Page:The English Peasant.djvu/68

, dead; a smile had overspread his features, and his face was turned upward as though he too had seen the ladder coming out of heaven, and the angels descending to beckon him away.

Many respectable people would have called old Ben a "ranter." I should call him a primitive Christian, for though I do not believe the poor in Judæa had fallen at any time so low as the English poor have done, some of the apostles were not in a much more exalted station than old Ben. Poor and ignorant as he was, it was men like he who woke in the dull, sad minds of his fellow-sufferers a new hope, a belief that there was indeed a Kingdom of Heaven worth struggling to obtain. The very ignorance and poverty of the labourers cut them off from knowing anything of the Gospel, even in its narrow English form. They were too ignorant to understand anyone who did not speak their language and think their thoughts, too poor to support any kind of ministry.

In the source from whence the foregoing narrative has been taken will be found, through a long course of years, the obituaries of Christian apostles, some of whom laboured all the week for a wage of a few shillings, and then on Sunday walked twenty or thirty miles to preach the Gospel. One such, having six children, for weeks ate nothing but bread, although he had five miles to walk daily to a barn where he was employed as a thresher. "Yet," we are told, "he sometimes so felt the presence of God that he seemed to have strength enough to cut the straw through with his flail." Believing literally in our Lord's promises, he realised their fulfilment, and in moments of dire necessity received help apparently as miraculous as that given Elijah. Nobody, of course, will believe this who supposes that there is no other kingdom but that of Nature. However, these things are realized by the Poor who have the least faith, "for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

These were the kind of men who prophesied in "the valley of the dry bones;" but, of course. Resurrection is no agreeable task to unhealthy souls. Like the sickly sleeper, who has passed a night full of horrible dreams, and has just fallen into a heavy slumber before dawn, the benighted villagers cursed the heralds of the coming day and bid them begone. They pelted them with mud, stones, and rotten eggs; sometimes threw ropes over them