As a rule, a surplice meant a shorter sermon; but my friend preached on, as if he had a new black gown. A dreamy organist once played a great Amen in a slight pause in the sermon; and the choir and congregation sang it very fervently. That church was restored a few years since; and the Squire took the plate round at the opening service afterwards. But he forgot that the chancel had been raised a step above the nave; and he just tripped enough to shoot the whole collection off the plate. The coins went rolling along the chancel floor, and mostly vanished down the gratings over the hot-water pipes--an inauspicious sight: the ancients made their peace with the Infernal Deities by casting offerings into chasms. Even at Lustleigh there were mishaps in church; and my grandfather used to note them in his letters to my father. Thus, on Sunday 18 August 1844, “a magpie walked into the church and sat himself on the communion table, to the great annoyance of the congregation; and the sexton had much difficulty in driving him.” Then, on Sunday 15 December 1844, “one of the candles fell from the pulpit into the seat below.” And so on. Once, within my recollection, there was a sermon by a stranger, who enhanced his eloquence by gesture; and with one wide sweep of his arms he brought down candles, glasses, cushion, and everything. The cushion caught the clerk upon the head, just as he was getting to sleep; and I have been told that what he said was just Amen, and nothing more. I see that I first went to Lustleigh Church on the Good Friday and Easter Sunday of 1862, while I was down here on a visit to my grandfather. In those days the service was mainly a dialogue between the parson and the clerk, the parson in very cultured tones and the clerk in resonant dialect, one saying ‘As for lies, I hate and abhor them’ as if it was superfluous for him to say so, and the other responding ‘Seven times a day do I praise thee’ as if it was a fact and he wished it generally known. The singing was confined to hymns. There was a choir of men and boys in a gallery below the tower, and a harmonium near them. But there used to be a choir of men and women, and an orchestra of bass-viol, violin and flute; and the tuning made a pleasant prelude to the service. There were three men who could play the viol; and it went by rank, not merit. One man farmed his own land, and he had first claim: next came a man who was a tenant farmer; and last a man who had no farm, but played better than the other two. There were high pews then, and a razed three-decker--parson over clerk, with sounding-board on top, and reading-desk alongside half way up. Nearly all the windows had plain glass, so that one could see the trees and sky; and everything was whitewashed.