Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science

from Mr. Wilberforce, who, being on a visit at Barley Wood, was taken on an excursion to Cheddar Cliffs, then, as now, one of the "sights" of the vicinity. Mr. Wilberforce, while admiring the scenery, chanced to fall into conversation with one of the inhabitants, and learned, to his dismay, that the whole beautiful region was sunk in ignorance and vice. This discovery was discussed in full conclave on their return to Barley Wood, and Mrs. More undertook to have a school opened in Cheddar. The school proved a success, and by the aid of the subscriptions which her name brought from far and near she eventually extended the system over nine of the neighboring parishes, sunk in the barbarism of English village-life of that day, of which Cowper's village of Olney was an example. But this work did not go on as smoothly as the sale of Coelebs: it at once aroused opposition from the large class who do not like to see old ruts abandoned, and was branded as Methodism--an epithet that was then freely us