A light had flashed momentarily in the darkness when John Wrenshall, the father of Methodism in Pittsburgh, settled in the town. Wrenshall was an Englishman who came to Pittsburgh in 1796 and established a mercantile business. He was converted to Wesleyanism in England and had been a local preacher there. As there was no minister or preaching of any kind in Pittsburgh, he commenced holding services in the Presbyterian Meeting House. His audiences increased, but after a few Sundays of active effort, a padlock was placed on the door of the church, and he was notified that the house was no longer at his disposal. The Presbyterians might not hold services themselves, but they would not permit the use of their building to adherents of the new sect of Methodists, “the offspring of the devil.” A great religious revival swept over the Western country in the concluding years of the eighteenth century. In Kentucky it developed into hysteria,[134] and in Western Pennsylvania the display of religious fervor was scarcely less intense.[135] The effect was felt in Pittsburgh. On October 24, 1800, the _Pittsburgh Gazette_ was moved to ask the Presbyterian congregation, of which its proprietor was a leading member, a number of pertinent questions: Could they hope for good morals without religion or the fear of God; could religion be maintained without public worship; had they a house in which public worship could be performed with decency and convenience? Were they not able to erect a respectable and commodious church building, as well as to provide for the maintenance of a minister? Would not money so employed “be more for the benefit of the town than horse racing, billiard playing, etc., etc.?” The answer of the congregation was to procure the appointment of the Rev. Robert Steele as supply and the church began to show signs of life again. In April, 1802, Steele was received as a member of the Presbytery, the action being approved by the Synod in the following September.[136] From that time forward, the church began that spiritual and material advancement--although there were ebbs and flows in its progress--which has continued to this day. REFERENCES CHAPTER IV [84] _Pittsburgh Gazette_, November 28, 1800. [85] _Tree of Liberty_, August 23, 1800. [86] _Pittsburgh Gazette_, October 10, 1800. [87] _Pittsburgh Gazette_, November 2, 1793. [88] PERRIN DULAC. _Voyage dans les Deux Louisianes_, Lyon, an xiii. [1805], p. 131. [89] H. H. BRACKENRIDGE. _Gazette Publications_, Carlisle, 1806, p. 12. [90] _Centennial Volume of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, Pa._, Pittsburgh, 1884, p. 154. [91] CHARLES J. SHERRILL. “Dancing and Other Social Customs,” _Scribner’s Magazine_, New York, April, 1915, vol. lvii., pp. 479–490. [92] _Pittsburgh Gazette_, October 20, 1798. [93] _Pittsburgh Gazette_, January 3, 1800. [94] _Pittsburgh Gazette_, October 29, 1802; _Pittsburgh Gazette_, August 25, 1798. [95] _Pittsburgh Gazette_, October 20, 1798.