DEVIL'S advocate, it seems from here, is an entirely proper role for a churches columnist occasionally to essay. So when a country church with an average congregation of 20 or so spends getting on £200,000 on restoration, when there is a no less beautiful church just three miles away and when they may be certain that the maintenance pit really is bottomless, how may it all be justified?

The Rev Jennifer Williamson fields the question willingly, perhaps thankfully, and with a favoured phrase. It is important, she says, to keep the rumour of God alive.

"I think before I became a country vicar I would have agreed with you. My fellow clergy in town parishes think we're crazy and I'm sure there are days when the Church Council thinks something similar. If this were just lying as an empty building, however, the message it would give to the world would be horrendous.

"There is something very sacramental about church buildings in rural parishes to people who never come into them."

Surveys, she adds, say that when churches close, their congregations rarely move to another one. What they say about the faithful is another matter entirely.

Mrs Williamson is priest-in-charge of St Agatha's, Gilling West, an historic village of 700 souls - 35 of whom attend church other than for Christmas and farmers' funerals - between Richmond and the trans-Pennine route from Scotch Corner. She also has the care of the neighbouring parish of Kirkby Hill.

"It can occasionally feel a little lonely, going to church, being one of so few," she writes in the September parish magazine.

When she arrived five years ago, Mrs Williamson knew of the problem at Gilling West - Gilling East is 50 miles away near Helmsley, never the twain - but didn't understand their endless extent. "If I had have done, I mightn't be standing here tonight," she tells a congregation of 30 at a festal evensong to mark the organ's reincarnation and the work's completion - complete, at least, had the boiler not now given up the ghost.

The following evening, the new Bishop of Ripon and Leeds was due to make a first appearance in St Agatha's; today marks the village's annual scarecrow competition. "Stand still long enough and you'll probably win," they say in the pub afterwards.

It is an extraordinary and a fascinating church, built near the place where the subsequently canonised King Oswin of Deira - southern Northumbria - was killed by his brother in 635.

The dedication to Agatha, a third century Sicilian martyr, is curious not least because the nearby churches at Easby and Skeeby are also named in her honour - making what's believed to be the only three in Britain.

Agatha's legend is that she was a devout virgin who, after refusing the Roman consul's advances, endured tortures which included the removal of her breasts. In art, her emblem is usually a plate with breasts on it and for that reason - curiouser still - she became the patron saint of bell founders.

In Gilling West church, the nature of her agonies is represented by a pretty fearsome pair of pincers, embroidered on an altar kneeler.

"Why we aren't dedicated to St Oswin I can't imagine," says Mrs Williamson.

The church, florally arrayed, is open in the afternoon, a succession of musicians up aloft putting the 100-year-organ through its paces.

Though much of it is "church" music, one of the tunes appears to be thing about Dozey Dotes and Little Lambsy Dizies, though doubtless it has an altogether higher calling.

In the north aisle is a large memorial to Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock of nearby Hartforth Hall, killed in action in 1914 and whose honours and achievements could overflow the remainder of the column. Among them was saving the life of the Princess Royal, off Delhi in 1911.

The church, its heraldry particularly, is described in several publications by the late Kenneth Laybourn, his masterwork dedicated to his wife on the occasion of their golden wedding in 1986.

"Second edition" it says. The first had a print run of five.

Now, boiler apart and until the architect's next quinquennial inspection, the church is again restored. Its roofs are sound, its bells and organ resonant, its fabric made good, its knight's tomb refurbished.

They've held lunches and coffee mornings and sold Christmas cards, but much of the £187,808 spent to date has come from English Heritage and the Historic Churches Fund. "A tremendous project for such a small parish, fantastic for its even smaller congregation," Mrs Williamson tells them.

During work on the tower in 1995 31-year-old steeplejack dean Emerson from Kirk Merrington, near Spennymoor, fell inexplicably to his death. His parents still visit the church. "The loss of his life puts the cost of this restoration work beyond any calculation," she adds.

We sing splendid old hymns like Let All The World in Every Corner Sing and O Worship the King, finish with Thine Be the Glory, the greatest of them all. It's a wonderful church and a wonderful note on which to end. The rumour mongers have credibility yet.