More now devoted her efforts to the improvement
of the moral and religious condition of the poor.
About ten miles from Cowslip Green was the picturesque village of
Cheddar, the population of which was sunk in ignorance and depravity.
The incumbent lived at Oxford, and the curate at Wells, twelve miles
off. There was but one service a week, and no pastoral visitation
whatever. There were thirteen parishes in the neighbourhood without even
a resident curate. Drunkenness and utter inefficiency prevailed to a
terrible extent amongst the clergy in this district; whilst education
was a question that never troubled either the clergy or the people.
At Cheddar Hannah and her sister Patty opened a school; and in a short
time nearly 300 children attended regularly. The sisters had to combat
strong prejudices amongst the farmers. By dint of much persuasion and
flattery the opposing forces were at length won over, even to hearty
concurrence.
Masters and mistresses were procured for teaching reading, seeing,
knitting, and spinning, and giving religious instruction on Sundays. A
second school was shortly opened in an adjoining parish, the
vicarage-house, which had remained uninhabited for a hundred years,
having been put into repair for the purpose.
During 1790 Miss More published a volume entitled, _An Estimate of the
Religion of the Fashionable World_. The book was quickly bought up, and
within two years reached a fifth edition. The prevailing indifference to
vital religion, the corruptions of society, the decline of domestic
piety, and the absence of religion from the education of the upper
classes were the themes treated by the writer with unsparing candour and
convincing force.
Encouraged by her success at Cheddar, Miss More, with her sister Patty,
went further afield, and selected two mining villages on the top of the
Mendip Hills as the next scene of her labours. The difficulties here
were even greater than those at Cheddar. The neighbourhood was so bad,
we are told, that no constable would venture to execute his office
there. Friends warned the Misses More that their lives would be in
danger if they persisted in their project. The people imagined that the
sisters had come to make money by kidnapping their children for slaves.
Undaunted by obstacles and perils, the workers persevered, until in no
less than ten parishes schools were commenced, which, before long, were
attended by 1200 children. In every parish the ac
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