Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

76 HHYS LEWIS.
•' Directly," said I, laying my head upon tlie table, and pre-
tending to sleep. I am not sure I did not snore. Such a sly
young fox was I ! My behaviour threw both oflF their guard.
*' Bob," resumed my mother, "I trust you do not mean what
you say. Tou have been saying so many things of late, since
you've taken to coddle with these old English books, that it's
difficult for me to think you do."
"Mother," said Bob, whom I heard putting his book down,
" you know very well there is no deceit in me, and that nothing
in the world is so hateful to me as hypocrisy. I, a thousand
times, prefer being expelled from the church for telling the truth,
to being suffered to remain in it by showing myself mealy-
mouthed, and speaking the thing I neither believe nor feel. I
know my excommunication must be a sad blow to you, mother,
and for that I am sorry ; but the church having chosen so to
deal with me, I have nothing in the world to say."
" What! my son," exclaimed my mother. " Do you set no
store by church membership ? "
" I do not," was the reply, "if I must buy that membership
by double-dealing. You have never yet heard me talk about
myself or complaining, but you know very well that neither my
father nor you once thought of giving me a day's schooling. I
was allowed to grow up ignorant of all things save those of the
Bible. I was sent into the mine at an age when I ought to have
been at school, and I was an experienced collier before I was
sixteen. Directly I became sensible of my want of education,
in my spare hours I set myself, with all my energy, to learn
English, and that without help from any living soul, and with
you constantly complaining that I wasted the candles. To say
the least, I have been as faithful at chapel as any of my own
age. I have been a teacher in the Sunday School since I was
seventeen. I am not praising myself, but you know that since
the bother with my father, I have worked hard, and done my
best to keep a home for you and Ehys ; and what would have
become of you had I gone away ? You know I never in my
life spent a penny in dissipation, and that all the money I could
scrape together was devoted either to buying books or sub-
scribing towards the church. Besides this, I have endeavoured.