"This gate--this gate, sir," he exclaimed, dragging me off as I made towards the main entrance of the building--"There's but cauldrife law-work gaun on yonder--carnal morality, as dow'd and as fusionless as rue leaves at Yule--Here's the real savour of doctrine." So saying, we entered a small low-arched door, secured by a wicket, which a grave-looking person seemed on the point of closing, and descended several steps as if into the funeral vaults beneath the church.

It was even so; for in these subterranean precincts,--why chosen for such a purpose I knew not,--was established a very singular place of worship.
Conceive, Tresham, an extensive range of low-browed, dark, and twilight vaults, such as are used for sepulchres in other countries, and had long been dedicated to the same purpose in this, a portion of which was seated with pews, and used as a church.

The part of the vaults thus occupied, though capable of containing a congregation of many hundreds, bore a small proportion to the darker and more extensive caverns which yawned around what may be termed the inhabited space.

In those waste regions of oblivion, dusky banners and tattered escutcheons indicated the graves of those who were once, doubtless, "princes in Israel." Inscriptions, which could only be read by the painful antiquary, in language as obsolete as the act of devotional charity which they employed, invited the passengers to pray for the souls of those whose bodies rested beneath.

Surrounded by these receptacles of the last remains of mortality, I found a numerous congregation engaged in the act of prayer.