is not superior to the Abbey
for this purpose.

I supposed myself acquainted with all the approved renderings of the
Episcopal morning service, but when the clergyman who officiated at the
Abbey began to twang out "Dearly beloved brethren," &c., in a nasal,
drawling semi-chant, I was taken completely aback. It sounded as though
some graceless Friar Tuck had wormed himself into the desk and was
endeavoring, under the pretense of reading the service, to caricature as
broadly as possible the alleged peculiarity of Methodistic pulpit
enunciation superimposed upon the regular Yankee drawl. As the service
proceeded, I became more accustomed and more reconciled to this mode of
utterance, but never enough so to like it, nor even the responses, which
were given in the same way, but much better. After I came away, I was
informed that this semi-chant is termed _intoning_, and is said to be a
revival of an ancient method of rendering the church service. If such be
the fact, I can only say that in my poor judgment that revival was an
unwise and unfortunate one.

The Service was very long--more than two hours--the Music excellent--the
congregation large--the Sermon, so far as I could judge, had nothing bad
in it. Yet there was an Eleventh-Century air about the whole which
strengthened my conviction that the Anglican Church will very soon be
potentially summoned to take her stand distinctly on the side either of
Romanism or of Protestantism, and that the summons will shake not the
Church only but the Realm to its centre.

RAGGED SCHOOLS

In the evening I attended the Ragged School situated in Carter's-field
Lane, near the Cattle-Market in Smithfield [where John Rogers was burned
at the stake by Catholics, as Catholics had been burned by Protestants
before him. The honest, candid history of Persecution for Faith's sake,
has never yet been written; whenever it shall be, it must cause many
ears to tingle].

It was something past 7 o'clock when we reached the rough old building,
in a filthy, poverty-stricken quarter, which has been rudely fitted up
for the Ragged School--one of the first, I believe, that was attempted.
I should say there were about four hundred pupils on its benches, with
about forty teachers; the pupils were at least two-thirds males from
five to twenty years old, with a dozen or more adults. The girls were a
hundred or so, mainly from three to ten years of age; but in a separate
and upper apartment ascending ou