God’s Forgotten Fools: They Were ‘Active in Their Own Ruin’

By Rosemary J. Goring

This is a story about one of over a thousand clergymen turned out of the Church of England in 1622 for refusing to comply with its demands. They endured persecution, betrayal and sometimes imprisonment - which is why they were said to have been ‘active in their own ruin’. It is largely based on the life of the rector of Brightling in East Sussex who, after his ejection, remained in the parish, caring for the people after plague had spread from London and his successor had fled. It shows how the life and loves of a whole family were affected by the nationwide upheaval.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Nov 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664113299

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Copyright © 2020 by Rosemary J. Goring.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The cover, designed by George Goring, incorporates a page from the parish registers of Brightling in the East Sussex Record Office in Lewes.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/04/2020

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CONTENTS

Author’s Preface

Prologue

Chapter 1 A Question of Apples

Chapter 2 Prayer Book and Puritan

Chapter 3 Bartholomew Tide

Chapter 4 After Bartholomew

Chapter 5 Conventicles

Chapter 6 The Visitation

Chapter 7 Five Miles

Chapter 8 Arm of the Law

Chapter 9 The Prison Assembly of Divines

Chapter 10 Toleration

Epilogue

Appendix I

Appendix II

Acknowledgements

If they that suffered for their nonconformity in 1662 … did not do it out of a principle of conscience, they were the weakest people in the world. They were active in their own ruin… and might easily have avoided misery… if they had not been afraid of sinning against God… To let the memory of these men die is injurious to posterity: by depriving them of what might contribute to promote their steadiness to their principles, under hardships and severities. Edmund Calamy

We are fools for Christ’s sake… Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it. 1 Corinthians, 4.10-12 (Authorised Version)

The world is old, and half our days are done:

What new things now appear beneath the sun?

Come haste and see, and open up your eyes:

God’s fools, God’s fools, that shall confound the wise.

God’s fools rush in where wise men fear to tread,

They speak the words the wise would leave unsaid,

They have no wit for craft and deep disguise:

God’s fools, God’s fools, that shall confound the wise.

The world will mock, the world will point with scorn,

The world will shun, will leave them all forlorn,

But they shall sift the truth from out the lies:

God’s fools, God’s fools, that shall confound the wise.

The world rolls on, en route for Judgment Day,

When all that now we know shall pass away,

And there as judge, we’ll see, to our surprise,

God’s fools, God’s fools, that shall confound the wise.

Rosemary Goring, The Journeying ‘I’: a selection of poems and songs (1993)*

*song composed 1970

Author’s Preface

On Twelfth Night, 1984, our four children, young adults as they were now, decided to invite their friends in for a party. It would be a low-key affair, they assured us – and would we like to join them? We declined with thanks, and opted for a quiet evening upstairs in the study, with supper on a tray.

My eye was caught by a handsome leather-bound book sitting on the desk: a long-term loan from Dr. Williams’s Library in London. It had been borrowed to assist my husband and myself in our current project: a booklet about the Unitarians. The book’s title read:

‘The Nonconformist’s Memorial:

Being

An Account of the Ministers,

Who were ejected or silenced after the Restoration,

Particularly by the Act of Uniformity, which took Place on Bartholomew-Day, 1662.

Containing a concise View of

Their Lives and Characters,

Their Principles, Sufferings and Printed Works.

Originally written

By the Reverend and Learned EDMUND CALAMY, D.D.’

This was a book I had heard a good deal about, but up until now had never actually seen, read, or even held in my hands. The opening words of the Introduction read as follows:

To write of Nonconformists and Dissenters, is in the esteem of some men, to write of Schismaticks and Rebels: to commend them is little better than to write in the praise of Nero. They have been represented in such a manner, as if no words could be bad enough to describe them… They have borne all the obloquy that the stage, the tavern, the press or the pulpit could well vent against them. Preachers and poets have made merry with them: Wit and Malice, Interest and Power have jointly conspired against them: and yet they have some footing, and some credit, still left…

If they that suffered for their nonconformity in 62, whatever mistakes they might labour under, did not do it out of a principle of conscience, they were the weakest people in the world. They were active in their own ruin… and might easily have avoided misery… if they had not been afraid of sinning against God… To let the memory of these men die is injurious to posterity: by depriving them of what might contribute to promote their steadiness to their principles, under hardships and severities.

