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CHAPTER VII.
Kesterton Circuit and the “Rounders.”

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“A good man there was of religioun,

And he was a poor parsoun of a toune;

But rich he was of holy thought and werk.

He was, also, a learned man, a clerk

That Christe’s gospel gladly wolde preche;

His parischens devoutly wolde he teche.

Benign he was and wondrous diligent,

And in adversite full patient.”

Chaucer.

METHODISM was introduced into Kesterton in the days of John Wesley himself, and in the plain, square, old-fashioned chapel, with its arched windows, brick walls, and hip roof, red tiled and high peaked, you might see the very pulpit in which the grand old apostle of the eighteenth century preached more than a hundred years ago. The chapel stood back from the main street, and to get at it you had to go through a narrow passage, for the fathers of the Methodist Church, unlike their more self-assertive successors, seem to have courted a very modest retirement for the Bethels which they built for God. Behind the chapel there is a small burial-ground, in which are the honoured graves of those to whom Kesterton Methodism owes its origin, and who did its work and bore its fortunes in its earlier struggles for existence. On the other side of an intervening wall, in the midst of a little garden, capable of much improvement in the matter of tidiness and cultivation, stands the “preacher’s house.” It is not by any means an imposing structure, and taxes to the utmost the contrivance of its itinerant tenants to find sleeping accommodation for the “quiver full” of youngsters with which they are commonly favoured in an unusual degree. In the matter of furniture the less said the better; suffice it to say that it could not be regarded as extravagant in quality or burdensome in quantity. Indeed, it was open to serious imputations in both those directions; at least so thought the Rev. Theophilus Clayton, who had latterly become located there, and seemed likely to go through the maximum term of three years, to the high satisfaction of the people, and with a moderate measure of contentment to himself.

Kesterton rejoiced in the dignity of being a circuit town, and at the time to which these annals refer, the circuit extended from Meriton in the east to Amworth Marsh in the west; and from Chessleby on the north to Bexton on the south, an area of nineteen miles by twenty-one. There was a circuit horse and gig provided for the longer journeys, but as the “better days” which both of them had seen smacked of the mediæval age, the gig was as little remarkable for polish or paint as the horse was either for beauty or speed.

The Rev. Theophilus Clayton was an admirable specimen of an old-fashioned Methodist preacher. He was of middle-height and somewhat portly figure; had an intelligent and pleasant face, a broad forehead, a pair of piercing black eyes surmounted by dark thick eyebrows and hair fast whitening, but more with toil than age. His whole appearance was calculated to win attention and respect, and his piety and force of character were almost certain to retain them after they had been won. He was “in labours more abundant,” and in addition to being an effective preacher, he was a capital business man, one under whose management a circuit is pretty sure to thrive.

His colleague, the Rev. Matthew Mitchell, was young in years, and not yet out of his probation. Though he was not equal to his superintendent in pulpit ability, he largely made up for it by his diligent pastoral visitation, and the earnest and vigorous way in which he went about his high and holy calling. It is not given to all men to possess high intellectual abilities and oratoric strength, but it is given to every man to be able, as the Americans say, “to do his level best,” and that by the blessing of God may be mighty in pulling down the strongholds of Satan and the lifting up of the Church to a higher altitude of spirituality and a broader gauge of moral force. Of an enthusiastic temperament and with strong revivalistic proclivities, the Rev. Matthew Mitchell was remarkably successful, especially among the village populations, in winning souls for Christ. He was a young fellow, of somewhat prepossessing appearance, lithe, agile, and strong as an athlete. As both these worthy men will have to play an important part in this history, nothing further need to be said at present; I am much mistaken, however, if the reader does not find that they were both of them made of sterling stuff.

The small society of Methodists in Nestleton, numbering some five-and-twenty members, owed its origin to the love and labours of Old Adam Olliver. Many long years before, when the quaint old hedger was foreman on old George Houston’s farm, Adam, with two or three fellow-servants, used to walk to Kesterton to the Sunday preaching. Through the ministry of a grand old Boanerges of the early age they had found peace through believing, and for some time used to attend a class-meeting held after the afternoon service for such outlying members as could not attend during the busy week days. One Sunday, after the quarterly tickets had been renewed by the superintendent minister, Adam plucked up courage to address him,—

“Ah wop you’ll excuse ma, sor,” said he, “bud we’re desp’rate fain te get ya’ te cum te Nestleton. Meeast o’ t’ fooaks is nowt bud a parcel o’ heeathens. There’s neea spot for ’em te gan teea bud t’ chotch, an’ t’ parson drauns it oot like a bummle bee; summut at neeabody can mak’ neeather heead nor tayl on, an’ t’ Gospel nivver gets preeach’d frae yah yeear end te d’ t’ other.

“Well, but have you a place to preach in, Adam?” quoth the minister; “is there anybody who will take us in?”

“Why, there’s d’ green,” said Adam, “neeabody’ll molest uz there, unless it be t’ oad gander, an’ ah wop yo’ weeant tohn tayl at him. An’ i’ mucky weather yoo can hae mah hoose. Ah’ve axed Judy, an’ sha’ sez ’at you can hev it an’ welcome. It isn’t mitch ov a spot, but it’s az good az a lahtle fishin’ booat, an’ oor Sayviour preeached upo’ that monny a tahme; ah reckon ’at best sarmon ’at ivver was preeached was up ov a hill-sahd, an’ the Lord gay another te nobbut yah woman fre’ t’ steean wall ov a well. It isn’t wheear yo’ stand, bud what yo’ say ’at ’ll wakken Nestleton up, and gi’d folks a teeaste o’ t’ Gospel trumpet. When will yo’ cum?”

