prompt:
Chapter: With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes
to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is
what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the
end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge,
carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the
eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799.

The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon doors
and window-frames and wainscoting. A scent of pine-wood from a tentlike
pile of planks outside the open door mingled itself with the scent of
the elder-bushes which were spreading their summer snow close to
the open window opposite; the slanting sunbeams shone through the
transparent shavings that flew before the steady plane, and lit up the
fine grain of the oak panelling which stood propped against the wall.
On a heap of those soft shavings a rough, grey shepherd dog had
made himself a pleasant bed, and was lying with his nose between his
fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the
tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of
a wooden mantelpiece. It was to this workman that the strong barytone
belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and hammer singing--

     Awake, my soul, and with the sun
     Thy daily stage of duty run;
     Shake off dull sloth...

Here some measurement was to be taken which required more concentrated
attention, and the sonorous voice subsided into a low whistle; but it
presently broke out again with renewed vigour--

     Let all thy converse be sincere,
     Thy conscience as the noonday clear.

Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad chest
belonged to a large-boned, muscular man nearly six feet high, with a
back so flat and a head so well poised that when he drew himself up
to take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier
standing at ease. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm
that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long
supple hand, with its broad finger-tips, looked ready for works of
skill. In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his
name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast
with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that
shone from under strongly marked, prominent and mobile eyebrows,
indicated a mixture of Celtic blood. The face was large and roughly
hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as belongs to an
expression of good-humoured honest intelligence.

It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is
nearly as tall; he has the same type of features, the same hue of hair
and complexion; but the strength of the family likeness seems only to
render more conspicuous the remarkable difference of expression both in
form and face. Seth's broad shoulders have a slight stoop; his eyes
are grey; his eyebrows have less prominence and more repose than his
brother's; and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and
benign. He has thrown off his paper cap, and you see that his hair is
not thick and straight, like Adam's, but thin and wavy, allowing you
to discern the exact contour of a coronal arch that predominates very
decidedly over the brow.

The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they
scarcely ever spoke to Adam.

The concert of the tools and Adam's voice was at last broken by Seth,
who, lifting the door at which he had been working intently, placed
it against the wall, and said, "There! I've finished my door to-day,
anyhow."

The workmen all looked up; Jim Salt, a burly, red-haired man known as
Sandy Jim, paused from his planing, and Adam said to Seth, with a sharp
glance of surprise, "What! Dost think thee'st finished the door?"

"Aye, sure," said Seth, with answering surprise; "what's awanting to't?"

A loud roar of laughter from the other three workmen made Seth look
round confusedly. Adam did not join in the laughter, but there was a
slight smile on his face as he said, in a gentler tone than before,
"Why, thee'st forgot the panels."

The laughter burst out afresh as Seth clapped his hands to his head, and
coloured over brow and crown.

"Hoorray!" shouted a small lithe fellow called Wiry Ben, running forward
and seizing the door. "We'll hang up th' door at fur end o' th' shop an'
write on't 'Seth Bede, the Methody, his work.' Here, Jim, lend's hould
o' th' red pot."

"Nonsense!" said Adam. "Let it alone, Ben Cranage. You'll mayhap be
making such a slip yourself some day; you'll laugh o' th' other side o'
your mouth then."

"Catch me at it, Adam. It'll be a good while afore my head's full o' th'
Methodies," said Ben.

"Nay, but it's often full o' drink, and that's worse."

Ben, however, had now got the "red pot" in his hand, and was about
to begin writing his inscription, making, by way of preliminary, an
imaginary S in the air.

"Let it alone, will you?" Adam called out, laying down his tools,
striding up to Ben, and seizing his right shoulder. "Let it alone, or
I'll shake the soul out o' your body."

Ben shook in Adam's iron grasp, but, like a plucky small man as he was,
he didn't mean to give in. With his left hand he snatched the brush from
his powerless right, and made a movement as if he would perform the feat
of writing with his left. In a moment Adam turned him round, seized his
other shoulder, and, pushing him along, pinned him against the wall. But
now Seth spoke.

"Let be, Addy, let be. Ben will be joking. Why, he's i' the right to
laugh at me--I canna help laughing at myself."

"I shan't loose him till he promises to let the door alone," said Adam.

"Come, Ben, lad," said Seth, in a persuasive tone, "don't let's have a
quarrel about it. You know Adam will have his way. You may's well try
to turn a waggon in a narrow lane. Say you'll leave the door alone, and
make an end on't."

"I binna frighted at Adam," said Ben, "but I donna mind sayin' as I'll
let 't alone at your askin', Seth."

"Come, that's wise of you, Ben," said Adam, laughing and relaxing his
grasp.

They all returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the worst
in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a
success in sarcasm.

"Which was ye thinkin' on, Seth," he began--"the pretty parson's face or
her sarmunt, when ye forgot the panels?"

"Come and hear her, Ben," said Seth, good-humouredly; "she's going to
preach on the Green to-night; happen ye'd get something to think on
yourself then, instead o' those wicked songs you're so fond on. Ye might
get religion, and that 'ud be the best day's earnings y' ever made."

"All i' good time for that, Seth; I'll think about that when I'm a-goin'
to settle i' life; bachelors doesn't want such heavy earnin's. Happen
I shall do the coortin' an' the religion both together, as YE do, Seth;
but ye wouldna ha' me get converted an' chop in atween ye an' the pretty
preacher, an' carry her aff?"

"No fear o' that, Ben; she's neither for you nor for me to win, I doubt.
Only you come and hear her, and you won't speak lightly on her again."

"Well, I'm half a mind t' ha' a look at her to-night, if there isn't
good company at th' Holly Bush. What'll she take for her text? Happen ye
can tell me, Seth, if so be as I shouldna come up i' time for't. Will't
be--what come ye out for to see? A prophetess? Yea, I say unto you, and
more than a prophetess--a uncommon pretty young woman."

"Come, Ben," said Adam, rather sternly, "you let the words o' the Bible
alone; you're going too far now."

"What! Are YE a-turnin' roun', Adam? I thought ye war dead again th'
women preachin', a while agoo?"

"Nay, I'm not turnin' noway. I said nought about the women preachin'.
I said, You let the Bible alone: you've got a jest-book, han't you, as
you're rare and proud on? Keep your dirty fingers to that."

"Why, y' are gettin' as big a saint as Seth. Y' are goin' to th'
preachin' to-night, I should think. Ye'll do finely t' lead the singin'.
But I don' know what Parson Irwine 'ull say at his gran' favright Adam
Bede a-turnin' Methody."

"Never do you bother yourself about me, Ben. I'm not a-going to turn
Methodist any more nor you are--though it's like enough you'll turn
to something worse. Mester Irwine's got more sense nor to meddle wi'
people's doing as they like in religion. That's between themselves and
God, as he's said to me many a time."

"Aye, aye; but he's none so fond o' your dissenters, for all that."

"Maybe; I'm none so fond o' Josh Tod's thick ale, but I don't hinder you
from making a fool o' yourself wi't."

There was a laugh at this thrust of Adam's, but Seth said, very
seriously. "Nay, nay, Addy, thee mustna say as anybody's religion's
like thick ale. Thee dostna believe but what the dissenters and the
Methodists have got the root o' the matter as well as the church folks."

"Nay, Seth, lad; I'm not for laughing at no man's religion. Let 'em
follow their consciences, that's all. Only I think it 'ud be better if
their consciences 'ud let 'em stay quiet i' the church--there's a deal
to be learnt there. And there's such a thing as being oversperitial; we
must have something beside Gospel i' this world. Look at the canals, an'
th' aqueduc's, an' th' coal-pit engines, and Arkwright's mills there at
Cromford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things, I
reckon. But t' hear some o' them preachers, you'd think as a man must be
doing nothing all's life but shutting's eyes and looking what's agoing
on inside him. I know a man must have the love o' God in his soul, and
the Bible's God's word. But what does the Bible say? Why, it says as God
put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do
all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand. And this is my
way o' looking at it: there's the sperrit o' God in all things and all
times--weekday as well as Sunday--and i' the great works and inventions,
and i' the figuring and the mechanics. And God helps us with our
headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls; and if a man does
bits o' jobs out o' working hours--builds a oven for 's wife to save her
from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit o' garden and makes
two potatoes grow istead o' one, he's doin' more good, and he's just as
near to God, as if he was running after some preacher and a-praying and
a-groaning."

