34 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



has a natural propensity to breed faster than 

 food can be raised for the increase ; it seemed 

 to me the one way of exposing this mixture of 

 madness and of blasphemy was to take a 

 look, now that the harvest is in, at the pro- 

 duce, the mouths, the condition, and the 

 changes that have taken place in a spot 

 like this which God has favoured with every 

 good that He has had to bestow upon man," 



Thereupon our John Bull in Revolt begins 

 counting the corn-ricks, the flocks of sheep, the 

 herds of cattle. In one yard he counts 

 " fifteen banging wheat - ricks, beautiful to 

 behold." On another farm at Chisenbury 

 Priory he counts twenty-seven ricks, and looks 

 sadly round " to see the people who were to 

 eat all this food." But he could not find 

 then, any more than I can to-day, sufficient 

 population in the valley to consume the year's 

 harvest. Now, as then, the labourers in the 

 valley of the Avon produce a great deal more 

 than they consume. 



He estimated the population that had in 

 former years built and worshipped in the thirty 

 churches in this valley of the Avon comparing it 

 with the population existing in 1826, which, he 

 declared, could all be huddled into the porches ! 



