The high altar which occupies the southern end is, in its way, something very fine.  A magnificent picture of the crucifixion occupies the back ground; flowers and candles, in numbers sufficient to appal the stoutest Evangelical and turn to blue ruin such men as the editor of the “Bulwark” are elevated in front; over all, as well as collaterally, there are inscriptions in Latin; designs in gold and azure and vermilion fill up the details; and on each side there is a confessional wherein all members, whether large or diminutive, whether dressed in corduroy or smoothest, blackest broad cloth, in silk or Surat cotton, must unravel the sins they have committed.  This confession must be a hard sort of job, we know, for some people; but we are not going to enter upon a discussion of its merits or demerits.  Only this may be said, that if there was full confession at every place of worship in Preston the parsons would never get through their work.  Every day, from an early hour in the morning until a late period of the evening, St. Wilfrid’s is open to worshippers; and you may see them, some with smiling faces, and some with very elongated ones, going to or coming from it constantly.  Like Tennyson’s stream, they evince symptoms of constant movement and the only conclusion we can fairly come to is that the mass of them are singularly in earnest.  There are not many Protestants—­ neither Church people, nor Dissenters, neither quiescent Quakers nor Revivalist dervishes—­who would be inclined to go to their religious exercises before breakfast, and if they did, some of them, like the old woman who partook of Sacrament in Minnesota, would want to know what they were going to “get” for it.  On Sundays, as on week days, the same business—­laborious as it looks to outsiders—­goes on.  There are several services, and they are arranged for every class—­ for those who must attend early, for those who can’t, for those who won’t, and for those who stir when the afflatus is upon them.  There are many, however, who are regular attendants, soon and late, and if precision and continuity will assist them in getting to heaven, they possess those auxiliaries in abundance.

The congregation attending on a Sunday is a mixed one—­rags and satins, moleskins and patent kids, are all duly represented; and it is quite a study to see their wearers put in an appearance.  Directly after entrance reverential genuflections and holy-water dipping are indulged in.  Some of the congregation do the business gracefully; others get through it like the very grandfather of awkwardness.  The Irish, who often come first and sit last, are solemnly whimsical in their movements.  The women dip fast and curtsy briskly; the men turn their hands in and out as if prehensile mysticism was a saving thing, and bow less rapidly but more angularly than the females; then you have the slender young lady who knows what deportment and reverence mean; who dips quietly, and makes a partial descent gracefully;