"Well done, Adam!" said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing to
shift his planks while Adam was speaking; "that's the best sarmunt I've
heared this long while. By th' same token, my wife's been a-plaguin' on
me to build her a oven this twelvemont."

"There's reason in what thee say'st, Adam," observed Seth, gravely. "But
thee know'st thyself as it's hearing the preachers thee find'st so much
fault with has turned many an idle fellow into an industrious un. It's
the preacher as empties th' alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he'll
do his work none the worse for that."

"On'y he'll lave the panels out o' th' doors sometimes, eh, Seth?" said
Wiry Ben.

"Ah, Ben, you've got a joke again' me as 'll last you your life. But it
isna religion as was i' fault there; it was Seth Bede, as was allays a
wool-gathering chap, and religion hasna cured him, the more's the pity."

"Ne'er heed me, Seth," said Wiry Ben, "y' are a down-right good-hearted
chap, panels or no panels; an' ye donna set up your bristles at every
bit o' fun, like some o' your kin, as is mayhap cliverer."

"Seth, lad," said Adam, taking no notice of the sarcasm against himself,
"thee mustna take me unkind. I wasna driving at thee in what I said just
now. Some 's got one way o' looking at things and some 's got another."

"Nay, nay, Addy, thee mean'st me no unkindness," said Seth, "I know that
well enough. Thee't like thy dog Gyp--thee bark'st at me sometimes, but
thee allays lick'st my hand after."

All hands worked on in silence for some minutes, until the church clock
began to strike six. Before the first stroke had died away, Sandy Jim
had loosed his plane and was reaching his jacket; Wiry Ben had left a
screw half driven in, and thrown his screwdriver into his tool-basket;
Mum Taft, who, true to his name, had kept silence throughout the
previous conversation, had flung down his hammer as he was in the act
of lifting it; and Seth, too, had straightened his back, and was putting
out his hand towards his paper cap. Adam alone had gone on with his work
as if nothing had happened. But observing the cessation of the tools, he
looked up, and said, in a tone of indignation, "Look there, now! I can't
abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the
clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work and
was afraid o' doing a stroke too much."

Seth looked a little conscious, and began to be slower in his
preparations for going, but Mum Taft broke silence, and said, "Aye, aye,
Adam lad, ye talk like a young un. When y' are six-an'-forty like me,
istid o' six-an'-twenty, ye wonna be so flush o' workin' for nought."

"Nonsense," said Adam, still wrathful; "what's age got to do with it, I
wonder? Ye arena getting stiff yet, I reckon. I hate to see a man's arms
drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as
if he'd never a bit o' pride and delight in 's work. The very grindstone
'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it."

"Bodderation, Adam!" exclaimed Wiry Ben; "lave a chap aloon, will 'ee?
Ye war afinding faut wi' preachers a while agoo--y' are fond enough o'
preachin' yoursen. Ye may like work better nor play, but I like play
better nor work; that'll 'commodate ye--it laves ye th' more to do."

With this exit speech, which he considered effective, Wiry Ben
shouldered his basket and left the workshop, quickly followed by Mum
Taft and Sandy Jim. Seth lingered, and looked wistfully at Adam, as if
he expected him to say something.

"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked, looking
up.

"Nay; I've got my hat and things at Will Maskery's. I shan't be home
before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah Morris safe home, if she's
willing. There's nobody comes with her from Poyser's, thee know'st."

"Then I'll tell mother not to look for thee," said Adam.

"Thee artna going to Poyser's thyself to-night?" said Seth rather
timidly, as he turned to leave the workshop.

"Nay, I'm going to th' school."

Hitherto Gyp had kept his comfortable bed, only lifting up his head and
watching Adam more closely as he noticed the other workmen departing.
But no sooner did Adam put his ruler in his pocket, and begin to twist
his apron round his waist, than Gyp ran forward and looked up in his
master's face with patient expectation. If Gyp had had a tail he would
doubtless have wagged it, but being destitute of that vehicle for his
emotions, he was like many other worthy personages, destined to appear
more phlegmatic than nature had made him.

"What! Art ready for the basket, eh, Gyp?" said Adam, with the same
gentle modulation of voice as when he spoke to Seth.

Gyp jumped and gave a short bark, as much as to say, "Of course." Poor
fellow, he had not a great range of expression.

The basket was the one which on workdays held Adam's and Seth's dinner;
and no official, walking in procession, could look more resolutely
unconscious of all acquaintances than Gyp with his basket, trotting at
his master's heels.

On leaving the workshop Adam locked the door, took the key out, and
carried it to the house on the other side of the woodyard. It was a
low house, with smooth grey thatch and buff walls, looking pleasant
and mellow in the evening light. The leaded windows were bright and
speckless, and the door-stone was as clean as a white boulder at ebb
tide. On the door-stone stood a clean old woman, in a dark-striped linen
gown, a red kerchief, and a linen cap, talking to some speckled fowls
which appeared to have been drawn towards her by an illusory expectation
of cold potatoes or barley. The old woman's sight seemed to be dim, for
she did not recognize Adam till he said, "Here's the key, Dolly; lay it
down for me in the house, will you?"

"Aye, sure; but wunna ye come in, Adam? Miss Mary's i' th' house, and
Mester Burge 'ull be back anon; he'd be glad t' ha' ye to supper wi'm,
I'll be's warrand."

"No, Dolly, thank you; I'm off home. Good evening."

Adam hastened with long strides, Gyp close to his heels, out of the
workyard, and along the highroad leading away from the village and down
to the valley. As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly horseman,
with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse when Adam
had passed him, and turned round to have another long look at the
stalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue worsted
stockings.

Adam, unconscious of the admiration he was exciting, presently struck
across the fields, and now broke out into the tune which had all day
long been running in his head:

     Let all thy converse be sincere,
     Thy conscience as the noonday clear;
     For God's all-seeing eye surveys
     Thy secret thoughts, thy works and ways.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Workshop The narrator will magically use the ink of her pen as a mirror to show us the carpentry workshop of Jonathan Burge in the village of Hayslope in Loamshire, England, 1799. Five workmen there are busy, the most striking of them a tall strong man singing a hymn in a baritone voice as he finishes a mantelpiece. This is Adam Bede, the obvious leader of the group. His brother, Seth, is younger and claims he has finished the door he is working on. Sandy Jim teases him that he forgot the panels on the door. Wiry Ben Cranage pipes in saying that after all, Seth is a wool-gathering Methodist. Adam pushes Ben against the wall until he promises to leave his brother alone. In friendly laughter, the men accuse Seth of thinking of the woman Methodist preacher who will preach on the Green tonight. Seth is in love with Dinah Morris and invites the others to hear her. Adam declares his loyalty to the Church but believes everyone should worship as he chooses. When the church clock strikes six, the other men immediately leave off working, but Adam chides them for having no pride in their work, and he continues until he finishes, going home with his dog, Gyp, while Seth goes to the Green to hear Dinah preach. A stranger, passing by on horseback, cannot help but admire Adam Bede as he passes.


prompt:
Chapter: About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of excitement
in the village of Hayslope, and through the whole length of its
little street, from the Donnithorne Arms to the churchyard gate, the
inhabitants had evidently been drawn out of their houses by something
more than the pleasure of lounging in the evening sunshine. The
Donnithorne Arms stood at the entrance of the village, and a small
farmyard and stackyard which flanked it, indicating that there was a
pretty take of land attached to the inn, gave the traveller a promise
of good feed for himself and his horse, which might well console him
for the ignorance in which the weather-beaten sign left him as to the
heraldic bearings of that ancient family, the Donnithornes. Mr. Casson,
the landlord, had been for some time standing at the door with his hands
in his pockets, balancing himself on his heels and toes and looking
towards a piece of unenclosed ground, with a maple in the middle of it,
which he knew to be the destination of certain grave-looking men and
women whom he had observed passing at intervals.

