"What is all this confusion about?" he asked. "I think I had better not go in to-night."
"Oh, come in, come in!" I said; "do not fear." But somehow he slipped off in the dark, and I did not see him again. When I entered, almost the first thing I noticed was the two curates of the parish church, taking notes. However, I did not heed them, or ask to see what they had written; for I would always rather have real work, though with a noise, than orderly, respectable stillness, and spiritual death.
On Saturday I rested, but was very unwell all day, and did not know how I should be able to work on Sunday. When the morning arrived, my strength and voice were gone; it was impossible to preach. The people met together and had a prayer meeting before the service, asking the Lord to restore me. The curate was so much cheered, that he came to me and said, "If you only get up and try, we feel sure you will be able to preach." I got up, but had to go to bed again, for I was very ill.
Just before eleven o'clock a visitor arrived, a very queer-looking little man, in a black suit of Quaker cut, and a college cap without a tassel, with the corners of the square board rounded off. Standing by my bed-side in this costume, he said that he was a convert of Mr. Aitken's, and had come all the way from Birmingham to hear me. "Moreover," he said, "I am a herbal doctor. Please let me feel your pulse."
He did so, and looking grave, sounded my lungs, put his ear to my chest and then asked, "What is the matter with your left lung?"
I replied, "I don't know. Three doctors told me, more than fourteen years ago, that it was all gone." "Well," he said, "you stay quietly in bed till I come again at half-past eleven."
When he returned, he bade me get up and dress, and then gave me a cupful of something very hot with cayenne, at the same time telling me that I should be quite strong enough to preach by twelve o'clock.
So I was. I preached that morning, and again in the afternoon; after that I went to bed till six o'clock, when I took another dose, and in the strength of it preached a long, loud sermon to a crowded congregation; after which I attended the after-meeting, and was there till twelve o'clock at night. I then set off to the station, accompanied by at least two hundred people, and left by the one o'clock train for Birmingham, to the house of my new friend the herbal doctor. He nursed me like a mother, and let me go on my way home to Cornwall the next day.
I never heard any more of the rector of the parish, or of the Bishop, but was frequently cheered by letters saying that the work thus begun was going on week after week in the same place. Some years after, when I was passing, I stopped there for a few days, and gave them "a lift," as they called it; and I then saw with half a glance that they had become practised workers—that both clergymen and people were fitted to missionize the whole country side.
One's great object in this mission work is not only to save souls, but to encourage believers to do their part; that so the effect of a mission may be continued and extended. God has a twofold blessing for us. He says "I will bless thee and make thee a blessing;" and it is well to remember that the benefits we receive are not so much to be kept for self, as to be imparted and transmitted to others, even as they were transmitted to us.