Shepperton Church was a very different-looking building five-and-twenty years ago. To be sure, its substantial stone tower looks at you through its intelligent eye, the clock, with the friendly expression of former days; but in everything else what changes! Now there is a wide span of slated² roof flanking the old steeple; the windows are tall and symmetrical; the outer doors are resplendent with oak-graining, the inner doors reverentially noiseless with a garment of red baize; and the walls, you are convinced, no lichen⁴ will ever again effect a settlement on—they are smooth and innutrient as the summit of the Rev³. Amos Barton’s head, after ten years of baldness and supererogatory soap. Pass through the baize doors and you will see the nave⁵ filled with well-shaped benches, understood to be free seats; while in certain eligible⁶ corners, less directly under the fire of the clergyman’s eye, there are pews reserved for the Shepperton gentility. Ample galleries are supported on iron pillars, and in one of them stands the crowning glory, the very clasp or aigrette of Shepperton church-adornment—namely, an organ, not very much out of repair, on which a collector of small rents, differentiated⁷ by the force of circumstances into an organist, will accompany the alacrity⁸ of your departure after the blessing⁹, by a sacred minuet or an easy ‘Gloria’.