Hetty's no better than a peacock, as 'ud strut about on the wall, and spread its tail when the sun shone if all the folks i' the parish was dying. I'm not one o' those as can see the cat i' the dairy, an' wonder what she's come after. It's hard work to tell which is Old Harry when everybody's got boots on. As for farming, it's putting money into your pocket wi' your right hand and fetching it out wi' your left. As fur as I can see, it's raising victual for other folks, and just getting a mouthful for yourself and your children as you go along. . . . It's more than flesh and blood 'ull bear sometimes, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late, and hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as the cheese may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the wheat may grow green again i' the sheaf—and after all, at th' end o' the year, it's like as if you'd been cooking a feast and had got the smell of it for your pains. -0 What's it sinnify what Chowne's wife likes ?-—a poor soft thing, wi' no more head-piece nor a sparrow. She'd take a big cullender to strain her lard wi', and then wonder as the scratchins run through. It's allays the way wi' them meek-faced people; you may's well pelt a bag o' feathers as talk to 'em. It's Wi' them three gells in the house I'd need have twice the strength, to keep 'em up to their work. like having roast-meat at three fires; as soon as you've basted one, another's burnin'. There's nothing you can't believe o' them wenches : they'll set the empty kettle o' the fire, and then come an hour after to see if the water boils. . . . ... 'Told her?' yes, I might spend all the wind i' my body, an' take the bellows too, if I was to tell them gells everything as their own sharpness wonna tell 'em. I have nothing to say again' Craig, on'y it is a pity he couldna be hatched o'er again, an' hatched different. If you get your head stuck in a bog your legs may's well go after it. -0- I'd sooner ha' brewin' day an washin' day together than one o' these pleasurin' days. There's no work so tirin' as danglin' about an' starin' an' not rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do next; and keepin' your face i' smilin' order like a grocer o' market-day for fear people shouldna think you civil enough. An' you've nothing to show for 't when it's done, if it isn't a yallow face wi' eatin' things as disagree. O your honour, it's all right and proper for gentlefolks to stay up by candle-light-they've got no cheese on their minds. We're late enough as it is, an' there's no lettin' the cows know as they mustn't want to be milked so early to-morrow mornin'. So, if you'll please t' excuse us, we'll take our leave. Thoughts are so great-aren't they, sir? They seem to lie upon us like a deep flood. It isn't for men to make channels for God's Spirit, as they make channels for the water-courses, and say, 'Flow here, but flow not there.' We mustn't be in a hurry to fix and choose our own lot; we must wait to be guided. We are led on, like the little children, by a way that we know not. -0- It's good to live only a moment at a time, as I've read in one of Mr. Wesley's books. It isn't for you and me to lay plans; we've nothing to do but to obey and to trust. It is a vain thought to flee from the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing to our own souls, as if we could choose for ourselves where we shall find the fulness of the Divine Presence, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found, in loving obedience. It makes no difference-whether we live or die, we are in the presence of God. -0 I think, sir, when God makes his presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was—he only saw the brightness of the Lord. -0 It's a strange thing—sometimes when I'm quite alone, sitting in my room with my eyes closed, or walking over the hills, the people I've seen and known, if it's only been for a few days, are brought before me, and I hear their voices and see them look and move almost plainer than I ever did when they were really with me so as I could touch them. And then my heart is drawn out towards them, and I feel their lot as if it was my own, and I take comfort in spreading it before the Lord and resting in his love, on their behalf as well as my own. The heart of man is the same everywhere. -0 I cannot but think that the brethren sometimes err in measuring the Divine love by the sinner's knowledge. г Trouble comes to us all in this life we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing; the people we love are taken from us, and we can joy in nothing because they are not with us; sickness comes, and we faint under the burden of our feeble bodies; we go astray and do wrong, and bring ourselves into trouble with our fellowmen. There is no man or woman born into this world to whom some of these trials do not fall. We are sometimes required to lay our natural, lawful affections on the altar. I've noticed, that in these villages where the people lead a quiet life among the green pastures and the still waters, tilling the ground and tending the cattle, there's a strange deadness to the Word, as different as can be from the great towns, like Leeds, where I once went to visit a holy woman who preaches there. It's wonderful how rich is the harvest of souls up those highwalled streets, where you seemed to walk as in a prisonyard, and the ear is deafened with the sounds of worldly toil. I think maybe it is because the promise is sweeter when this life is so dark and weary, and the soul gets more hungry when the body is ill at ease. That meeting between the brothers, where Esau is so loving and generous, and Jacob so timid and distrustful, notwithstanding his sense of the Divine favour, has always touched me greatly. Truly, I have been |