What were they like, these people? I began to turn the pages.

London, Oxford, Cambridge, … County by county, parish by parish, the names kept coming up. Three of them – Benjamin Fairfax, George Hughes and John Meadows – were already known to me, for they were my own ancestors, still recalled by my mother. Voices from the past, you might say…

By the end of that evening, my mind was made up: I have to do something about this. I don’t know what, but something – the story needs to be told again. A different medium, perhaps? A television series, say, that might be accessible to everyone?

What has eventually evolved, after many hiccups and false starts, is simply a popular work of fiction – but fiction based on fact. It is for posterity to judge whether or not the story is worth reading.

PROLOGUE

When you go into a parish church one of the things you will often notice is a wooden board, usually set high up on the wall of the nave, with a list of names and dates that may begin as early as the twelfth century, leading up to the present day. This is the record of the incumbents: all the people who have ever been in charge of the parish, and, as such, the list is a vital component in the slowly woven tapestry that marks the evolution of religious life in this country.

In some churches, however, there are irregularities in this smooth progression of names and dates. People who are interested in these things will notice that such a break – sometimes no more than a hiccup – occurs most commonly at a place just past the half-way mark of the seventeenth century: the early sixteen-sixties, to be precise. There is a gap: a name, perhaps, is missing. Something untoward has happened here, but no one is saying what it is. Whatever the disturbance might have been, nobody wants to know about it. Down the succeeding centuries business in the parish church continued as usual without the least indication that during those few years in the sixteen-sixties something had occurred that was to change the nature of the established church for ever.

This book tells the story of what happened to one of over a thousand ministers who were ejected from the Church of England on St Bartholomew’s Day, 24 August 1662. It was an uncomfortable episode in the life of our national church that people generally seem unwilling to revisit. It is, in effect, a piece of history that has got swept under the carpet. But unless it is taken properly into account, it is not possible to gain a balanced view of the development of the intellectual and spiritual life of this country over the following three centuries.

All the places in this story are fictitious, as are the characters, although in some cases they are based on real people. Many of the events, however, are genuine, and are recorded in Edmund Calamy’s Account of the ministers ejected from the Church in 1662, of which some extracts can be found in Appendix 1.

Calamy, who was himself the son and grandson of two ejected ministers of the same name, writes:

‘Often was I… sent in those days to Newgate, New Prison, and other places of confinement with small presents of money to such Dissenting ministers as were clapped up, such as Mr. Richard Stretton, Mr. Robert Franklin, &c… My own father was never cast into prison, but often had warrants out against him, and was forced to disguise himself and skulk in private holes and corners, and frequently change his lodgings.’

It was Calamy who made the decision ‘not to let the memory of these men die’, and, aided by a team of ministers up and down the country, embarked on the formidable task of compiling a complete dossier of all the clergymen who had resigned their livings as a result of the Act of Uniformity. Beginning with London itself and including those from the Oxford and Cambridge colleges – clergy, Masters, Fellows and students – it covers England and Wales county by county and conveys a remarkable cumulative picture of the disturbances of the times.

From 1662 to 1688 when, with the accession of William of Orange to the throne, the Nonconformists were allowed to worship freely once more, this body of people, not forgetting their wives and families, were like exiles in their own country, an experience that left an indelible impression on a whole generation of men, women and children – to say nothing of the generations that followed. The repercussions can still, from time to time, be felt, even now, in unexpected places.

CHAPTER 1

A QUESTION OF APPLES

Seen from the back, Brighthurst Rectory looked like just another prosperous farmhouse, and on this September day its russet brick walls and tile-hung outhouses were soaking up the late afternoon sunlight. The summer of 1661 had been a good one: most of the harvest was already gathered in and the due amount stored in the tithe barn, although in the rectory’s generous garden people were still to be seen picking, sorting, digging, collecting as much produce as they could while the fine weather lasted.

