The Revolution in Tanner's LaneWhite, William Hale
General
The Revolution in Tanner's Lane
White, William Hale
England -- Fiction; Religious fiction
then, and were charitably excused because of their peculiar calling. The
rest of Cowfold was Dissenting or “went nowhere.” There were three
chapels; one the chapel, orthodox, Independent, holding about seven
hundred persons, and more particularly to be described presently; the
second Wesleyan, new, stuccoed, with grained doors and cast-iron railing;
the third, strict Baptist, ultra-Calvinistic, Antinomian according to the
other sects, dark, down an alley, mean, surrounded by a small
long-grassed graveyard, and named ZOAR in large letters over the long
window in front. The “went nowhere” class was apparently not very
considerable. On Sunday morning at twelve o’clock Cowfold looked as if
it had been swept clean. It was only by comparison between the total
number of church-goers and chapel-goers and the total population that it
could be believed that there was anybody absent from the means of grace;
but if a view could have been taken of the back premises an explanation
would have been discovered. Men and women “did up their gardens,” or
found, for a variety of reasons, that they were forced to stay at home.
In the evening they grew bolder, and strolled through the meadows. It
is, however, only fair to respectable Cowfold to say that it knew nothing
of these creatures, except by employing them on week-days.
With regard to the Wesleyan Chapel, nothing much need be said. Its creed
was imported, and it had no roots in the town. The Church disliked it
because it was Dissenting, and the Dissenters disliked it because it was
half-Church, and, above all, Tory. It was supported mainly by the
brewer, who was drawn thither for many reasons, one of which was
political. Another was, that he was not in trade, and although he
objected to be confounded with his neighbours who stood behind counters,
the Church did not altogether suit him, because there Mr. and Mrs. Muston
and the seminary stood in his way. Lastly, as he owned beer-shops,
supplied liquor which was a proverb throughout the county, and did a
somewhat doubtful business according to the more pious of the Cowfold
Christians, he preferred to be accredited as a religious person by
Methodism than by any other sect, the stamp of Methodism standing out in
somewhat higher relief.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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