eAn Address

11

of their most frequent amusements was to sing
with their wives and children the old four-part
Genevan psalms; and from these farm-buildings
you might hear on a Sabbath evening the learned
and solemn counterpoint of Goudimel echoing
far over the hill-side.

This picture of the Swiss canton is a picture of
country life, and that under very special conditions.
 It may serve us to draw the distinction
between town and country life with their special
advantages and disadvantages.
In the country the chief disadvantages are
that the labour is longer and more incessant, and
the wages low. There are no holidays, no days
off. On Sundays, even, though some of the workmen
 go free with the horses, yet the horses and
all the beasts must be fed and seen to, the cattle
milked, and the dairy attended. And then the
villagers that make the society are, in England at
least, of exclusive habits, and seldom combine in
anything like social life ; in the absence of which
an atmosphere of stagnation and dreariness prevails,
 that drives the livelier young spirits away to
seek to better themselves, and their leaving the