We had likewise, shortly after the “Omnes exeunt” of the players, an exhibition of a different sort in the same barn. This was by two English quakers, and a quaker lady, tanners of Kendal, who had been at Ayr on some leather business, where they preached, but made no proselytes. The travellers were all three in a whisky, drawn by one of the best-ordered horses, as the hostler at the Cross-Keys told me, ever seen. They came to the Inn to their dinner, and meaning to stay all night, sent round, to let it be known that they would hold a meeting in Friend Thacklan’s barn; but Thomas denied they were either kith or kin to him: this, however, was their way of speaking. In the evening, owing to the notice, a great congregation was assembled in the barn, and I myself, along with Mr. Archibald Dozendale, went there likewise, to keep the people in awe; for we feared the strangers might be jeered and insulted. The three were seated aloft on a high stage, prepared on purpose, with two mares and scaffold-deals, borrowed from Mr. Trowel the mason. They sat long, and silent; but at last the spirit moved the woman, and she rose, and delivered a very sensible exposition of Christianity. I was really surprised to hear such sound doctrine; and Mr. Dozendale said, justly, that it was more to the purpose than some that my younger brethren from Edinburgh endeavoured to teach. So, that those who went to laugh at the sincere simplicity of the pious quakers, were rebuked by a very edifying discourse on the moral duties of a Christian’s life. Upon the whole, however, this, to the best of my recollection, was another unsatisfactory year. In this we were, doubtless, brought more into the world; but we had a greater variety of temptation set before us, and there was still jealousy and estrangement in the dispositions of the gentry, and the lower orders, particularly the manufacturers. I cannot say, indeed, that there was any increase of corruption among the rural portion of my people; for their vocation calling them to work apart, in the purity of the free air of heaven, they were kept uncontaminated by that seditious infection which fevered the minds of the sedentary weavers, and working like flatulence in the stomachs of the cotton-spinners, sent up into their heads a vain and diseased fume of infidel philosophy. CHAPTER XXXVII YEAR 1796 THE prosperity of fortune is like the blossoms of spring, or the golden hue of the evening cloud. It delighteth the spirit, and passeth away.