How was any man to preach to such a congregation? How was a preacher to put force into his words, when failing to see the people before him?
When Wesley found himself on the eminence where he had spoken to the multitude on his first coming to Cornwall, and several times later, he looked down in front of him and saw nothing except the fine gauze of the grey clouds that rolled around the rocks. He stood there feeling that he was the only living being in a world that was strange to him. He thought of the poet who had gone to the place of departed spirits, and realised his awful isolation. How was he to speak words of life to this spectral host?
He had never known what fear was even when he had faced a maddened crowd bent upon the most strenuous opposition to his preaching: he had simply paid no attention to them, and the sound of his voice had held them back from him and their opposition had become parched. But now he felt something akin to terror. Who was he that he should make this attempt to do what no man had ever done before?
He fell upon his knees and prayed aloud. Light—Light—Light—that was the subject of his prayer. He was there with the people who had walked in darkness—he had walked with them, and now they were in the presence of the One who had said “Let there be Light.” He prayed that the Light of the World might appear to them at that time—the Light that shineth through the darkness that comprehended Him not. He prayed for light to understand the Light, as the poet had done out of the darkness of his blindness.
“So much the rather, Thou Celestial Light,
Shine inward and the mind through her way
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mists from thence
Purge and disperse that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.”
And after his prayer with closed eyes, he began to preach into that void, and his text was of the Light also. His voice sounded strange to his own ears.