Page:The English Peasant.djvu/187

 is the voice of Nature." Then he spoke of the way the Reformation had stopped such symbolism in the Church. "Think you," he went on to say, "that I should be afraid to carry out my ideas? No! it is not for want of the will—it's the way. It's the means to do it we want. Ask the Churchwardens what has often been the offertory, even from a well-dressed congregation. Three or four shillings! Why, the people who cry out against Ritualism want a cheap religion—one that shan't cost them anything." Then, after praising their good conduct on former occasions, he rightly protested against the way they had of dividing the surplus money every club-day, and so leaving themselves without any balance. He had already denounced as mean and contemptible those who, being well off, came on the funds directly they were sick. Whether it was the Ritualistic teaching, or the trenchant criticism on the management, which most offended the club, we cannot say—we suspect the latter; certain it was that the stewards refused to make the collection for new bell-ropes, which the vicar said they had promised to do; and the whole congregation walked out, leaving him standing on the altar steps, with his little choristers all arrayed in due order around him, waiting to receive the offertory which never came.

The club, with banners waving and music playing, then formed into procession, and perambulating the town, finally arrived on the green, a piece of common land near the shore, where under a long tent they all sat down to a hearty dinner.

Outside the tent the usual attendants at a fair had arrived. The gipsy carts, the photographers' waggons, the ginger-bread stalls and cockshies. As dusk came, all the respectable men, their wives and children, had gone home, and left the field to the drunken and the debauched.

In many parishes it is, or was, the custom for the rector or vicar to preside over this dinner in person. It was not so, however, on this occasion. The most prominent guest was an officer, a visitor in the town, who made the men a good speech, in which