Passing to the church, or rather I should say, to the meeting-house--good translation, whether meant or not, of what is older and more venerable than _church_, viz., _synagogue_--here again you meet the picture of a sturdy homespun worship. Probably it stands on some hill, midway between three or four valleys, whither the tribes go up to worship, and, when the snow-drifts are deepest, go literally from strength to strength. There is no furnace or stove save the foot-stoves that are filled from the fires of the neighboring houses, and brought in partly as a rather formal compliment to the delicacy of the tender sex, and sometimes because they are really wanted. The dress of the assembly is mostly homespun, indicating only slight distinctions of quality in the worshipers. They are seated according to age,--the old king Lemuels and their queens in front, near the pulpit, and the younger Lemuels farther back, inclosed in pews, sitting back to back, impounded, all, for deep thought and spiritual digestion; only the deacons, sitting close under the pulpit by themselves, to receive, as their distinctive honor, the more perpendicular droppings of the Word. Clean round the front of the gallery is drawn a single row of choir, headed by the key-pipe in the centre. The pulpit is overhung by an august wooden canopy called a sounding-board--study general, of course, and first lesson of mystery to the eyes of the children, until what time their ears are opened to understand the spoken mysteries.