Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/341

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IN SEARCH OF QUIET wonderful medicine that cured all diseases. The country folk gathered round them, and others listened with apparent interest to their appeals, but so far as we could observe purchased nothing. Spilsby on a market-day was undoubtedly picturesque, with a picturesqueness that pleased our artistic eye, but the ear was not gratified; for once we felt that deafness would have been a blessing! We sought for peace and rest within the church and found it; not a soul was there, and the stillness seemed to us, just then, profound. It is well to keep our churches open on week days for prayer and meditation, but the worshippers, where are they engaged till the next Sunday? To the majority of people in the world religion is an affair of Sundays. Whilst travelling in the Western States some years ago, I suggested meekly to an American, who was showing me over his flourishing few-year-old city (it is bigger and older now) with manifest pride at its rapid commercial prosperity, that it seemed to me a rather wicked place. "Waal now," he said, "I'll just grant you we're pretty bad on week days, but I guess we're mighty good on Sundays; that's so. Now you needn't look aghast, you Britishers are not much better than the rest of the world. I was a sea captain formerly, and on one voyage I hailed one of your passing ships China bound. 'What's your cargo, John?' shouts I. 'Missionaries and idols,' replies he. 'Honest John!' I shouted back." This reminds me of a curious incident that came under my notice in London not so very long ago. I had an