My next excursion was into Warwickshire. I went first to Coventry, a city of which one of my humble ancestry was Mayor, more than two centuries ago, and for which I entertained a sort of hereditary respect. It retains much of the aspect it must have borne during that worthy’s incumbency; for a more mediæval-looking town I saw not in England. Still unmodernized are its ancient streets and alleys. The houses jut out, story above story, their gables fronting the way, and so close together, in the upper parts, that neighbours may light their pipes with each other across the street, as they lean out of their windows. The famous three spires of Coventry belong to as many different churches, but seem to equalize the place in cathedral glories with Lichfield, its sister see. The spire of St. Michael’s, which is chief among them, is, indeed, singularly beautiful: and the triplet is well harmonized, and gives the town a majestic appearance as one approaches it. A town of many spires, in America, is generally a town of many wrangling creeds; and the major part of the steeples are but vulgar rivals, realizing the droll idea of Carlyle’s eel-pot, in which each individual eel is trying to get his head higher than his neighbour’s. The fact, however, is less droll than melancholy, when one thinks of the sickening results, upon a community, of so many religions, all claiming to be reputable types of Christ’s dear Gospel, although so widely differing among themselves that some must necessarily be its pestilent antagonists. Dissocial habits; cold incivilities; open wars; disgraceful rivalries; bickering animosities; and a degraded moral sentiment—these are the things signified by your poly-steepled towns in our own land, and God only knows the irreligion and the contempt for truth, which are festering within them, as the result of these acrid humours; but as yet, it is not generally so in England. The three spires of Coventry all point faithfully to the throne of the Triune God, and are symbols of one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Oh, that all who dwell under their shadow knew the blessings of their ministrations, and received them in spirit and in truth!