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 grecting ; 
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 Lestrigonians, 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-fecling !—-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 
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