ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, SONNING.

XI.

With the re-opening of the Church this history might well be expected to finish, but several additions have been made since 1853, and our record would be incomplete if they were not noticed. Nothing has yet been said about the organ, because our present organ has only recently been put up, and it seemed best to say all there was to say on the subject at one time.

1. My first recollections of Sonning Church go back to the time when there was a barrel organ in the west gallery. It was a very good one of the kind, having three barrels, containing most of the common old hymn tunes. For many years Bishop Ken's morning and evening hymns had been sung before the morning and afternoon services, but it is contrary to the Rubric to begin the service with a hymn, and it also was felt to be an impropriety to sing "Awake, my soul, and with the sun," at 11 o'clock in the morning, and "Glory to Thee, my God, this night," at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so we discontinued these hymns, and then the singing was confined to two hymns in the course of the service. In 1848 we determined to procure a new organ. I had some hesitation about it, because there was every hope of getting the Church restored in time, and it seemed a pity to put up a new organ which must soon be taken down. But I have never regretted our decision, as the move then made led most effectually to all that has since been done in the improvement of the Church. In January, 1849, an organ, which had been built by Mr. Holdich, of London, at the cost of £300, was put up in the gallery; the old barrel organ having been sold for £50, and sent to a Church in Lincolnshire. A good deal of expense was involved in the erection of the new organ, several seats having to be removed, and the gallery to be strengthened with pillars underneath, to support the additional weight. With the new organ the service assumed a new character, for we immediately began chanting the canticles, and it was an immense relief to escape from the monotonous round of the same hymn tunes. This organ was taken down and stowed away during the year that the Church was closed, and put up again for the re-opening at the west end of the south Aisle. Here it remained till 1864, when it was found to be a good deal out of repair and we had to put it into the hands of Mr. Holdich, who removed it to London. A question then arose about the site. The position had always been felt to be a bad one, but our Church is under peculiar difficulties with regard both to organ and choir. After much consultation we settled on the tower, as upon the whole the least objectionable situation, and nothing was required for its erection there, but the removal of the bell ropes to the story above. The organ though good in many respects, was not sweet in tone, and as the case was not fitted for the new position in the tower we were advised to have a new instrument, Mr. Holdich making an allowance for the old one. For six months we had no organ at all, and it was not till the spring of 1865 that the new instrument was completed and set up. Everyone I believe is well satisfied with the present organ, which has great power and richness of tone, especially in the swell. It is also an ornament to the Church, as it fills up the vacancy behind the tower arch, and the painting of the pipes is particularly effective. The only objection, and it is a very serious one,

to the present position, is the distance from the choir, but it was remarked at the time when it reached its present destination, "the organ has not done its travels yet," and perhaps the prophecy may still prove true.

2. From the organ we naturally turn to the choir desks. It is a curious instance of the recent growth of choirs in our parish Churches, that we should actually have made no special provision for the seating of our choir in the restoration of the Church. The seats in the nave were originally continued without a break up to the pulpit and the reading desk, and there was only a common seat like the rest in front of the organ. There the choir sat till 1855, when the present choir desks were constructed, from Mr. Woodyer's admirable design. The situation cannot be considered a good one, as regards either the choir or the congregation; but it is the best that can be obtained. We have at least this advantage, that the choir and reading desks are now close together, and both are in the centre of the Church.

H. P.

(To be continued.)

AT SONNING CHURCH.

BAPTISMS.

Dec. 26th-Herbert, son of William Stephen and Martha Wilmot. Jan. 16th, 1870—Annie Amelia, daughter of Henry and Ann Brown.

AT ALL SAINTS.

Jan. 2—Annie Eliza, daughter of Luke Henry and Eliza Mary

Rayner.

Jan. 9-Thomas Richard, son of William and Elizabeth Ann Foster. -Keziah, daughter of Thomas and Eliza Enstone.

MARRIAGES.

Dec. 25-At Sonning Church, George Burt to Mary Wheeler, both of Woodley: Charles Wilder and Ann Millard, both of Dunsden; William Wheeler and Ellen Wooton both of Woodley.

