The villagers rarely left the village; they got work at the neighbouring farms, and if they did not, they did not do so badly under the old Poor Laws, which paid a premium to the manufacturers of large families. The cottages were miserable hovels then, as they mostly are, and charity had full scope for exercise, especially at Christmas time, when those who went to the parish church were taught the blessedness of serving God and mammon. At one time the dear old chapel would hold all the meetingers; but soon came sectarian divisions and animosities. There was a great Baptist preacher at Beccles of the name of Wright, and of a Sunday some of our people walked eight miles to hear him, and came back more sure that they were the elect than ever, and more contemptuous of the poor blinded creatures who, to use a term much in common then, sat under my father. Now and then the Ranters got hold of a barn, and then there was another secession. Perhaps we had too much theological disputation. I think we had; but then there was nothing else to think about. The people had no cheap newspapers, and if they had they could not have read them, and so they saw signs and had visions, and told how the Lord had converted them by visible manifestations of His presence and power. Well, they were happy, and they needed somewhat to make them happy amidst the abounding poverty and desolation of their lives. By means of a vehicle—called a whiskey—which was drawn by a mule or a pony, as chance might determine, the family of which I was a member occasionally visited Southwold, prettier than it is now, or Lowestoft, which had no port, merely a long row of houses climbing up to the cliff; or Beccles, then supposed to be a very genteel town, and where there was a ladies’ boarding school; or to Bungay, where John Childs, a sturdy opponent in later years of Church rates and Bible monopoly, carried on a large printing business for the London publishers, and cultivated politics and phrenology. It was a grand outing for us all. Sometimes we got as far as Halesworth, where they had a Primitive meeting-house with great pillars, behind which the sleeper might sweetly dream till the fiddles sounded and the singing commenced. But as to long journeys they were rarely taken. If one did one had to go by coach, and there was sure to be an accident. Our village doctor who, with his half-dozen daughters, attended our chapel, did once take a journey, and met with a fall that, had his skull been not so thick, might have led to a serious catastrophe. Then there was Brother Hickman, of Denton, a dear, good man who never stirred from the parish. Once in an evil hour he went a journey on a stage coach, which was upset, and the consequence was a long and dangerous illness. If home-keeping youths have ever homely wits, what homeliness of wit we must have had. But now and then great people found their way to us, such as Edward Taylor, Gresham Professor of Music, who