Little Abe, or, the Bishop of Berry Brow: Being the Life of Abraham LockwoodJewell, F.
Religion
Little Abe, or, the Bishop of Berry Brow: Being the Life of Abraham Lockwood
Jewell, F.
Lockwood, Abraham, 1792-1871; Methodist Church -- Bishops -- England -- Biography
His class was conducted in a neat little cottage near the chapel
belonging to one of the members, who week by week opened his doors for
the accommodation of Abe and his flock. Their meeting was held in a
comfortable room which served the family as kitchen and parlour; here
every Monday night the quaint old shepherd came to meet his sheep. The
big family table was pushed back against the window, the elbow-chair
was placed at the end for the leader, all the chairs and seats in the
house were brought into this room and ranged around as conveniently as
possible to accommodate the weekly visitors, and sometimes when this
was done there were more people than seats, and the big table had to be
drawn out again, and made use of as a resting-place for the homely
people who gathered there; or a long board would be brought down from
upstairs and its ends placed on two chairs, and thus an additional seat
was extemporized.
This very board had the misfortune to snap in two one night while a
brother was engaged in praying. He was a _powerful_ man in prayer; his
soul was inspired with zeal, and his body animated with strength, which
on this occasion he vented in a succession of heavy blows on this
devoted piece of timber, until suddenly it gave way with a loud crack
and fell in two pieces on the floor, to the great discomfiture of those
whose weight added to the strain. For some moments there was
considerable confusion in the room, as may be supposed, and the praying
was brought to a sudden halt, when Abe's voice was heard above all,
"Ne'er moind, lad, go at it! My Father's got plenty o' timber, and
He'll send thee a new seat," whereon the meeting went on, as lively as
before. Abe wouldn't allow any such trifles to interfere with the
happy flow of feeling in his meetings; indeed, such incidents served
rather to stimulate than abate the exuberance of his spirits. He knew
that all things belonged to the Lord, and that He would make good all
that was lost in His service, and therefore "he took joyfully the
spoiling of his goods," and other folk's too. It is needless to say
that the old seat was replaced by a new one.
"MY FATHER 'LL GIE THE' THIS HAASE" (House).
When Abe had been conducting his class for some years in the cottage
before named, an event transpired which greatly disturbed his mind, and
led him to fear he might have to remove his meeting to some other
place. Now this was a sore trouble ta him and to every one of his
members; they had got accustomed to going there, and some of them had
never met anywhere else, so that they could not bear the thought of
being obliged to leave, yet there was some ground for the fear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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