72 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



have been something exceptional in his character. His 

 origin was of the humblest ; he was drawn from the same 

 class as the apostles, as the great Fisherman, and the 

 great Tentmaker, a man of manual labour lifted entirely 

 by his wit to be a very great power indeed in the com- 

 munity where he was stationed. 



Too much credit must not be put upon cottagers' 

 tales : one day they are all so bitter, hanging would not 

 be sufficient, and you would suppose they were going to 

 show a lifelong enmity ; in a week or two it is all for- 

 gotten, and next month they are taking tea together. 

 Those who know them best say you should never be- 

 lieve anything a cottager tells you. There is sure to be 

 exaggeration, or they tell you half the story, and they 

 catch up the wildest rumour and repeat it as unquestioned 

 truth. No doubt after a while all this sound and fury 

 signifying nothing will blow off, and there will be a 

 reconciliation ; the pastor and the elder will be bosom 

 friends, all the congregation will be calling, and eating 

 and drinking ; there will be pipes and three-star bottles, 

 and the elect will be made perfect. If the fourth wife 

 disappears in time there will be a fifth, and Christian 

 Mormonism will flourish exceedingly. Very likely the 

 furious fall-out is over before now ; there is no stability 

 in this peculiar cast, the chapel mind. 



Another curious reflection suggests itself to any one 

 who has seen the fervour of Bethel. Within an easy 

 walk of each other there are eight chapels and three 

 churches and the Salvation Army barracks ; a thinly 

 populated country district, too ; no squires, the farmers 

 all depressed and ruined, the cottagers howling about 

 starvation wages. One would have thought all of them 

 together could hardly maintain a single spiritual teacher. 

 All this for chapel and church ; but no cottage hospital 



