wander, refreshed by the pale green of the young leaves on which the lights and shadows quiver and leap. A bird, alighted on the threshold, is sending his shrill clear song straight into the church, and Mr. Skipworth shakes his head impatiently, as though he said, "How dare that impudent bird lift up its voice while I am speaking?" But oh! how much more sweetly does the voice of the ignorant bird inform our hearts and ears than that of the preaching, reasoning man!
The bucolic part of the congregation sits stolid and sleepy. They have listened to him Sunday after Sunday for the last twenty years, most of them will listen twenty more; and if he were suddenly to awake out of his sloth and preach a good rousing sermon, it would probably disagree with them horribly, and give them a moral indigestion, making them uncomfortable for weeks. If you put the question to them whether they would like to be spiritually awakened, they would tell you that they do very well as they are, and see no necessity whatever for a vigorous stirring up. To them, heaven is on the right hand, hell on the left, and church in the middle; to go to church is to be safe for the former, to stay away from church is to go to the latter sharp and sure. Church is church, and it does not much signify to them what they hear there—there's always the Bible and the Prayer-book to fall back upon. They do not make any very strenuous efforts to unlock the gate that leads into the kingdom of heaven: they walk decorously and slowly according to their lights. There are certain well-known landmarks in sin that they steer clear of; for the rest, it is out of all conscience to suppose that honest industrious bodies, who say their responses and amens every Sunday of their lives, can be anything but safe for a comfortable place in the next world. Among these simple folks are some wolves in sheep's clothing; men who beat their wives, neglect their children, and spend their earnings in the ale-house, who are, in fact, veritable mauvais sujets. But
