of sensational enjoyment or of
doctrinal discussion perhaps, but more practical religion in all the
various walks of life.

We had to teach in the Sunday-school. My services were early utilised in
that direction, for the village was badly supplied with the stuff of
which teachers were made, and as the parson's son I was supposed to have
an ex-officio qualification for the task. I fear I was but a poor hand
in the work of teaching the young idea how to shoot, especially when that
idea was developed in the bodies of great hulking fellows, my seniors in
years and superiors in size. However, one of them did turn out well.
Many years after he recognised me in the Gray's Inn Road, London, where
he had made money as a builder, and where, though he never learned to
read--perhaps that was my fault--he figured for a time largely on the
walls as the Protestant churchwarden. "You know, sir," he said to me,
"how poor we all were at W--" (the father, I fear, was a drunkard),
"Well, I came to London, resolving to be either a man or a mouse"; and
here he was, as respectable-looking a man as any you could see, thus
proving what I hold to be the truth, that in this land of ours, however
deep in the mire a man may be, he may rise, if he has the requisite power
of work and endurance and self-denial. I fear he did not much profit by
our Sunday-school, though he told me he had put it down in his will for a
small legacy. Our chief man was a shoemaker named Roberts, who sat with
the boys under the pulpit in face of all the people; the girls, with the
modesty of the sex, retiring to the back seats of the gallery. In his
hand he bore a long wand, and woe to the unfortunate lad who fell asleep
while the sermon was going on, or endeavoured to relieve the tedium of it
by eating apples, sucking sweets, or revealing to his fellows the
miscellaneous treasures of his pocket in the shape of marbles or string
or knife. On such an offender down came the avenging stroke, swift as
lightning and almost as sharp. As to general education, there was no
attempt to give it. Later on, the Dissenters raised enough money to
build a day-school, and then the Churchmen were stirred up to do the
same. There was a school, kept by an irritable, red-faced old party in
knee-breeches, who had failed in business, where I and most of the
farmers' sons of the village went; but I can't say that any of us made
much progress, and I did better when I was taken back to th