Part 29

I got to Goudhurst to breakfast, and as I heard that the Dean of Rochester was to preach a sermon in behalf of the _National Schools_, I stopped to hear him. In waiting for his Reverence I went to the Methodist Meeting-house, where I found the Sunday School boys and girls assembled, to the almost filling of the place, which was about thirty feet long and eighteen wide. The "Minister" was not come, and the Schoolmaster was reading to the children out of a _tract-book_, and shaking the brimstone bag at them most furiously. This schoolmaster was a _sleek_-looking young fellow: his skin perfectly tight: well fed, I'll warrant him: and he has discovered the way of living, without work, on the labour of those that do work. There were 36 little fellows in smock-frocks, and about as many girls listening to him; and I dare say he eats as much meat as any ten of them. By this time the _Dean_, I thought, would be coming on; and, therefore, to the church I went; but to my great disappointment I found that the parson was operating _preparatory_ to the appearance of the Dean, who was to come on in the afternoon, when I, agreeably to my plan, must be off. The sermon was from 2 Chronicles, ch. 31. v. 21., and the words of this text described King Hezekiah as a most _zealous man_, doing whatever he did _with all his heart_. I write from _memory_, mind, and, therefore, I do not pretend to quote exact words; and I may be a little in error, perhaps, as to chapter or verse. The object of the preacher was to hold up to his hearers the example of Hezekiah, and particularly in the case of the school affair. He called upon them to subscribe with all their hearts; but, alas! how little of _persuasive power_ was there in what he said! No effort to make them see _the use of the schools_. No inducement _proved_ to exist. No argument, in short, nor anything to move. No appeal either to the _reason_, or to the _feeling_. All was general, common-place, cold observation; and that, too, in language which the far greater part of the hearers could not understand. This church is about 110 feet long and 70 feet wide in the clear. It would hold _three thousand people_, and it had in it 214, besides 53 Sunday School or National School boys; and these sat together, in a sort of lodge, up in a corner, 16 feet long and 10 feet wide. Now, will any Parson Malthus, or anybody else, have the impudence to tell me that this church was built for the use of a population not more numerous than the present? To be sure, when this church was built, there could be no idea of a Methodist meeting coming to _assist_ the church, and as little, I dare say, was it expected that the preachers in the church would ever call upon the faithful to subscribe money to be sent up to one Joshua Watson (living in a Wen) to be by him laid out in "promoting Christian knowledge;" but, at any rate, the Methodists cannot take away above four or five hundred; and what, then, was this great church built _for_, if there were no more people, in those days, at Goudhurst, than there are now? It is very true that the _labouring_ people have, in a great measure, ceased to go to church. There were scarcely any of that class at this great country church to-day. I do not believe there were _ten_. I can remember when they were so numerous that the parson could not attempt to begin till the rattling of their nailed shoes ceased. I have seen, I am sure, five hundred boys and men in smock-frocks coming out of church at one time. To-day has been a fine day: there would have been many at church to-day, if ever there are; and here I have another to add to the many things that convince me that the labouring classes have, in great part, ceased to go to church; that their way of thinking and feeling with regard to both church and clergy are totally changed; and that there is now very little _moral hold_ which the latter possess. This preaching for money to support the schools is a most curious affair altogether. The King sends a _circular letter_ to the bishops (as I understand it) to cause subscriptions for the schools; and the bishops (if I am rightly told) tell the parish clergy to send the money, when collected, to Joshua Watson, the Treasurer of a Society in the Wen, "for promoting Christian Knowledge!" What! the church and all its clergy put into motion to get money from the people to send up to one Joshua Watson, a wine-merchant, or, late a wine-merchant, in Mincing Lane, Fenchurch Street, London, in order that the said wine-merchant may apply the money to the "promoting of Christian Knowledge!" What! all the deacons, priests, curates perpetual, vicars, rectors, prebends, doctors, deans, archdeacons and fathers in God, right reverend and most reverend; all! yea all, engaged in getting money together to send to a wine-merchant that he may lay it out in the promoting of Christian knowledge _in their own flocks_! Oh, brave wine-merchant! What a prince of godliness must this wine-merchant be! I say wine-merchant, or late wine-merchant, of Mincing Lane, Fenchurch Street, London. And, for God's sake, some good parson, do send me up a copy of the King's circular, and also of the bishop's order to send the money to Joshua Watson; for some precious sport we will have with Joshua and his "Society" before we have done with them!

After "service" I mounted my horse and jogged on through Milkhouse Street to Benenden, where I passed through the estate, and in sight of the house of Mr. Hodges. He keeps it very neat and has planted a good deal. His _ash_ do very well; but the _chestnut_ do not, as it seems to me. He ought to have the American chestnut, if he have any. If I could discover _an everlasting hop-pole_, and one, too, that would grow faster even than the ash, would not these Kentish hop-planters put me in the Kalendar along with their famous Saint Thomas of Canterbury? We shall see this one of these days.

