'53 



$ltf gguglutf) Tallage Htfc as illustrate* at 

 ISarroto antr fttogfortt. 



By the Rev. William Baxter, M.A. 



N looking back across the busy centuries in which 

 our forefathers so strenuously played their part, we 

 long sometimes to bridge the interval that lies 

 between us, and to see what manner of persons 

 they were, and what were the conditions, natural, territorial, 

 social, economic, and, not least, religious, under which they 

 lived. This ardent longing, the product of a mixture of power- 

 ful feelings, some of which have their roots far back in the 

 past, does not always find its fruition. The far-off times do not 

 speak to us always with the clear note of assurance and con- 

 viction. This is true especially of country life. Isolated facts 

 there often are shining in their solitary splendour amidst much 

 darkness, but the correlation of facts, and the construction of 

 sober history out of their teaching are not always possible. And 

 the men and women who fill these bygone periods with their 

 interests and labours, modifying everything around them, may 

 be dim and shadowy beings as we look upon them now, poor 

 representatives of the original fiesh-and-blood realities, with 

 whom we seek to hold converse. And so we suffer disappoint- 

 ment. But, nevertheless at times, under favourable conditions, 

 clear forms of men and things arise out of the haze, and it 

 becomes possible, even within the narrow limits of one or two 

 small parishes, to weave together the threads of a connected 

 story, from which it is easy to deduce what are the common 



