hoarse and feeble. Doubtless they were trumpets
that gave forth clear ringing tones, and sent a mighty vibration through
brick and mortar. But the oratory of the Rev. Amos resembled rather a
Belgian railway-horn, which shows praiseworthy intentions inadequately
fulfilled. He often missed the right note both in public and private
exhortation, and got a little angry in consequence. For though Amos
thought himself strong, he did not _feel_ himself strong. Nature had
given him the opinion, but not the sensation. Without that opinion he
would probably never have worn cambric bands, but would have been an
excellent cabinetmaker and deacon of an Independent church, as his father
was before him (he was not a shoemaker, as Mr. Pilgrim had reported). He
might then have sniffed long and loud in the corner of his pew in Gun
Street Chapel; he might have indulged in halting rhetoric at
prayer-meetings, and have spoken faulty English in private life; and
these little infirmities would not have prevented him, honest faithful
man that he was, from being a shining light in the dissenting circle of
Bridgeport. A tallow dip, of the long-eight description, is an excellent
thing in the kitchen candlestick, and Betty's nose and eye are not
sensitive to the difference between it and the finest wax; it is only
when you stick it in the silver candlestick, and introduce it into the
drawing-room, that it seems plebeian, dim, and ineffectual. Alas for the
worthy man who, like that candle, gets himself into the wrong place! It
is only the very largest souls who will be able to appreciate and pity
him--who will discern and love sincerity of purpose amid all the bungling
feebleness of achievement.

But now Amos Barton has made his way through the sleet as far as the
College, has thrown off his hat, cape, and boa, and is reading, in the
dreary stone-floored dining-room, a portion of the morning service to the
inmates seated on the benches before him. Remember, the New Poor-law had
not yet come into operation, and Mr. Barton was not acting as paid
chaplain of the Union, but as the pastor who had the cure of all souls in
his parish, pauper as well as other. After the prayers he always
addressed to them a short discourse on some subject suggested by the
lesson for the day, striving if by this means some edifying matter might
find its way into the pauper mind and conscience--perhaps a task as
trying as you could well imagine to the faith and patience of an