"No, sur; that is," she added, correcting herself, "I do'ant think I have. Sometimes I am in danger of forgetting Him, and then He d'seem a long way off like, but I know et es my own fault, for direckly I spend a lot of time on my knees the Lord d'come real again to me. I d'remember my ould man's death-bed, too, and, sur, he was like Enoch of old, he walked with God, and when he came to die it was like heaven to hear him talk. He was triumphant, sur, triumphant."
As I left Mrs. Crantock, and made my way into the village, I could not help reflecting on what she had said. I had now been in St. Issey ten weeks, and had had time to form some impression on the life of the people. I could not help being convinced, too, that the old woman, in her simple way, had spoken the truth. As far as I could see there was no religion in Cornwall such as she had described. The people were, on the whole, well conducted, but, as I understood the word, there was no deep sense of religion at all. Both at Chapel and Church the people were listless, and, to a large extent, indifferent. The fact of God was not real. That consciousness of the presence of God, which, as far as I could judge, had been common to the people fifty years before, no longer existed.
And yet, perhaps, I am not altogether right in saying this. The ideals and the thoughts of the people were largely because of what religion had been in the olden days. Whether the distinctive doctrines of Methodism were largely superstition I am not going to argue here, but they had, in the past, permeated the county, and their effects had not altogether died out. On the other hand, however, they were no longer a present possession, neither was religion, in a large number of cases, a distinctive factor in their lives. The people were comfortable, well fed, well housed, and, generally, well conditioned, and, as a consequence, they did not feel the need of God. The fear of hell, which was prevalent in the old days, had died out, and with its death the realization for the need of religion had died out too. They were so comfortable, so self-satisfied, that everything appertaining to the spiritual world was a long, long way off. No one seemed to be stirred to the depths of life, never anywhere was there a deep calling unto the deep; and thus, while the majority of people were respectable and well behaved, they sought for satisfaction in the life around them.
As I walked through the village I came upon a number of miners lounging around, with, apparently, nothing to do. They were, they informed me, working afternoon "core" that week, and thus had their mornings at liberty. They greeted me heartily as I came up, and willingly entered into conversation with me. The subject of conversation was the war, and the two things which impressed me were, first of all, that it would soon be over, and, second, that they had nothing to do with it. In the majority of cases they did not seem to feel that Lord Kitchener's appeal was to them at all. They imagined that soldiers would be forthcoming, and that England would be able to get all the men she wanted, but the idea that they should leave their homes and go away for training did not seem to occur to them. I am speaking now of those early days of the war, before the terror of it really gripped the country.
"I d'give they Germans about six weeks," said one miner to me. "What can Germany do 'gainst Russia and France and we? I tell you what, maaster, they have bite off a bigger piece than they can chow, tha's what they've done; do'ant you think so?"
"I hope they have," I replied; "but I think you are over-confident. You see, in Germany, every man is trained to be a soldier, and thus they have an army nearly twenty times as big as we have."
"But you do'ant think they'll bait we, do 'ee, maaster?"
"I think we shall have difficult work to beat them," was my reply, "and the sooner you chaps enlist the better."
"What! we go for sojers; do'ant you believe it. I never fired a gun in my life."
"Then I think the sooner you begin to learn the better."