With the village itself, I was equally well pleased. Though containing few houses, it was delightfully pleasant. Fine farms, with large flocks of quiet sheep grazing on their hill-sides; expansive fields, surrounded with fragrant hawthorn hedges; and old farm-houses, with their thatched roofs, and massive wheat ricks, met the pleased eye on all sides; while cultivated gardens and numerous wild flowers, especially the modest cowslip and humble violet, scented the air and perfumed the breeze. Thus far, perhaps, Bladen was equal to Wanstead; but in its moral aspects it was inferior. There was far less regard for the Sabbath; less attention to the moral culture of the young, than at the latter place. That blessed institution, which has vivified and renewed the church, which has filled her with the vigorous pulsations of youth--from which, as from some prolific nursery, she has obtained the plants, which now stand on her mountain-tops like the tall cedars of Lebanon--the modest, unassuming Sabbath school was not there. Consequently, the Sabbath was spent in roaming about the fields, in amusements, in visiting, in taking excursions to a place called Ramsden, some seven miles distant. True, there was a parish church, with two clergymen belonging to its altars, but there was service only once every Sunday within its ancient walls. During Lent, however, both priests and people were more religious; the church was better attended; the children were examined as to their knowledge of the church catechism! They were even excited to diligence in committing it to memory by the inducement of reward. A Bible and two prayer books were given to the lads who excelled in answering the questions. At the first Lent examination after my coming to Bladen, the Bible, the highest prize, was awarded to me, and the second year the minister assigned me the task of hearing the others recite--a striking proof of the benefit of Sunday school instruction; it gave me both a moral and mental superiority over all my compeers in the little village of Bladen. This special attention to religion only lasted during the term of Lent; when, with a return to the use of meat, the people returned to the neglect of the Sabbath. The inhabitants of Bladen were very social in their habits. They held an annual feast, called Bladen feast, to which they invited their friends from other towns; it commenced on Sabbath and continued three days. Eating, drinking, talking, fortune-telling, gambling, occupied three days of wassail and jollity; after which the visitors returned to their respective towns, and the people to their occupations. The neighboring villages gave similar feasts in their turn. They were occasions of much evil and folly.