God!” “Come, John,” I said, “sit down and be quiet, and I will have a talk with you, and tell you what I think.”  But John knew my thoughts quite well enough, so he burst out, “Oh master!  I am sure you do not know about this, or you would have told me.  I am quite sure you love me, and I love you—­that I do! but, dear master, you do not know this—­I am praying for the Lord to show it to you.  I mean to pray till I die, and after that if I can, till you are converted.”  He looked at me so lovingly, and seemed so truly happy, that it was more than I could stand.  Almost involuntarily, I made for the door, and escaped before he could stop me.

I went home greatly disturbed in my mind—­altogether disappointed and disgusted with my work among these Cornish people.  “It is no use; they never will be Churchmen!” I was as hopeless and miserable as I could be.  I felt that my superior teaching and practice had failed, and that the inferior and, as I believed, unscriptural dogmas had prevailed.  My favourite and most promising Churchman had fallen, and was happy in his fall; more than that, he was actually praying that I might fall too!

I felt very jealous for the Church, and therefore felt deeply the conversion of my gardener.  Like the elder brother of the Prodigal Son, I was grieved, and even angry, because he was restored to favour and joy.  The remonstrance of the father prevailed nothing to mollify his feelings; in like manner, nothing seemed to give me any rest in this crisis of my parochial work.  I thought I would give up my parish and church, and go and work in some more congenial soil; or else that I would preach a set of sermons on the subject of schism, for perhaps I had not sufficiently taught my people the danger of this great sin!

Every parishioner I passed seemed to look at me as if he said, “So much for your teaching!  You will never convince us!”

CHAPTER 7

Conversion, 1851.

This was a time of great disappointment and discouragement.  Everything had turned out so different to the expectation I had formed and cherished on first coming to this place.  I was then full of hope and intended to carry all before me with great success, and I thought I did; but, alas! there was a mistake somewhere, something was wrong.

In those days, when I was building my new church, and talking about the tower and spire we were going to erect, an elderly Christian lady who was sitting in her wheel-chair, calmly listening to our conversation, said, “Will you begin to build your spire from the top?"* It was a strange question, but she evidently meant something, and looked for an answer.  I gave it, saying, “No, madam, not from the top, but from the foundation.”  She replied, “That is right—­that is right,” and went on with her knitting.