Usually there are three priests at the mission; but on our visit there were only two—­the Rev. Canon Walker, and the Rev. J. Hawkesworth; and if you had to travel from the lowest point in Cornwall to the farthest house in Caithness you wouldn’t find two more kindly men.  We Protestants talk volubly about the grim, grinding character of priests, about their tyrannous influence, and their sinister sacerdotalism; but there is a good deal of extra colouring matter in the picture.  Whatever their religion may be, and however much we may differ from it, this at least we have always found amongst priests—­excellent education, amazing devotion to duty, gentlemanly behaviour, and in social life much geniality.  They have studied all subjects; they know something about everything; their profession necessarily makes them acquainted with each phase and feeling of life.  The Rev. Canon Walker is a good type of a thoroughly English priest and of a genuine Lancashire man.  He is unassuming, obliging in manner, careful in his duties, fonder of a good pinch of snuff than of warring about creeds, much more in love with a quiet chat than of platform violence, and would far sooner offer you a glass of wine, and ask you to take another when you had done it, than fight with you about piety.  He is a man of peace, of homely, disposition, of kindly thought, unobtrusive in style, sincere in action, with nothing bombastic in his nature, and nothing self-righteous in his speech.  His sermons are neither profound nor simple—­they are made up of fair medium material; and are discharged rapidly.  There is no effort at rhetorical flourish in his style; a simple lifting of the right hand, with an easy swaying motion, is all the “action” you perceive.  Canon Walker speaks with a rapidity seldom noticed.  Average talkers can get through about 120 words in a minute; Canon Walker can manage 200 nicely, and show no signs of being out of breath.

The Rev. Mr. Hawkesworth—­a bright-eyed, rubicund-featured gentleman, with a slight disposition to corporeal rotundity—­is the second priest.  He is a sharp, kindly-humoured gentleman, and does not appear to have suffered in either mind or body by a four years residence in Rome.  Mr. Hawkesworth is a practical priest, a good singer, and a hard worker.  He resides with Canon Walker in a spacious house adjoining St. Augustine’s.  No unusual sounds have ever been heard to proceed from the residence, and it may fairly be inferred that they dwell together to harmony.  The house is substantially furnished.  The library within it is not very large, but what it lacks in bulk is made up for by variety.  Its contents range from the Clockmaker of Sam Slick to the Imitation of Thomas a Kempis, from Little Dorrit to the Greek Lexicon.  Not far from St. Augustine’s Church there is a convent.  It is the old Larkhill mansion transmuted, and is one of the most pleasantly situated houses in this locality.  In front of it you have flowers of delicious hues, shrubs of every