Mr. Casson's person was by no means of that common type which can be
allowed to pass without description. On a front view it appeared to
consist principally of two spheres, bearing about the same relation to
each other as the earth and the moon: that is to say, the lower sphere
might be said, at a rough guess, to be thirteen times larger than the
upper which naturally performed the function of a mere satellite and
tributary. But here the resemblance ceased, for Mr. Casson's head was
not at all a melancholy-looking satellite nor was it a "spotty globe,"
as Milton has irreverently called the moon; on the contrary, no head and
face could look more sleek and healthy, and its expression--which was
chiefly confined to a pair of round and ruddy cheeks, the slight
knot and interruptions forming the nose and eyes being scarcely worth
mention--was one of jolly contentment, only tempered by that sense of
personal dignity which usually made itself felt in his attitude and
bearing. This sense of dignity could hardly be considered excessive in
a man who had been butler to "the family" for fifteen years, and who, in
his present high position, was necessarily very much in contact with
his inferiors. How to reconcile his dignity with the satisfaction of his
curiosity by walking towards the Green was the problem that Mr. Casson
had been revolving in his mind for the last five minutes; but when
he had partly solved it by taking his hands out of his pockets, and
thrusting them into the armholes of his waistcoat, by throwing his
head on one side, and providing himself with an air of contemptuous
indifference to whatever might fall under his notice, his thoughts were
diverted by the approach of the horseman whom we lately saw pausing to
have another look at our friend Adam, and who now pulled up at the door
of the Donnithorne Arms.

"Take off the bridle and give him a drink, ostler," said the traveller
to the lad in a smock-frock, who had come out of the yard at the sound
of the horse's hoofs.

"Why, what's up in your pretty village, landlord?" he continued, getting
down. "There seems to be quite a stir."

"It's a Methodis' preaching, sir; it's been gev hout as a young woman's
a-going to preach on the Green," answered Mr. Casson, in a treble and
wheezy voice, with a slightly mincing accent. "Will you please to step
in, sir, an' tek somethink?"

"No, I must be getting on to Rosseter. I only want a drink for my horse.
And what does your parson say, I wonder, to a young woman preaching just
under his nose?"

"Parson Irwine, sir, doesn't live here; he lives at Brox'on, over the
hill there. The parsonage here's a tumble-down place, sir, not fit for
gentry to live in. He comes here to preach of a Sunday afternoon, sir,
an' puts up his hoss here. It's a grey cob, sir, an' he sets great store
by't. He's allays put up his hoss here, sir, iver since before I hed the
Donnithorne Arms. I'm not this countryman, you may tell by my tongue,
sir. They're cur'ous talkers i' this country, sir; the gentry's hard
work to hunderstand 'em. I was brought hup among the gentry, sir, an'
got the turn o' their tongue when I was a bye. Why, what do you think
the folks here says for 'hevn't you?'--the gentry, you know, says,
'hevn't you'--well, the people about here says 'hanna yey.' It's what
they call the dileck as is spoke hereabout, sir. That's what I've heared
Squire Donnithorne say many a time; it's the dileck, says he."

"Aye, aye," said the stranger, smiling. "I know it very well. But you've
not got many Methodists about here, surely--in this agricultural spot? I
should have thought there would hardly be such a thing as a Methodist to
be found about here. You're all farmers, aren't you? The Methodists can
seldom lay much hold on THEM."

"Why, sir, there's a pretty lot o' workmen round about, sir. There's
Mester Burge as owns the timber-yard over there, he underteks a good bit
o' building an' repairs. An' there's the stone-pits not far off. There's
plenty of emply i' this countryside, sir. An' there's a fine batch o'
Methodisses at Treddles'on--that's the market town about three mile
off--you'll maybe ha' come through it, sir. There's pretty nigh a score
of 'em on the Green now, as come from there. That's where our people
gets it from, though there's only two men of 'em in all Hayslope: that's
Will Maskery, the wheelwright, and Seth Bede, a young man as works at
the carpenterin'."

"The preacher comes from Treddleston, then, does she?"

"Nay, sir, she comes out o' Stonyshire, pretty nigh thirty mile off.
But she's a-visitin' hereabout at Mester Poyser's at the Hall Farm--it's
them barns an' big walnut-trees, right away to the left, sir. She's own
niece to Poyser's wife, an' they'll be fine an' vexed at her for making
a fool of herself i' that way. But I've heared as there's no holding
these Methodisses when the maggit's once got i' their head: many of 'em
goes stark starin' mad wi' their religion. Though this young woman's
quiet enough to look at, by what I can make out; I've not seen her
myself."

"Well, I wish I had time to wait and see her, but I must get on. I've
been out of my way for the last twenty minutes to have a look at that
place in the valley. It's Squire Donnithorne's, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir, that's Donnithorne Chase, that is. Fine hoaks there, isn't
there, sir? I should know what it is, sir, for I've lived butler there
a-going i' fifteen year. It's Captain Donnithorne as is th' heir,
sir--Squire Donnithorne's grandson. He'll be comin' of hage this
'ay-'arvest, sir, an' we shall hev fine doin's. He owns all the land
about here, sir, Squire Donnithorne does."

"Well, it's a pretty spot, whoever may own it," said the traveller,
mounting his horse; "and one meets some fine strapping fellows about
too. I met as fine a young fellow as ever I saw in my life, about
half an hour ago, before I came up the hill--a carpenter, a tall,
broad-shouldered fellow with black hair and black eyes, marching along
like a soldier. We want such fellows as he to lick the French."

"Aye, sir, that's Adam Bede, that is, I'll be bound--Thias Bede's son
everybody knows him hereabout. He's an uncommon clever stiddy fellow,
an' wonderful strong. Lord bless you, sir--if you'll hexcuse me for
saying so--he can walk forty mile a-day, an' lift a matter o' sixty
ston'. He's an uncommon favourite wi' the gentry, sir: Captain
Donnithorne and Parson Irwine meks a fine fuss wi' him. But he's a
little lifted up an' peppery-like."

"Well, good evening to you, landlord; I must get on."

"Your servant, sir; good evenin'."

The traveller put his horse into a quick walk up the village, but when
he approached the Green, the beauty of the view that lay on his right
hand, the singular contrast presented by the groups of villagers with
the knot of Methodists near the maple, and perhaps yet more, curiosity
to see the young female preacher, proved too much for his anxiety to get
to the end of his journey, and he paused.

The Green lay at the extremity of the village, and from it the road
branched off in two directions, one leading farther up the hill by the
church, and the other winding gently down towards the valley. On the
side of the Green that led towards the church, the broken line of
thatched cottages was continued nearly to the churchyard gate; but on
the opposite northwestern side, there was nothing to obstruct the view
of gently swelling meadow, and wooded valley, and dark masses of distant
hill. That rich undulating district of Loamshire to which Hayslope
belonged lies close to a grim outskirt of Stonyshire, overlooked by its
barren hills as a pretty blooming sister may sometimes be seen linked in
the arm of a rugged, tall, swarthy brother; and in two or three hours'
ride the traveller might exchange a bleak treeless region, intersected
by lines of cold grey stone, for one where his road wound under the
shelter of woods, or up swelling hills, muffled with hedgerows and long
meadow-grass and thick corn; and where at every turn he came upon some
fine old country-seat nestled in the valley or crowning the slope, some
homestead with its long length of barn and its cluster of golden ricks,
some grey steeple looking out from a pretty confusion of trees and
thatch and dark-red tiles. It was just such a picture as this last
that Hayslope Church had made to the traveller as he began to mount the
gentle slope leading to its pleasant uplands, and now from his station
near the Green he had before him in one view nearly all the other
typical features of this pleasant land. High up against the horizon were
the huge conical masses of hill, like giant mounds intended to fortify
this region of corn and grass against the keen and hungry winds of the
north; not distant enough to be clothed in purple mystery, but with
sombre greenish sides visibly specked with sheep, whose motion was only
revealed by memory, not detected by sight; wooed from day to day by the
changing hours, but responding with no change in themselves--left for
ever grim and sullen after the flush of morning, the winged gleams of
the April noonday, the parting crimson glory of the ripening summer
sun. And directly below them the eye rested on a more advanced line of
hanging woods, divided by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops,
and not yet deepened into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer, but
still showing the warm tints of the young oak and the tender green of
the ash and lime. Then came the valley, where the woods grew thicker,
as if they had rolled down and hurried together from the patches left
smooth on the slope, that they might take the better care of the tall
mansion which lifted its parapets and sent its faint blue summer smoke
among them. Doubtless there was a large sweep of park and a broad glassy
pool in front of that mansion, but the swelling slope of meadow would
not let our traveller see them from the village green. He saw instead
a foreground which was just as lovely--the level sunlight lying like
transparent gold among the gently curving stems of the feathered grass
and the tall red sorrel, and the white ambels of the hemlocks lining
the bushy hedgerows. It was that moment in summer when the sound of
the scythe being whetted makes us cast more lingering looks at the
flower-sprinkled tresses of the meadows.

