The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-08-29
A BROKEN PROMISE.
Some Chronicles of Stafford.
CHAPTER I,

CHAPTER I.
 Saltford was famous for two things. its old maids and its churches. l put the old maids first, because, of course, they were so tremendously in the majority and not out of disrespect to anybody or anything, am sue, but simply as stat ing fact.
 Stafford was such curious, slow, dull little town, not at all unlike Mrs. Gas kell's Cranford," which indeed it always reminded me of, only larger, with four long streets running east west, north, and south of a splendid old market cross the one really beautiful and interesting object to be seen there-beneath which old men and women gathered for gossip and other delights, and the carriages and pairs ot the county families would dash round with great eclat and exhibition of horsemanship. The town population was about seven thousand, and the num- Der of churches no less than twelve, some of them positively minute and built next door to each other, so to speak. There was St. Mary's, the parish church, large and imposing looking, as became the mother (ecclesiastically speaking) of Salt ford, where flowers bloomed on the altar at all times ot the year, and a cross blazed in carbuncle and gold glories. This was the fashionable resort, need not add, where the aristocracy of the town were wont to repair, and where there was a tolerable organ, and at any rate boys in surplices, to whom great deference was paid by the congregation. Next came St. Johns, quite at the other end of the town, in by street, that had the misfortune of being extraparochial, which reduced St. Johns to the indignity of proprietary chapel, and caused con- siderable robbery of other churches.
 Its ministers used to come and go like the waves of the sea; and after enjoying immense popularity for time both from the shareholders and the rest of the con- gregation, would suddenly depart without rhyme or reason save a mysterious whis- per given vent to by each in turn, that they were not going to find themselves left high and dry at St. Johns some fine morning." an allusion to the insecurity of their income, which nobody was sup posed to understand. It was huge oc- tagonal building, hideous to behold both without and within. Old fashioned gal leries ran all round the interior, and the three-decker pulpit was so siddily high, the preacher as he climbed up and up the stairs thitherward seemed as if he might be ascending into heaven. St. Johns was as "low church as St. Mary's' was high; in fact, next door to dissent many people declared-a kind of missing link between church and chapel. There were roomy, shelving pews, and the vestry door opened into the communion rails by some unique contrivance. A musty, comfortable sort of atmosphere pervaded the whole; the singing was hearty enough, if not harmonious, from the mixed choir of men, women, and boys {; and the only time ever went to service there two things struck me very forcibly -one was that the three principal per formers were. or had been, strangely and similarly afflicted. The preacher, a gifted, eloquent man, had once been an inmate of an asylum; the oYganist, who was dentist in private life, was known to be subject to fits of insanity, which sometimes came on when in the act of extracting tooth, fancy (yet he had the largest practice in Saltford, notwithstand- ing) and the organ-blower, who was an idiot of malignant and terrifying aspect.
 The other very different thing was the rapt face of a laboring man as he joiked fervently in the hymn:
 "Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched."
 can see his beaming smile of content now, as with carefully adjusted horn spectacles he sang -
 "Let not conscience make you finger;
 Nor of fitness fondly dream;
 All the fitness He requireth
 Is to feel your need of Him."
 His happy, restful countenance photo- graphed itself on my memory for years to come.
 We'll, then, next in order of seniority came St. Patrick's, standing on the out skirts of the town. A sturdy, solid little church, neither high nor low in its views "a medium in fact-always filled with earnest, devout worshipers, and pos- sessing ard-working, energetic rector who managed the worst and lowest quarter of Stafford, full of tramp lodging houses and dark-smelling alleys-a hope full, patient laborer in a most unpromis- ing vineyard, but whose motto and that of his wife's was continually, Faith, not sight" These were the dear friends with whom used to visit, and naturally his was the church l always attended. These three churches were the principal ones in Saltford, as have said. The rest grew smaller and smaller in size, squeezed into out.of-the-way places between houses, or up tiny grated passages. l could never