"I mean _hearing you preach_," was Mr. Dole's reply. "It's a curious expression, now I come to think about it." "It certainly is so, and the meaning of it is not very clear. But in our Church we don't talk about _sitting under_, or _hearing_ this or that preacher. We simply say we attend this or that church, as the case may be. And the reason is, that--although very important in its proper place--we consider preaching of little moment (and the preacher of far less), when compared with the other objects of Christian worship,--_Prayer_ and _Praise_. We look upon God's House as pre-eminently 'a House of Prayer.'" "Well, I do think we used to make too much of the sermon at the meeting; and I remember all our conversation afterwards was about the sermon or the preacher. One Sunday we had a young gent. from London, Mr. Sweetly, to preach, and our people never ceased to talk about him. I believe, however, none of them recollected a word he said; but they could remember well enough 'his lovely voice,' and 'how nice he looked in his beautiful black silk gown' (you know, sir, our people always preach in black gowns), 'and those charming lavender gloves! and then the sweetest embroidered white lawn pocket-handkerchief imaginable!' It had just been presented to him, he told me, by a young lady--Miss Angelina Gushing--who sat under him at his London meeting-house. I never was a preacher-worshipper myself, sir." "Save me from the man with the _lavender gloves and the white embroidered pocket-handkerchief_, I say," said Mr. Acres. "If there is one thing in nature I shrink from more than another, it is a _fop_, and a _fop_ in the pulpit is beyond endurance."