He might have seen other beauties in the landscape if he had turned
a little in his saddle and looked eastward, beyond Jonathan Burge's
pasture and woodyard towards the green corn-fields and walnut-trees of
the Hall Farm; but apparently there was more interest for him in the
living groups close at hand. Every generation in the village was there,
from old "Feyther Taft" in his brown worsted night-cap, who was bent
nearly double, but seemed tough enough to keep on his legs a long while,
leaning on his short stick, down to the babies with their little round
heads lolling forward in quilted linen caps. Now and then there was a
new arrival; perhaps a slouching labourer, who, having eaten his supper,
came out to look at the unusual scene with a slow bovine gaze, willing
to hear what any one had to say in explanation of it, but by no means
excited enough to ask a question. But all took care not to join the
Methodists on the Green, and identify themselves in that way with the
expectant audience, for there was not one of them that would not have
disclaimed the imputation of having come out to hear the "preacher
woman"--they had only come out to see "what war a-goin' on, like." The
men were chiefly gathered in the neighbourhood of the blacksmith's shop.
But do not imagine them gathered in a knot. Villagers never swarm: a
whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as incapable of an
undertone as a cow or a stag. Your true rustic turns his back on his
interlocutor, throwing a question over his shoulder as if he meant to
run away from the answer, and walking a step or two farther off when the
interest of the dialogue culminates. So the group in the vicinity of the
blacksmith's door was by no means a close one, and formed no screen in
front of Chad Cranage, the blacksmith himself, who stood with his black
brawny arms folded, leaning against the door-post, and occasionally
sending forth a bellowing laugh at his own jokes, giving them a
marked preference over the sarcasms of Wiry Ben, who had renounced the
pleasures of the Holly Bush for the sake of seeing life under a new
form. But both styles of wit were treated with equal contempt by Mr.
Joshua Rann. Mr. Rann's leathern apron and subdued griminess can leave
no one in any doubt that he is the village shoemaker; the thrusting out
of his chin and stomach and the twirling of his thumbs are more subtle
indications, intended to prepare unwary strangers for the discovery that
they are in the presence of the parish clerk. "Old Joshway," as he
is irreverently called by his neighbours, is in a state of simmering
indignation; but he has not yet opened his lips except to say, in a
resounding bass undertone, like the tuning of a violoncello, "Sehon,
King of the Amorites; for His mercy endureth for ever; and Og the King
of Basan: for His mercy endureth for ever"--a quotation which may seem
to have slight bearing on the present occasion, but, as with every other
anomaly, adequate knowledge will show it to be a natural sequence. Mr.
Rann was inwardly maintaining the dignity of the Church in the face of
this scandalous irruption of Methodism, and as that dignity was bound up
with his own sonorous utterance of the responses, his argument naturally
suggested a quotation from the psalm he had read the last Sunday
afternoon.

The stronger curiosity of the women had drawn them quite to the edge of
the Green, where they could examine more closely the Quakerlike costume
and odd deportment of the female Methodists. Underneath the maple there
was a small cart, which had been brought from the wheelwright's to serve
as a pulpit, and round this a couple of benches and a few chairs had
been placed. Some of the Methodists were resting on these, with their
eyes closed, as if wrapt in prayer or meditation. Others chose to
continue standing, and had turned their faces towards the villagers
with a look of melancholy compassion, which was highly amusing to Bessy
Cranage, the blacksmith's buxom daughter, known to her neighbours as
Chad's Bess, who wondered "why the folks war amakin' faces a that'ns."
Chad's Bess was the object of peculiar compassion, because her hair,
being turned back under a cap which was set at the top of her head,
exposed to view an ornament of which she was much prouder than of her
red cheeks--namely, a pair of large round ear-rings with false garnets
in them, ornaments condemned not only by the Methodists, but by her own
cousin and namesake Timothy's Bess, who, with much cousinly feeling,
often wished "them ear-rings" might come to good.

Timothy's Bess, though retaining her maiden appellation among her
familiars, had long been the wife of Sandy Jim, and possessed a handsome
set of matronly jewels, of which it is enough to mention the heavy
baby she was rocking in her arms, and the sturdy fellow of five in
knee-breeches, and red legs, who had a rusty milk-can round his neck by
way of drum, and was very carefully avoided by Chad's small terrier.
This young olive-branch, notorious under the name of Timothy's Bess's
Ben, being of an inquiring disposition, unchecked by any false modesty,
had advanced beyond the group of women and children, and was walking
round the Methodists, looking up in their faces with his mouth wide
open, and beating his stick against the milk-can by way of musical
accompaniment. But one of the elderly women bending down to take him by
the shoulder, with an air of grave remonstrance, Timothy's Bess's Ben
first kicked out vigorously, then took to his heels and sought refuge
behind his father's legs.

"Ye gallows young dog," said Sandy Jim, with some paternal pride, "if
ye donna keep that stick quiet, I'll tek it from ye. What dy'e mane by
kickin' foulks?"

"Here! Gie him here to me, Jim," said Chad Cranage; "I'll tie hirs up
an' shoe him as I do th' hosses. Well, Mester Casson," he continued,
as that personage sauntered up towards the group of men, "how are ye
t' naight? Are ye coom t' help groon? They say folks allays groon when
they're hearkenin' to th' Methodys, as if they war bad i' th' inside.
I mane to groon as loud as your cow did th' other naight, an' then the
praicher 'ull think I'm i' th' raight way."

"I'd advise you not to be up to no nonsense, Chad," said Mr. Casson,
with some dignity; "Poyser wouldn't like to hear as his wife's niece was
treated any ways disrespectful, for all he mayn't be fond of her taking
on herself to preach."

"Aye, an' she's a pleasant-looked un too," said Wiry Ben. "I'll stick
up for the pretty women preachin'; I know they'd persuade me over a deal
sooner nor th' ugly men. I shouldna wonder if I turn Methody afore the
night's out, an' begin to coort the preacher, like Seth Bede."

"Why, Seth's looking rether too high, I should think," said Mr. Casson.
"This woman's kin wouldn't like her to demean herself to a common
carpenter."

"Tchu!" said Ben, with a long treble intonation, "what's folks's kin got
to do wi't? Not a chip. Poyser's wife may turn her nose up an' forget
bygones, but this Dinah Morris, they tell me, 's as poor as iver she
was--works at a mill, an's much ado to keep hersen. A strappin' young
carpenter as is a ready-made Methody, like Seth, wouldna be a bad match
for her. Why, Poysers make as big a fuss wi' Adam Bede as if he war a
nevvy o' their own."

"Idle talk! idle talk!" said Mr. Joshua Rann. "Adam an' Seth's two men;
you wunna fit them two wi' the same last."

"Maybe," said Wiry Ben, contemptuously, "but Seth's the lad for me,
though he war a Methody twice o'er. I'm fair beat wi' Seth, for I've
been teasin' him iver sin' we've been workin' together, an' he bears me
no more malice nor a lamb. An' he's a stout-hearted feller too, for when
we saw the old tree all afire a-comin' across the fields one night, an'
we thought as it war a boguy, Seth made no more ado, but he up to't
as bold as a constable. Why, there he comes out o' Will Maskery's; an'
there's Will hisself, lookin' as meek as if he couldna knock a nail o'
the head for fear o' hurtin't. An' there's the pretty preacher woman! My
eye, she's got her bonnet off. I mun go a bit nearer."

