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                               COLLECTION

                                   OF

                            BRITISH AUTHORS

                           TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

                               VOL. 1091.

                     SALEM CHAPEL BY MRS. OLIPHANT.

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                                VOL. I.

                           TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

By the same Author,

THE LAST OF THE MORTIMERS               2 vols.

MARGARET MAITLAND                       1 vol.

AGNES                                   2 vols.

MADONNA MARY                            2 vols.

THE MINISTER'S WIFE                     2 vols.

THE RECTOR AND THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY      1 vol.





                       Chronicles of Carlingford

                              SALEM CHAPEL

                                   BY

                             MRS. OLIPHANT.

                          _COPYRIGHT EDITION._

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                                VOL. I.

                                LEIPZIG

                           BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

                                 1870.

               _The Right of Translation is reserved._




                            SALEM CHAPEL.




CHAPTER I.


Towards the west end of Grove Street, in Carlingford, on the shabby side
of the street, stood a red brick building, presenting a pinched gable
terminated by a curious little belfry, not intended for any bell, and
looking not unlike a handle to lift up the edifice by to the public
observation. This was Salem Chapel, the only Dissenting place of worship
in Carlingford. It stood in a narrow strip of ground, just as the little
houses which flanked it on either side stood in their gardens, except
that the enclosure of the chapel was flowerless and sombre, and showed
at the farther end a few sparsely-scattered tombstones--unmeaning slabs,
such as the English mourner loves to inscribe his sorrow on. On either
side of this little tabernacle were the humble houses--little detached
boxes, each two storeys high, each fronted by a little flower-plot--clean,
respectable, meagre, little habitations, which contributed most largely
to the ranks of the congregation in the Chapel. The big houses opposite,
which turned their backs and staircase windows to the street, took
little notice of the humble Dissenting community. Twice in the winter,
perhaps, the Miss Hemmings, mild evangelical women, on whom the late
rector--the Low-Church rector, who reigned before the brief and
exceptional incumbency of the Rev. Mr. Proctor--had bestowed much of his
confidence, would cross the street, when other profitable occupations
failed them, to hear a special sermon on a Sunday evening. But the Miss
Hemmings were the only representatives of anything which could, by the
utmost stretch, be called Society, who ever patronised the Dissenting
interest in the town of Carlingford. Nobody from Grange Lane had ever
been seen so much as in Grove Street on a Sunday, far less in the
chapel. Greengrocers, dealers in cheese and bacon, milkmen, with some
dressmakers of inferior pretensions, and teachers of day-schools of
similar humble character, formed the _elite_ of the congregation. It is
not to be supposed, however, on this account, that a prevailing aspect
of shabbiness was upon this little community; on the contrary, the grim
pews of Salem Chapel blushed with bright colours, and contained both
dresses and faces on the summer Sundays which the Church itself could
scarcely have surpassed. Nor did those unadorned walls form a centre of
asceticism and gloomy religiousness in the cheerful little town.
Tea-meetings were not uncommon occurrences in Salem--tea-meetings which
made the little tabernacle festive, in which cakes and oranges were
diffused among the pews, and funny speeches made from the little
platform underneath the pulpit, which woke the unconsecrated echoes with
hearty outbreaks of laughter. Then the young people had their
singing-class, at which they practised hymns, and did not despise a
little flirtation; and charitable societies and missionary auxiliaries
diversified the congregational routine, and kept up a brisk succession
of "Chapel business," mightily like the Church business which occupied
Mr. Wentworth and his Sisters of Mercy at St. Roque's. To name the two
communities, however, in the same breath, would have been accounted
little short of sacrilege in Carlingford. The names which figured
highest in the benevolent lists of Salem Chapel, were known to society
only as appearing, in gold letters, upon the backs of those mystic
tradesmen's books, which were deposited every Monday in little heaps at
every house in Grange Lane. The