Page:Beautiful and interesting account of the shepherd of Salisbury Plain.pdf/6

6 talked too long. But Mr Johnson was so well pleased with what he said, and with the cheerful contented manner in which he said it, that he desired him to go on freely, for that it was a pleasure to him to meet with a plain man; who, without any kind of learning but what he had got from the Bible, was able to talk so well on a subject in which all men, high and low, rich and poor, are equally concerned.

My honest friend, said the gentleman, I perceive you are well aquainted with Scripture. Yes Sir, pretty well, blessed be God! through his mercy I learned to read when I was a little boy though reading was not so common when I was a child as I am told, through the goodness of Providence, and the generosity of the rich, it is likely to become now a-days I believe there is no day this last thirty years that I have not peeped into my Bible. If we cannot find time to read a chapter, I defy any man to say he cannot find time to read a verse, and