230 EARLY REMINISCENCES expectant, nay confident, that the day would break at last and the earth be flooded with sunshine. And come it has. Verily the words of the psalmist have been verified. " He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, shall come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him." And it was with tears that the little band went forth—but they knew that the seed they bore was " good," and in that they trusted, not in their own efforts at sowing. In the year 1853 I spent over a fortnight at Easter with my Uncle Alexander at Wolverhampton. He was vicar of a recently erected church there, and a burning and shining light in the Evangelical world. He really was a most earnest and convinced Calvinist, narrow, not as God ever made men, but as Calvinism cramped them. Certain Indians compress the skulls of their infants between boards. Certain religious systems deal in much the same manner with intellects. I had had some experience with these Flat-heads whilst abroad. I was now planted in a colony of them. My sister was also staying there. We had anything but a lively time. My uncle was surrounded by a circle of old maids who had missed their vocation in life, and who burnt incense (of a poor quality) under his nose, and good heavens ! with what avidity did he sniff it up ! He was a powerful preacher, but his sermons wTere stuffed with the jargon of Geneva, curiously muddled up with that of Luther on Free Justification by Faith. My Uncle Alexander had been a dashing cavalry officer in India. At that time he had possessed an admirable horse, a capital jumper. One day at mess the possibility was mooted of getting across a certain gully, at a leap. Some said that no horse could clear it, and a bet was made that it was not feasible. My uncle took the bet. He rode his horse at it, and with a tremendous effort it cleared the gully. He was at once bet that he could not do it again. The horse refused the leap several times, reared, swerved, and showed that it had no heart for the attempt. But Alexander lashed and spurred the poor brute till he drove it desperately at the chasm. The horse just reached the farther side by a supreme effort, and then dropped on the ground, and never rose again. My uncle won the bet, but had lost a valuable horse, and he
