"True," said the Squire; "specially as in our days the organ is regarded as all but a necessity in every church. Certainly, there is no musical instrument so suitable for congregational worship, for whilst it represents all kinds of music, it exactly realizes the description given in the account of the dedication of the temple which Mr. Ambrose read this morning, and brings together the cymbals and the psalteries and the harps, and the trumpeters and the singers 'as one.'
"It is a curious fact—is it not, sir?—that whereas the presence of organs in our churches used to be the source of great offence to Dissenters in this country, and has recently been the subject of much dispute among Presbyterian Dissenters, yet you can now hardly find a Dissenting meeting-house of any size but can boast of its organ, and often a very good one too. Let us hope, Mr. Vicar, that ere long they, may become reconciled also to other things in our Church which now they may regard with the same horror with which they once looked upon the church organ."
THE VESTRY
"Let all things be done decently and in order."
1 Cor. xiv. 40.
"Avoid profaneness! Come not here.
Nothing but holy, pure, and clear,
Or that which groaneth to be so,
May at his peril farther go."
George Herbert.
THE VESTRY
To the close friendship which existed between the Squire and the Vicar, constantly cemented by such meetings as we have just described, was owing, in a considerable degree, the general harmony and goodwill which made St. Catherine's one of the most peaceful villages in England. When, many years ago, Mr. Ambrose first became Vicar there, he felt it his duty to make many changes in a parish which had been long neglected, and in a church which was almost a ruin. His labours were then regarded with much suspicion and disfavour; but he had now been long enough resident in the parish to live down all that hostile feeling. Nevertheless, it was not all peace at St. Catherine's. From time to time there would be an importation of cross-grained malcontents, who usually succeeded in stirring up some parochial strife.