Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/199

Rh their ill-advised meddling with the poor. It is true that a farmer of Cheddar told Miss Patty More that a Methodist minister had once preached under his mother's best apple tree, and that the sensitive tree had never borne another apple; but this was an extreme case. The Cheddar vestry resolved to protect their orchards from blight by stoning the next preacher who invaded the parish, and their example was followed with more or less fervour throughout England. In a quiet letter written from Margate (1768), by the Rev. John Lyon, we find this casual allusion to the process:—

"We had a Methodist preacher hold forth last night. I came home just as he had finished. I believe the poor man fared badly, for I saw, as I passed, eggs, stones, etc., fly pretty thick."

It was all in the day's work. The Rev. Lyon, who was a scholar and an antiquarian, and who wrote an exhaustive history of Dover, had no further interest in matters obviously aloof from his consideration.

This simple and robust treatment, so quieting to the nerves of the practitioners, was unserviceable for Papists, who did not preach in