Adam Olliver gained the day, and services were held on Nestleton Green and in Adam’s cottage. Eventually the village was placed upon the plan, the local preachers were appointed on the Sunday evenings, Adam Olliver was made a leader of the class, and from that day Methodism had kept a foothold in Nestleton. Nay, more than that, for Adam’s cottage grew too small for the congregation, and the large kitchen of Gregory Houston was placed at their disposal. At the time of which we write, that good farmer and his family were all in church communion, and he, Adam Olliver, and Nathan Blyth, who was a popular and successful local preacher, were the props and pillars of the Nestleton Society.

It was a very inviting nest of rural piety. In their lowly services there was felt full often the presence and the power of God, and their mean and homely sanctuary was the palace of the King of Kings! Such little patches of evangelic life are happily common in Methodism. Her village triumphs have been amongst her greatest glories, and it is to be hoped that this Church, so remarkably owned of God in the rural districts, will never forget or neglect the rustic few, among whom its brightest trophies have been won, and from whom its noblest agents have been obtained.

One Sunday, Philip Fuller was walking from the Rectory, whither he had been to dinner after the morning and only service at the parish church. The evening was calm and fine, so he prolonged his walk by making a detour round the highest part of the village, and was passing Farmer Houston’s gate just at the time that the little Methodist congregation had assembled for worship. Philip, who was not aware of this arrangement, heard the hearty singing of a hundred voices, and in pure curiosity drew near the open door, for the weather was of the warmest, and listened to the strain,—

“Behold Him, all ye that pass by,

The bleeding Prince of Life and Peace!

Come see, ye worms, your Maker die,

And say, was ever grief like His?

Come feel with me His blood applied;

My Lord, my Love, is crucified.

Is crucified for me and you,

To bring us rebels back to God;

Believe, believe the record true,

Ye all are bought with Jesus’ blood,

Pardon for all flows from His side;

My Lord, my Love, is crucified.”

Philip was greatly struck, alike with the warmth and energy of the singers and the directly evangelical character of the hymn. During his residence at Oxford he had, at first, been half inclined to accept the almost infidel views which at that time were tacitly held by not a few of the tutors and even the clerics of that famous university. A candid perusal of the Scriptures, however, for he was a genuine seeker after truth, and an attendance on the ministry of a godly and effective clergyman, who had rallied round him the evangelical element of the various colleges, rendered Philip utterly dissatisfied with the loose tenets he had been accustomed to hear. When he left college he was the subject of unavowed but strong conviction as to the importance and necessity of experimental religion, but as yet was very much at sea as to the Gospel plan of salvation. Philip noiselessly entered the kitchen, and took an unnoticed place among the rural worshippers.

Much to his surprise, he saw Nathan Blyth standing in the moveable pulpit, and, in obedience to his solemn invitation, “Let us pray!” Philip knelt with the rest, while Natty, who knew from happy and long experience how to talk with God, led their devotions in an extempore prayer, the like of which he had never heard before. Nathan’s sermon that night was founded on the text that stirred the heart and baffled the mind of the Ethiopian eunuch: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter: and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:” and included the sable nobleman’s inquiry, “Of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?”

Of that “Other Man” Natty spoke as one who knew Him. He placed the atonement in a light so clear, and the love of the Atoner in a manner so impressive, that Philip found himself listening with a beating heart and a swimming eye. In plain, but powerful language, the speaker urged his hearers to accept the proffered gift of God. The congregation joined in singing that stirring hymn,—

“All ye that pass by,

To Jesus draw nigh;

To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?

Your ransom and peace,

Your surety He is;

Come see if there ever was sorrow like His.”

Nathan Blyth called on “Brother Olliver” to engage in prayer. At the first Philip was inclined to be amused at the rude and rugged language in which the old man poured out his soul to God, but as he proceeded, bearing with him the subtle power and sympathy of a praying people, the listener was moved to wonder and to awe, and felt with Jacob, “Surely God is in this place and I knew it not.” “Thoo knoas, Lord,” said Adam Olliver, “’at we’re all poor helpless sinners; but Thoo’s a great Saviour, an’ sum on uz ez felt Thi’ pooer te seeave.

‘Oor Jesus te knoa, an’ te feel His blood floa

It’s life ivverlastin’, it’s heaven beloa!’

Lord! There’s them here to-neet’ at’s strangers te d’ blood ’at bowt ther pardon up o’ d’ tree. Thoo loves ’em. Thoo pities ’em. Thoo dee’d for ’em. Oppen ther hearts, Lord. Melt their consciences an’ mak’ ’em pray, ‘God be massiful te me a sinner.’ Seeave ’em, Lord! Rich or poor, young or aud. Put d’ poor wand’ring sheep o’ Thi’ shoother an’ lead ’em inte d’ foad o’ Thi’ infannit luv.” No sooner was the benediction pronounced than Philip stole silently away. As he trod the shady lanes and crossed the park his mind was full of serious thought. During the entire evening, he was silent and abstracted, and as he laid his head upon his pillow the plaintive appeal still rung in his ears,—

“To you is it nothing that Jesus should die.”