ough the
clear panes revealed nothing more exciting than flickering maple leaves
and a sky filmed over by veils of cloud.

The moralists tell us that what we get out of any experience depends upon
what we bring to it. What I brought to it that morning was a mind agog,
attuned to receive these expected outside sounds. To all such sounds the
service within was merely a background--a background which didn't know its
place, since it kept pushing itself more or less importunately into the
foreground. I sat there, of course, with perfect propriety of demeanor,
but my reactions were something like this:--

_Hymn 912_ {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} seven stanzas! horrors! oh! _omit the 3d, 5th, and 6th_--well,
I should hope so!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I can't hear a thing while this is going on!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He hasn't
come in yet! _Scripture reading for to-day_--why can't he give us the
passage and let us read it for ourselves?--well, his voice is rather high
and uneven, I think I could make out Jonathan's through the loopholes in
it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} There! What was that, I wonder! Sounded like shouting,--oh, why can't
he talk softly! _Let us unite in prayer._ Ah! now we'll have a long, quiet
time, anyway!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} if only he wouldn't pray quite so loud! Why pray aloud at
all, anyway? I like the Quaker way best: a good long strip of silence,
where your thoughts can wash around in any fashion that--There!
No--yes--no--it's just people going by on the road.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Maybe he's in the back
of the church now, waiting for the close of the prayer. Seems as if I had
to look.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Well, he isn't.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} _For thy name's sake, amen._

And then the collection, with an organ voluntary the while--now why an
organ voluntary? Why not leave people to their thoughts some of the time?

And at last, the sermon:--_The text to which I wish to call your attention
this morning_--my attention, forsooth! My attention was otherwise occupied.
Ah! A puff of warm, sweet air from behind me, and the soft, padding noise
of the swinging doors, apprised me of an incomer. A cautious tread in the
aisle--I moved along a little to make room.

In a city church probably I should have thrown propriety to the winds and
had the gist of the story out of him at once, but in a country church
there are always such listening spaces,--the very pew-backs and cushions
seem attentive, the hymnals creak in th