Wogan's host could talk of nothing but this creed, whose devotees cried out (it seemed), laughed, fell down in fits, barked, and made confession in public.
'Ah, sir,' he said to Wogan, 'if you could but hear the Brothers Wesley, Charles and John, in the pulpit or singing hymns! Charles sings like an angel, and to hear John exhort the unaroused might waken those who have lain for a score of years in the arms of the Devil.'
'John Wesley, little Jack Wesley?' cried Wogan. 'Why, I have saved him from many a beating at Westminster School!'
'Do you know that saint, sir? 'asked the cobbler, in an enthusiasm.
'Know him, I know nobody else, if he is the brother of honest Sam Wesley, that once let me into the Deanery on a night in May. Assuredly I knew little Jack.'
The cobbler came near kneeling to Wogan. 'Here, indeed, is the finger of Providence,' he exclaimed. 'Dear sir, you may yet cast off the swathings of the Scarlet Woman.'
'Easy, be easy, Mr. Crispin!' quoth Wogan. 'But tell me, is Jack to preach and is Charles to sing in this town of yours to-night?'
'Unhappily no, but we are promised the joy of hearing that famed disciple, Mr. Bunton, discourse, and the Elect Lady, as the Brethren style her, will also speak.'
'Do the women preach in your new Church?'
'No, but they are permitted to tell the story of their call, and to-night we shall hear the Elect Lady--'