No one at work in the garden took any notice when a side door opened and a boy of about twelve, slight and dark-haired, slipped out of the house. He ran across the lawn, past the herb beds and into the kitchen garden – jumping over the new-dug carrots piled in the middle of the central path – through the rough grass of the small orchard and on down to the gate at the far end. Scrambling over the gate and crunching across the stubble of the adjoining field, he did not stop until he had reached the largest of the line of oaks on its western border. This was a giant of a tree. He leapt up and grabbed one of the lower branches, scrabbling with his feet until he had gained a foothold on a protruding knot, hauling himself at last up into the gnarled body of the ancient oak. At this point a hand came down from the branches above his head. Taking hold of it, he managed to lever himself up on to the next level, where he established a seat astride a chunky limb with his back against the massive ridged trunk.

‘I thought you were never coming,’ said the boy who had helped to heave him into place. ‘What were you doing? Why did he keep you so long?’

Joel was still trying to get his breath back.

‘Get the cane or something, did you?’ asked Harry, peering down from the branch above.

Joel shook his head. ‘Oh, you know Father,’ he said at last. ‘It was the Latin. He stood over me till I got every bit of it right… Why did he let you go early and then pick on me?’

‘He’s given up on me, that’s why.’

‘I hate Latin,’ said Joel.

‘Me too!’ said Harry with feeling.

‘What shall we do now?’

Harry Wetherall was a full year older than Joel and a head taller, with a cheerful open face. Already breaking into adolescence, he was the one who took the lead in any escapade. ‘Well, apples are ripening nicely…’ he said.

‘You mean – go scrumping?’

‘Why not?’ said Harry.

Joel looked out across the field. ‘Scrumping…’ he said. ‘It’s like stealing… Anyway, we’ve got plenty of apples at home.’

‘Parson’s boy, parson’s boy!’ jeered Harry.

‘Course not! It’s just – I can’t forget what happened when old Venner caught us last year…’

‘Caught me, you mean! Who got the thrashing? I’ve still got the marks,’ said Harry, rubbing his backside.

‘Yes, but he went and told Father, and that was far worse. I’d rather have a walloping any day.’

Harry knew his friend too well to make any snide remarks. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘This year, then, we give the churchwardens a miss. Now, who else is there?… What about that funny old man – you know – down by the other side of Collins’s? I passed his place the other day: trees are just loaded!’

‘You mean – Amos Clarke?’

‘Yeah, him!’

Joel did not look at all keen. ‘Yeah, but – he’s a Quaker!’ he said.

‘What’s that?’ asked Harry with a puzzled scowl.

‘Well, he – he doesn’t come to church, and –’

‘That’s all right then, isn’t it?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘If he’s not tied up with the church he won’t go telling tales, will he?… If we get caught, that is, which we won’t do this time.’

‘Yeah – but –’

‘What, then?’ asked Harry impatiently.

‘I don’t know… Quakers are odd: Father doesn’t like them.’

Harry was alarmed. ‘They don’t practise witchcraft, do they?’

‘No, no, nothing like that!’

‘Well, then, no problem!’

‘Yeah, but –’

‘Right, so you tell me where there’s better apples.’

Joel had to admit defeat.

‘You are scared, aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m not!’

‘Come on, then!’ cried Harry, swinging down from his perch.

* * *

Harry was right. Once they had squeezed through a gap in the hedge they could see that the trees in Amos Clarke’s orchard had branches bent down almost to the ground with the weight of their apples. For a full minute they stayed crouching next to the hedge with their ears pricked, but there was no sound. Harry darted forward and began stripping a heavy branch of its apples and dropping them one by one inside his shirt. Joel, more circumspect, moved forward among the trees. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the orchard was not as empty as it seemed.

It was not long before Harry’s shirt was bulging with apples. He glanced over at Joel, who had not even started. ‘Come on!’ he began to say – and then froze. Joel, looking back at him, caught sight of his expression. He turned round slowly, knowing what he was going to see. A squarely built, bearded man in his late fifties, dressed in a plain farming smock, had come out from among the trees and was standing there, leaning on a large staff. An age seemed to pass before he opened his mouth and spoke.

‘Where are thine apples?’ asked Amos Clarke. These were not the words that Joel was expecting, and he was struck dumb. ‘Thine apples, where are they? Why dost not have any?’

