"Ah yes, Mrs. Hubbard," he said (he never addressed me direct, perhaps because he suspected that I was not one of the confraternity), "I always mistrust a chapel with a spire to it; and the spirit of Methodism, as it were, cannot dwell in transepts or chancels. There is not the heartiness, not the freedom, which we associate with our chapels. The air is heavy, as it were, with the spirit of sacerdotalism. Why, ma'am, at this particular chapel—church, they call it—they had choir stalls, filled with men and boys, and a liturgical service, as it were. Ah yes! No sound of 'Hallelujah!' or 'Praise the Lord!' escaped the lips of the devout worshipper. They were stifled stillborn, as it were. It was cold, ma'am, cold and formal; John Wesley would never have found his heart strangely warmed in such an atmosphere. No!
"And yet, ma'am, there was something in the arrangements that stirred my feelings, as it were. Here, on my right hand, were grouped the scholars; children in the springtime of life, as it were. Yes! it was a moving sight, ma'am, to a man of feeling." (I wickedly thought of his hands.) "Life was before them—spread out like a map, as it were, with nothing but the outline; or like a copy-book which would be soiled and disfigured with many blots, as it were, before the end was reached. Yes!
"And on my left were the elders of the flock, gathered there, I was told, because the acoustic properties, as it were, are excellent in the transepts: the grey-headed sires, who had almost fought through the battle and were now awaiting the recall, as it were. Men and women in the late evening of life, as it were, who would soon pass behind the sunset.
"And in front of me were the middle-aged, those who were bearing the burden and heat of the day, as it were. Yes! labourers in life's vineyard; earning their bread in the sweat of their brow, going forth to their work until the evening, as it were.
"Yes! And as I looked upon them, young and middle-aged and old, I said to myself in the language of the preacher: 'All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.'—Ecclesiastes iii. 20, ma'am."
I got up and went into the garden, and filled my nostrils with the fragrance which earth was sending to heaven—as it were—and felt better.
Whit Monday was a hard day for me. After dinner my Easter experiences were repeated, and sitters came thick and fast. I really believe my work is giving satisfaction, for some of my last holiday customers had sent their friends to be "taken"; and some called themselves to say "How d'ye do?"
Nothing eventful transpired, however, and no Cynic turned up to disturb the serenity of my temper with sarcastic observations upon women, so I climbed the hill at the back of the house and joined the merry throng of school-children who were having a jolly time with their elders in a field at the top. And there I forgot my tiredness, and romped for a couple of hours with the wildest of them, having as much of the kitten in me as most folk.
When the red had finally died out of the western sky the dustman came round, and the eyes of the little ones grew heavy. But the grown-ups were enjoying themselves far too much to think of leaving so soon, so I gathered the infants around me and told them all the wonderful stories which had been locked away in the dusty cabinets of my memory. Not the ordinary nursery tales, which are as well known in Windyridge as in Westminster, but some of the simpler records of Greek mythology, and extracts from the lives of the saints.
Little Lucy came and laid her head upon my shoulder and asked if it was all true. I tried to show her the truth that was hidden in the make-believe, but I fear with small success. Her eyelids were held open with difficulty as she continued to question me.