The congregation is almost entirely made up of working people.  A few middle class and wealthy persons attend the place—­some sitting in the gallery, and others at the higher end of the church—­but the general body consists of toiling every-day folk.  The poorest section, including the Irish—­who, in every Catholic Church, do a great stroke of business on a Sunday with holy water, beads and crucifixes—­are located in the rear.  It is a source of sacred pleasure to quietly watch some of these poor yet curious beings.  They are all amazingly in earnest while the fit is on them; they bow, and kneel, and make hand motions with a dexterity which nothing but long years of practice could ensure; and they drive on with their prayers in a style which, whatever may be the character of its sincerity, has certainly the merit of fastness.  How to get through the greatest number of words in the shortest possible time may be a problem which they are trying, to solve.  The great bulk of the congregation are calm and unostentatious, evincing a quiet demeanour in conjunction with a determined devotion.  There are several very excellent sleepers in the multitude of worshippers; but they are mainly at the entrance end where they are least seen.  We happened to be at the church the other Sunday morning and in ten minutes after the sermon had been commenced about 16 persons, all within a moderate space, were fast asleep.  Their number increased slowly till the conclusion.  Several appeared to be struggling very severely against the Morphean deity dining the whole service; a few might be seen at intervals rescuing themselves from his grasp—­getting upon the very edge of a snooze, starting suddenly with a shake and waking up, dropping down their heads to a certain point of calmness and then retracing their steps to consciousness.

There are five men at St. Augustine’s called collectors—­parties who show strangers, &c., their seats, and look after the pennies which attendants have to pay on taking them.  Not one of these collectors has officiated less than 11 years; three of them have been at the work for 27; and what is still better they discharge their duties, as the sacristan once told us, “free gracious.”  That is a philanthropic wrinkle for chapel keepers and other compounders of business and piety which we commend to special notice.  The singers at St. Augustine’s are of more than ordinary merit.  Two or three of them have most excellent voices; and the conjoint efforts of the body are in many respects capital.  Their reading is accurate, their time good, and their melody frequently constitutes a treat which would do a power of good to those who hear the vocalisation of many ordinary psalm-singers whose great object through life is to kill old tunes and inflict grevious bodily harm upon new ones.  There is a very good organ at St. Augustine’s, and it is blown well and played well.