BURIALS.

AT SONNING CHURCH.

123410

Jan. 2nd-Eliza White of Playhatch, aged 17 years.
Jan. 17th-James Bullock, of Sonning, aged 46 years.

T.

W. Purification of the B. V. M.
Th. Blasius.

Fr.

Sa. Agatha, V & M.

CALENDAR FOR FEBRUARY.

9 W.

10 Th.

23 W.

24 Th St. Matthias.

SONNING:

Church Services.

LENT.

Sundays-11 o'clock in the Morning.
3 o'clock in the afternoon.

half-past 6 o'clock in the evening.

Wednesdays :-7 o'clock in the evening.
Daily:-half-past 8 in the morning;
half-past 5 in the evening.

On Ash-Wednesday the services will be at 8.30 and 11
o'clock in the morning, and at 7 o'clock in the evening.

ALL SAINTS'.

Sundays:-II o'clock in the morning.

half-past 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Wednesdays:-3 o'clock in the afternoon.

It is proposed to send a box of clothes (old and new) to the Children's Hospital, in April. Any contributions can be left during the month of March, at the Sonning Girls' School, or at Woodley School. Toys of any description will be gladly welcomed.

SALE.

There will be a sale of children's clothes at the Woodley Schoolroom, on Thursday, March 17, from one to four o'clock. Open to all in the parish.

IMPRESSIONS OF SONNING. III.

"The moral and mental condition of the village, was in strong contrast to the scenery in which it was placed; for a prettier or more peaceful spot you could hardly see; the surrounding country is bleak and cold, which makes the change more delightful, when, leaving the high land, you drive down into the sheltered valley, with the clear trout stream running through the middle of it, and the gray stone cottages nestling under the hill.

Sonning, as I have said before, seems to me, almost an ideal type of an English village, and there, everything that is picturesque and beautiful, has been carefully cherished; and the natural advantages assisted by art, in a way that had not been done in our village, where the charm was owing, excepting in our own very pretty garden and grounds, to the situation and scenery alone. But though the Church and Vicarage together at Sonning make from some points of view a picture, which for home beauty, I have hardly ever seen surpassed; still, even at Sonning there is nothing more beautiful in its way, than the old gray Manor House where I was born, with the clear stream running close by it, and winding through the rich meadow lands beyond, and the steep wooded bank rising immediately above. The house was a perfect specimen of Elizabethan architecture. The front was in the form of the letter E, with two projecting wings and a porch; that shape having been contrived by the architects of the day, in honour of the great Queen whom all men strove to flatter and please. One wing of the house was much older than the rest, though it had been so cleverly incorporated into the more recent part, which dated about 1635, that it did not at all destroy the symmetry of the whole. This wing was the remains of a religious house, which had been a dependence of a much larger monastic establishment in another county. Our young minds were filled with pictures and fancies of the doings of the old monks, and they certainly had chosen a most lovely and peaceful looking spot in which to seclude themselves from the world. Such was the home, and such the state of things in the parish, to which my mother came with the strong, simple, earnest faith, and sweet graciousness of manner, the remembrance of which, makes her still, though she has long passed away to her rest, a living presence with those who knew her. She spared neither time, nor strength, nor money, in her efforts to do good; she sent her children and went herself, into all the cottages; we knew every man and woman in the place, and she was intimately acquainted with their circumstances and wants. Of course good was done, and her work will one day no doubt, be revealed more fully even than it is now. But all my experience has shown me, that where the Church is not the central influence for good in a place, nothing really prospers in it; Lay agency is very right, and very useful, and there is work enough, and more than enough for every one, if they will but seek it, and do it; but the Church must take the lead in a place, in the true apos. tolic spirit of being the servant of all, if the moral and physical, as well as the spiritual condition of the people are to be radically, and permanently improved and raised.

What I have told you are simple facts, without any embellishment of the imagination; that state of things has long been succeeded by a very different one. A good clergyman has worked for