Coming through the village of Benenden, I heard a man at my right talking very loud about _houses! houses! houses!_ It was a Methodist parson, in a house close by the roadside. I pulled up, and stood still, in the middle of the road, but looking, in silent soberness, into the window (which was open) of the room in which the preacher was at work. I believe my stopping rather disconcerted him; for he got into shocking _repetition_. "Do you _know_," said he, laying great stress on the word _know_: "do you _know_, that you have ready for you houses, houses I say; I say do you know; do you know that you have houses in the heavens not made with hands? Do you know this from _experience_? Has the blessed Jesus _told you so_?" And on he went to say that, if Jesus had told them so, they would be saved, and that if He had not, and did not, they would be damned. Some girls whom I saw in the room, plump and rosy as could be, did not seem at all daunted by these menaces; and, indeed, they appeared to me to be thinking much more about getting houses for themselves _in this world first_; just to _see a little_ before they entered, or endeavoured to enter, or even thought much about, those "_houses_" of which the parson was speaking: _houses_ with pig-styes and little snug gardens attached to them, together with all the other domestic and conjugal circumstances, these girls seemed to me to be preparing themselves for. The truth is, these fellows have no power on the minds of any but the miserable.

Scarcely had I proceeded a hundred yards from the place where this fellow was bawling, when I came to the very situation which he ought to have occupied, I mean the _stocks_, which the people of Benenden have, with singular humanity, fitted up with a _bench_, so that the patient, while he is receiving the benefit of the remedy, is not exposed to the danger of catching cold by sitting, as in other places, upon the ground, always damp, and sometimes actually wet. But I would ask the people of Benenden what is the _use_ of this humane precaution, and, indeed, what is the use of the stocks themselves, if, while a fellow is ranting and bawling in the manner just described, at the distance of a hundred yards from the stocks, the stocks (as is here actually the case) are almost hidden by grass and nettles? This, however, is the case all over the country; not nettles and grass indeed smothering the stocks, but I never see any feet peeping through the holes anywhere, though I find Methodist parsons everywhere, and though _the law compels the parishes to keep up_ all the pairs of stocks that exist in all parts of them; and, in some parishes, they have to keep up several pairs. I am aware that a good part of the use of the stocks is the _terror_ they ought to produce. I am not supposing that they are of no use because not continually furnished with legs. But there is a wide difference between _always_ and _never_; and it is clear that a fellow who has had the stocks under his eye all his lifetime, and has _never_ seen a pair of feet peeping through them, will stand no more in awe of the stocks than rooks do of an old shoyhoy, or than the Ministers or their agents do of Hobhouse and Burdett. Stocks that never pinch a pair of ankles are like Ministerial responsibility; a thing to talk about, but for no other use; a mere mockery; a thing laughed at by those whom it is intended to keep in check. It is time that the stocks were again _in use_, or that the expense of keeping them up were put an end to.

This mild, this gentle, this good-humoured sort of correction is _not enough_ for our present rulers. But mark the consequence; gaols ten times as big as formerly; houses of correction; tread-mills; the hulks; and the country filled with _spies_ of one sort and another, _game-spies_, or other spies, and if a hare or pheasant come to an untimely death, _police-officers_ from the Wen are not unfrequently called down to find out and secure the bloody offender! _Mark this_, Englishmen! Mark how we take to those things which we formerly ridiculed in the French; and take them up too just as that brave and spirited people have shaken them off! I saw, not long ago, an account of a Wen police-officer being sent into the country, where he assumed _a disguise_, joined some poachers (as they are called), got into their secrets, went out in the night with them, and then (having laid his plans with the game-people) assisted to take them and convict them. What! is this _England_! Is this the land of "manly hearts?" Is this the country that laughed at the French for their submissions? What! are police-officers kept for this? Does the law say so? However, thank God Almighty, the estates are passing away into the hands of those who have had borrowed from them the money to uphold this monster of a system. The Debt! The blessed Debt, will, at last, restore to us freedom.

Just after I quitted Benenden, I saw some bunches of _straw_ lying upon the quickset hedge of a cottage garden. I found upon inquiry, that they were bunches of the straw of grass. Seeing a face through the window of the cottage, I called out and asked what that straw was for. The person within said, it was to make _Leghorn-plat_ with. I asked him (it was a young man) how he knew how to do it. He said he had got a little book that had been made by Mr. Cobbett. I told him that I was the man, and should like to see some of his work; and asked him to bring it out to me, I being afraid to tie my horse. He told me that he was a _cripple_, and that he could not come out. At last I went in, leaving my horse to be held by a little girl. I found a young man, who has been a cripple for fourteen years. Some ladies in the neighbourhood had got him the book, and his family had got him the grass. He had made some very nice plat, and he had knitted the greater part of the crown of a bonnet, and had done the whole very nicely, though, as to the knitting, he had proceeded in a way to make it very tedious. He was knitting upon a block. However, these little matters will soon be set to rights. There will soon be persons to teach knitting in all parts of the country. I left this unfortunate young man with the pleasing reflection that I had, in all likelihood, been the cause of his gaining a good living, by his labour, during the rest of his life. How long will it be before my calumniators, the false and infamous London press, will, take the whole of it together, and leave out its evil, do as much good as my pen has done in this one instance! How long will it be ere the ruffians, the base hirelings, the infamous traders who own and who conduct that press; how long ere one of them, or all of them together, shall cause a cottage to smile; shall add one ounce to the meal of the labouring man!

