A curious character was that old parson; professedly a Presbyterian, and calling himself such, he and his people were Unitarians. He lived on an endowment left by Lady Hewlett, whose charities were such a bitter bone of contention between the Unitarians and the orthodox Dissenters; but Parliament interfered, and a Bill was carried to render all further litigation impossible. He preached in a grand old red-brick chapel in the busiest part of the town. He had an old-fashioned pulpit with an old-fashioned sounding-board above, and in front of him were great square pews lined with green baize; while behind, in the little red-brick vestry, there were quaint portraits of old divines, of whom no one knew anything. Now, in his meeting-house, with its memorial tablets of departed workers, the worshippers were few and far between. Once there had been life there, but that was a long time ago; and now his hearers were chiefly old, gray-headed men and women, whose fathers and mothers had taken them there in early childhood, and whose talk, when they did talk, which was but rarely, was of Drs. Price and Priestley, and Mr. Belsham, and of Mrs. Barbauld and other ornaments of their expiring creed. It was hard work to preach to such; nevertheless the little parson was a happy man, as he thought of the God of love, of whom once a week he loved to speak. No one interfered with him. To no religious gathering in the town was he ever invited. Churchmen and Dissenters alike gave him the cold shoulder. But he upheld the standard of a Church with no creeds; was content to receive such as could not subscribe to other dogmas, and to believe in a Christian charity which was to cover a multitude of sins. He damned nobody, he frightened nobody, he was nobody’s enemy. His was a voice crying in the wilderness. Once a year he went to the assembly of his denomination in Essex Street Chapel, London, and heard how the cause with which he was connected was advancing, and the day-dawn of a national Christianity was at hand, and then he came back to Sloville to vegetate for another year, while sensational preachers filled the other chapels. He had his garden, and that was a constant source of happiness, and as he was a vegetarian and his garden supplied all his needs, it mattered little that his salary was a scanty pittance, such as a respectable working mechanic would turn up his nose at. His wife was a lady who did not hesitate to do all the household work herself. Modern life in its rush and roar has left such people far behind. But one loves to remember them, and their peaceful ways, their cheerful solitude, their plain living and high thinking. CHAPTER XVII. QUIET TALKS.