THE COUNTRY SUNDAY 71 



never said ' good morning ' to an equal, or lifted their 

 hats to a lady ; a jerk of the head, say about half an 

 inch from the perpendicular, was their utmost greeting ; 

 their manners were about as pleasant as those of cattle 

 might be could they be dressed like human beings. 

 True, Bethel was of modern date, but they had had 

 resident vicars for centuries ; and where had they been, 

 and where was the humanising tendency of much- 

 vaunted Christianity ? Could not three centuries soften 

 a little village ? I will do something for them if I can, 

 for the credit of the race at large ; they shall not be 

 without an excuse if I can help it. Perhaps it was 

 because there were no resident squires, perhaps because 

 a good many of them had little plots of land ; still they 

 were Lcstrigonians, and no doubt the row between the 

 elder and the pastor was really due to this malice and 

 uncharitableness. How curious it seems to a philosopher 

 that so much religion should be accompanied by such 

 bitter ill-feeling! — true religion, too, for these Lestri- 

 gonians were most seriously in earnest in their chapel- 

 ling. Yet no doubt they fomented the row, for the 

 pastor himself was much too clever a man to proceed to 

 such extremities. By nature he was a fluent speaker, 

 rising to eloquence as eloquence is understood among 

 that kind of audience. He carried them with him, quite 

 swept them away. They came to hear him from miles 

 round about ; there were plenty of other chapels, but no 

 one like the man at Bethel. Once they came they 

 always came. Who can name a country clergyman 

 with university training who can do this ? The man 

 at Bethel also possessed a natural talent of personally 

 impressing and gaining the good-will of every person 

 with whom he came in contact ; it was astonishing with 

 what tenacity people clung to him, so that there must 



