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
the elder had lent money to almost all the principal members of the
congregation. The bold speculator had never been appealed to in vain by
any one in difficulty. Some had had a hundred, some fifty, some twenty,
some ten - farmers whose corn had been a loss instead of a profit, whose
hops had sold for less than the cost of picking them, little tradesmen
who had a bill to meet, handicraft men who could not pay the men who
worked side by side with them, cottagers who needed an outhouse built,
and others who lacked the means to pay for a funeral. There seemed no one
to whom he had not lent money for some purpose, besides the use of his
name as security. Fortune had given to him, and he had given as freely to
others, so that it was indeed a bitter trial to the heart:
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