is not to be persuaded.  He will be true to “the colour”; this is his final answer, even if your arguments overcome for the time being.  And you cannot help liking the man for his straightforward, self-reliant nature; he is acting up to the standard he has set himself all through life.

     “This above all, to thine own self be true,
      And it must follow, as the night the day,
      Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

And how many there are in the byways of England acting up to this motto, and leading the lives of heroes, though their reward is not to be found here!

There is no nobler sight on this earth than to behold men of all ages doing their duty to the best of their ability, in spite of manifold hardships and many a bitter disappointment; cheerfully and manfully confronting difficulties of all kinds, and training up children in the fear and knowledge of God.  If this is not nobleness, there is no such thing on earth.  And it is owing to the vast amount of real, genuine Christianity that exists among these honest folk that life is rendered on the whole so cheerful in these Cotswold villages.  Many small faults the peasants doubtless possess; such are inseparable from human nature.  The petty jealousies always to be found where men do congregate exist here, and as long as the earth revolves they will continue to exist; but underneath the rough, unpolished exterior there is a reef of gold, far richer than the mines of South Africa will ever produce, and as immortal as the souls in which it lies so deeply rooted and embedded.

For the best type of humanity we need not search in vain among the humble cottages of the hamlets of England.  There shall we find the courageous, brave souls who “scorn delights and live laborious days,”—­men who estimate their fellows at their worth, and not according to their social position.  Blunt and difficult to lead, not out of hardness of heart or obstinate pigheadedness, but as Burns has put it: 

     “For the glorious priviledge
      Of being independant.”

A few such are to be found in all our rural villages if one looks for them; and if they are the exceptions to the general rule, it must also be remembered that men with “character” are equally rare amongst the upper and middle classes.

Talking of village politics, I shall never forget a meeting held at Northleach a few years ago.  It was at a time when the balance of parties was so even that our Unionist member was returned by the bare majority of three votes, only to be unseated a few weeks afterwards on a recount.  Northleach is a very Radical town, about six miles from my home; and when I agreed to take the chair, I little knew what an unpleasant job I had taken in hand.  Our member for some reason or other was unable to attend.  I therefore found myself at 7.30 one evening facing two hundred “red-hot” Radicals, with only one other speaker besides myself to keep the ball a-rolling.  My companion was one of those professional politicians of the baser sort, who call themselves Unionists because it pays better for the working-class politician—­in just the same way as ambitious young men among the upper classes sometimes become Radicals on the strength of there being more opening for them on the “Liberal” side.