Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

332 RHYS LEWJS.
to gain my own ends ; but I treasure them up in my Heart as a
remembrance of bow true be was to me in bis last moments.
A minute later bis spirit bad crossed the great gulf. And in
the whole annals of Death, I believe there never entered its
dark portal a more just, more faithful, or more perfect man,
but One.
CHAPTEE XXXV.
TROUBLOUS.
In the storm which felled the grand old oak, whose roots
spread wide and deep, the encompassing earth was rent, and
other oaks, for a distance round, were rendered less secure.
Those nearest the prostrate one felt most the shock of its down-
fall; some of them being so deeply barked that summer breezes,
rain, and dew, and heat could never heal their scars. The
death of Abel Hughes deprived the town of one who had
carried conviction to the hearts of loafing " corner men," and
even worse characters, that he was a good man. The tradesmen
lost from their midst an example of one who could deal with
the world without lying, and at the same time earn a liveli-
hood honestly and without stint. Let us hope he was not the
last of those old-fashioned people ! But it was to the chapel and
the cause that the loss was greatest. The inhabitants could not
think of Methodism without Abel. Eightly had witling Seth
called the chapel Abel's chapel, and, when he fell, the members
felt as if their sanctuary had lost its inward life. There were
not a dozen belonging to the church who could remember the
Big Seat without Abel in it. The majority had recited their
verses to him in the Children's Communion, and been received
by him into full membership. The affairs, temporal and
spiritual, of nearly every family connected with the church
were known to Abel ; and there was hardly a Methodist house
in the town that he had not been in, by someone's bedside with
counsel and with prayer. Old men and women on the parish,
like others higher stationed, could pour their woes in Abel's