‘I was just – looking around…’ Joel mumbled at last.

‘Thou wast keeping watch? Keeping watch for thy friend?’

‘Well, for both of us…’

‘What is thy name?’ asked Amos Clarke.

Harry’s face registered alarm and warning, but Joel was not looking in his direction. ‘Joel,’ he said. Harry was in despair.

‘Who wast thou named after?’

Very slowly, with one eye on Amos’s stick, Harry began to move away towards the hedge.

‘The prophet Joel… I think – sir –’

‘And what did Joel prophesy?’

‘I don’t know, sir: we haven’t got to that bit yet.’

‘A prophet, Joel, has no need to call any man sir. So do not thou say it to me.’

‘No, sir – I mean –’

‘Thou’rt frightened,’ said Amos Clarke.

‘Yes, s –’

‘What art frightened of?’… Joel gulped. ‘Tis natural. All prophets are frightened.’

‘Prophets are?’ said Joel in surprise.

‘Always. But they still have to speak. Why art thou frightened?’

Harry, by this time, had nearly reached the hedge.

‘Well, because you’ve caught us – and you’ve got that stick – and you might tell my father –’

‘Who is thy father?’ asked Amos Clarke. Joel stared at him.

‘You don’t know who my father is?’

‘Why should I know who he is?’

‘But you must do! Everybody knows who he is! Everybody knows the parson of the parish.’

Harry was backing through the gap in the hedge.

‘So!’ said Amos Clarke. ‘James Beckett is thy father?’

‘Yes, of course!’ said Joel in despair. ‘And now you’re going to tell him everything – and – ’ He glanced round quickly. Harry was gone; he was through the hedge and running.

‘Thy friend has deserted thee,’ said Amos Clarke.

‘I know,’ said Joel miserably.

‘I will not tell thy father,’ said Amos.

‘Really?… Promise?’

‘I will not tell thy father.’

‘Swear?’

‘I have said, I will not tell thy father. Now, take the apples and go.’ Joel, utterly bewildered, did not move. ‘Go on, take them!’

‘But – they’re your apples…’

‘They are not my apples. They are God’s apples, and there are plenty of them. Go on!’… Joel, as in a dream, began picking apples under Amos’s watchful eye. ‘No, not that one: the wasps have been at it… That’s a good one there… and that one…’ It was not long before Joel had as much as he could carry. ‘Hast enough?’ Joel nodded. ‘Never take more than thou needest.’

Joel, awkward with his load, straightened up as best he could and faced the farmer. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘They are not my apples. Thou knowest whom thou shouldst thank.’ Thoughts and words whirled round inside Joel’s head, leaving him dumb. ‘There’s no need to speak: the thought will be known. The gate is over there. Go now!’ said Amos Clarke.

Somehow Joel managed to put one foot in front of another until he reached the gate, a rough wooden barrier, and scrambled through. Once on the other side he hesitated and turned round, but all he could see was the Quaker’s back, half hidden among the trees. There was no sign of Harry, but as he began to make his way back along the path he caught sight of a freshly gnawed apple core in the grass.

‘Good, aren’t they?’ mumbled Harry as they sat under the oak with the apples scattered around them. To him they tasted far sweeter than the ones growing in abundance on his own family estate.

‘Mm,’ said Joel, with less enthusiasm. Harry stopped munching and looked at him.

‘You’re worried, aren’t you? He didn’t beat you, but he’s going to tell your father.’ He took another bite. ‘Well, it was your own fault, wasn’t it? You didn’t have to say who your father was. And why on earth did you give him your own name? You’ve got to be quicker off the mark, you know!’ He leaned forward eagerly. ‘What do you think your father will do this time?’

‘He’s not going to tell my father,’ said Joel.

‘Don’t be stupid, of course he will!’

‘He said he wouldn’t.’

‘What, did he swear?’ said Harry, laughing. ‘On the Bible?’

‘No, he just said he wouldn’t tell.’

‘Well, of course he will then, won’t he?’

Joel said nothing, and took another bite. Tomorrow was Sunday, and his father would be much too busy in church to be spending time on apples.

