or three of the ministers who came by invitation to preach in the chapel,
and who had been friendly, did indeed call once, but were speedily given
to understand by the leading members of the congregation that dinners and
sleeping accommodation had been provided elsewhere, and they must not do
so again. The ministers, being entirely in the power of the
congregations, had to obey. In short, the elder and his family were
excommunicated, spiritually boycotted, interdicted, and cut off from
social intercourse; without any of the magical ceremonies of the Vatican,
they were as effectually excommunicated as if the whole seventy cardinals
and the Pope in person had pronounced the dread sentence. In a great town
perhaps such a thing would not be so marked or so much felt; in a little
village where everybody knows everybody, where there are no strangers,
and where you must perforce come in contact constantly with persons you
have known for years, it is a very annoying process indeed. There are no
streets of shops to give a choice of butchers and bakers, no competition
of tea merchants and cheesemongers, so that if one man shows a dislike to
serving you, you can go on to the next and get better attention. 'Take it
or go without it' is village law; no such thing as independence; you must
walk or drive into the nearest town, five miles away perhaps, if you wish
to avoid a sour face on the other side of the counter. No one will
volunteer the smallest service for the excommunicant of the chapel;
nothing could more vividly illustrate the command to 'love one another.'
No one can imagine the isolation of a house in a country place
interdicted like this. If the other inhabitants could find any possible
excuse for not doing anything they were asked they would not do it--not
for money: they were out of what was wanted, or they had promised it, or
they couldn't find it, or they were too busy, and so all through the
whole course of daily life.

Now the most remarkable part of this bitter persecution was the fact that