Latter-Day Roundheads 75 



of the owners with the inevitable addition of ' his ' or ' her 

 book.' It is remarkable that literature of this sort should 

 survive so long. 



Even yet not a little of that spirit which led to the 

 formation of so many contending sects in the seventeenth 

 century lingers in the cottage. I have known men who 

 seemed to reproduce in themselves the character of the 

 close-cropped soldiers who prayed and fought by turns 

 with such energy. They still read the Bible in its most 

 literal sense, taking every word as addressed to them in- 

 dividually, and seriously trying to shape their lives in 

 accordance with their convictions. 



Such a man, who has been labouring in the hayfield 

 all day, in the evening may be found exhorting a small 

 but attentive congregation in a cottage hard by. Though 

 he can but slowly wade through the book, letter by letter, 

 word by word, he has caught the manner of the ancient 

 writer, and expresses himself in an archaic style not without 

 its effect. Narrow as the view must be which is unassisted 

 by education and its broad sympathies, there is no mistak- 

 ing the thorough earnestness of the cottage preacher. He 

 believes what he says, and no persuasion, rhetoric, or force 

 could move him one jot. His congregation approve his 

 discourse with groans and various ejaculations. Men of 

 this kind won Cromwell's victories ; but to-day they are 

 mainly conspicuous for upright steadiness and irreproach- 

 able moral character, mingled with some surly independ- 

 ence. They are not ' agitators ' in the current sense of the 

 term ; the local agents of labour associations seem chosen 

 from quite a different class. 



Pausing once to listen to such a man, who was preach- 

 ing in a roadside cottage in a loud and excited manner. I 

 found he was describing, in graphic if rude language, the 