Several of the men followed Ben's lead, and the traveller pushed his
horse on to the Green, as Dinah walked rather quickly and in advance of
her companions towards the cart under the maple-tree. While she was near
Seth's tall figure, she looked short, but when she had mounted the cart,
and was away from all comparison, she seemed above the middle height of
woman, though in reality she did not exceed it--an effect which was due
to the slimness of her figure and the simple line of her black stuff
dress. The stranger was struck with surprise as he saw her approach and
mount the cart--surprise, not so much at the feminine delicacy of
her appearance, as at the total absence of self-consciousness in her
demeanour. He had made up his mind to see her advance with a measured
step and a demure solemnity of countenance; he had felt sure that her
face would be mantled with the smile of conscious saintship, or
else charged with denunciatory bitterness. He knew but two types of
Methodist--the ecstatic and the bilious. But Dinah walked as simply as
if she were going to market, and seemed as unconscious of her outward
appearance as a little boy: there was no blush, no tremulousness, which
said, "I know you think me a pretty woman, too young to preach"; no
casting up or down of the eyelids, no compression of the lips, no
attitude of the arms that said, "But you must think of me as a saint."
She held no book in her ungloved hands, but let them hang down lightly
crossed before her, as she stood and turned her grey eyes on the people.
There was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding
love than making observations; they had the liquid look which tells that
the mind is full of what it has to give out, rather than impressed by
external objects. She stood with her left hand towards the descending
sun, and leafy boughs screened her from its rays; but in this sober
light the delicate colouring of her face seemed to gather a calm
vividness, like flowers at evening. It was a small oval face, of a
uniform transparent whiteness, with an egg-like line of cheek and chin,
a full but firm mouth, a delicate nostril, and a low perpendicular brow,
surmounted by a rising arch of parting between smooth locks of pale
reddish hair. The hair was drawn straight back behind the ears, and
covered, except for an inch or two above the brow, by a net Quaker cap.
The eyebrows, of the same colour as the hair, were perfectly horizontal
and firmly pencilled; the eyelashes, though no darker, were long and
abundant--nothing was left blurred or unfinished. It was one of those
faces that make one think of white flowers with light touches of colour
on their pure petals. The eyes had no peculiar beauty, beyond that of
expression; they looked so simple, so candid, so gravely loving, that
no accusing scowl, no light sneer could help melting away before their
glance. Joshua Rann gave a long cough, as if he were clearing his throat
in order to come to a new understanding with himself; Chad Cranage
lifted up his leather skull-cap and scratched his head; and Wiry Ben
wondered how Seth had the pluck to think of courting her.

"A sweet woman," the stranger said to himself, "but surely nature never
meant her for a preacher."

Perhaps he was one of those who think that nature has theatrical
properties and, with the considerate view of facilitating art and
psychology, "makes up," her characters, so that there may be no mistake
about them. But Dinah began to speak.

"Dear friends," she said in a clear but not loud voice "let us pray for
a blessing."

She closed her eyes, and hanging her head down a little continued in the
same moderate tone, as if speaking to some one quite near her: "Saviour
of sinners! When a poor woman laden with sins, went out to the well to
draw water, she found Thee sitting at the well. She knew Thee not; she
had not sought Thee; her mind was dark; her life was unholy. But Thou
didst speak to her, Thou didst teach her, Thou didst show her that her
life lay open before Thee, and yet Thou wast ready to give her that
blessing which she had never sought. Jesus, Thou art in the midst of us,
and Thou knowest all men: if there is any here like that poor woman--if
their minds are dark, their lives unholy--if they have come out not
seeking Thee, not desiring to be taught; deal with them according to the
free mercy which Thou didst show to her. Speak to them, Lord, open their
ears to my message, bring their sins to their minds, and make them
thirst for that salvation which Thou art ready to give.

"Lord, Thou art with Thy people still: they see Thee in the
night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with
them by the way. And Thou art near to those who have not known Thee:
open their eyes that they may see Thee--see Thee weeping over them,
and saying 'Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life'--see Thee
hanging on the cross and saying, 'Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do'--see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to
judge them at the last. Amen."

Dinah opened her eyes again and paused, looking at the group of
villagers, who were now gathered rather more closely on her right hand.

"Dear friends," she began, raising her voice a little, "you have all of
you been to church, and I think you must have heard the clergyman
read these words: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.' Jesus Christ spoke those
words--he said he came TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. I don't know
whether you ever thought about those words much, but I will tell you
when I remember first hearing them. It was on just such a sort of
evening as this, when I was a little girl, and my aunt as brought me up
took me to hear a good man preach out of doors, just as we are here. I
remember his face well: he was a very old man, and had very long white
hair; his voice was very soft and beautiful, not like any voice I had
ever heard before. I was a little girl and scarcely knew anything, and
this old man seemed to me such a different sort of a man from anybody
I had ever seen before that I thought he had perhaps come down from
the sky to preach to us, and I said, 'Aunt, will he go back to the sky
to-night, like the picture in the Bible?'

"That man of God was Mr. Wesley, who spent his life in doing what our
blessed Lord did--preaching the Gospel to the poor--and he entered into
his rest eight years ago. I came to know more about him years after, but
I was a foolish thoughtless child then, and I remembered only one thing
he told us in his sermon. He told us as 'Gospel' meant 'good news.' The
Gospel, you know, is what the Bible tells us about God.

"Think of that now! Jesus Christ did really come down from heaven, as
I, like a silly child, thought Mr. Wesley did; and what he came down
for was to tell good news about God to the poor. Why, you and me, dear
friends, are poor. We have been brought up in poor cottages and have
been reared on oat-cake, and lived coarse; and we haven't been to school
much, nor read books, and we don't know much about anything but what
happens just round us. We are just the sort of people that want to
hear good news. For when anybody's well off, they don't much mind about
hearing news from distant parts; but if a poor man or woman's in trouble
and has hard work to make out a living, they like to have a letter to
tell 'em they've got a friend as will help 'em. To be sure, we can't
help knowing something about God, even if we've never heard the Gospel,
the good news that our Saviour brought us. For we know everything comes
from God: don't you say almost every day, 'This and that will happen,
please God,' and 'We shall begin to cut the grass soon, please God to
send us a little more sunshine'? We know very well we are altogether
in the hands of God. We didn't bring ourselves into the world, we can't
keep ourselves alive while we're sleeping; the daylight, and the wind,
and the corn, and the cows to give us milk--everything we have comes
from God. And he gave us our souls and put love between parents and
children, and husband and wife. But is that as much as we want to know
about God? We see he is great and mighty, and can do what he will: we
are lost, as if we was struggling in great waters, when we try to think
of him.

"But perhaps doubts come into your mind like this: Can God take much
notice of us poor people? Perhaps he only made the world for the great
and the wise and the rich. It doesn't cost him much to give us our
little handful of victual and bit of clothing; but how do we know he
cares for us any more than we care for the worms and things in the
garden, so as we rear our carrots and onions? Will God take care of us
when we die? And has he any comfort for us when we are lame and sick and
helpless? Perhaps, too, he is angry with us; else why does the blight
come, and the bad harvests, and the fever, and all sorts of pain and
trouble? For our life is full of trouble, and if God sends us good, he
seems to send bad too. How is it? How is it?

"Ah, dear friends, we are in sad want of good news about God; and what
does other good news signify if we haven't that? For everything else
comes to an end, and when we die we leave it all. But God lasts when
everything else is gone. What shall we do if he is not our friend?"

Then Dinah told how the good news had been brought, and how the mind
of God towards the poor had been made manifest in the life of Jesus,
dwelling on its lowliness and its acts of mercy.

"So you see, dear friends," she went on, "Jesus spent his time almost
all in doing good to poor people; he preached out of doors to them, and
he made friends of poor workmen, and taught them and took pains with
them. Not but what he did good to the rich too, for he was full of love
to all men, only he saw as the poor were more in want of his help. So
he cured the lame and the sick and the blind, and he worked miracles to
feed the hungry because, he said, he was sorry for them; and he was
very kind to the little children and comforted those who had lost their
friends; and he spoke very tenderly to poor sinners that were sorry for
their sins.

