These women are so anxious to be taught, that if I am hindered a
little longer than usual in arranging the classes, they cry out
after me in the church, that all the other classes are being taught,
but they forsaken."
A class of old men, taught by Deacon John, commenced with an
attendance of ten, but soon numbered forty. Formerly they went to
market on the Sabbath, or sat sunning themselves in the street,
going to hear preaching about half the time; but they became so
interested in the exercises, that they were unwilling they should
close. They brought others with them, and if one of them was kept
away one Sabbath, he mourned that the rest had got so far before
him.
The women carried their books with them when they went out to the
vineyards, and at resting time: while others slept, they read. Some,
who could not afford oil at night, read by moonlight, and when they
spun, they fastened the book open on a shelf, so that they could
read at the same time. Once, when a woman was asked if she could
repeat her lesson, she replied, "O, yes; I repeated it over just now
while I was milking." The men also took their books out to the
fields, that they might improve every spare moment, and one was so
earnest that, when waked in the night to attend to the cattle, he
read till morning; but his family, finding that he burned so much
oil, took care after that to let him sleep.
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