Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/30

Rh administered doses or powders after the manner of his tribe, much to my disgust and annoyance. Why do parents persist in taking young children to these services ? — services which they are unable to under- stand, and which therefore are not likely to induce reverence for sacred things in their infant minds. The familiarity with which some ministers will treat divine names and subjects is, to put it mildly, very objectionable. I was walking with my mother one day when we met one of these — an acquaintance of hers — who, after the usual salutation, thought he must take some notice of me, and said in a loud hard voice, and with a smile that I did not like, “ Well, my little friend, and are you a follower of Jesus Christ?” I would have liked to kick him, but not knowing what to say, burst into tears, which seemed to surprise the reverend one. I went to church for the first time when staying at some suburb with a coachman and his wife. Why I stayed with them I don’t know — there may have been illness at home, or an impending increase of the population. On the evening of the Sunday I was taken by this worthy couple to the village church, where I was greatly impressed and interested. The service, simple as it was, I preferred to that of Craven Chapel. The picturesqueness of the interior — the evening sunlight tinted by the stained glass windows stealing along the white-washed walls — the playing