Though the pews are free, the pew system is not wholly abandoned.  Each attendant selects a seat for himself or a pew for his family.  This is regarded his as much as if he paid pew rent for it.  But instead of a fixed rent he pays what he will.  No one has paid less than the old rates and some have nearly doubled them.  But the improvement in finances is not the only nor even the best result of Maurice Mapleson’s experiment.  The congregation has increased quite as much as the income.  Not less than a score of families are regular attendants on our church who never went to church before.  With one or two exceptions every pew is taken.  We are beginning to talk quietly about an enlargement.

I think this change had something to do with the revival last Spring.  Maurice thinks so at all events.  And any attempt to go back to the old system would meet with as much opposition from Deacon Goodsole as from Jim Wheaton.  The only member of the congregation who regrets the change is Mrs. Potiphar.  She turns up her nose —­metaphorically I mean—­the natural nose is turned up all the time at that revival.  “It did not reach any of our set,” she says.  “Why, bless you, I don’t believe it added fifty dollars to the church income.”

One would think to hear her talk that Mrs. Potiphar supported the church.  If she does, her right hand does not know what her left hand is doing.

The immediate precursor of that revival was the prayer-meeting which Mr. Gear attended, and in which he asked the prayers of the church.  When in June he stood up before the congregation to profess his faith in Christ as a Savior from sin, and in the Holy Spirit as a Divine Comforter in trial and in sorrow, he did not stand alone.  Twenty-eight stood with him.  Among them were nine of the boys from our Mill village Bible-class.  Of that brightest of Sabbath days I cannot trust myself to speak.  The tears come to my eyes, and my hand trembles as I write.  I must pass on to other thoughts.

I have already explained how the Bible-class gathered to itself a second class of which Mrs. Gear took charge.  Both classes have grown steadily, and latterly, rapidly, and are now beyond all that the most sanguine of us ever anticipated.  There is a flourishing Sabbath-school at the Mill village.  Mr. Gear superintends it.  Nearly half of my old scholars are teachers now.  But others have come to take their places.  My own class is larger than ever.  Once a month Mr. Mapleson preaches in the school-house, and in the summer his congregation overflows upon the green sward without.  Once or twice he has been forced into the grove adjoining.  It is evident that the old school-house will not serve us much longer.  Mr. Gear is already revolving plans for the erection of a chapel.  It seems to me rather chimerical.  No!  On second thoughts nothing seems to me chimerical any more.  And as Mr. Gear and Miss Moore are both engaged in this enterprize, I am confident it will succeed.