This Tenterden is a market town, and a singularly bright spot. It consists of one street, which is, in some places, more, perhaps, than two hundred feet wide. On one side of the street the houses have gardens before them, from 20 to 70 feet deep. The town is upon a hill; the afternoon was very fine, and, just as I rose the hill and entered the street, the people had come out of church and were moving along towards their houses. It was a very fine sight. _Shabbily-dressed people do not go to church._ I saw, in short, drawn out before me, the dress and beauty of the town; and a great many very, very pretty girls I saw; and saw them, too, in their best attire. I remember the girls in the _Pays de Caux_, and, really, I think those of Tenterden resemble them. I do not know why they should not; for there is the _Pays de Caux_ only just over the water, just opposite this very place. The hops about here are not so very bad. They say that one man, near this town, will have eight tons of hops upon ten acres of land! This is a great crop any year: a very great crop. This man may, perhaps, sell his hops for 1,600 pounds! What a _gambling_ concern it is! However, such hop-growing always was and always must be. It is a thing of perfect hazard. The church at this place is a very large and fine old building. The tower stands upon a base thirty feet square. Like the church at Goudhurst, it will hold three thousand people. And let it be observed that, when these churches were built, people had not yet thought of cramming them with _pews_, as a stable is filled with stalls. Those who built these churches had no idea that worshipping God meant going to _sit_ to hear a man talk out what he called preaching. By _worship_ they meant very different things; and, above all things, when they had made a fine and noble building, they did not dream of disfiguring the inside of it by filling its floor with large and deep boxes made of deal boards. In short, the floor was the place for the worshippers to stand or to kneel; and there was _no distinction_; no _high_ place and no _low_ place; all were upon a level _before God_ at any rate. Some were not stuck into pews lined with green or red cloth, while others were crammed into corners to stand erect or sit on the floor. These odious distinctions are of Protestant origin and growth. This lazy lolling in pews we owe to what is called the _Reformation_. A place filled with benches and boxes looks like an eating or a drinking place; but certainly not like a place of worship. A Frenchman, who had been driven from St. Domingo to Philadelphia by the Wilberforces of France, went to church along with me one Sunday. He had never been in a Protestant place of _worship_ before. Upon looking round him, and seeing everybody comfortably seated, while a couple of good stoves were keeping the place as warm as a slack oven, he exclaimed: "_Pardi! On sert Dieu bien a son aise ici?_" That is: "Egad! they serve God very much at their ease