A somewhat interesting and curious account of the conversion of a youthful smuggler may be found in an old volume of _The Bible Christian Magazine_. The incident belongs to the Scilly Isles. William Gibson, the smuggler in question, was a bold, daring young man, and he, with others, had crossed over to France more than once in a small open boat, a distance of 150 miles, rowing there and back, running great risks to bring home a cargo of brandy. In 1820, the time when William was at his best in these smuggling enterprises, St. Mary’s was visited by a pious, simple-minded young woman, Mary Ann Werry by name, the first representative of the Bible Christian connexion to land on the island. The congregation were in the throes of a revival, and eager for more and more preaching, but the minister upon whom they principally relied was commercially minded, and demanded £2 for his services. The members refused to give it. “There is a woman here,” said they, “we will have her to preach to us”; and, being asked, she consented, and preached from 1 Tim. iv. 8, “For bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” We have the well-known ruling of Dr. Johnson upon the preaching of women, that it in a manner resembles a dog walking on its hind-legs: it is not done well; you only marvel that it is done at all. [N.B.—Dr. Johnson would not have favoured, or been favoured by, modern Women’s Leagues.] But, at any rate, Miss Werry seems to have been a notable exception. She was eloquent and persuasive, and played upon the sensibilities of those rugged Scillonians what tune she would. Tears of penitence rolled down the cheeks of many a stalwart man (to say nothing of the hoary sinners) that day. Among the number thus affected was William Gibson, of St. Martin’s, who from that hour became a changed person. No longer did he refuse to render unto Cæsar (otherwise King George) that which was Cæsar’s (or King George’s). He gave up the contraband trade, and, forswearing his old companions’ ways, turned to those of the righteous and the law-abiding, and became a burning and a shining light, and, as “Brother Gibson,” a painful preacher in the Bible Christian communion. And thus, and in lawful fishing, with some little piloting, he continued steadfast, until his death in 1877, in his eighty-third year. CHAPTER XII THE CARTER FAMILY, OF PRUSSIA COVE