I returned home sooner than I was expected, and told my people, at the evening meeting, the things I had seen and heard; and they “glorified God.”

CHAPTER 19

A Mission in the “Shires.” 1853.

At the time of which I am writing, twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago, special services for preaching were not called by the name of “Missions.”  I think that word has been derived from some Roman Catholic perverts, who made aggressive efforts in London, which they called “Catholic Missions.”  From them it has been adopted by some who love to copy Rome and Romish phrases.  Strange infatuation, by which these Romanizers in vain court a Church which despises them, and gives them neither place nor quarter!  However, the word is now well understood, and its meaning is plainer than any definitions of mine could make it.

My first journey to “foreign parts” (as the Cornish call it) was to a town in Devonshire, where I stopped three or four days.  The day I arrived I preached in the church, because it was the regular evening service; special services were not then known, unless it was for some Missionary Society, or other such advocacy.  The idea of preaching to awaken souls, was considered very strange and fanatical.  The church I preached in had high pews, which prevented my seeing the occupants.  I was told that it was full, and certainly there were faces visible here and there; but the whole congregation was so still, that the dropping of the proverbial “pin” might have been heard.  It was all very chilling and dead, no “Amens!” or “Glory!” as in Cornwall; indeed, the stillness had such an effect upon me, that I found it difficult to get on.  After making two or three hard appeals, and meeting with nothing but silence for a response, I concluded, and came away much disappointed and disheartened.  However, the next morning, the vicar showed me some beads, leathers, and flowers which had been left in the pews of the church.  So I found that the shots had hit somewhere, or something.

Walking through the town in the course of the day, a tall mason, with a large whitewash brush in his hand, came running after me (not to whitewash me) but to ask the question, which he did most eagerly, “Are you the man that preached last night?”

I said, “Yes, I am.”

“Oh,” he replied, “will you preach tonight?”

I answered him somewhat doubtfully, “I suppose not,” for the vicar did not know what excuse there could be for my preaching a second time.

He continued, “Will you come to my house and preach this evening?  I have a good large room at your service, and can promise you a congregation.”

I assented; so we fixed the time, and made all other necessary arrangements.  On coming down in the evening, I found my mason friend had invited his neighbours, and finding more had promised to come than his room would hold, he had opened the folding doors between two rooms upstairs, taken down three large bedsteads, and having borrowed forms and chairs, he was able to accommodate seventy people.  As many as this came, and more, for men and women stood on the stairs and landing besides.