Page:The English Peasant.djvu/354

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TYPICAL ENGLISH PEASANTS.

to the meeting. She went home, dreamt the world had come to an end, and that in her distress she cried out, "There is Light in Ewell Marsh!"

After a time he began to take a text, and the first he thus preached from was characteristic of his future style and theology. It was taken from the Song of Solomon—"A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed."

"After this," he says, "I found my heart like a springing well. The next morning passages of Scripture flowed in upon my mind, till I longed to pour them out; and various heads of discourse would naturally arise from various texts."

"When I left work I used to take my book and walk out into the corn-fields, sit down among the standing corn, and there read and pray, and talk to my Redeemer, who seemed to show His loving-kindness so conspicuously to me. In the lonely fields and under the hedges I used to continue till nine or ten o'clock in the evening, and it was like bathing in the river of pleasure. In the morning I generally arose very early, and had most delightful, soul-humbling times in prayer, which sent me to my labour in peace, knowing and feeling that all things stood fair between Christ and my conscience; when this was the case I knew all was well. Some of the sweetest hours that ever I enjoyed, or perhaps ever shall enjoy in this world, were at Sunbury in Middlesex, and at Ewell, in Surrey, where I had no friend but He that loveth at all times; no brother but He that was born for adversity; no father but the Father of Mercies, and God of all comfort; no spiritual neighbours but the elect angels; no mother but the heavenly Jerusalem; no fellowship but with the Father and the Son; no communion but with the Holy Ghost; no delights but in heavenly things; no teacher but the Almighty; no comforter but the Consolation of Israel; no amusements but in the covenant of grace; no constant companions but faith, hope, and charity. I had no hypocrite to ensnare and oppose me: no impostor to mislead me; no apostate to stumble me."

A preacher thus instructed, ignorant and unlearned though he was, could not be hid in a corner. It was not long before the whole parish seemed stirred up against him, so that when harvest