and Mrs. Muston and the seminary stood in his way. Lastly,
as he owned beer-shops, supplied liquor which was a proverb
throughout the county, and did a somewhat doubtful business according
to the more pious of the Cowfold Christians, he preferred to be
accredited as a religious person by Methodism than by any other sect,
the stamp of Methodism standing out in somewhat higher relief.
As for Zoar, it was a place apart. Its minister was a big, large-
jawed, heavy-eyed man, who lived in a little cottage hard by. His
wife was a very plain-looking person, who wore even on Sundays a
cotton gown without any ornament, and who took her husband's arm as
they walked down the lane to the chapel. The Independent minister,
the Wesleyan minister, and, of course, the rector had nothing to do
with the minister of Zoar. This was not because of any heresy or
difference of doctrine, but because he was a poor man and poor
persons sat under him. Nevertheless he was not in any way a
characteristic Calvinist. The Calvinistic creed was stuck in him as
in a lump of fat, and had no organising influence upon him whatever.
He had no weight in Cowfold, took part in none of its affairs, and
his ministrations were confined to about fifty sullen, half stupid,
wholly ignorant people who found in the Zoar services something
sleepier and requiring less mental exertion than they needed
elsewhere; although it must be said that the demands made upon the
intellect in none of the places of worship were very extensive.
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