Page:The English Peasant.djvu/354

 to the meeting. She went home, dreamt the world had come to an end, and that in her distress she cried out, "There is Light in Ewell Marsh!"

After a time he began to take a text, and the first he thus preached from was characteristic of his future style and theology. It was taken from the Song of Solomon—"A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed."

"After this," he says, "I found my heart like a springing well. The next morning passages of Scripture flowed in upon my mind, till I longed to pour them out; and various heads of discourse would naturally arise from various texts."

"When I left work I used to take my book and walk out into the corn-fields, sit down among the standing corn, and there read and pray, and talk to my Redeemer, who seemed to show His loving-kindness so conspicuously to me. In the lonely fields and under the hedges I used to continue till nine or ten o'clock in the evening, and it was like bathing in the river of pleasure. In the morning I generally arose very early, and had most delightful, soul-humbling times in prayer, which sent me to my labour in peace, knowing and feeling that all things stood fair between Christ and my conscience; when this was the case I knew all was well. Some of the sweetest hours that ever I enjoyed, or perhaps ever shall enjoy in this world, were at Sunbury in Middlesex, and at Ewell, in Surrey, where I had no friend but He that loveth at all times; no brother but He that was born for adversity; no father but the Father of Mercies, and God of all comfort; no spiritual neighbours but the elect angels; no mother but the heavenly Jerusalem; no fellowship but with the Father and the Son; no communion but with the Holy Ghost; no delights but in heavenly things; no teacher but the Almighty; no comforter but the Consolation of Israel; no amusements but in the covenant of grace; no constant companions but faith, hope, and charity. I had no hypocrite to ensnare and oppose me: no impostor to mislead me; no apostate to stumble me."

A preacher thus instructed, ignorant and unlearned though he was, could not be hid in a corner. It was not long before the whole parish seemed stirred up against him, so that when harvest