one but himself can tell how much the nucleus of the church was composed of
and by those who had received health from his hands, loving-kindness from
the word of his mouth. My own opinion is that herein lay the very germ of
the kernel of what is now the ancient, was then the infant church; that
from them, next to the disciples themselves, went forth the chief power of
life in love, for they too had seen the Lord, and in their own humble way
could preach and teach concerning him. What memories of him theirs must
have been!

Things went on very quietly, that is, as I mean now, from the view-point of
a historian, without much to record bearing notably upon after events,
for the greater part of the next week. I wandered about my parish, making
acquaintance with different people in an outside sort of way, only now
and then finding an opportunity of seeing into their souls except by
conclusion. But I enjoyed endlessly the aspects of the country. It was not
picturesque except in parts. There was little wood and there were no
hills, only undulations, though many of them were steep enough even from a
pedestrian's point of view. Neither, however, were there any plains except
high moorland tracts. But the impression of the whole country was large,
airy, sunshiny, and it was clasped in the arms of the infinite, awful, yet
how bountiful sea--if one will look at the ocean in its world-wide, not to
say its eternal aspects, and not out of the fears of a hidebound love of
life! The sea and the sky, I must confess, dwarfed the earth, made it of
small account beside them; but who could complain of such an influence? At
least, not I.

My children bathed in this sea every day, and gathered strength and
knowledge from it. It was, as I have indicated, a dangerous coast to bathe
upon. The sweep of the tides varied with the varying sands that were cast
up. There was now in one place, now in another, a strong _undertow_, as