"Last night, when they'd taken
Ben away, and I couldn't finish t' psalm and I couldn't do much more
praying than a little bairn thet's flayed and troubled in t' dark
night, I lifted my eyes to thet tea-pot, and I knew t' words thet was
on it, and they wer' like an order and a promise a' in one; and I said,
'There! thet's enough, Lord!' and I went to my bed and slept, for I
knew there 'ud be a deal to do to-day, and nothing weakens me like
missing my sleep."
"And did you sleep, Martha?"
"Ay, I slept. It wasn't hard wi' t' promise I'd got."
Then Phyllis took a chair and stood upon it, and carefully lifted down
the tea-pot. It was of coarse blue and white pottery, and had been
made in Staffordshire, when the art was emerging from its rudeness,
and when the people were half barbarous and wholly irreligious--one
of half a dozen that are now worth more than if made of the rarest
china, the Blue Wesley Tea-pot; rude little objects, yet formed by
loving, reverential hands, to commemorate the apostolic labors of John
Wesley in that almost savage district. His likeness was on one side,
and on the other the words, so often in his mouth, "_In God we
trust._" Phyllis looked at it reverently; even in that poor
portraiture recognizing the leader of men, the dignity, the
intelligence, and the serenity of a great soul.
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