earnest, long-drawn strains did this crowd of winged songsters rejoice and be glad in their beautiful gift of life.  The interior of the building was plain and simple as plain and simple could be.  When it was fitted up, oak-timber was much cheaper than it is now, so the wood-work was all of that description; but roughly hewed, for the early builders had not much wealth to spare.  The walls were whitewashed, and were recipients of the shadows of the beauty without; on their “white plains” the tracery of the ivy might be seen, now still, now stirred by the sudden flight of some little bird.  The congregation consisted of here and there a farmer with his labourers, who came down from the uplands beyond the town to worship where their fathers worshipped, and who loved the place because they knew how much those fathers had suffered for it, although they never troubled themselves with the reason why they left the parish church; and of a few shopkeepers, far more thoughtful and reasoning, who were Dissenters from conviction, unmixed with old ancestral association; and of one or two families of still higher worldly station.  With many poor, who were drawn there by love for Mr. Benson’s character, and by a feeling that the faith which made him what he was could not be far wrong, for the base of the pyramid, and with Mr. Bradshaw for its apex, the congregation stood complete.

The country people came in sleeking down their hair, and treading with earnest attempts at noiseless lightness of step over the floor of the aisle; and, by-and-by, when all were assembled, Mr. Benson followed, unmarshalled and unattended.  When he had closed the pulpit-door, and knelt in prayer for an instant or two, he gave out a psalm from the dear old Scottish paraphrase, with its primitive inversion of the simple perfect Bible words; and a kind of precentor stood up, and, having sounded the note on a pitch-pipe, sang a couple of lines by way of indicating the tune; then all the congregation stood up, and sang aloud, Mr. Bradshaw’s great bass voice being half a note in advance of the others, in accordance with his place of precedence as principal member of the congregation.  His powerful voice was like an organ very badly played, and very much out of tune; but as he had no ear, and no diffidence, it pleased him very much to hear the fine loud sound.  He was a tall, large-boned, iron man; stern, powerful, and authoritative in appearance; dressed in clothes of the finest broadcloth, and scrupulously ill-made, as if to show that he was indifferent to all outward things.  His wife was sweet and gentle-looking, but as if she was thoroughly broken into submission.