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 Tcntmaker, a man of manual labour lifted entirely 
by his wit to be a very great power indeed in the coms 
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, 
