they were no longer those of days of yore.  I was no longer with my respectable father and mother, and my dear brother, but with the gypsy cral {277} and his wife, and the gigantic Tawno, the Antinous of the dusky people.  And what was I myself?  No longer an innocent child, but a moody man, bearing in my face, as I knew well, the marks of my strivings and strugglings, of what I had learned and unlearned; nevertheless, the general aspect of things brought to my mind what I had felt and seen of yore.  There was difference enough it is true, but still there was a similarity—­at least I thought so,—­the church, the clergyman, and the clerk differing in many respects from those of pretty D . . ., put me strangely in mind of them; and then the words!—­by-the-bye, was it not the magic of the words which brought the dear enchanting past so powerfully before the mind of Lavengro? for the words were the same sonorous words of high import which had first made an impression on his childish ear in the old church of pretty Dereham.

The liturgy was now over, during the reading of which my companions behaved in a most unexceptional manner, sitting down and rising up when other people sat down and rose, and holding in their hands prayer-books which they found in the pew, into which they stared intently, though I observed that, with the exception of Mrs. Petulengro, who knew how to read a little, they held the books by the top, and not the bottom, as is the usual way.  The clergyman now ascended the pulpit, arrayed in his black gown.  The congregation composed themselves to attention, as did also my companions, who fixed their eyes upon the clergyman with a certain strange immovable stare, which I believe to be peculiar to their race.  The clergyman gave out his text, and began to preach.  He was a tall, gentlemanly man, seemingly between fifty and sixty, with greyish hair; his features were very handsome, but with a somewhat melancholy cast:  the tones of his voice were rich and noble, but also with somewhat of melancholy in them.  The text which he gave out was the following one:  “In what would a man be profited, provided he gained the whole world, and lost his own soul?”

And on this text the clergyman preached long and well:  he did not read his sermon, but spoke it extempore; his doing so rather surprised and offended me at first; I was not used to such a style of preaching in a church devoted to the religion of my country.  I compared it within my mind with the style of preaching used by the high-church rector in the old church of pretty D . . ., and I thought to myself it was very different, and being very different I did not like it, and I thought to myself how scandalised the people of D . . . would have been had they heard it, and I figured to myself how indignant the high-church clerk would have been had any clergyman got up in the church of D . . . and preached in such a manner.  Did it not savour strongly of dissent, methodism, and similar low stuff?