Mr. Thomas was in unusually
good humour, for he had not broken down, and thought he had crowned
himself with glory. The trial, to be sure, was not very severe. The
so-called chapel was the downstairs living-room of a cottage holding
at a squeeze about five-and-twenty people. Nevertheless, there was a
desk at one corner, with two candles on either side, and Mr. Thomas
was actually, for the first time, elevated above an audience. It
consisted of the wheelwright and his wife, both very old, half a
dozen labourers, with their wives, and two or three children. The
old wheelwright, as he was in business, was called the "principal
support of the cause." The "cause," however, was not particularly
prosperous, nor its supporters enthusiastic. It was "supplied"
always by a succession of first-year's students, who made their
experiments on the corpus vile here. Spiritual teaching, spiritual
guidance, these poor peasants had none, and when the Monday came they
went to their work in the marshes and elsewhere, and lived their
blind lives under grey skies, with nothing left in them of the
Sunday, save the recollection of a certain routine performed which
might one day save them from some disaster with which flames and
brimstone had something to do.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280