Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/92

80 On those beautiful rocks the solitary visitor had been beset at every step by a miserable population, begging so pertinaciously that the quiet enjoyment that he had hoped for was impossible; but instead of impatience or vexation, he had talked to the people, given them something, for which, he said, "they were grateful beyond measure," and had discovered that their poverty was frightful, and their spiritual destitution still greater. The Vicar of Cheddar was nonresident, and his curate lived at Wells, twelve miles off, only riding over to the place for a Sunday service, supplemented on occasion by baptisms, weddings, or funerals, while absolutely no religious or secular instruction, and no charities at all were provided for.

The same state of affairs seemed to prevail throughout the Mendip Hills, the ridge of limestone, rich in minerals, extending from Wells to the Bristol Channel. They had always been inhabited by miners and colliers, naturally a rough population. The great Abbeys of Wells and Glastonbury had sent missions among them, and churches had been built, some remarkably fine; but the people seem always to have been lawless, and at war with the Bishops and Abbots, and after the suppression of the monasteries absolutely nothing seems to have been done. The livings were poor vicarages, held by pluralists who never dreamt of residence in so savage a district, but left curates to undertake as many charges as it was possible to