"And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always!"

So prayed John Walden, truly and tenderly, stretching out his hands in benediction over the bent heads of his little congregation, which responded with a fervent 'Amen.'

Service was over, and the good folks of St. Rest wended their gradual way out of church to the full sweet sound of an organ voluntary, played by Miss Janet Eden, who, as all the village said of her, 'was a rare 'and at doin' the music proper.' Each man and woman wore their Sunday best,--each girl had some extra bit of finery on, and each lad sported either a smart necktie or wore a flower in his buttonhole, as a testimony to the general festal feeling inspired by a day when ordinary work is set aside for the mingled pleasures of prayer, meditation and promiscuous love-making. The iconoclasts who would do away with the appointed seventh day of respite from the hard labours of every-day life, deserve hanging without the mercy of trial. A due observance of Sunday, and especially the English country observance of Sunday, is one of the saving graces of our national constitution. In the large towns, a growing laxity concerning the 'keeping of the seventh day holy,' is plainly noticeable, the pernicious example of London 'smart' society doing much to lessen the old feeling of respect for the day and its sacredness; but in small greenwood places, where it is still judged decent and obedient to the laws of God, to attend Divine worship at least once a day,--when rough manual toil is set aside, and the weary and soiled labourer takes a pleasure in being clean, orderly and cheerfully respectful to his superiors, Sunday is a blessing and an educational force that can hardly be over-estimated.