CHAPTER XIX. HOW TO MAKE A PHLIZZ. The week passed without any further communication with the ‘Hall,’ as Arthur was evidently fearful that we might ‘wear out our welcome’; but when, on Sunday morning, we were setting out for church, I gladly agreed to his proposal to go round and enquire after the Earl, who was said to be unwell. Eric, who was strolling in the garden, gave us a good report of the invalid, who was still in bed, with Lady Muriel in attendance. “Are you coming with us to church?” I enquired. “Thanks, no,” he courteously replied. “It’s not—exactly—in my line, you know. It’s an excellent institution—for the _poor_. When I’m with my own folk, I go, just to set them an example. But I’m not known _here_: so I think I’ll excuse myself sitting out a sermon. Country-preachers are always so dull!” Arthur was silent till we were out of hearing. Then he said to himself, almost inaudibly, “_Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them._” “Yes,” I assented: “no doubt that _is_ the principle on which church-going rests.” “And when he _does_ go,” he continued (our thoughts ran so much together, that our conversation was often slightly elliptical), “I suppose he repeats the words ‘_I believe in the Communion of Saints_’?” But by this time we had reached the little church, into which a goodly stream of worshipers, consisting mainly of fishermen and their families, was flowing. The service would have been pronounced by any modern æsthetic religionist—or religious æsthete, which is it?—to be crude and cold: to me, coming fresh from the ever-advancing developments of a London church under a _soi-disant_ ‘Catholic’ Rector, it was unspeakably refreshing. There was no theatrical procession of demure little choristers, trying their best not to simper under the admiring gaze of the congregation: the people’s share in the service was taken by the people themselves, unaided, except that a few good voices, judiciously posted here and there among them, kept the singing from going too far astray. There was no murdering of the noble music, contained in the Bible and the Liturgy, by its recital in a dead monotone, with no more expression than a mechanical talking-doll. No, the prayers were _prayed_, the lessons were _read_, and—best of all—the sermon was _talked_; and I found myself repeating, as we left the church, the words of Jacob, when he ‘_awaked out of his sleep_.’ “‘_Surely the Lord is in this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven._’”