CHAPTER XXI.
LONDON—HAMPTON COURT—ROCHESTER—CHATHAM—CANTERBURY.
Saturday, this 15th day of June, back in London, we employ the day most pleasantly in visiting the London Docks, Hyde Park, some of the public gardens, and in taking general rambles about the city. One is seldom at a loss in a great city like this, with thousands of facilities everywhere for entertainment, how to employ time. Old but ever-new are these thoroughfares, the river, museums, and galleries.
Sunday a. m. visited several of the old churches, and made it a special business to take a look at as many as possible of those erected by Sir Christopher Wren immediately after the great fire of 1666. They are found in great number in the vicinity of Bow Church and St. Paul's, and some of these interiors are very elegant. St. Stephen's Walbrook is, next after the cathedral, a work of much ingenuity and merit. The building is small, and the exterior ordinary; but the splendid interior is a marvel of beauty and elegance, though more than 200 years old.
Arriving at Westminster Abbey, we found the great church filled to repletion, and hardly standing-room inside the door; but with the push peculiar to Americans we got in, and saw, but could scarcely hear, the distinguished Dean Stanley. Although we could not hear, yet we had unbounded satisfaction in the thought that even in the land of cathedrals, and where a deal of dull and prosy preaching is done, the Dean with his broad views, was here preaching Sunday after Sunday, and being listened to by so vast an assembly. Next we took a walk over Westminster Bridge to Southwark, and into a church there, and listened to a twenty-minute sermon from a young man of good talent and preaching abilities. The discourse took the negative form, the subject being, What we have not done for the Lord. It was a labored statement, enumerating sins of omission in great detail, was very evangelical, and perhaps did a good work.
Dined at a restaurant in Southwark, and at 2 p. m. took steam-cars for