The rector had another pipe after supper, and still talked fitfully about “tithes.” It seemed to be a subject which fitted in comfortably to the pauses in a long pipe. But when he had finished his “thimbleful” of tobacco, and shaken out its ashes carefully, he looked at Phyllis with a face full of renewed interest, and said,
“Squire, do you know that your niece thinks John Wesley was a High-Churchman?”
“What I meant, sir, was this: Wesley had very decided views in favor of the Episcopacy. He would suffer none to lay unconsecrated hands upon the sacraments; and in personal temperament, I think he was as ascetic as any monk.”
“Do you think, then, that if he had lived before the Reformation he might have founded an order of extreme rigor, say, like La Trappe?”
“No, indeed, sir! He might have founded an order, and it would, doubtless, have been a rigorous one; but it would not have been one shut up behind walls. It would have been a preaching order, severely disciplined, perhaps, but burning with all the zeal of the Redemptionist Fathers on a mission.”
The squire patted the little hand, which was upon his knee, and proudly asked,
“Now, then, parson, what does ta say to that?”
“I say it would be a very good description of ‘the people called Methodists’ when they began their crusade in England.”
“It is always a good description of them when they have missionary work to do. We have had brave soldiers among the Fontaines, and wise statesmen, also; but braver than all, wiser than all, was my grandfather Fontaine, who went into the wilderness of Tennessee an apostle of Methodism, with the Bible in his heart and his life in his hand. If I was a man, I would do as Richard always does, lift my hat whenever his name is mentioned.”
“Such ministers are, indeed, spiritual heroes, Miss Fontaine; men, of whom the world is not worthy.”