“Example,” sighed Mrs. Buggins, “is better than precept.  It would be more decent if the lady showed herself in church as a lesson to others,—­if she did so more lost sheep might follow!”

“Hor-hor-hor!” chuckled Bainton, from a corner of the room—­“Don’t you worrit yourself, Missis Buggins, ’bout no lost sheep!  Sheep allus goes where there’s somethin’ to graze upon,—­leastways that’s my ‘speriemce, an’ if there ain’t no grazin’ there ain’t no sheep!  An’ them as grazes on Passon Walden, gittin’ out of ’im all they can to ’elp ’em along, wouldn’t go to church, no more than Miss Vancourt do, if they didn’t know wot a man ‘e is to be relied on in times o’ trouble, an’ a reg’lar ‘usband to the parish in sickness an’ in ’elth, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, till death do ‘im part.  Miss Vancourt don’t want nothin’ out of ’im as all we doos, an’ she kin show ‘er independence ef she likes to by stayin’ away from church when she fancies, an’ readin’ books instead of ‘earin’ sermons,—­there ain’t no harm in that.”

“I’m not so sure that I agree with you, Mr. Bainton,”—­said a stout, oily-looking personage, named Netlips, the grocer and ’general store’ dealer of the village, a man who was renowned in the district for the profundity and point of his observations at electoral meetings, and for the entirely original manner in which he ‘used’ the English language; “Public worship is a necessary evil.  It is a factor in vulgar civilisations.  Without it, the system of religious politics would fall into cohesion,—­absolute cohesion!” And he rapped his fist on the table with a smartness that made his hearers jump.  “At the last meeting I addressed in this division, I said we must support the props.  The aristocracy must bear them on their shoulders.  If your Squire stays away from church, he may be called a heathen with propriety, though a Liberal.  And why?  Because he makes public exposure of himself as a heathen negative!  He is bound to keep up the church factor in the community.  Otherwise he runs straight aground on Cohesion.”

This oratorical outburst on the part of Mr. Netlips was listened to with respectful awe and admiration.

“Ay, ay!” said Roger Buggins, who as ‘mine host’ stood in his shirt sleeves at the entrance of his bar, surveying his customers and mentally counting up their reckonings—­“Cohesion would never do—­ cohesion government would send the country to pieces.  You’re right, Mr. Netlips,—­you’re right!  Props must be kep’ up!”

“I don’t see no props in goin’ to church,”—­said Dan Ridley, the little working tailor of the village—­“I goes because I likes Mr. Walden, but if there was a man in the pulpit I didn’t like, I’d stop away.  There’s a deal too many wolves in sheep’s clothing getting ordained in the service o’ the Lord, an’ I don’t blame Miss Vancourt if so be she takes time to find out the sort o’ man Mr. Walden is before settin’ under him as ‘twere.  She can say prayers an’ read ’em too in her own room, an’ study the Bible all right without goin’ to church.  Many folks as goes to church reg’lar are downright mean lyin’ raskills—­and don’t never read their Bibles at all.  Mebbe they does as much harm as what Mr. Netlips calls Cohesion, though I don’t myself purfess to understand Government language, it bein’ too deep for me.”