew the Bible from end to end, but says she 'God would have His
worship for glory and for beauty in the old times, why not now?'"

John Kenton had an immense reverence for his late wife. She had been far
more educated than he, having been born and bred up in the household
of one of those gentlemen who held it as their duty to provide for the
religious instruction of their servants.

She had been serving-woman to the lady, who in widowhood went to reside
at Bristol, and there during her marketings, honest John Kenton had won
her by his sterling qualities.

Puritanism did not mean nonconformity in her days, and in fact everyone
who was earnest and scrupulous was apt to be termed a Puritan. Goodwife
Kenton was one of those pious and simple souls who drink in whatever is
good in their surroundings; and though the chaplain who had taught her
in her youth would have differed in controversy with Mr. Holworth, she
never discovered their diversity, nor saw more than that Elmwood
Church had more decoration than the Castle Chapel. Whatever was done by
authority she thought was right, and she found good reason for it in
the Bible and Prayer-book her good lady had given her. She had named her
children after the prevailing custom of Puritans because she had heard
the chaplain object to what he considered unhallowed heathenish names,
but she had been heartily glad that they should be taught and catechised
by the good vicar. Happily for her, in her country home, she did not
live to see the strife brought into her own life.

She had taught her children as much as she could. Her husband was
willing, but his old mother disapproved of learning in that station of
life, and aided and abetted her eldest grandson in his resistance, so
that though she had died when he was only eleven or twelve years old,
Jephthah could do no more than just make out the meaning of a printed
sentence, whereas Steadfast and Patience could both read easily, and did
read whatever came in their way, though that was only a broadside ballad
now and then besides their mother's Bible and Prayer-book, and one or
two little black books.

The three eldest had been confirmed, when the Bishop of Bath and Wells
had been in the neighbourhood. That was only a fortnight after their