CHAPTER XXIX.
The Magic Mirror again.—Sycamore Farm.—Annie's good news.—A chorister up in a tree.—A long, long journey.—Sixty miles a day on horseback.—A Chapel out of doors.—A hard bed and a funny pillow.—Thanksgiving Street.—Ripe Blackberries.
HY, I do believe that Magic Mirror has mended itself, for here it is, showing us such a lovely picture—nay, two, I declare. Look at that dear old farmhouse; it must surely be called Sycamore Farm, for there are great sycamore trees all round the front and the side. At the back, and only one field away from the house, are the green slopes of the mountain, with a little waterfall tumbling merrily down a crack in its side. In front of the farm, shimmering through the leaves of the trees, you can see the sunlit waters of a calm lake. The farm is a low whitewashed building, and we can see the cows in the distant meadows coming home to be milked. No one is with them; but there is a little group of people standing at the farmyard gate. The farmer and his wife and all the family and servants seem to be there.
Whatever is the matter?
Oh, see! there is a little girl in the middle of the group, and they are all listening to what she is saying. Let us listen too.
"Yes, it is quite true; Mr. Wesley is coming. I went to the village for mother, and old Downs the cobbler told me, and so did Mrs. Wilson at the shop. Everybody is talking about it."
"Ay, but that's good news, lassie!" the old farmer says. "I wonder now if he'd come and preach at Sycamore Farm."
The picture has gone.
Oh, but here's the other one. Why, it is the same old farmhouse, and the sun is shining on the whitewashed walls and funny little windows. There is a great crowd gathered under the shade of the leafy sycamores. See, there is the kind-looking farmer, with his sunburnt face, and sitting on his knee is Annie, the little girl that brought the good news from the village. Right in the midst of the crowd is Mr. Wesley, telling these country-people the story of the Cross.
Now that picture has gone too.
Should we not have liked to have been at that service?
I will tell you what Mr. Wesley said about it.
"In the midst of the crowd is Mr. Wesley, telling these country-people the story of the Cross."—[Page 124].
"It was a hot summer day, and we could see the blue, blue sky through the leaves of the old sycamores, which shaded us from the heat. Just as I began to preach, a little bird perched on a branch close by and began to sing. I went on preaching, but its song did not end, it sang on and on, and not until the service was quite over did it cease. It was the best music for such a church and such a congregation, no harp or organ ever sounded half so sweet."
From Westmoreland, where this happened, to Cornwall is a long way, but not too far for Mr. Wesley and his horse. He used often to ride sixty miles a day; and most of his reading, and the composing of his sermons was done while he was on horseback. He travelled in this way for more than forty years, and must have gone over 100,000 miles.
In Gwennap, a place in Cornwall, Mr. Wesley found a lovely out-of-doors sort of chapel. Some of my readers will have seen the Happy Valley at Llandudno; I think the Gwennap chapel must have been something like that, only a great deal bigger. This is what Mr. Wesley wrote about his first service there:
"I stood on a wall, in the calm, still evening, with the setting sun behind, and a great, great multitude before, behind, and on either hand, sitting on the hills all round. All could hear quite distinctly, when I read to them Christ's own words: 'The disciple is not above his Master,' and 'He that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me.'"
Must it not have been a wonderful sight?
Like other places, Cornwall did not always give a kind welcome to the Methodists; indeed, they had sometimes to put up with very rough treatment. Often they had to go without food, and the hard floor was their only bed.
Once, at a place called St. Ives, Mr. Wesley and his helper, Mr. Nelson, slept on the floor for a whole fortnight. One of them had an overcoat rolled up for a pillow, and the other a big book. They used to get very sore, and sometimes could not sleep for the pain in their poor aching bones. But these Methodists had never heard of Grumble Corner,—they only knew Thanksgiving Street; and so, instead of murmuring and complaining, one night, when the floor seemed harder than ever, Mr. Wesley called out: "Let us cheer up, Brother Nelson, for the skin is only off one side yet."
Another time, when no one had asked them to dinner or tea, and they were riding through a country lane, feeling very hungry, Mr. Wesley stopped his horse to gather some blackberries, saying to his friend: "Brother Nelson, we ought to be thankful that there are plenty of blackberries, for this is the best country I ever saw for getting an appetite, but the worst for getting food."
On the whole, however, the Cornish people were not unkind to Mr. Wesley. At St. Ives they once gave him a very noisy welcome, shouting, "Hurrah! hurrah!" and then going under his bedroom window and singing:
"John Wesley is come to town,
To try if he can pull the churches down."
All this happened during his first visit to Cornwall; and only once during the three weeks he was there did he get really abused, and that was at St. Ives, when the mob burst into his room, and a rough, cruel man struck him on the head.
