From Crow-Scaring to Westminster; an Autobiography

a wonderful part in my future life. Her name was Charlotte Corke, daughter of the late Mr. James

arried at Alby Church. A record of this event

r. James Rice of Oulton. I hired a cottage at Oulton, which is near Aylsham (Norfolk), where we lived for the first seven years of our married life. I worked for Mr. Rice for two years, when a dispute arose over the right to stop work for breakfast, and I left and again returned to brickmaking, and went to work at Blickling, about a mile and a half from my home, which distance I walked morning and night. Mr. James Applegate was the contractor and fo

decided that my name should appear on the preachers' plan as an "Exhorter," and I

ce she helped me to commit three hymns to memory and also the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. It was a big task, but she accomplished it, and this is how it was done. Wh

ST HOME AFTER MARRIAGE, OU

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hymns two lines at a time, as very few people could read, and they could possibly remember the two lines. There was no musical instrument in many of the small village chapels at that time. My wife went with me to my first appointment and listened. My first text was taken from the first chapter of John: "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." I would not like to say the sermon was a very intellectual one. It was, however, well tho

read my lesson and hymns, but not until I had gone throu

dows. We lost ourselves! I told my companion to follow me, but it turned out that it was a case of the blind leading the blind, for no sooner had I instructed my companion than we both walked into a ditch up to our knees in water, and had to walk the rest of the way home with wet feet! This was not the day of bicycles nor yet horse-hire.

ive up smoking, for I did enjoy my pipe. I had, however, a thirst for knowledge, and no sacrifice was too great to satisfy my longing. My first purchase was Johnson's Dictionary, two volumes of The Lay-preacher, which contained outlines of sermons, Harvey's Meditations among the Tombs and Contemplation of the Starry Heavens, a Bible dictionary, and a History of Rome. These I bought second-hand from Mr. James Applegate, who was a great

of bread were taken round with water. The meeting was thrown open for anyone to speak, and then the simple, faithful, uneducated, saintly people, in relating what to them was Christian experience, would express themselves in peculiar phrases. I call to mind the statement made by a brother a

not well informed and although I used such phrases and put the Gospel in such a way that I should not think for one moment of doing to-day, still it had its effect.

pe of any improvement they migrated to the North of England, and found work in the coalfields, and never re

re not as God intended they should be. The gross injustices meted out to my parents and the te

uld do something to better