'Tez farmer Tickle, I tell'y!' I shouted; 'and if you axes again I'll come along of you with my stick.' 'Who? who? who?' I ran to the rocks, and beat about with my stick; and then a great white thing rushed out"

"It was an owl," said the lecturer scornfully.

"An owl!" echoed farmer Tickle. "I put it to the meeting. A man as says this was an owl, and not a pixie, would say any thing!" and he sat down amidst great applause.

Then up rose farmer Brown once more.

"Gentlemen, and laboring-men, and also women," he began, "I'll give you another pinch of facts. Before I was married I was going along by Culmpit one day, when I met old Betty Spry; and she sez to me, 'Cross my hand with silver, my pretty boy, and I'll tell you who your true love will be." So I thinks I'd like to know that, and I gives her a sixpence. Then sez she, 'Mark the first maiden that you meet as you go along the lane that leads to Eastway House: she's the one that will make you a wife.' Well, I was going along that way, and the first maiden I met was Patience Kite. I thought she was comely and fresh-looking: so, after going a few steps on, I turns my head over my shoulder, and looks back at her; and what in the world should she be doing at exactly the same minute but looking back at me! Then I went after her, and said, 'Patience, will you be Mrs. Brown?' and she said, 'I don't mind, I'm noways partickler.' And now she is my wife. Look at her yonder, as red as a turkey-cock: there she sits, and so you may know my story is true. But how

did Betty Spry know this before ever I had spoken the words? That beats me!"

Then, once more, up stood farmer Tickle.

"Mr. Lecturer, Mr. Chairman, I puts it to you. First and last we must come to Holy Scripter. Now, I ask you, Mr. Chairman, being our parson, and you, Mr. Lecturer, being a scholard, and all you as have got Bibles, whether Holy Scripter does not say, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' whether Holy Scripter does not say that the works of the flesh are idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, and such like? Now, if witchcraft be all moonshine, then I reckon so be hatred, variance, and emulations too. Now, I put it to the meeting, which is true? Which does it vote for, the Holy Bible and witchcraft, or Mr. Lecturer and his new-fangled nonsense? Those in favor of Scripter and witches hold up their hands."

Need I say that witchcraft carried the day?

One of Mr. Hawker's parishioners had an encounter with pixies. Pixies, it must be explained, are elves, who dance on the sward and make fairy-rings; others work in mines; others, again, haunt old houses.

This man had been to Stratton market. On his way home, as he was passing between dense hedges, suddenly he saw a light, and heard music and singing. He stood still, and looked and listened. Passing through the hedge, he saw the little people in a ring dancing; and there sat on a toadstool an elf with a lantern in his hand, made of a campanula, out of which streamed a greenish-blue light. As the pixies danced, they sang.

"I

"Sir," - this is the man's own account, looked and listened a while, and then I got quietly hold of a great big stone, and heaved it up, and I dreshed in amongst them all; and then I up on my horse, and galloped away as hard as I could, and never drew rein till I came home to Morwenstow. But, when the stone fell among them all, out went the light. You don't believe me? But it be true, true as gospel; for next day I went back to the spot, and there lay the stone, just where I had dreshed it."

I have got a curious oil-painting in Lew Trenchard House, dating from the reign of William and Mary as I judge by the costume. It represents a pixie revel. In the background is an elfin city, illumined by the moon. Before the gates is a ring of tiny beings, dancing merrily around what is probably a corpse-candle: it is a candle-stump, standing on the ground, and the flame diffuses a pallid white light.

In the foreground is water, on which floats a pumpkin, with a quarter cut out of it, so as to turn it into a boat with a hood. In this the pixie king and his consort are enthroned, while round the sides of the boat sit the court, dressed in the costume of the period of William of Orange. On the hood sits a little elf, with a red toadstool, as an umbrella, over the heads of the king and queen. In the bow sits Jack-o'-lantern, with a cresset in his hands, dressed in a red jacket. Beside him is an elf playing on a Jew's-harp, which is as large as himself; and another mischievous red-coated sprite is touching the vibrating tongue of the harp with a large extinguisher, so as to stop the music.

CHAPTER VII.

Condition of the Church last Century. - Parson Radcliffe.

Opposition Mr. Hawker met with.

- Bill Martin's Prayer-meeting.

The Death of a

The Bryanites. - Hunt

Mr. Pengelly and the

Pluralist. ing the Devil. Candle-end. - Cheated by a Tramp. — Mr. Hawker and the Dissenters. — Mr. B's Pew. A Special Providence over the Church. - His Prayer when threatened with the Loss of St. John's Well. - Objection to Hysterical Religion. Mr. Vincent's Hat. — Regard felt for him by old Pupils. — "He did not appreciate me."- Modryb Marya. A Parable. - A Carol. - Love of Children. — Angels. —A Sermon, "Here am I."

THE Condition of the Church in the diocese of Exeter at the time when John Wesley appeared was piteous in the extreme. Non-residence was the rule: the services of the sanctuary were performed in the most slovenly manner, the sacraments were administered rarely and without due reverence in too many places, and pastoral visitation was neglected. The same state of things continued, only slightly improved, to the time when Mr. Hawker began his ministrations at Morwenstow.

There was a story told of a fox-hunting parson, Mr. Radcliffe, in the north of Devon, when I was a boy. He was fond of having convivial evenings in his parsonage, which often ended uproariously.

Bishop Phillpotts sent for him, and said, "Mr. Radcliffe, I hear, but I can hardly believe it, that men fight in your house."

"Lor, my dear," answered Parson Radcliffe, in broad Devonshire, "doant'y believe it. When they begin fighting, I take and turn them out into the churchyard."

The bishop of Exeter came one day to visit him without notice. Parson Radcliffe, in scarlet, was just about to mount his horse, and gallop off to the meet, when he heard that the bishop was in the village. He had barely time to send away his hunter, run upstairs, and jump, red coat and boots, into bed, when the bishop's carriage drew up at the door.

"Tell his lordship I'm ill, will ye?" was his injunction to his housekeeper, as he flew to bed. "Is Mr. Radcliffe in?" asked Dr. Phillpotts. "He's ill in bed," said the housekeeper.

"Dear me! I am so sorry! Pray ask if I may come up and sit with him," said the bishop.

The housekeeper ran up-stairs in sore dismay, and entered Parson Radcliffe's room. The parson stealthily put his head out of the bedclothes, but was reassured when he saw his room was invaded by his housekeeper, and not by the bishop.

"Please your honor, his lordship wants to come up-stairs, and sit with you a little."

With me, good heavens!" gasped Parson Radcliffe. "No. Go down, and tell his lordship I'm took cruel bad with scarlet-fever: it is an aggravated case, and very catching."

In the neighborhood of Morwenstow, a little before Mr. Hawker's time, was a certain Parson Winterton.* He was rector of Eastcote, rector of Eigncombe, rector of Marwood, rector of Westcote, and vicar of