"Ah, wouldn't you love such a man if you saw him--if he were here in
this village? What a kind heart he must have! What a friend he would be
to go to in trouble! How pleasant it must be to be taught by him.

"Well, dear friends, who WAS this man? Was he only a good man--a very
good man, and no more--like our dear Mr. Wesley, who has been taken from
us?...He was the Son of God--'in the image of the Father,' the Bible
says; that means, just like God, who is the beginning and end of all
things--the God we want to know about. So then, all the love that
Jesus showed to the poor is the same love that God has for us. We can
understand what Jesus felt, because he came in a body like ours and
spoke words such as we speak to each other. We were afraid to think what
God was before--the God who made the world and the sky and the thunder
and lightning. We could never see him; we could only see the things he
had made; and some of these things was very terrible, so as we might
well tremble when we thought of him. But our blessed Saviour has showed
us what God is in a way us poor ignorant people can understand; he has
showed us what God's heart is, what are his feelings towards us.

"But let us see a little more about what Jesus came on earth for.
Another time he said, 'I came to seek and to save that which was lost';
and another time, 'I came not to call the righteous but sinners to
repentance.'

"The LOST!...SINNERS!...Ah, dear friends, does that mean you and me?"

Hitherto the traveller had been chained to the spot against his will
by the charm of Dinah's mellow treble tones, which had a variety of
modulation like that of a fine instrument touched with the unconscious
skill of musical instinct. The simple things she said seemed like
novelties, as a melody strikes us with a new feeling when we hear
it sung by the pure voice of a boyish chorister; the quiet depth of
conviction with which she spoke seemed in itself an evidence for the
truth of her message. He saw that she had thoroughly arrested her
hearers. The villagers had pressed nearer to her, and there was no
longer anything but grave attention on all faces. She spoke slowly,
though quite fluently, often pausing after a question, or before any
transition of ideas. There was no change of attitude, no gesture; the
effect of her speech was produced entirely by the inflections of her
voice, and when she came to the question, "Will God take care of us
when we die?" she uttered it in such a tone of plaintive appeal that
the tears came into some of the hardest eyes. The stranger had ceased
to doubt, as he had done at the first glance, that she could fix the
attention of her rougher hearers, but still he wondered whether she
could have that power of rousing their more violent emotions, which
must surely be a necessary seal of her vocation as a Methodist preacher,
until she came to the words, "Lost!--Sinners!" when there was a great
change in her voice and manner. She had made a long pause before the
exclamation, and the pause seemed to be filled by agitating thoughts
that showed themselves in her features. Her pale face became paler;
the circles under her eyes deepened, as they did when tears half-gather
without falling; and the mild loving eyes took an expression of appalled
pity, as if she had suddenly discerned a destroying angel hovering over
the heads of the people. Her voice became deep and muffled, but there
was still no gesture. Nothing could be less like the ordinary type of
the Ranter than Dinah. She was not preaching as she heard others preach,
but speaking directly from her own emotions and under the inspiration of
her own simple faith.

But now she had entered into a new current of feeling. Her manner became
less calm, her utterance more rapid and agitated, as she tried to bring
home to the people their guilt, their wilful darkness, their state of
disobedience to God--as she dwelt on the hatefulness of sin, the Divine
holiness, and the sufferings of the Saviour, by which a way had been
opened for their salvation. At last it seemed as if, in her yearning
desire to reclaim the lost sheep, she could not be satisfied by
addressing her hearers as a body. She appealed first to one and then to
another, beseeching them with tears to turn to God while there was
yet time; painting to them the desolation of their souls, lost in sin,
feeding on the husks of this miserable world, far away from God their
Father; and then the love of the Saviour, who was waiting and watching
for their return.

There was many a responsive sigh and groan from her fellow-Methodists,
but the village mind does not easily take fire, and a little smouldering
vague anxiety that might easily die out again was the utmost effect
Dinah's preaching had wrought in them at present. Yet no one had
retired, except the children and "old Feyther Taft," who being too deaf
to catch many words, had some time ago gone back to his inglenook. Wiry
Ben was feeling very uncomfortable, and almost wishing he had not come
to hear Dinah; he thought what she said would haunt him somehow. Yet he
couldn't help liking to look at her and listen to her, though he dreaded
every moment that she would fix her eyes on him and address him in
particular. She had already addressed Sandy Jim, who was now holding the
baby to relieve his wife, and the big soft-hearted man had rubbed away
some tears with his fist, with a confused intention of being a better
fellow, going less to the Holly Bush down by the Stone-pits, and
cleaning himself more regularly of a Sunday.

In front of Sandy Jim stood Chad's Bess, who had shown an unwonted
quietude and fixity of attention ever since Dinah had begun to speak.
Not that the matter of the discourse had arrested her at once, for she
was lost in a puzzling speculation as to what pleasure and satisfaction
there could be in life to a young woman who wore a cap like Dinah's.
Giving up this inquiry in despair, she took to studying Dinah's nose,
eyes, mouth, and hair, and wondering whether it was better to have such
a sort of pale face as that, or fat red cheeks and round black eyes like
her own. But gradually the influence of the general gravity told upon
her, and she became conscious of what Dinah was saying. The gentle
tones, the loving persuasion, did not touch her, but when the more
severe appeals came she began to be frightened. Poor Bessy had always
been considered a naughty girl; she was conscious of it; if it was
necessary to be very good, it was clear she must be in a bad way. She
couldn't find her places at church as Sally Rann could, she had often
been tittering when she "curcheyed" to Mr. Irwine; and these religious
deficiencies were accompanied by a corresponding slackness in the minor
morals, for Bessy belonged unquestionably to that unsoaped lazy class of
feminine characters with whom you may venture to "eat an egg, an apple,
or a nut." All this she was generally conscious of, and hitherto had not
been greatly ashamed of it. But now she began to feel very much as if
the constable had come to take her up and carry her before the justice
for some undefined offence. She had a terrified sense that God, whom she
had always thought of as very far off, was very near to her, and that
Jesus was close by looking at her, though she could not see him. For
Dinah had that belief in visible manifestations of Jesus, which is
common among the Methodists, and she communicated it irresistibly to her
hearers: she made them feel that he was among them bodily, and might at
any moment show himself to them in some way that would strike anguish
and penitence into their hearts.

"See!" she exclaimed, turning to the left, with her eyes fixed on a
point above the heads of the people. "See where our blessed Lord stands
and weeps and stretches out his arms towards you. Hear what he says:
'How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!'...and ye would not," she repeated,
in a tone of pleading reproach, turning her eyes on the people again.
"See the print of the nails on his dear hands and feet. It is your sins
that made them! Ah! How pale and worn he looks! He has gone through all
that great agony in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful
even unto death, and the great drops of sweat fell like blood to the
ground. They spat upon him and buffeted him, they scourged him, they
mocked him, they laid the heavy cross on his bruised shoulders. Then
they nailed him up. Ah, what pain! His lips are parched with thirst, and
they mock him still in this great agony; yet with those parched lips he
prays for them, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'
Then a horror of great darkness fell upon him, and he felt what sinners
feel when they are for ever shut out from God. That was the last drop
in the cup of bitterness. 'My God, my God!' he cries, 'why hast Thou
forsaken me?'

"All this he bore for you! For you--and you never think of him; for
you--and you turn your backs on him; you don't care what he has gone
through for you. Yet he is not weary of toiling for you: he has risen
from the dead, he is praying for you at the right hand of God--'Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.' And he is upon this earth
too; he is among us; he is there close to you now; I see his wounded
body and his look of love."

Here Dinah turned to Bessy Cranage, whose bonny youth and evident vanity
had touched her with pity.

