My personal recollections of Methodism, which roll back more than seventy years ago, linger round Yarmouth and Norwich. At Yarmouth I used to worship on a Sunday in a curious old-fashioned square chapel, with galleries on the four sides. There was a deep one opposite the two entrance doors, and attached to the front of that gallery was a pulpit—by what means, as a boy, I never could make out. The preacher ascended from behind by a staircase, invisible to the congregation, and then from the top of the staircase descended by two or three steps into a curiously shaped pulpit. I distinctly recollect the venerable Joseph Benson, then a patriarch, who had been associated with Methodists in John Wesley’s time. I think I see him now, of slender frame, venerable aspect, and wearing a coat of dark purple. Of course I have no recollection of what he said, but he was regarded as a saintly man in those days. In the autumn Yarmouth was frequented by a number of mariners from the north—coblemen they were called—who had come to fish for herrings off the Yarmouth coast. They were staunch Methodists, and used to hold a prayer-meeting after the general service. How those men used to pray with stentorian voice, which called forth loud “Amens” from voices all over the chapel! In Calvert Street, Norwich, there used to be special services on Christmas-day. After a prayer-meeting at six o’clock in the morning there was preaching at seven o’clock, when hymns appropriate to the season were sung, accompanied by violins and wind instruments of different kinds. I did not fail, between five and six o’clock, to rise and cross the city in order to be in good time for these services. They usually commenced with the hymn— “Christians, awake, salute the happy morn Whereon the Saviour of mankind was born; Rise to adore the mystery of love, Which hosts of angels chanted from above; With them the joyful tidings first begun Of God incarnate and the Virgin’s son. “Then to the watchful shepherds it was told, Who heard the angelic herald’s voice: ‘Behold, I bring good tidings of a Saviour’s birth, To you and all the nations upon earth: This day hath God fulfilled His promised word, This day is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord.’” With the Methodist chapel in Calvert Street my earliest religious thoughts are connected. Watch-nights and love-feasts, are sacred in my recollection.