Mr. Sumption saw in this one more attempt of the church to “get the pull over him,” and resolved to contest the advantage. He too would have a memorial service, conducted on godly Calvinistic lines; there should be no Popish prayers for the dead or vain confidence in their eternal welfare, just a sober recollection before God and preparation for judgment. It was perhaps a tacit confession of weakness that Mr. Sumption did not offer this attraction as a rival to the Church service, but planned to have it later in the same day, so that those with a funeral appetite could attend both. Experience had taught him that what he had to depend on was not so much his flock’s conviction as their lack of conviction. The Particular Baptists in Sunday Street, those, that is to say, who for conscience’ sake would never worship outside the Bethel, would not fill two pews. He depended for the rest of his congregation on the straying sheep of Ecclesia Anglicana, of the Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, Ebenezers, Bible Christians, Congregationalists, and other sects that stuck tin roofs about the parish fields. It occurred to him that perhaps now was his great chance to scatter the rival shepherds, so made his preparations with elaborate care, boldly facing the handicaps his conscience imposed by forbidding him to use decorations, anthems, or instrumental music. He even had a few handbills printed at his own expense, and canvassed a hopeful popularity by rightly diagnosing the complaint of some sick ewes belonging to Mus’ Putland. 4 On Thursday evening he sat in his room at the Horselunges, preparing his sermon. Of course his sermons were not written, but he took great pains with their preparation under heads and points. He felt that this occasion demanded a special effort, and it was unfortunate that he felt all muddled and crooked, his thoughts continually springing away from their discipline of heads and racing off on queer adventures, scarcely agreeable to Calvinistic theology. He thought of those dead boys, some of whom he knew well and others whom he knew but slightly, and he pictured them made perfect by suffering, buying themselves the Kingdom of Heaven by their blood. He knew that his creed gave him no right to do so—Christ died for the elect, and no man can squeeze his way into salvation by wounds and blood. And yet these boys were crucified with Christ.... He saw all the crosses of Flanders, a million graves.... Perhaps there was a back way to the Kingdom, a path of pain and sacrifice by which sinners won the gate....