Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/129

Rh sermon was affecting and bold; as a proof of the latter, though the Vicar was there and he himself was curate, he said, with an emphasis in his voice and a firmness in his look: "This eminent Christian first taught Salvation in Cheddar."

When we drove near to the grave and the last solemn rite was performed, and "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" was pronounced, every lady threw in her nosegay. I was almost choked. When Robert Reeves, John Marshal, and the six favourites let down the coffin, they stood over it in an attitude never to be described, and exhibited a grief never to be forgotten. They feared, at one time, Mr. Gilling would have to be taken out of the church. The undertaker from Bristol wept like a child, and confessed that, without emolument, it was worth going a hundred miles to see such a sight.

In Hester Wilmot Hannah described her own method and Mrs. Baker's in the tracts. The "Village School," its second part, is a picture of the difficulties of the scholars. She is a girl with a tipsy father, and a mother with whom cleanliness is a passion, who refuses to let her go to school unless she is paid for it, but offers little children, whom the good lady of the story declines. However, Hester is at last allowed to come, and presents a shining example by her love of learning texts and Catechism, her obedience and diligence, and refusing to go out to eat cakes and drink ale at the fair which began on Sunday evening.

The Two Shoe-makers are, in a measure, like Hogarth's apprentices, one constantly travelling upwards, the other downwards, until at last he gets lodged in gaol for debt, where his life of riot is checked by that horror of the last century, gaol-fever. He is only