* * *

Next morning the Beckett family arrived at church in good time, filing into their usual pew up at the front. After Joel’s mother and his elder brother Nathaniel had sat down, there was a dispute with his sister Sarah as to who should take the seat next to the aisle. Normally Sarah didn’t mind sitting there, but today she refused point-blank and planted herself down firmly next to Nat. What was the point of trying to hide, when she had spent so much time and energy on her appearance, with curls peeping out just so from under her bonnet? Joel disliked the aisle seat as it made him feel exposed. There was a limit to the things one could do to while away the time during his father’s lengthy sermons, and any sign of inattention could easily be picked on by some bored and beady-eyed member of the congregation sitting nearby.

It was a relief when the Palmer family came rustling in and filled the pew behind them: the two boys could usually be relied upon to provide some distraction. By now the church was comfortably full and it seemed that everyone was settled, until there was a last-minute flurry at the door. Up the aisle strode Sir William Wetherall, followed by his wife with their two sons Ned and Harry, to take their places in the squire’s pew. There was another disagreement about seating: Lady Weatherall was defeated in her attempt to persuade Ned – now taller than she was – to sit between herself and her husband, and had to be content with Harry taking the aisle seat with Ned next to him. A broad grin spread over Harry’s face when he saw Joel in the pew just opposite, but Ned jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow as the congregation rose to its feet with the arrival of the parson.

James Beckett was a sturdy, dark-haired man of medium height. He took a moment, as he always did, to focus on his flock before announcing the opening hymn. There they were, his people, in all their variety, the sheep waiting to be fed. He hoped he had enough nourishment for them today. It sometimes surprised him that they were prepared to turn out to hear him Sunday after Sunday – but the fact was that the church was the focal point of village life. People came as much to meet one another as to listen to his sermons, and took full advantage of the opportunity to exchange news and gossip both before and after the service.

The small assortment of instruments struck up a familiar melody and everyone sang loudly if not always tunefully as the service began. People were feeling good: the harvest was in, the weather was fine and there were no foreseeable political clouds on the horizon. It seemed a pity to disturb this benign mood, James reflected as he mounted the steps to the handsome pulpit, panelled with fine Jacobean carving just fifty years old. But was it not part of his job to warn against complacency? He looked down at the upturned faces of his congregation and gave out his text, which was taken from the book of Amos.

‘Behold, the days are coming, saith the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.’

‘There is not one of us here,’ he began, ‘that does not have cause to be thankful for the more peaceful times which we now enjoy. Few of us of a mature age will not have some recollection of the woeful strife that ravaged our land like a fever. All wars are deplorable, but civil war is the most disastrous and the most evil of them all. Let us pray that this country never sees the like again.’

‘A-men!’ came a fervent response from somewhere at the back. Harry peered round to see where it came from, and was prodded into line by Ned, who managed to change his position slightly so as to get a better sight of the pew across the aisle.

‘There cannot be anyone present who did not rejoice to see that fever abate, and a more wholesome temper of mind prevail. To have a monarch on the throne whose first concern is reconciliation and an orderly settling of the affairs of the nation, is a blessing that few would underestimate, coming as it does after the factions and divisions of the foregoing years. Even those who at the beginning of this reign, when the King was first restored to the throne, had doubts as to the possibility of establishing a just and reasonable form of government, have now come to realize that their fears had little if any foundation. Nevertheless, we should be fools indeed if we believed that the work was all done, and that we could now sit back and say, My soul, take thine ease; eat, drink and be merry!’

Joel, slumped down in his place, was busy counting the knots of carved flowers that ran along the side of the pulpit so that Ned, by turning his head ever so slowly, was able at last to get a sight of Sarah and even to catch her eye. She coloured up at once and turned her gaze on her father with a great show of attention to the sermon, but this did not fool Ned, as she was well aware.

James leaned forward over the pulpit, getting into his stride. ‘Quite the contrary: it is just at this time, when we are tempted to take our ease, that the enemy is liable to creep in among us and sow tares among our wheat. As our lives become more safe and comfortable, so the cares and anxieties that were once our ever-present companions have now become strangers to us, and no longer provoke and harass us with their importunities. This is a good state of affairs,’ you will tell me, for we can now sleep sounder at night.’

