tell cavilers that we shall have a spire at the proper time, and not a minute before.  It may depend a little upon what the Baptists do, who are to build near us.  I, for one, think we had better wait and see how high the Baptist spire is before we run ours up.  The church is everything that could be desired inside.  There is the nave, with its lofty and beautiful arched ceiling; there are the side aisles, and two elegant rows of stone pillars, stained so as to be a perfect imitation of stucco; there is the apse, with its stained glass and exquisite lines; and there is an organ-loft over the front entrance, with a rose window.  Nothing was wanting, so far as we could see, except that we should adapt ourselves to the circumstances; and that we have been trying to do ever since.  It may be well to relate how we do it, for the benefit of other inchoate Goths.

It was found that if we put up the organ in the loft, it would hide the beautiful rose window.  Besides, we wanted congregational singing, and if we hired a choir, and hung it up there under the roof, like a cage of birds, we should not have congregational singing.  We therefore left the organ-loft vacant, making no further use of it than to satisfy our Gothic cravings.  As for choir,—­several of the singers of the church volunteered to sit together in the front side-seats, and as there was no place for an organ, they gallantly rallied round a melodeon,—­or perhaps it is a cabinet organ,—­a charming instrument, and, as everybody knows, entirely in keeping with the pillars, arches, and great spaces of a real Gothic edifice.  It is the union of simplicity with grandeur, for which we have all been looking.  I need not say to those who have ever heard a melodeon, that there is nothing like it.  It is rare, even in the finest churches on the Continent.  And we had congregational singing.  And it went very well indeed.  One of the advantages of pure congregational singing, is that you can join in the singing whether you have a voice or not.  The disadvantage is, that your neighbor can do the same.  It is strange what an uncommonly poor lot of voices there is, even among good people.  But we enjoy it.  If you do not enjoy it, you can change your seat until you get among a good lot.

So far, everything went well.  But it was next discovered that it was difficult to hear the minister, who had a very handsome little desk in the apse, somewhat distant from the bulk of the congregation; still, we could most of us see him on a clear day.  The church was admirably built for echoes, and the centre of the house was very favorable to them.  When you sat in the centre of the house, it sometimes seemed as if three or four ministers were speaking.