"Poor child! Poor child! He is beseeching you, and you don't listen to
him. You think of ear-rings and fine gowns and caps, and you never think
of the Saviour who died to save your precious soul. Your cheeks will be
shrivelled one day, your hair will be grey, your poor body will be thin
and tottering! Then you will begin to feel that your soul is not saved;
then you will have to stand before God dressed in your sins, in your
evil tempers and vain thoughts. And Jesus, who stands ready to help you
now, won't help you then; because you won't have him to be your Saviour,
he will be your judge. Now he looks at you with love and mercy and says,
'Come to me that you may have life'; then he will turn away from you,
and say, 'Depart from me into ever-lasting fire!'"

Poor Bessy's wide-open black eyes began to fill with tears, her great
red cheeks and lips became quite pale, and her face was distorted like a
little child's before a burst of crying.

"Ah, poor blind child!" Dinah went on, "think if it should happen to you
as it once happened to a servant of God in the days of her vanity. SHE
thought of her lace caps and saved all her money to buy 'em; she thought
nothing about how she might get a clean heart and a right spirit--she
only wanted to have better lace than other girls. And one day when she
put her new cap on and looked in the glass, she saw a bleeding Face
crowned with thorns. That face is looking at you now"--here Dinah
pointed to a spot close in front of Bessy--"Ah, tear off those follies!
Cast them away from you, as if they were stinging adders. They ARE
stinging you--they are poisoning your soul--they are dragging you down
into a dark bottomless pit, where you will sink for ever, and for ever,
and for ever, further away from light and God."

Bessy could bear it no longer: a great terror was upon her, and
wrenching her ear-rings from her ears, she threw them down before her,
sobbing aloud. Her father, Chad, frightened lest he should be "laid hold
on" too, this impression on the rebellious Bess striking him as nothing
less than a miracle, walked hastily away and began to work at his anvil
by way of reassuring himself. "Folks mun ha' hoss-shoes, praichin' or
no praichin': the divil canna lay hould o' me for that," he muttered to
himself.

But now Dinah began to tell of the joys that were in store for the
penitent, and to describe in her simple way the divine peace and love
with which the soul of the believer is filled--how the sense of God's
love turns poverty into riches and satisfies the soul so that no uneasy
desire vexes it, no fear alarms it: how, at last, the very temptation
to sin is extinguished, and heaven is begun upon earth, because no cloud
passes between the soul and God, who is its eternal sun.

"Dear friends," she said at last, "brothers and sisters, whom I love
as those for whom my Lord has died, believe me, I know what this great
blessedness is; and because I know it, I want you to have it too. I am
poor, like you: I have to get my living with my hands; but no lord nor
lady can be so happy as me, if they haven't got the love of God in their
souls. Think what it is--not to hate anything but sin; to be full of
love to every creature; to be frightened at nothing; to be sure that all
things will turn to good; not to mind pain, because it is our Father's
will; to know that nothing--no, not if the earth was to be burnt up, or
the waters come and drown us--nothing could part us from God who loves
us, and who fills our souls with peace and joy, because we are sure that
whatever he wills is holy, just, and good.

"Dear friends, come and take this blessedness; it is offered to you; it
is the good news that Jesus came to preach to the poor. It is not like
the riches of this world, so that the more one gets the less the rest
can have. God is without end; his love is without end--"

     Its streams the whole creation reach,
     So plenteous is the store;
     Enough for all, enough for each,
     Enough for evermore.

Dinah had been speaking at least an hour, and the reddening light of the
parting day seemed to give a solemn emphasis to her closing words. The
stranger, who had been interested in the course of her sermon as if
it had been the development of a drama--for there is this sort of
fascination in all sincere unpremeditated eloquence, which opens to one
the inward drama of the speaker's emotions--now turned his horse aside
and pursued his way, while Dinah said, "Let us sing a little, dear
friends"; and as he was still winding down the slope, the voices of the
Methodists reached him, rising and falling in that strange blending of
exultation and sadness which belongs to the cadence of a hymn.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Preaching The stranger on horseback stops at the Donnithorne Arms to refresh himself. The tavern is run by Mr. Casson who used to be the butler for the old Squire Donnithorne. Mr. Casson tells the stranger about Hayslope and the principal characters in the town. People have started gathering on the Green to hear the Methodist preacher woman, and the stranger is interested. Casson explains the regular parson lives at Broxton and that there are not many Methodists in this lush country of farmers. There are workers at Burge's and the stone pits, but the farmers are not usually Methodist. Methodists are mostly in Stonyshire where the young woman comes from. She is the niece of the Poysers at Hall Farm, just visiting. Casson mentions that Adam Bede is a favorite with young Arthur Donnithorne, the heir to the squire, though Adam has a serious temperament. The stranger and several villagers assemble to hear Dinah but they stand off from the small crowd of professed Methodists. The crowd gossips about Dinah being a poor factory worker herself and how Seth would be a perfect husband for her. Dinah is beautiful but dressed like a Quaker and completely natural and unselfconscious as she stands before the crowd and speaks her simple eloquent message to an attentive audience. She exhibits the spirituality she represents with her loving eyes and calm manner. Her sermon is direct and genuine, and her voice musical. She is not a typical preacher, for she speaks entirely from the heart and when she addresses Chad's Bess, the girl is terrified that God will see her vanity. She throws off her earrings.


prompt:
Chapter: IN less than an hour from that time, Seth Bede was walking by Dinah's
side along the hedgerow-path that skirted the pastures and green
corn-fields which lay between the village and the Hall Farm. Dinah had
taken off her little Quaker bonnet again, and was holding it in
her hands that she might have a freer enjoyment of the cool evening
twilight, and Seth could see the expression of her face quite clearly as
he walked by her side, timidly revolving something he wanted to say to
her. It was an expression of unconscious placid gravity--of absorption
in thoughts that had no connection with the present moment or with her
own personality--an expression that is most of all discouraging to a
lover. Her very walk was discouraging: it had that quiet elasticity that
asks for no support. Seth felt this dimly; he said to himself, "She's
too good and holy for any man, let alone me," and the words he had
been summoning rushed back again before they had reached his lips. But
another thought gave him courage: "There's no man could love her better
and leave her freer to follow the Lord's work." They had been silent for
many minutes now, since they had done talking about Bessy Cranage;
Dinah seemed almost to have forgotten Seth's presence, and her pace
was becoming so much quicker that the sense of their being only a few
minutes' walk from the yard-gates of the Hall Farm at last gave Seth
courage to speak.

"You've quite made up your mind to go back to Snowfield o' Saturday,
Dinah?"

"Yes," said Dinah, quietly. "I'm called there. It was borne in upon my
mind while I was meditating on Sunday night, as Sister Allen, who's in a
decline, is in need of me. I saw her as plain as we see that bit of thin
white cloud, lifting up her poor thin hand and beckoning to me. And this
morning when I opened the Bible for direction, the first words my
eyes fell on were, 'And after we had seen the vision, immediately we
endeavoured to go into Macedonia.' If it wasn't for that clear showing
of the Lord's will, I should be loath to go, for my heart yearns over
my aunt and her little ones, and that poor wandering lamb Hetty Sorrel.
I've been much drawn out in prayer for her of late, and I look on it as
a token that there may be mercy in store for her."

"God grant it," said Seth. "For I doubt Adam's heart is so set on her,
he'll never turn to anybody else; and yet it 'ud go to my heart if he
was to marry her, for I canna think as she'd make him happy. It's a deep
mystery--the way the heart of man turns to one woman out of all the rest
he's seen i' the world, and makes it easier for him to work seven year
for HER, like Jacob did for Rachel, sooner than have any other woman for
th' asking. I often think of them words, 'And Jacob served seven years
for Rachel; and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had
to her.' I know those words 'ud come true with me, Dinah, if so be you'd
give me hope as I might win you after seven years was over. I know you
think a husband 'ud be taking up too much o' your thoughts, because St.
Paul says, 'She that's married careth for the things of the world how
she may please her husband'; and may happen you'll think me overbold to
speak to you about it again, after what you told me o' your mind last
Saturday. But I've been thinking it over again by night and by day, and
I've prayed not to be blinded by my own desires, to think what's only
good for me must be good for you too. And it seems to me there's more
texts for your marrying than ever you can find against it. For St. Paul
says as plain as can be in another place, 'I will that the younger
women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the
adversary to speak reproachfully'; and then 'two are better than one';
and that holds good with marriage as well as with other things. For we
should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. We both serve the same
Master, and are striving after the same gifts; and I'd never be the
husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your doing the
work God has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor and out,
to give you more liberty--more than you can have now, for you've got to
get your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for us both."

