The traditions of Methodism have few more imposing scenes. Gwennap Pit was, perhaps, Wesley’s most famous cathedral; a magnificent church, if we may apply that term to a building of nature, among the wild moors; it was thronged by hushed and devout worshippers. Until Wesley went among these people, the whole immense population might have said, “No man cared for our souls;” now they poured in to see him there: wild miners from the immediate neighbourhood, fishermen from the coast, men who until their conversion had pursued the wrecker’s remorseless and criminal career, smugglers, more quiet men and their families less savage, but not less ignorant, from their shieling, or lowly farmstead on the distant heath. A strange throng, if we think of it, men who had never used God’s name except in an oath, and who had never breathed a prayer except for the special providence of a shipwreck, and who with wicked barbarity had kindled their delusive lights along the coasts, to fascinate unfortunate ships to the cruel cliffs! But a Divine power had passed over them, and they were changed, with their families; and hither they came to gladden the heart of the old patriarch in the wild glen—a strange spot, and not unbeautiful, roofed over by the blue heavens. Amidst the broom, the twittering birds, the heath flower, and the scantling of trees, amidst the venerable rocks, it must have been wonderful to hear the thirty thousand voices welling up, and singing Wesley’s words: “Suffice that for the season past, Hell’s horrid language filled our tongues; We all Thy words behind us cast, And loudly sang the drunkard’s songs. But, oh, the power of grace Divine! In hymns we now our voices raise, Loudly in strange hosannahs join, While blasphemies are turned to praise!” Such was one of the triumphs of the Great Revival. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VI THE SINGERS OF THE REVIVAL.