* * * * * The restored Barnford Church was such a dream of beauty that sometimes Llewellyn would ask himself whether it were a real building or only a fairy vision. The light fell through beautiful painted windows; an excellent organ replaced the old one; and oak pews, exquisitely carved, filled the nave. A huge gilt cock strutted proudly above the restored tower, and a brass tablet near the pulpit declared the restoration to be the thank-offering of two grateful hearts. People came from far and near to the services, eager to see the beautiful church, but the largest crowd that ever assembled in the building came on the occasion of the marriage of the Rector to Laura Lancaster. [Illustration: AS CHAPLAIN TO MR SPEAKER] EX-SPEAKER PEEL. MR. SPEAKER GULLY. (_Photo: Russell and Sons._) (_Photo: Bassano, Ltd._) AS CHAPLAIN TO MR SPEAKER Some Reminiscences of Parliament. By F. W. Farrar, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. I knew something about the Houses of Legislature, and had been present at not a few debates, long before I had the high honour of being a Chaplain to the Speaker. Many years ago, when I was a master at Harrow, I had the privilege of knowing the late Lord Charles Russell, whose son, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, was once in my form, and who always treated me with conspicuous kindness. Lord Charles was for a long time the highly popular Serjeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons. There are only two persons who enjoy the privilege of having "private galleries" at their disposal at the end of the House--the Speaker and the Serjeant-at-Arms. Whenever there was likely to be a very important debate, which excited keen public interest, Lord Charles used to offer us two seats in his gallery. I availed myself of this exceptional privilege as often as I could, and in that way I have been present at some of those deeply interesting political and oratorical displays which may almost be said to have become things of the past. The speaking of the most distinguished leaders in the House of Commons is still manly, forcible, and lucid: but I do not think that I am only speaking as a _laudator temporis acti, Me puero_, when I say that never--or, at any rate, only on the rarest occasions--do we now hear those flashing interchanges of wit, or those utterances of sustained, impassioned, and lofty eloquence which were by no means unfrequent thirty years ago. It may be that the pressure of affairs is greater, owing to the immense and ever-extending interests of the British Empire; or that there is not, at the present moment, the intense political excitement which once prevailed; or that the prevalent taste in such matters is different:--but, whatever be the reason, it would, I think, be generally admitted that, in nine cases out of ten, debates in these days are more unexciting and more severely practical than once they were, so that speeches full of "thoughts that breathe and words that burn" are now rarely delivered