The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

All this Wesley heard before he left the Mill, and before he had ridden as far as the coast village he had ample confirmation of the accuracy of the judgment of his friends, who had assured him that the cause which they had at heart was likely to suffer through the vanity of Pritchard. He also perceived that the man had good reason for being puffed up on observing the effect of his deliverance. In a moment he had leaped into notoriety from being a nonentity. It seemed as if he had been ashamed of hearing his own voice a short time before, and this fact only made him appear a greater marvel to himself as well as to the people who had heard him assume the character of a prophet of fire and brimstone. It was no wonder, Wesley acknowledged, that the man's head had been turned.

The worst of the matter was that he was referred, to by nearly all the countryside as Wesley's deputy. Even the most devoted of Wesley's hearers seemed to have accepted Pritchard as the exponent of the methods adopted by Wesley to get the ears of the multitude. In their condition of blind fervour they were unable to differentiate between the zeal of the one to convey to them the living Truth and the excess of the other. They were in the condition of the French mob, who, fifty years later, after being stirred by an orator, might have gone to think over their wrongs for another century had not a madman lighted a torch and pointed to the Bastille.

It was only to be expected that the opponents of the great awakening begun by Wesley should point to the extravagance of Pritchard and call it the natural development of Methodism. Wesley's crusade had been against the supineness of the Church of England, they said; but how much more preferable was this supineness to the blasphemy of Methodism as interpreted by the charlatan who arrogated to himself the power of a prophet!

He was pained as he had rarely been since his American accusers had forced him to leave Georgia, when he found what a hold the prediction had got on the people. He had evidence of the extent of Pritchard's following even during his ride to Port-hawn. At the cross roads, not two miles from the Mill, he came upon a large crowd being preached to by a man whom he had never seen before, and the text was the Judgment Day. The preacher was fervid and illiterate. He became frantic, touching upon the terror that was to come on Monday; and his hearers were shrieking—men as, well as women. Some lay along the ground sobbing wildly, others sang a verse of a hymn in frenzy.

Further along the road a woman was preaching repentance—in another two days it would be too late; and in the next ditch a young woman was making a mock of her, putting a ribald construction upon what she was saying. Further on still he came to a tavern, outside which there was a large placard announcing that the world would only last till Monday, and having unfortunately a large stock of beer and rum in fine condition, the innkeeper was selling off the stock at a huge reduction in the price of every glass of liquor.

Wesley had no difficulty in perceiving the man's generosity was being appreciated. The bar was crowded with uproarious men and women, and some were lying helpless on the stones of the yard.

On the wall of a disused smithy a mile or two nearer the coast there was chalked up the inscription:

“The Methodys have bro' about the Ende of the World. Who will bring about the Ende of the Methodys? Downe with them all, I saye.”

He rode sadly onward, with bowed head. He felt humiliated, feeling that the object for which he lived was humiliated.

And the worst of the matter was, he saw, that these people who were making a mock of the Truth, some consciously, others unconsciously, were not in a condition to lend an ear to any remonstrance that might come from him. The attitude assumed by Pritchard was, Wesley knew, typical of that which would be taken up by his followers, and the mockers would only be afforded a new subject for ridicule.