and we were ushered into it with becoming decorum.  In two minutes afterwards five women and a festive infant, dressed in a drab cloak, and muffled all over to keep the cold out, stopped at the pew door.  We stepped out; three of the females, with the baby, stepped in; the remainder went into the next pew; and after condensing our nerve power, we settled down in the corner from which we had been disturbed, quietly lifting one hand over the door and latching it firmly at the same moment, our idea being than an environment of five females, with a baby thrown into the bargain, was quite enough for the remainder of the morning.  After an inquiry as to the christening arrangements at the church, for we fancied this was a christening gathering, we got nearer the baby, and, in a delicately sympathetic whisper said—­“How old is it?” The maiden who was holding it blushed, and laconically breathed out the words, “Three months.”  We subsequently found out that the seat we were in was the incumbent’s, and that the blessed baby, whose lot we had been contemplating with such interest, was his, too.

Six minutes before the commencement there were only nine persons in the body of the church; but nearly 300 were congregated there when the service began, whilst the gallery was well filled with worshippers of all ages and sizes.  All the responses here are “congregational”—­none of them being in any way intoned.  We believe that St. Paul’s is the only Protestant church in Preston wherein this system is observed.  The effect, when compared with the plans of intonation now so universal, is very singular; and it sometimes sounds dull and monotonous—­like a long, low, rumbling of irregular voices, as if there were some quaint, oddly-humoured contention going on in every pew.  But the worshippers seem to like the system, and as they have a perfect right to be their own judges, other people must be silent on the subject.  The music is not of an extraordinary sort; it is plain, and very well joined in by the congregation.  But the choir, like many others, lacks weight and symphony.  Mrs. Myres, the wife of the incumbent, is a member of the choir, and if all the other individuals in it had her musical knowledge, an improvement would soon follow.  The organ is a very good one.  It was given by the late T. Miller, Esq., and H. Miller, Esq., and placed in the church in 1844.  Recently it has been put in first-rate condition, for organs, like the players of them, get worse for wear, by T. H. and W. P. Miller, Esqrs.  The organist knows his work, and is able to perform it with ability.

At St. Paul’s there is morning and evening service on a Sunday; and every Wednesday evening there is a short service, but like the bulk of mid-week devotional exercises it is not much cared for, only about 150 joining it on the average.  On the second Sunday in each month there is an early sacrament at St. Paul’s.  At no other place of worship in the town, that we know of, save Christ Church, is there a similar sacramental