A Laodicean : A Story of To-day
unbroken from gable to gable; the windows were glazed with sheets of plate glass, a temporary iron stovepipe passing out near one of these, and running up to the height of the ridge, where it was finished by a covering like a parachute. Walking round to the end, he perceived an oblong white stone let into the wall just above the plinth, on which was inscribed in deep letters:—     

                Erected 187-, AT THE SOLE EXPENSE OF JOHN POWER, ESQ., M.P. 

       The ‘New Sabbath’ still proceeded line by line, with all the emotional swells and cadences that had of old characterized the tune: and the body of vocal harmony that it evoked implied a large congregation within, to whom it was plainly as familiar as it had been to church-goers of a past generation. With a whimsical sense of regret at the secession of his once favourite air Somerset moved away, and would have quite withdrawn from the field had he not at that moment observed two young men with pitchers of water coming up from a stream hard by, and hastening with their burdens into the chapel vestry by a side door. Almost as soon as they had entered they emerged again with empty pitchers, and proceeded to the stream to       fill them as before, an operation which they repeated several times. Somerset went forward to the stream, and waited till the young men came out again.     

       ‘You are carrying in a great deal of water,’ he said, as each dipped his pitcher.     

       One of the young men modestly replied, ‘Yes: we filled the cistern this morning; but it leaks, and requires a few pitcherfuls more.’      

       ‘Why do you do it?’      

       ‘There is to be a baptism, sir.’      

       Somerset was not sufficiently interested to develop a further conversation, and observing them in silence till they had again vanished into the building, he went on his way. Reaching the brow of the hill he stopped and looked back. The chapel was still in view, and the shades of night having deepened, the lights shone from the windows yet more brightly than before. A few steps further would hide them and the edifice, and all that belonged to it from his sight, possibly for ever. There was something in the thought which led him to linger. The chapel had neither beauty, quaintness, nor congeniality to recommend it: the dissimilitude 
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