At last,
a gossip of Mrs Nubbles's, who had accompanied her to chapel on one
or two occasions when a comfortable cup of tea had preceded her
devotions, furnished the needful information, which Kit had no
sooner obtained than he started off again.
Little Bethel might have been nearer, and might have been in a
straighter road, though in that case the reverend gentleman who
presided over its congregation would have lost his favourite
allusion to the crooked ways by which it was approached, and which
enabled him to liken it to Paradise itself, in contradistinction to
the parish church and the broad thoroughfare leading thereunto.
Kit found it, at last, after some trouble, and pausing at the door
to take breath that he might enter with becoming decency, passed
into the chapel.
It was not badly named in one respect, being in truth a
particularly little Bethel--a Bethel of the smallest dimensions--
with a small number of small pews, and a small pulpit, in which a
small gentleman (by trade a Shoemaker, and by calling a Divine) was
delivering in a by no means small voice, a by no means small
sermon, judging of its dimensions by the condition of his audience,
which, if their gross amount were but small, comprised a still
smaller number of hearers, as the majority were slumbering.
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