As is the
heartiness of the priest, so is the heartiness of the people--with such
strictness that one is disposed almost to credit some of it to actual
magnetism. _Response_ is no empty word in public worship.
It was no empty word on this occasion. From the ancient clerk (who kept
a life-interest in what were now the duties of a choir) to some gaping
farm-lads at my back, everybody said and sang to the utmost of his
ability. I may add that Isaac and I involuntarily displayed a zeal which
was in excess of our Sunday customs; and if my tongue moved glibly
enough with the choir, the bee-master found many an elderly parishioner
besides himself and the clerk who "took" both prayer and praise at such
independent paces as suited their individual scholarship, spectacles,
and notions of reverence.
It crowned my satisfaction when I found that there was to be a
collection. The hymn to which the churchwardens moved about, gathering
the pence, whose numbers and noisiness seemed in keeping with the rest
of the service, was a well-known one to us all. It was the favourite
evening hymn of the district. I knew every syllable of it, for Jem and I
always sang hymns (and invariably this one) with my dear mother, on
Sunday evening after supper.
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