When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and
almost hurriedly, lest Dinah should speak some decisive word before he
had poured forth all the arguments he had prepared. His cheeks became
flushed as he went on his mild grey eyes filled with tears, and his
voice trembled as he spoke the last sentence. They had reached one of
those very narrow passes between two tall stones, which performed the
office of a stile in Loamshire, and Dinah paused as she turned towards
Seth and said, in her tender but calm treble notes, "Seth Bede, I thank
you for your love towards me, and if I could think of any man as more
than a Christian brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not
free to marry. That is good for other women, and it is a great and a
blessed thing to be a wife and mother; but 'as God has distributed to
every man, as the Lord hath called every man, so let him walk.' God has
called me to minister to others, not to have any joys or sorrows of my
own, but to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with those
that weep. He has called me to speak his word, and he has greatly owned
my work. It could only be on a very clear showing that I could leave the
brethren and sisters at Snowfield, who are favoured with very little of
this world's good; where the trees are few, so that a child might count
them, and there's very hard living for the poor in the winter. It has
been given me to help, to comfort, and strengthen the little flock there
and to call in many wanderers; and my soul is filled with these things
from my rising up till my lying down. My life is too short, and God's
work is too great for me to think of making a home for myself in this
world. I've not turned a deaf ear to your words, Seth, for when I saw as
your love was given to me, I thought it might be a leading of Providence
for me to change my way of life, and that we should be fellow-helpers;
and I spread the matter before the Lord. But whenever I tried to fix my
mind on marriage, and our living together, other thoughts always came
in--the times when I've prayed by the sick and dying, and the happy
hours I've had preaching, when my heart was filled with love, and the
Word was given to me abundantly. And when I've opened the Bible for
direction, I've always lighted on some clear word to tell me where my
work lay. I believe what you say, Seth, that you would try to be a help
and not a hindrance to my work; but I see that our marriage is not God's
will--He draws my heart another way. I desire to live and die without
husband or children. I seem to have no room in my soul for wants and
fears of my own, it has pleased God to fill my heart so full with the
wants and sufferings of his poor people."

Seth was unable to reply, and they walked on in silence. At last, as
they were nearly at the yard-gate, he said, "Well, Dinah, I must seek
for strength to bear it, and to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.
But I feel now how weak my faith is. It seems as if, when you are gone,
I could never joy in anything any more. I think it's something passing
the love of women as I feel for you, for I could be content without
your marrying me if I could go and live at Snowfield and be near you.
I trusted as the strong love God has given me towards you was a leading
for us both; but it seems it was only meant for my trial. Perhaps I feel
more for you than I ought to feel for any creature, for I often can't
help saying of you what the hymn says--

     In darkest shades if she appear,
     My dawning is begun;
     She is my soul's bright morning-star,
     And she my rising sun.

That may be wrong, and I am to be taught better. But you wouldn't be
displeased with me if things turned out so as I could leave this country
and go to live at Snowfield?"

"No, Seth; but I counsel you to wait patiently, and not lightly to
leave your own country and kindred. Do nothing without the Lord's clear
bidding. It's a bleak and barren country there, not like this land of
Goshen you've been used to. We mustn't be in a hurry to fix and choose
our own lot; we must wait to be guided."

"But you'd let me write you a letter, Dinah, if there was anything I
wanted to tell you?"

"Yes, sure; let me know if you're in any trouble. You'll be continually
in my prayers."

They had now reached the yard-gate, and Seth said, "I won't go in,
Dinah, so farewell." He paused and hesitated after she had given him
her hand, and then said, "There's no knowing but what you may see things
different after a while. There may be a new leading."

"Let us leave that, Seth. It's good to live only a moment at a time, as
I've read in one of Mr. Wesley's books. It isn't for you and me to lay
plans; we've nothing to do but to obey and to trust. Farewell."

Dinah pressed his hand with rather a sad look in her loving eyes, and
then passed through the gate, while Seth turned away to walk lingeringly
home. But instead of taking the direct road, he chose to turn back along
the fields through which he and Dinah had already passed; and I think
his blue linen handkerchief was very wet with tears long before he
had made up his mind that it was time for him to set his face steadily
homewards. He was but three-and-twenty, and had only just learned what
it is to love--to love with that adoration which a young man gives to a
woman whom he feels to be greater and better than himself. Love of this
sort is hardly distinguishable from religious feeling. What deep and
worthy love is so, whether of woman or child, or art or music. Our
caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under the influence
of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic statues, or
Beethoven symphonies all bring with them the consciousness that they are
mere waves and ripples in an unfathomable ocean of love and beauty; our
emotion in its keenest moment passes from expression into silence, our
love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object and loses itself in
the sense of divine mystery. And this blessed gift of venerating love
has been given to too many humble craftsmen since the world began for
us to feel any surprise that it should have existed in the soul of a
Methodist carpenter half a century ago, while there was yet a lingering
after-glow from the time when Wesley and his fellow-labourer fed on the
hips and haws of the Cornwall hedges, after exhausting limbs and lungs
in carrying a divine message to the poor.

That afterglow has long faded away; and the picture we are apt to make
of Methodism in our imagination is not an amphitheatre of green hills,
or the deep shade of broad-leaved sycamores, where a crowd of rough
men and weary-hearted women drank in a faith which was a rudimentary
culture, which linked their thoughts with the past, lifted their
imagination above the sordid details of their own narrow lives, and
suffused their souls with the sense of a pitying, loving, infinite
Presence, sweet as summer to the houseless needy. It is too possible
that to some of my readers Methodism may mean nothing more than
low-pitched gables up dingy streets, sleek grocers, sponging preachers,
and hypocritical jargon--elements which are regarded as an exhaustive
analysis of Methodism in many fashionable quarters.

That would be a pity; for I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah were
anything else than Methodists--not indeed of that modern type which
reads quarterly reviews and attends in chapels with pillared porticoes,
but of a very old-fashioned kind. They believed in present miracles, in
instantaneous conversions, in revelations by dreams and visions; they
drew lots, and sought for Divine guidance by opening the Bible at
hazard; having a literal way of interpreting the Scriptures, which is
not at all sanctioned by approved commentators; and it is impossible
for me to represent their diction as correct, or their instruction as
liberal. Still--if I have read religious history aright--faith,
hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a
sensibility to the three concords, and it is possible--thank Heaven!--to
have very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings. The raw bacon
which clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store that she may carry
it to her neighbour's child to "stop the fits," may be a piteously
inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness
that prompted the deed has a beneficent radiation that is not lost.

Considering these things, we can hardly think Dinah and Seth beneath our
sympathy, accustomed as we may be to weep over the loftier sorrows
of heroines in satin boots and crinoline, and of heroes riding fiery
horses, themselves ridden by still more fiery passions.

Poor Seth! He was never on horseback in his life except once, when he
was a little lad, and Mr. Jonathan Burge took him up behind, telling
him to "hold on tight"; and instead of bursting out into wild accusing
apostrophes to God and destiny, he is resolving, as he now walks
homewards under the solemn starlight, to repress his sadness, to be less
bent on having his own will, and to live more for others, as Dinah does.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: After the Preaching Seth Bede walks Dinah Morris home. She is staying with her Aunt Poyser at Hall Farm. Seth is discouraged from his suit because Dinah's whole attention is on other people. She is a visionary and can tell from her prayers who needs help. For instance, she mentions that she is watching over Hetty Sorrel, the young woman that Adam loves. Seth gathers courage and asks Dinah to marry him. She refuses, saying she has been called by God to do his work and doesn't expect to marry. She is deeply attached to the community in Snowfield and will be returning there to continue her work among that people. When Seth proposes he move to Snowfield to be near her, she discourages him and says he must ask for divine guidance. Seth says he will learn to bear his sorrow, but asks permission to write to her, and she agrees. They part at the gate to Hall Farm.