generally speaking, masters of the situation, and can not only charge what they choose, but do their work how or when it suits them best. This enviable position produces a sort of crabbed independence, an illustration of which was given me in the character of one parish which was thus graphically sketched by its rector: "The people here wouldn't care twopence for a duke."
The more prosperous such people become, the more this disagreeable phase of character predominates, until the whole atmosphere becomes laden with petty jealousies, wounded selflove, and outrageous egotism, working up here and there into rancorous life-long animosities.
No mere formal religion, however perfect in theory, can do anything to prevent or heal this strife. People who are of the same blood, and dwell under the same roof, or who go to the same church or chapel and pronounce Shibboleth in exactly the same way, can still be sullen foes. Nothing but the true spirit of the kingdom of heaven can make a man at once independent and sympathetic; and such characters can be found in every sect and form of Christianity, and in the present disjointed state of Christendom unconnected with any denomination.
And they may be met with even in these dead Wealden towns. I know one, a smith, a type of the soft-hearted Sussex man. His wife, a pale, sickly woman, with the sad smile of the permanent invalid, is constantly at work, either attending to the shop or to a tribe of small children, whose presence both she and her husband seem to imagine constitute their greatest earthly happiness. Added to this, she is ever assiduous in 'helping her neighbours, nursing the sick, and promoting the good of the little Christian society in which both she and her husband find a continual spiritual impetus, making and keeping them what they are. Here is one among their many good works. A poor woman, whom she has nursed during her illness, is on her deathbed. "Ah," said the sick woman, "I could die happy if I knew you'd take my poor Liz." She consented, but what will the husband say? "Tom," the said, directly she got home, "I'm afeerd you'll think I've
