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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Far among the bills of a northern county lies a village whose inhabitants , being secluded from intercourse with any society but their own , retain a primitive simplicity of manners . Tidings of what is passing in the world reach them only when the agents of the factors by whom some of the people are employed pay their periodical visits of business , or when the carrier ' s cart returns from its weekly trip , bringing a store of the few comforts and luxuries which they cannot produce among themselves .
One frequent guest was , indeed , made welcome among them , for many a year ; but his visits were too short , and his conversation was too precious , " to be much devoted to secular affairs . His connexion with the inhabitants was singular , but a source of great and permanent advantage to them and satisfaction to himself . Edwards was a poor man , engaged every day and almost all day long in the same employment as his friends in the village ; but his education had been somewhat superior to his circumstances , and he
had improved to the utmost the advantages he had enjoyed . He had a clear head and a warm heart , and the ardour of his mind was early directed to the most important subjects in which the understanding and the affections can be engaged . From being a religious man , he became a religious teacher ; and , destitute as he was of all pretensions to learning , far as ~ he was from claiming any superiority over his hearers except in experience , his devotional services were not only acceptable to the people , but were attended
with a very remarkable success . Early in the morning of every sabbath he arrived at the village , and collected the people for a short service . At noon , they assembled again , and in the evening , Edwards was preaching for a third time at a town five miles distant . For many years his sabbaths had been thus spent ; and as he grew older , his zeal did not relax . Before any symptom of infirmity appeared , he began to look around and ponder how the religious instruction of his people should be provided for , when he should
no longer be equal to his present exertions . The village contained neither church nor chapel ; no Methodist ever had set foot in it , and its very existence was known to few . Edwards was as modest as he was zealous ; and he shrank from making known what his exertions had been , and from bringing strangers to witness the extent and rewards of his usefulness : but ,
at length , remembering that at seventy-three it was presumptuous to reckon on a prolongation of bodily and mental vigour , and that his duty to his friends in the village required him to find a successor , he took the necessary measures . His peculiar qualifications had brought him acquainted with some young men wbo were preparing for the duties of the ministry , and to their notice and care he recommended his little flock . No time was lost in
relieving him of a part of his Sunday labours , and in accustoming the people to follow another voice than that which had so long led their devotions . The introduction of these young preachers formed an era in the history of the village . The room in which they had been accustomed to assemble , thougli the most commodious in the place , was too small and inconvenient for the
purpose ; and the stupendous conception of a meeting-house baving been familiarized to their minds by their new friends , they were easily excited to the effort of erecting one . Masons and carpenters offered their gratuitous labour , and their families the little they could spare from their earnings The remaining funds came , they knew not how or whence , through the hands of the young preachers . Very soon the white walls of the new chapel
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TRUE WORSHIPERS : \ . TALE .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1830, page 307, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2584/page/19/
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