BOSWELL AT MAMHEAD (kindly researched by Phillipe Planel)
"I have been today at the Parish Church. It is a small old Building. But like every church in England, even the smallest, has something venerable and ornamental about it. There is a ring of five bells. Some pillars in the Church. Some curious painted glass in the window, and some inscriptions on the walls. Over the door is: “to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” On one side, fronting the Pulpit, is: “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord,” - and from Micah: “to do justly love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God” – and over the communion table in a little chancel railed in with carving in wood, “but let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of this bread and drink of this cup.” My friend [William Temple] preached on 2 Timothy Chapter I verse 10: “Our saviour Jesus Christ hath brought light and immortality to light by the Gospel.” He gave us an excellent consolatory discourse on the immortality of the soul. He has a very small congregation, not above fifty people. I was in the best frame imaginable, full of contentment and future hope."
Letter from James Boswell to Margaret Montgomerie 5th November 1769
Quoted by Thomas Crawford, p.266, n. 13 in The Correspondence of James Boswell and William Johnson Temple 1756-1795, Vol. 1 1756-1777, Edinburgh University Press, 1997.