The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“The man is to be pitied,” said Mr. Hartwell.

“You heard the uplifted way he talked at the last—like a fool full of his own conceit? Have you heard yet, Mr. Wesley, what an effect his prediction has had upon the country?”

“I heard naught of it until I had entered the parlour at the inn where I dined to-day, but I think I heard enough to allow of my forming some notion of the way his prediction was received. Some were jocular over it, a few grave, and a large number ribald.”

“You have described what I myself have noticed, sir,” said Mr. Hartwell. “Only so far as I can see there are a large number who are well-nigh mad through fear. Now what we may be sure of is that these people, when Monday passes, will turn out open scoffers at the truth. And you may be certain that your opponents will only be too glad of the opportunity thereby afforded them of discrediting your labours; they will do their best to make Methodism responsible for the foolishness and vanity of that man?”

“I perceived that that would be so the moment I got your letter,” said Wesley. “And yet—I tell you, brethren, that I should be slow to attribute any imposture to this man, especially since I have heard him speak in this room. He believes that he has been endowed by Heaven with the gift of prophecy.”

“And he only acknowledges it to boast,” said Mr. Hartwell. “It is his foolish boasting that I abhor most, knowing, as I do full well, that every word that comes from him will be used against us, and tend to cast discredit upon the cause which we have at heart.”

Wesley perceived how true was this view of the matter, but still he remained uncertain what course to adopt in the circumstances. He knew that it was the fervour of his preaching that had affected Pritchard, as it had others; he had heard reports of the spread of a religious mania at Bristol after he had preached there for some time; but he had always succeeded in tracing such reports to those persons who had ridiculed his services. This wras the first time that he was brought face to face with one who had been carried away by his zeal to a point of what most people would be disposed to term madness.

He had known that there would be considerable difficulty dealing with the case of Pritchard, but he had also believed that the man would become submissive if remonstrated with. It had happened, however, that, so far from becoming submissive, Pritchard had reasserted himself, and with so much effect that Wesley found himself sympathising with him—pitying him, and taking his part in the face of the others who were apparently but little affected by the impassioned account the man had given of his vision when in the trance.

It was not until the night had fallen that they agreed with Wesley that it might be well to wait for a day or two in order that he should become acquainted with some of the effects of the prediction, and thus be in a position to judge whether or not he should take steps to dissociate himself and his mission from the preaching of the man Pritchard.

He had not, however, gone further than Port-hawn the next day before he found out that the impression produced by the definite announcement that the Day of Judgment was but forty-eight hours off was very much deeper than he had fancied. He found the whole neighbourhood seething with excitement over the prophecy. It had been made by Pritchard, he learned, in the course of a service which had been held in a field on the first Sunday after Wesley's departure, and it had been heard by more than a thousand of the people whom Wesley's preaching had aroused from lethargy to a living sense of responsibility. Religious fervour had taken hold upon the inhabitants of valley and coast, and under its influence extravagance and exuberance were rife. Only at such a time would Pritchard's new-found fervour have produced any lasting impression, but in the circumstances his assumption of the mantle of the prophet and his delivery of the solemn warning had had among the people the effect of a firebrand flung among straw. He had shouted his words of fire to an inflammable audience, and his picture of the imminent terror had overwhelmed them. The shrieks of a few hysterical women completed what his prediction had begun, and before the evening the valley of the Lana was seething with the news that the world was coming to an end within the month.