Just before concluding the service, the pastor made an announcement in the following terms:  “After the close of the present service, I shall be found in the adjoining vestry by all persons desirous of communicating with me on the state of their souls, or of being admitted to the privileges of church-fellowship.  Brethren, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, and so long as this vessel lasts” —­ here he struck his chest so that it resounded —­ “it shall be faithfully and liberally dispensed.  Let us pray.”

After the prayer, he spread abroad his arms and hands as if he would clasp the world in his embrace, and pronounced the benediction in a style of arrogance that the pope himself would have been ashamed of.

The service being thus concluded, the organ absolutely blasted the congregation out of the chapel, so did it storm and rave with a fervour anything but divine.

My readers must not suppose that I give this chapel as the type of orthodox dissenting chapels.  I give it only as an approximate specimen of a large class of them.  The religious life which these communities once possessed, still lingers in those of many country districts and small towns, but is, I fear, all but gone from those of the cities and larger towns.  What of it remains in these, has its chief manifestation in the fungous growth of such chapels as the one I have described, the congregations themselves taking this for a sure indication of the prosperity of the body.  How much even of the kind of prosperity which they ought to indicate, is in reality at the foundation of these appearances, I would recommend those to judge who are versed in the mysteries of chapel-building societies.

As to Hugh, whether it was that the whole was suggestive of Egyptian bondage, or that his own mood was, at the time, of the least comfortable sort, I will not pretend to determine; but he assured me that he felt all the time, as if, instead of being in a chapel built of bricks harmoniously arranged, as by the lyre of Amphion, he were wandering in the waste, wretched field whence these bricks had been dug, of all places on the earth’s surface the most miserable, assailed by the nauseous odours, which have not character enough to be described, and only remind one of the colours on a snake’s back.

When they reached the open air, Mr. Appleditch introduced Hugh to Mrs. Appleditch, on the steps in front of the chapel.

“This is Mr. Sutherland, Mrs. Appleditch.”

Hugh lifted his hat, and Mrs. Appleditch made a courtesy.  She was a very tall woman —­ a head beyond her husband, extremely thin, with sharp nose, hollow cheeks, and good eyes.  In fact, she was partly pretty, and might have been pleasant-looking, but for a large, thin-lipped, vampire-like mouth, and a general expression of greed and contempt.  She was meant for a lady, and had made herself a money-maggot.  She was richly and plainly dressed; and until she