grievances of the men as his own, had speedily become a leading
figure among them.

A short time after his arrival the old man who had officiated at
Little Bethel had died, and Stukeley, who had from the first taken
a prominent part in the service, and who possessed the faculty of
fluent speech to a degree rare among the Yorkshiremen, was installed
as his successor, and soon filled Little Bethel as it had never
been filled before. In his predecessor's time, small as the meeting
house was, it had been comparatively empty; two or three men, half
a dozen women, and their children being the only attendants, but
it was now filled to crowding.

Stukeley's religion was political; his prayers and discourses related
to the position of affairs in Varley rather than to Christianity.
They were a downtrodden people whom he implored to burst the bonds
of their Egyptian taskmasters. The strength he prayed for was the
strength to struggle and to fight. The enemy he denounced was the
capitalist rather than the devil.

Up to that time "King Lud" had but few followers in Varley; but
the fiery discourses in Little Bethel roused among the younger
men a passionate desire to right their alleged wrongs, and to take
vengeance upon those denounced as their oppressors, so the society
recruited its numbers fast. Stukeley was appointed the local secretary,
partly because he was the leading spirit, partly because he alone
among its members was able to write, and under his vigorous impulsion
Varley became one of the leading centers of the organization in
West Yorkshire.