The Magic Mirror again.--Sycamore Farm.--Annie's
good news.--A chorister up in a tree.--A long,
long journey.--Sixty miles a day on horseback.--A
Chapel out of doors.--A hard bed and a funny
pillow.--Thanksgiving Street.--Ripe Blackberries.
WHY, I do believe that Magic Mirror has mended itself, for here it is,
showing us such a lovely picture--nay, two, I declare. Look at that dear
old farmhouse; it must surely be called Sycamore Farm, for there are
great sycamore trees all round the front and the side. At the back, and
only one field away from the house, are the green slopes of the
mountain, with a little waterfall tumbling merrily down a crack in its
side. In front of the farm, shimmering through the leaves of the trees,
you can see the sunlit waters of a calm lake. The farm is a low
whitewashed building, and we can see the cows in the distant meadows
coming home to be milked. No one is with them; but there is a little
group of people standing at the farmyard gate. The farmer and his wife
and all the family and servants seem to be there.
Whatever is the matter?
Oh, see! there is a little girl in the middle of the group, and they are
all listening to what she is saying. Let us listen too.
"Yes, it is quite true; Mr. Wesley _is_ coming. I went to the village
for mother, and old Downs the cobbler told me, and so did Mrs. Wilson at
the shop. Everybody is talking about it."
"Ay, but that's good news, lassie!" the old farmer says. "I wonder now
if he'd come and preach at Sycamore Farm."
The picture has gone.
Oh, but here's the other one. Why, it is the same old farmhouse, and the
sun is shining on the whitewashed walls and funny little windows. There
is a great crowd gathered under the shade of the leafy sycamores. See,
there is the kind-looking farmer, with his sunburnt face, and sitting on
his knee is Annie, the little girl that brought the good news from the
village. Right in the midst of the crowd is Mr. Wesley, telling these
country-people the story of the Cross.
Now that picture has gone too.
Should we not have liked to have been at that service?
I will tell you what Mr. Wesley said about it.
[Illustration: "In the midst of the crowd is Mr. Wesley, telling these
country-people the story of the Cross."--_Page 124._]
"It was a hot summer day, and we could see the blue, blue sky through
the leaves of the old sycamores, which shaded us from the heat. Just as
I began to preach, a little bird perched on a branch close by and began
to sing. I went on preaching, but its song did not end, it sang on and
on, and not until the service was quite over did it cease. It was the
best music for such a church and such a congregation, no harp or organ
ever sounded half so sweet."
From Westmoreland, where this happened, to Cornwall is a long way, but
not too far for Mr. Wesley and his horse. He used often to ride sixty
miles a day; and most of his reading, and the composing of his sermons
was done while he was on horseback. He travelled in this way for more
than forty years, and must have gone over 100,000 miles.
In Gwennap, a place in Cornwall, Mr. Wesley found a lovely out-of-doors
sort of chapel. Some of my readers will have seen the Happy Valley at
Llandudno; I think the Gwennap chapel must have been something like
that, only a great deal bigger. This is what Mr. Wesley wrote about his
first service there:
"I stood on a wall, in the calm, still evening, with the setting sun
behind, and a great, great multitude before, behind, and on either hand,
sitting on the hills all round. All could hear quite distinctly, when I
read to them Christ's own words: 'The disciple is not above his Master,'
and 'He that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy
of Me.'"
Must it not have been a wonderful sight?
Like other places, Cornwall did not always give a kind welcome to the
Methodists; indeed, they had sometimes to put up with very rough
treatment. Often they had to go without food, and the hard floor was
their only bed.
Once, at a place called St. Ives, Mr. Wesley and his helper, Mr. Nelson,
slept on the floor for a whole fortnight. One of them had an overcoat
rolled up for a pillow, and the other a big book. They used to get very
sore, and sometimes could not sleep for the pain in their poor aching
bones. But these Methodists had never heard of Grumble Corner,--they
only knew Thanksgiving Street; and so, instead of murmuring and
complaining, one night, when the floor seemed harder than ever, Mr.
Wesley called out: "Let us cheer up, Brother Nelson, for the skin is
only off one side yet."
Another time, when no one had asked them to dinner or tea, and they were
riding through a country lane, feeling very hungry, Mr. Wesley stopped
his horse to gather some blackberries, saying to his friend: "Brother
Nelson, we ought to be thankful that there are plenty of blackberries,
for this is the best country I ever saw for getting an appetite, but the
worst for getting food."
On the whole, however, the Cornish people were not unkind to Mr. Wesley.
At St. Ives they once gave him a very noisy welcome, shouting, "Hurrah!
hurrah!" and then going under his bedroom window and singing:
"John Wesley is come to town,
To try if he can pull the churches down."
All this happened during his first visit to Cornwall; and only once
during the three weeks he was there did he get really abused, and that
was at St. Ives, when the mob burst into his room, and a rough, cruel
man struck him on the head.
[Illustration]
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