both socially and politically, by force of character, energy, and the gift
of speech, became a power in the country side. Still striving onwards, he
wrote in London periodicals, he published a book, he looked from the
silence of his gaunt study towards the great world, and sometimes dreamed
of what he might have done had he not been buried in the country, and of
what he might even yet accomplish. All who came in contact with him felt
the influence of his concentrated purpose: one and all, after they had
worked their hardest, thought they had still not done so much as he would
have done.

The man's charm of manner was not to be resisted; he believed his office
far above monarchs, but there was no personal pretension. That gentle,
pleasing manner, with the sense of intellectual power behind it, quite
overcame the old folk. They all spoke with complacent pride of 'our
vicar'; and, what was more, opened their purses. The interior of the
church was restored, and a noble organ built. When its beautiful notes
rose and fell, when sweet voices swelled the wave of sound, then even the
vicar's restless spirit was soothed in the fulfilment of his hope. A large
proportion of the upper and middle class of the parish was, without a
doubt, now gathered around him; and there was much sympathy manifested
from adjacent parishes with his objects, sympathy which often took the
form of subscriptions from distant people.

But what said Hodge to it all? Hodge said nothing. Some few young cottage
people who had good voices, and liked to use them, naturally now went to
church. So did the old women and old men, who had an eye to charity. But
the strong, sturdy men, the carters and shepherds, stood aloof; the bulk
and backbone of the agricultural labouring population were not in the
least affected. They viewed the movement with utter indifference. They
cleaned their boots on a Sunday morning while the bells were ringing, and
walked down to their allotments, and came home and ate their cabbage, and
were as oblivious of the vicar as the wind that blew. They had no present
quarrel with the Church; no complaint whatever; nor apparently any old
memory or grudge; yet there was a something, a blank space as it were,
between them and the Church. If anything, the 'movement' rather set them
against going.

Agricultural cottagers have a strong bias towards Dissent in one form or
another; village chapels are always well filled. Dissent, of course, would
na