So saying, the Doctor turned off in a very dignified manner, and presided over the pigeon-pie. I confess to you, my dear Charles, this acted like a thunderbolt on me. Rejoiced as I was at Christina's good fortune, in attracting the affection of so amiable and wealthy an admirer as Mount Huxtable, I did not feel altogether comfortable at the effect which this discovery had on the logical powers of my friend the Rector of Yawnham. Because a man admires my daughter, and makes her an offer of marriage, am I to kiss the Pope's toe? I made a determination to inquire into matters more deeply than I had hitherto done, and, with a view to pick up all the information I could, I watched the conversation in silence. Betsy Blazer sat next Captain Smith of the Rifles, and, in one of the pauses which occasionally occur in the noisiest assemblages, her voice was distinctly heard. "Do you ever chant when you are all together in barracks, Captain Smith?--it must be delightful." "Well, I can't deny that there is occasionally chanting after mess," replied the soldier, a little amazed. "Who is the leader?" "Why, Jones and I both pretend to some renown." "Are they Gregorian?" "I should say Stentorian was a better description, for, between ourselves, Jones, in the Nottingham Ale, might be mistaken for an angry bull." What the denouement of the conversation was I don't know, for Rowdy's voice rose above the din-- "Faith expires"--he said--"hope grows dim--but ceremony, the last refuge of religion, remains. We lose the trustingness that makes us lay the promises of holy writ to our hearts,--the childlike simplicity that lifts us into a world where truth erects her palace on gorgeous clouds, which to us take the semblance and solidity of mountains,--we lose the thrill, the dread, the love,--but we can retain the surplice, the albe, and the stole. The cloud that seemed a mountain has disappeared; the confidence that sustained us has gone,--but we can erect churches according to the strictest rules of architecture, cover the table with cloth of gold,--have daily service, have some fixed, irrevocable, eternal rule, and feel ourselves the slaves of hours and postures;--a slavery befitting those who are left to grope in the darkness of their own souls for a belief, and find nothing to support, to bless, or cheer them." "Do you advocate the externals of devotion, Mr Rowdy, after the reality of religion has left the heart?" I inquired. "Certainly, sir," he said. "If you waited for the internal religion you talk of, you would never enter a church. And pray, sir, what is internal, and what is external? Your heart is a piece of flesh, your font is a piece of stone; why shouldn't holiness reside in the one as well as in the other?" "It strikes me, Mr Rowdy, to be rather hypocritical to go through the forms of religion without the spirit," I urged again.