There was also a good deal of pleasing blue colour in the glass of the east window.

The service was, as I almost invariably find it in a village church, beautiful and impressive.

Listening to the music of prayer and praise, with some natural outdoor sound to fill up the pauses--the distant crow of a cock or the song of some bird close by--a corn-bunting or wren or hedge-sparrow--and the bright sunlight filling the interior, I felt as much refreshed as if kind nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep, had visited me that morning.

The sermon was nothing to me; I scarcely heard it, but understood that it was about the Incarnation and the perfection of the plan of salvation and the unreasonableness of the Higher Criticism and of all who doubt because they do not understand.

I remembered vaguely that on three successive Sundays in three village churches in the wilds of Wiltshire I had heard sermons preached on and against the Higher Criticism.