Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/93

Rh in a single Sunday. Things had come to such a pass that no decent person could walk on the cliffs at Cheddar without being assaulted, no constable durst execute a warrant at Shipham, lest he should be hurled down some yawning pit; and at Blagdon, the magistrate, who was also the curate, hardly sat down to dinner without being called away to hear of some act of violence.

Such were the descriptions that the quiet sisterhood at Cowslip Green gave the young Member of Parliament, who in those hours of retirement had been praying for the wretched beings that he had seen at Cheddar. To begin what we should call in these days a Mission was the only thing to be done; but missions had not then been invented, and the clergy were worse than useless in the matter. There was nobody to depend on but the ladies themselves; and at last, when Hannah and Patty had volunteered, Mr. Wilberforce said: "If you will be at the trouble, I will be at the expense."

Be it remembered that, though Mr. Raikes had begun Sunday-schools at Gloucester, and Mrs. Trimmer was in the forefront of the work at Brentford, they both had a comparatively civilized race to deal with, and Mrs. Trimmer had the farther advantage of her husband being a large employer of labour; whereas the work these ladies—both in frail health—undertook was ten miles from their home, where they