[Adam Bede by George Eliot]@TWC D-Link bookAdam Bede CHAPTER VIII 2/16
I work in it myself, and have reason to be grateful, for thereby I have enough and to spare.
But it's still a bleak place, as you say, sir--very different from this country." "You have relations living there, probably, so that you are attached to the place as your home ?" "I had an aunt there once; she brought me up, for I was an orphan.
But she was taken away seven years ago, and I have no other kindred that I know of, besides my Aunt Poyser, who is very good to me, and would have me come and live in this country, which to be sure is a good land, wherein they eat bread without scarceness.
But I'm not free to leave Snowfield, where I was first planted, and have grown deep into it, like the small grass on the hill-top." "Ah, I daresay you have many religious friends and companions there; you are a Methodist--a Wesleyan, I think ?" "Yes, my aunt at Snowfield belonged to the Society, and I have cause to be thankful for the privileges I have had thereby from my earliest childhood." "And have you been long in the habit of preaching? For I understand you preached at Hayslope last night." "I first took to the work four years since, when I was twenty-one." "Your Society sanctions women's preaching, then ?" "It doesn't forbid them, sir, when they've a clear call to the work, and when their ministry is owned by the conversion of sinners and the strengthening of God's people.
Mrs.Fletcher, as you may have heard about, was the first woman to preach in the Society, I believe, before she was married, when she was Miss Bosanquet; and Mr.Wesley approved of her undertaking the work.
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