He's like me--he's got a temper of his own.' 'Rather a low-bred fellow, I think, Barton,' said Mr.Pilgrim, who hated the Reverend Amos for two reasons--because he had called in a new doctor, recently settled in Shepperton; and because, being himself a dabbler in drugs, he had the credit of having cured a patient of Mr.Pilgrim's.
'They say his father was a Dissenting shoemaker; and he's half a Dissenter himself.

Why, doesn't he preach extempore in that cottage up here, of a Sunday evening ?' 'Tchuh!'-- this was Mr.Hackit's favourite interjection--'that preaching without book's no good, only when a man has a gift, and has the Bible at his fingers' ends.

It was all very well for Parry--he'd a gift; and in my youth I've heard the Ranters out o' doors in Yorkshire go on for an hour or two on end, without ever sticking fast a minute.

There was one clever chap, I remember, as used to say, "You're like the woodpigeon; it says do, do, do all day, and never sets about any work itself." That's bringing it home to people.

But our parson's no gift at all that way; he can preach as good a sermon as need be heard when he writes it down.