It was a very inviting nest of rural piety. In their lowly services there was felt full often the presence and the power of God, and their mean and homely sanctuary was the palace of the King of Kings! Such little patches of evangelic life are happily common in Methodism. Her village triumphs have been amongst her greatest glories, and it is to be hoped that this Church, so remarkably owned of God in the rural districts, will never forget or neglect the rustic few, among whom its brightest trophies have been won, and from whom its noblest agents have been obtained. One Sunday, Philip Fuller was walking from the Rectory, whither he had been to dinner after the morning and only service at the parish church. The evening was calm and fine, so he prolonged his walk by making a detour round the highest part of the village, and was passing Farmer Houston’s gate just at the time that the little Methodist congregation had assembled for worship. Philip, who was not aware of this arrangement, heard the hearty singing of a hundred voices, and in pure curiosity drew near the open door, for the weather was of the warmest, and listened to the strain,-- “Behold Him, all ye that pass by, The bleeding Prince of Life and Peace! Come see, ye worms, your Maker die, And say, was ever grief like His? Come feel with me His blood applied; My Lord, my Love, is crucified. Is crucified for me and you, To bring us rebels back to God; Believe, believe the record true, Ye all are bought with Jesus’ blood, Pardon for all flows from His side; My Lord, my Love, is crucified.” Philip was greatly struck, alike with the warmth and energy of the singers and the directly evangelical character of the hymn. During his residence at Oxford he had, at first, been half inclined to accept the almost infidel views which at that time were tacitly held by not a few of the tutors and even the clerics of that famous university. A candid perusal of the Scriptures, however, for he was a genuine seeker after truth, and an attendance on the ministry of a godly and effective clergyman, who had rallied round him the evangelical element of the various colleges, rendered Philip utterly dissatisfied with the loose tenets he had been accustomed to hear. When he left college he was the subject of unavowed but strong conviction as to the importance and necessity of experimental religion, but as yet was very much at sea as to the Gospel plan of salvation. Philip noiselessly entered the kitchen, and took an unnoticed place among the rural worshippers.