So, from the most troublous of
times, will the Church of our land arise, in virtue of what truth she
holds, and in spite, if she rises at all, of the worldliness of those who,
instead of seeking her service, have sought and gained the dignities which,
if it be good that she have it in her power to bestow them, need the
corrective of a sharply wholesome persecution which of late times she has
not known. But God knows, and the fire will come in its course--first in
the form of just indignation, it may be, against her professed servants,
and then in the form of the furnace seven times heated, in which the true
builders shall yet walk unhurt save as to their mortal part.
I looked about for some cottage where the sexton might be supposed to live,
and spied a slated roof, nearly on a level with the road, at a little
distance in front of me. I could at least inquire there. Before I reached
it, however, an elderly woman came out and approached me. She was dressed
in a white cap and a dark-coloured gown. On her face lay a certain repose
which attracted me. She looked as if she had suffered but had consented to
it, and therefore could smile.
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