The west door opened, and slammed shut again. Sir William, who had been nodding off peacefully, was jerked into wakefulness. There was stirring and murmuring among the congregation as people glanced round, nudging and fidgeting. Joel took a quick look over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Harry’s horrorstruck face as he did so. There he was, Amos Clarke, in jacket and breeches of plain grey cloth, walking slowly up the aisle.

‘Yes – but did you ever consider that these same cares and anxieties might actually have been doing you a service? And that, by setting up an unwelcome clamour, they might have exercised the function of a watchdog, and disturbed you at a time when you well needed to be awake?’… James had totally lost his audience, but carried on determinedly. ‘To watch and pray must ever be the occupation of Christians, whether the times be hard or prosperous. If the times be hard, there is no need to be reminded of the necessity to watch and pray.’

‘Friend!’ called Amos Clarke.

James took no notice. ‘But if they be prosperous, then it is all too easy to forget our needful duties, and to slumber on while our enemy – by which I mean no temporal enemy of flesh and blood, but our old adversary Satan, Prince of Darkness – he steals in like a thief in the night, to rob us of our immortal treasure.’

‘Friend!’ called Amos, from halfway up the aisle.

‘So it may come about that, although we may find ourselves living in a time that is outwardly one of peace and plenty, we may yet wake up one day to discover that there is a famine in the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.’

Amos was now level with the front pews. ‘Friend!’ he called again.

‘Here! Stop that!’ came from Sir William in a loud whisper, triggering off more disturbance in the congregation.

James could ignore the man no longer. ‘What is it you want – friend?’ he said.

‘Come down from thine high place, friend! I cannot speak plainly with a man that so sets himself up above his fellows.’

‘Nobody asked you to speak to him!’ spluttered Sir William, bouncing up and down in his pew.

‘This pulpit is simply a matter of convenience,’ said James evenly. ‘It enables my words to be heard by more people.’

‘Who art thou, that thy words should be of more value than other men’s?

Come down, I say, come down!’

‘Cheek! Insolence!’ babbled Sir William.

‘The words I speak,’ said James, with sudden conviction, ‘are of no value whatsoever if they are mine alone – but only if God chooses to speak through me. Well, sir, since you wish to speak with me, I will come down.’ He turned and, accompanied by gasps from the congregation, began slowly to descend the pulpit steps.

Sir William leapt to his feet. ‘This is monstrous!’ he shouted. ‘Out, you scoundrel, out!’ He turned round and glared at the benches at the back where his household servants were all sitting in a group. ‘Get this man out of the church!’ he called down the nave.

Amos Clarke made no resistance as the squire’s two tall footmen came forward and each seized an arm. They hustled him down the aisle, none too gently, and out of the west door. Once outside, they flung him almost to the ground, re-entered the church and slammed the door.

James stood absolutely still at the head of the aisle, looking out over the buzzing congregation, waiting for Sir William’s footmen to come back inside and slide awkwardly into their seats. One by one people stopped chattering, turning their attention on him with a mixture of awe and curiosity.

‘Let us pray,’ said James Beckett.

Slowly and raggedly, the congregation rose to its feet and everyone closed their eyes. After a short silence James began to speak in a firm, deliberate voice.

‘Almighty God, whose son Jesus Christ did calm the raging of the storm, do thou calm now the storm within our hearts… As our Lord Jesus Christ did calm the fear and tumult within the minds of his disciples, so do thou speak peace unto our souls… With thy sweet influence, speak to us now the word of quietness – the word of stillness – the word of peace – that we, being calm within ourselves, may offer ourselves to thy praise and glory. We ask it for thy infinite mercy’s sake… Amen.’

‘A-men!’ said the congregation with one voice.

‘Let us now sing Psalm 100,’ said James. The congregation sat down and those who had them leafed through their psalters. The clerk sounded the note and everyone, still seated, launched into the familiar metrical psalm.

All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,

Him serve with fear, his praise forth tell,

Come ye before him and rejoice…

The sound of the singing floated out of the church and came to the ears of Amos Clarke, walking away down the road.

* * *

James stood in the porch at the end of the service, shaking hands. The process took longer than usual because most people had something to say about the unprecedented interruption. Not everyone wanted to speak