CHAPTER XI.
I went over to Taunton, to look about me, for any prospect of improving my circumstances, and I was so far successful that I obtained a few pupils to instruct in the French language. At first I went there only for the day, three times a week, to give lessons, but after a while, I decided that it would be the most advantageous plan to remove my family there entirely, and keep a shop as we had done in Bridgewater, and I hoped that the addition of the profits, from teaching, to those from the shop, would maintain us all.
I had been in the habit not only of having family worship, but of preaching to the circle of relatives who clustered around us. When I removed to Taunton, three or four French families wished to join us, and so form a Small congregation. I then thought that I ought to receive that authority from man which I had already received from God.
I was aware that the Episcopalians possessed all the Church Benefices, and filled all the offices of trust throughout the kingdom, but I was not dazzled by their splendor. I preferred the simplicity of Divine worship, to which I had been accustomed from my childhood, to the grandeur and wealth of the Episcopalians.
