pulpit, conspicuously placed in the middle of the wall. This important
portion of the edifice was now removed to one side, to make room for a
Communion table, the seats in front being arranged chancel-wise, facing
one another, for the choir. This was quite a damper to my ecclesiastical
tastes; besides being ugly in the extreme.

I tried by putting ornamental scrolls over the windows, and by staining
the glass in them, to make some improvement. I also painted a diaper
pattern round the side walls; and upon the high blank wall behind the
Communion table exercised all the skill I possessed, but fear it was
somewhat in vain, though I laboured hard. The designs looked very well
on paper, but when displayed on the wall gave no satisfaction; so one
after another they disappeared, till my dissolving views, as they were
called, ended in a large floriated cross of gold, with a monogram
inter-twined in it, on a dark background.

When once, however, the Lord began to bless the Word, and souls were
awakened, despite all anti-ecclesiastical appearances, my heart was
drawn towards the ugly place, and I loved it greatly. I could never have
believed that my former tastes and tendencies could have been so
completely changed as they were.

In those days it was a strange thing to hold an after-meeting in a
church; it was never done, even by the few who had such meetings.
Therefore, I took the anxious ones and others to my own house for the
inquiry meeting, after the evening service. Having taken up the carpet
in the drawing-room, we fitted it up with chairs and forms to
accommodate ninety people, while half as many more occupied the hall,
and often numbers stood outside the windows. In this house it pleased
God to give us very many souls, who were brought in week by week for