Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

66 RHYS LEWIS.
" I don't understand you," said Beck.
" Well," said Will, " look at it in this way: you know old
Mrs. Peters, and you know Ehys's mother here— it is not
because Ehys is here that I say it— but everybody wiU tell you
they are a couple of good, pious women. Well, they attend Com-
munion, and Abel Huglies goes up to them and asks wbat is on
their minds. They reply that they are a very bad lot, guilty of
I don't know bow many things, Mrs. Peters very often crying as
she says it. After that Abel Hughes will tell them they are not
so bad as they think, give them a piece of advice, repeat a lot
of verses for them, and then move off to some one else, who will
carry on in the same way, and so the whole round, until it gets
to be half-past eight o'clock, when we all go home."
"There is nothing of that sort in the Church," observed
Beck. "We have no ' Communion,' and I never beard anyone
of us run himself down."
" That is where the difference between Church and chapel
comes in," said Will. "You Church people think yourselves
good when you are bad, while chapel peoplo think themselves
bad when they are good."
"You don't mean to tell me," said Beck, "that all who
belong to Communion are good people, and tbat all who belong
to tbe Church are bad P "
"All," returned Will, " who take the Sacrament in chapel
are good people, although they think themselves bad, and all
wbo take the Sacrament in Church, think themselves good, while
more than half of tbem are bad. There is the old Soldier — you
know very well he takes Sacrament on Sunday morning,
just to please Mr. Brown, while every Sunday night be goes
boozing to the Cross Foxes till he is too blind to see bis way
home again. Did he belong to chapel, look you, he would get
the kick out pretty sharp. But when did you see anybody
broken out of Church ? "
Beck was not a ready controversialist, and so Bryan went on
with bis exposition of what was meant by "being brought
before Communion."
" You Bee," be said, " when any one belonging to Com-
munion does wrong— even tkey, you know, are not perfect —
someone else must needs go to the elders and split upon him ;