For miles and miles before it comes to Axmouth, and above Axminster, the Axe flows in singular loops, often returning almost upon itself, reluctant to quit the lovely land of its birth, youth, and maturity; but now it is straighter, for it is in the lowlands and feels the tide. Flocks of seagulls wade or float in it. It passes quietly under its last bridge, but beyond it is confronted by a huge shingle barrier. Sweeping alongside it, it suddenly turns at right angles, cuts its way through with an exulting rush, holds back for a few yards the sea waves that ripple against it, and is then lost.
THIS morning as I walked by the sea, a man was preaching on the sands to about a dozen people, and I stopped for a few minutes to listen. He told us that we were lying under the wrath of God, that we might die at any moment, and that if we did not believe in the Lord Jesus we should be damned everlastingly. ‘Believe in the Lord,’ he shouted, ‘believe or you will be lost; you can do nothing of yourselves; you must be saved by grace alone, by blood, without blood is no remission of sins. Some of you think, no doubt, you are good people, and you may be, as the world goes, but your righteousness is as filthy rags, you are all wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; the devil will have you if you don’t turn to the Lord, and you will go down to the bottomless, brimstone pit, where shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth for ever and ever. Believe,’ he roared, ‘now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.’
Sunny clouds lay in the blue above him, and at his feet summer waves were breaking peacefully on the shore, the sound of their soft, musical plash filling up his pauses and commenting on his texts.
IN 1802 Lady B. was living at M— Park. She was a proud, handsome, worldly woman about fifty-five years old, a widow with no children, but she had a favourite nephew who was at the Park for the larger part of the year and was the heir to her property. She had been gay in her youth, was the leader of society in her county, and when she passed middle life still followed the hounds. She was a good landlord, respected and even beloved by her tenantry, and a staunch Tory in politics. The new evangelical school of Newton and Romaine she detested bitterly, as much in fact as she detested Popery. The nephew, however, came under Newton’s influence and was converted. His aunt was in despair. She could not conquer her affection for him, but she almost raved when she reflected that the inheritor of her estates was a pious Methodist, as she called him. She had a good-looking, confidential maid who had lived with her for years. In one of her fits she told this maid that she would give half of what she possessed if her nephew were like other young men. ‘I don’t want him to be a sot or to gamble away my money,’ she cried, ‘but there’s not much else I should mind if he were but a man.’