A year or two ago the End of the World became a common topic of conversation, as a newspaper was exploiting some prediction of it. And a man here cleared the matter up with the remark--“In church it be World With_out_ End.” About fifty years ago my brother and I used to go to the Scotch Church in Crown Court towards the end of December, to hear Dr Cumming announce the End of the World for the ensuing year. But after a few years he grew more wary, and he hedged--“And if the World does not indeed come to an End, something else very remarkable will certainly occur.” (I quote from memory, and may have got the words wrong, but they were to that effect.) About the same date I heard a preacher in a country church declaring that the World, “having now lasted for close upon six thousand years, cannot reasonably be expected to last much longer.” Coming into Jerusalem by the Damascus gate, 14 March 1882, I noticed two unfamiliar objects standing out above the city walls against the evening sky. Upon inquiry I found that they were ventilating pipes. A family (American, I think) had taken a house there, as they thought the Day of Judgement was at hand, yet wished to have a sanitated home meanwhile. And other families had likewise taken houses at Jerusalem, the notion being that the Last Judgement was going to be held there and residents would get priority. On a Good Friday morning I found a small girl standing on my door-step here, eating a hot-cross-bun. I asked what she was doing there, and she curtsied and said, “Please, zir, I be fasting.” And generally the seasons of the Christian year were marked by buns, lamb, goose, plum-pudding, pancakes and salt-fish far more than by observances at church. There were no week-day services at Lustleigh except on Christmas Day, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday; and the only recognition of a saint’s-day was the transfer of its collect to the following Sunday. There was Communion four times in the year, each time with a fresh bottle of wine at ten shillings per bottle. It was heralded by the reading of the exhortation on the previous Sunday, and perhaps was held in more esteem for being so uncommon.