“Scorn not the smallness of early endeavour,
Let thy great purpose ennoble it ever;
Droop not o’er efforts extended in vain;
Work! work, with a will; thou shalt find it again.
Fear not! for greater is God by thy side
Than armies of Satan against thee allied.”
Anon.
THE lovely spring had deepened into a warm, fruitful summer, the corn was rapidly ripening for the scythe, and the orchards were beginning to bend beneath a burden of expanding fruit, when the Rev. Theophilus Clayton mounted his antique gig, and directed Jack, the circuit horse, on the road that led to Nestleton Magna. That good man had but just finished his dinner of plain and frugal fare—such lusts of the flesh as expensive cates and costly luxuries were far beyond the reach of all his tribe—and his intention was to drop into Farmer Houston’s for a cup of tea, and then to talk over a scheme for a new chapel, which was rendered necessary by the fact that the spacious kitchen was quite unequal to the increasing congregation. Jack bore his master onward at his usual slow and sober pace, and Mr. Clayton gave himself up to a sort of waking dream, now thinking over his evening sermon, now weighing the pros and cons of the proposal to “arise and build,” when he was roused from his ponderings by means far more effective than agreeable.
“Here’s a Methody parson, lads! Let’s have a shy at him!”