is not a question of “he said or she said,” but of—­go; and when a Wesleyan is triennially told to either look after the interests of a fresh circuit or retire into space, he has to do so.  It would be wrong to say that lucre is at the bottom of every parsonic change; but it is at the foundation of the great majority—­eh?  If it isn’t, just make an inquiry, as we have done.  This may sound like a deviation from our text—­perhaps it is; but the question it refers to is so closely associated with the subject of parsons and priests, that we should have scarcely been doing justice to the matter if we had not had a quiet “fling” at the money part of it.  In the letters which will follow this, we shall deal disinterestedly with all—­ shall give Churchmen, Catholics, Quakers, Independents, Baptists, Wesleyans, Ranters, and Calathumpians, fair play.  Our object will be to present a picture of things as they are, and to avoid all meddling with creeds.  People may believe what they like, so far as we are concerned, if they behave themselves, and pay their debts.  It is utterly impossible to get all to be of the same opinion; creeds, like faces, must differ, have differed, always will differ; and the best plan is to let people have their own way so long as it is consistent with the general welfare of social and civil life.  It being understood that “the milk of human kindness is within the pale of the Church,” we shall begin there.  The Parish Church of Preston will constitute our first theme.

No.  I.

PRESTON PARISH CHURCH.

It doesn’t particularly matter when the building we call our Parish Church was first erected; and, if it did, the world would have to die of literary inanition before it got the exact date.  None of the larger sort of antiquaries agree absolutely upon the subject, and the smaller fry go in for all sorts of figures, varying as to time from about two years to one hundred and fifty.  This may be taken as a homoeopathic dose in respect to its history:- built about 900 years since by Catholics, and dedicated to St. Wilfrid; handed over to Protestants by somebody, who was perhaps acting on the very generous principle of giving other folk’s property, in the 16th century; rebuilt in 1581, and dedicated to St. John; rebuilt in 1770; enlarged, elaborated, and rejuvenised in 1853; plagued with dry rot for a considerable time afterwards; in a pretty good state of architectural health now; and likely to last out both this generation and the next.  It looks rather genteel and stately outside; it has a good steeple, kept duly alive by a congregation of traditional jackdaws; it has a capital set of bells which have put in a good deal of overtime during the past five months, through a pressure of election business; and in its entirety, as Baines once remarked, the building looks like “a good ordinary Parish Church.”  There is nothing either snobbish or sublime about it; and, speaking after