Surely Strensham Church is one of the quaintest of the smaller English churches. The restorer's hand has not as yet marred its oddity--though sorely needed, the rector said, to arrest too evident decay. The floor is of uneven flagstones, interspersed here and there with remnants of the original tiling. The high-backed oaken pews have been in place for centuries, but, alas, have been covered by a coat of yellow "grained" paint. "I had a man come from London to give me the cost of removing the paint," said the rector, "but he said it would be sixty pounds--quite out of the question when money is so much needed to prevent actual decay." The rood loft, bearing a dozen painted panels of saints--as old, perhaps, as the church, yet with colors rich and strong, is very remarkable. Each face has a characteristic expression, in most cases rather quaintly distorted, and each saint has some distinguishing mark, as St. Anthony with his pig. There are several unusually fine brasses, but the best of these had been torn from its original grave before the altar a hundred years ago by an ambitious squire who desired to occupy this place of honor himself. "But like the man in the scriptures who sought the head of the table only to be humiliated, the usurper is likely to be removed," said the rector, "and the fourteenth century brass replaced over the grave." The little church seems lonely and poverty-stricken, but the rectory near at hand is a large, comfortable house surrounded by well-kept gardens. Strensham village has a decided advantage over its lowly neighbor, Ripple, for it is known to fame as the birthplace of Samuel Butler, the author of "Hudibras."