“I wish, sir, you had heard the way in which the giving out of the first verse of this psalm was responded to by the congregation! There was no praising GOD by deputy—no leaving this delightful part of the service to a few women in pink bonnets, and men in well-curled locks, stuck up in a gallery in front of a conceited organist, mincing GOD’s praise in softly warbled tones, and ready to sing to-morrow with just the same zeal and devotion in a Roman Catholic Chapel or an Italian Concert Hall, if they are equally well paid for their professional services. No, sir! every man, woman, and child sung for themselves, lustily, and with a right good will. They sung the air in a minor key, as is always the case among the inhabitants of mountain districts, perhaps because they learn to pitch their notes to the echoes of their native valleys; but it had from that circumstance a more solemn and devotional effect. It was taken up by those without the doors with the same zeal as by those within, for all knew the air as familiarly as their own names. Here was a strict compliance with David’s precept, ‘Young men and maidens, old men and children, praise ye the name of the LORD.’ The mighty sound rushed down the vale of ULPHA like the bursting of a mountain cataract; nor, for aught I can tell, was it checked in its onward course till it had scaled the heights of the surrounding mountains, and died away at last, in a gentle whisper, on the lonely summit of BLACK COMB! _Died away_, did I say? Forgive me, sir, the lowly thought! Far higher than the cliffs of HELVELLYN did that holy psalm ascend; nor stayed it in its upward flight till it approached, as a memorial of sweet incense, the throne of GOD—there to be heard again when earthly sound shall be no more!” There was a single tear on the old man’s withered cheek as he said this, and a twitching about the rigid muscles of his mouth, which showed that his iron frame could still vibrate to the gentle recollections of his youth. He paused in his narrative; and there was a solemn silence between us of some minutes’ duration. At length he resumed—