window.  They have a good effect, and give a somewhat artistic richness to the chancel.  Within and at each end of the communion rails there is a fine old oak chair.  Both are beautifully carved and are valuable.  The reading-desk and the pulpit are placed opposite each other, and at the sides of the chancel.  They are very tall, but altitude rather improves than diminishes their appearance.  They are well made, are fashioned of dark oak, and have carved Gothic canopies.  We have seen nothing so tall nor so respectable-looking in the arena of virtuous rostrumdom for a long period.  On each side of the pulpit-desk there is a small circular hole, and those said holes have a history.  “What are they used for?” said we one day, whilst in the pulpit, to a friend near us.  “For?” said the sagacious party, “they are for nothing;” and then followed a history which we thus summarise for the benefit of parsons in general:- A few years ago a gentleman with a red-hot dash of Hibernian blood in his veins was the curate here.  When he came, the stands of two gas lights were fixed in the holes named; but one Sunday, when wilder than usual, he gave the bottom of the right-hand stand a vehement beating, smashed his ring in the encounter, and frightened the incumbent, who, being apprehensive as to the fate of the two stands and their globes, had them shifted further back and more out of the curate’s reach.  They were in imminent peril every minute, and a change was really necessary.

Not many years ago—­plenty of people can remember it—­the congregation of Trinity Church was both large and influential.  The elements of influence and the representatives of wealth may still be seen in it; but few and far between are the worshippers.  Pews may be owned, seats may be taken, few sittings may be to let, but where are the worshippers?  What a pity it is, that a church of proportions so goodly, an edifice with accomodation so capacious, a building with arrangements so substantial and excellent should be deserted in a manner so absolute?  A screw of large dimensions is loose somewhere.  The population of the district seems great—­dense; many of the people round about the church stand singularly in need of entire acres of virtue, some of them are thorough-going heathens, and think heathenism a rather jolly thing at times.  And yet this most excellent church is comparatively empty—­desolate—­reminding one painfully of Ossian’s picture of Balclutha’s walls.  The congregation of Trinity Church is better than it was a few years ago, but it is still lamentably, small.  There is often “a beggarly account of empty boxes”—­a great deal of nothing in the church, and how to remedy this defect is a problem.  The present congregation consists of a very moderate number of middle class people, a few elderly well-to-do individuals, a thin scattering of poor folk, and a small body of Sunday school scholars.  The Recorder of Preston, who has been connected with the management of the church since the time it was