Rolvenden was my next village, and thence I could see the lofty church of Tenterden on the top of a hill at three miles distance. This Rolvenden is a very beautiful village; and, indeed, such are all the places along here. These villages are not like those in the _iron_ counties, as I call them; that is, the counties of flint and chalk. Here the houses have gardens in front of them as well as behind; and there is a good deal of show and finery about them and their gardens. The high roads are without a stone in them; and everything looks like _gentility_. At this place I saw several _arbutuses_ in one garden, and much finer than we see them in general; though, mind, this is no proof of a mild climate; for the arbutus is a native of one much colder than that of England, and indeed than that of Scotland.

Coming from Benenden to Rolvenden I saw some Swedish turnips, and, strange as the reader will think it, the first I saw after leaving Worth! The reason I take to be this: the farms are all furnished with grass-fields as in Devonshire about Honiton. These grass-fields give hay for the sheep and cattle in winter, or, at any rate, they do all that is not done by the white turnips. It may be a question whether it would be more _profitable_ to break up and sow Swedes; but this is the reason of their not being cultivated along here. White turnips are more easily got than Swedes; they may be sown later; and, with good hay, they will fat cattle and sheep; but the Swedes will do this business without hay. In Norfolk and Suffolk the land is not generally of a nature to make hay-fields. Therefore the people there resort to Swedes. This has been a sad time for these hay-farmers, however, all along here. They have but just finished haymaking; and I see, all along my way, from East Grinstead to this place, hay-ricks the colour of dirt and _smoking_ like dung-heaps.

Just before I got to this place (Tenterden), I crossed a bit of marsh land, which I found, upon inquiry, is a sort of little branch or spray running out of that immense and famous tract of country called _Romney Marsh_, which, I find, I have to cross to-morrow, in order to get to Dover, along by the sea-side, through Hythe and Folkestone.

This Tenterden is a market town, and a singularly bright spot. It consists of one street, which is, in some places, more, perhaps, than two hundred feet wide. On one side of the street the houses have gardens before them, from 20 to 70 feet deep. The town is upon a hill; the afternoon was very fine, and, just as I rose the hill and entered the street, the people had come out of church and were moving along towards their houses. It was a very fine sight. _Shabbily-dressed people do not go to church._ I saw, in short, drawn out before me, the dress and beauty of the town; and a great many very, very pretty girls I saw; and saw them, too, in their best attire. I remember the girls in the _Pays de Caux_, and, really, I think those of Tenterden resemble them. I do not know why they should not; for there is the _Pays de Caux_ only just over the water, just opposite this very place.

The hops about here are not so very bad. They say that one man, near this town, will have eight tons of hops upon ten acres of land! This is a great crop any year: a very great crop. This man may, perhaps, sell his hops for 1,600 pounds! What a _gambling_ concern it is! However, such hop-growing always was and always must be. It is a thing of perfect hazard.

The church at this place is a very large and fine old building. The tower stands upon a base thirty feet square. Like the church at Goudhurst, it will hold three thousand people. And let it be observed that, when these churches were built, people had not yet thought of cramming them with _pews_, as a stable is filled with stalls. Those who built these churches had no idea that worshipping God meant going to _sit_ to hear a man talk out what he called preaching. By _worship_ they meant very different things; and, above all things, when they had made a fine and noble building, they did not dream of disfiguring the inside of it by filling its floor with large and deep boxes made of deal boards. In short, the floor was the place for the worshippers to stand or to kneel; and there was _no distinction_; no _high_ place and no _low_ place; all were upon a level _before God_ at any rate. Some were not stuck into pews lined with green or red cloth, while others were crammed into corners to stand erect or sit on the floor. These odious distinctions are of Protestant origin and growth. This lazy lolling in pews we owe to what is called the _Reformation_. A place filled with benches and boxes looks like an eating or a drinking place; but certainly not like a place of worship. A Frenchman, who had been driven from St. Domingo to Philadelphia by the Wilberforces of France, went to church along with me one Sunday. He had never been in a Protestant place of _worship_ before. Upon looking round him, and seeing everybody comfortably seated, while a couple of good stoves were keeping the place as warm as a slack oven, he exclaimed: "_Pardi! On sert Dieu bien a son aise ici?_" That is: "Egad! they serve God very much at their ease here!" I always think of this, when I see a church full of pews; as, indeed, is now always the case with our churches. Those who built these churches had no idea of this: they made their calculations as to the people to be contained in them, not making any allowance for _deal boards_. I often wonder how it is that the present parsons are not ashamed to call the churches _theirs_! They must know the origin of them; and how they can look at them, and at the same time revile the Catholics, is astonishing to me.