nter,
however needy and deserving, came in for a share.

The churches round were mostly filled by the baronet's relatives, who
came into possession of the family livings as a matter of course, and
took little thought for the souls of their parishioners. In fact, very
few people did go to church. In our chapel, of which my father was the
minister for nearly forty years, we had a good congregation, especially
of an afternoon, when the farmers with their families, in carts or gigs,
put in an appearance. One of the ejected had been the founder of
Nonconformity in our village, and its traditions were all of the most
honourable character. A wealthy family had lived in the hall, which Sir
Thomas Gooch had bought and pulled down, one of whom had been M.P. for
the county in Cromwell's time, and had left a small endowment--besides,
there was a house for the minister--to perpetuate the cause, and it was
something amidst the Boeotian darkness all round to have a man of
superior intellect, of a fair amount of learning, of unspotted life, of
devoted piety, such as the old Nonconformist ministers were, ever seeking
to lead the people upward and onward; while the neighbouring gentry and
all the parsons round, I am sorry to say, set the people a very bad
example. In our time we have changed all that, and the Church clergy are
as zealous to do good as the clergy of any other denomination. But that
things have altered so much for the better, I hold is mainly due to the
great progress made all over the land by Dissent, which woke up the
Church from the state of sloth and luxury and lethargy which had
jeopardised its very existence. Really, at the time of which I write and
in the particular locality to which I refer, decent godly people were
obliged to forsake the Parish Church, and to seek in the neighbouring
conventicle the aids requisite to a religious life. At the same time,
there was little collision between Church and Dissent. The latter had
its own sphere, supporting, in addition to its local work, the Bible
Society, the Tract Society, the London Missionary Society, and the
Anti-Slavery Society. It had also its Sunday-school, very much inferior
to what they are now; and, if possible, secured a day school on the
British and Foreign plan. Dissenters paid Church rates, which the
wealthy Churchmen were not ashamed to collect. They gave the parson his
tithes without a murmur, and politically they were all on the side of the
Wh