The Springdale news., 1888-12-28
CHAPTER V
TOM WILSON AND THE RECTOR.

CHAPTER V.
 TOM WILSON AND THE RECTOR.
 Tom Wilson had, up to the time of which We write, trodden much in his fathers foot steps, only perhaps ndulglng in rather more foX-hunting and shooting But lately q great change had come oyer this young man. He was more thoughtful. more kind- ly to the farm hands and all the working men of the neighborhood. He eagerly read every newspaper he could secure, and reg ularly walked over to the rectory to read a certain north county newspaper which Mr. LovejoY received through the post once a week. Few knew or even tried to guess what was the cause for this change i'll the hitherto care-for-nothing, take-things-as- they-eome Tom Wilson. Ills father was un- concerned, so that the farm business was attended to- while his mother and sister put the change down to the influence of the new rector, and thought Tom was getting sreligious.n which they agreed was "good thing. but rather queer for our Tom, above all felow@"
 Truth to tell, it 1eas the rector,s influence which was making reading and thinking man of Tom Wilson, but it was not religious Cat least not what is usually understood by that term) influence. IL would be wrong to suggest that Alr. Iovejoy Was hot religious. He was indeed good man in every sense of the word deeply impressed with the sacred character of his high calling. But he was d Lancashire man and his religion had been for years of q practical kind; he believed far more i'll liriag religion than preaching it, and the text for his daily re- ligious life he found in the Old Book Pure religion and undetiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their atfliction." Lawrence Love joy was no more than the son of q poor car pet weaver at Bolton, in Lancashire. He had known in his younger days what Waterloo and it's preceding victories cost the poorer classes i'll England. He had known what 1t was to fast for two days at a time many times more than once; and knew what it meant To work in close con. finement for fourteen hours out of every twenty four. But he resolved while boy that, for the sake of the struggling men and women around him, he would. if possible, make for himself a position where. by the influence of public speech or the pen. he would have an opportunity 10 plead their cause He studied hard burning the md night oil after fatiguing days Of manual la bor, and, at last, with patience and persc- verancc, found himself fitted for the work of q minister. For his own part he would have preferred to stay and labor in one or other of the populous towns of his native county, but he thought, tOo that he might in a country parish exert his lntiu- ence upon those who were the main supporters of the laws which kept up the price of bread. So when Lady Caroline Ogilvie offered him, through mutua! friend, the living and rectory of Mill Hill, in Stagshrc, he gladly accepted the offer. He was but a young man, wan and scl{ly looking, when he settled down to his new duties, and, being perfect stranger ill that part of the country, he labored under great disadvantage The great folks of the par lsh called at his bachelor home just once, and then called no more for years But, in spite of all, his pleasant manners with the poor folk, hIs kindness to old and young, his intelligent conversations with the farmers upon topics of the day. made him, within two years, the most popular rector the parish had known ''4ythn the memory of the oldest parishonera This was the man, above all others, that frec-and-easy Tom Wilson made hIs friend. The fact Is, they were just the men to be friends
 Tom was vastly the rector's superior physically, while of country gentleman life the latter had every thing to learn, and Tom was the very man to teach him Then, again, mentally Tom Will son was an infant beside the rec tor, and the palcfaced, selftaught Lancashire student was not only able 10 teach him, but was actually ycarning to have scholar like Tom to whom he might impart some of his knowledge and ideas. At the time of which we write-Tom Will son being about twenty-three years of age and his clerical friend four years older they had just got to be on the most nti- mate terms. On the very evening when Matthew Wilson rode home from Weirdale the two were in the reetory library, each in deep study, when Lovejoy opened the fol- lowing conversation:
 Wilson, you and 1 have spent good deal of time together during the past year, and you are well aware of the deep interest 1 take in you both as your pastor and friend: can you guess why.' Well, no, MT. LoveJoy,n replied Tom, q can't say that do. Of one thing am certain, how ever, and that is that l value your friend ship more than that of any other man, and already feel the better for ever having known you. But tell me il you will, what is the reason for the pains you have taken with me slnce you came 10 Mil Hill.n
 Tom, will do so, and in as few words as possble,' returned Loyejoy.
 :" When l came here. nearly two years ago, had just left the North of England, where 1 was born and where 1 lived nearly all my life. There l saw what you haze no idea of saw, in fifty different towns, in- tcHigcnt men worKing one might almost say, day and night, and yet unable to keep the wolf from tee door. Sc their wives mothers and sisters had to work, and stIu starvation stared tae44 Ia the face. Then