The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Wesley lost no time in announcing to his friends the decision to which he had come. He was to preach on Sunday at the place where his first meeting had been held, and he felt sure that his congregation would be sufficiently large for his purpose, which was to let it be known throughout the country that he and all those who were associated with him in his work in Cornwall discountenanced Pritchard in every way. To be sure there was very little time left to them to spread abroad the news that Mr. Wesley had returned and would preach on Sunday. Only a single day remained to them, and that was not enough to allow of the announcement being made outside an area of twenty-five or thirty miles from Porthawn; but when Mr. Hartwell and Jake Pullsford shook their heads and doubted if this preaching would bring together more than a few hundred people, these being the inhabitants of the villages and hamlets within a mile or two of Porthawn, Wesley explained that all that was necessary to be done would be accomplished even by a small congregation. All that should be aimed at was to place it on record that Pritchard had done what he had done on his own responsibility and without any previous consultation with the leader of the movement with which he had been associated. But, of course, the more people who would be present the more fully his object would be accomplished, and Wesley's friends sent their message with all speed and in every direction.

“I would fain believe that the news of this distressing folly of Pritchard's has not spread very far abroad,” said Wesley. “I travelled, as you know, through a large portion of the country on my return, and yet it was not until I had reached the head of the valley that the least whisper of the matter reached me; I would fain hope that the trouble will be only local.”

“Those who are opposed to us will take the best of care to prevent it from being circumscribed,” said Mr. Hartwell. “The captain of my mine tells me that there is excitement as far away as Falmouth and Truro over the prediction. In some districts no work has been done for several days. That news I had this morning.”

“'Tis more serious than I thought possible it could be,” said Wesley. “Our task is not an easy one, but with God's help it shall be fulfilled.” Going forth through the village in the early afternoon, he was surprised to find so much evidence of the credence which the people had given to the prediction and so pronounced a tendency to connect it with the movement begun by Wesley in the early Summer. It seemed to be taken for granted that Wesley had come back to urge upon them the need for immediate repentance. This Pritchard had done with great vehemence ever since he had prophesied the Great Day.

Wesley found his old friends agitated beyond measure—even those who had professed to have received the Word that he had preached. No boats except those owned by Nelly Polwhele's father had put off to the fishing ground for some days, and, strange to say, although Isaac Polwhele held that Pritchard had gone too far in all that he had said, he returned on Friday morning from his night's fishing with a strange story of lights seen in the depths of the Channel—something like fires seething beneath the surface—of wonderful disturbances of the waters, although only the lightest of breezes was hovering round the coast; and of a sudden sound, thunderous, with the noise as of a cataract tumbling in the distance, followed by the rolling of large waves in spite of the fact that for the time there was not a breath stirring the air.

The old fisherman told his story of these things without any reserve; but while he was still disposed to give a contemptuous nod when anyone mentioned Pritchard's name, his experience through that night had done much to widen Pritchard's influence until at last there seemed to be neither fisherman nor boat-builder that did not dread the dawning of Monday.

And yet Nelly had not spoken one word about the prophecy when he had talked with her a few hours before!

This circumstance caused Wesley no little surprise. He asked himself if Polwhele's girl was the only sensible person in the neighbourhood. While the other people were overwhelmed at the prospect of a catastrophe on Monday, she had gone to visit her young ladies and brought back with her a pair of young doves.

He began to feel that he had never given the girl credit for some of those qualities which she possessed—qualities which certainly are not shared by the majority of womankind.

Her father told him before he had reached the village something of the marvels which had come under his notice only two nights before. But he tried to make it plain that he did not attach any great importance to them: he did not regard them as portents, however other people might be disposed to do so. The old fisherman was shrewd enough to guess that Mr. Wesley's sympathies were not with Pritchard. Still he could not deny that what he had seen and heard surpassed all his experience of the Channel, although he allowed that he had heard of the like from the lips of mariners who had voyaged far and wide, and had probably been disbelieved in both hemispheres, by the best judges of what was credible. He had heard, for instance, of parallels where through long sultry nights the ocean had seemed one mass of flame. But he himself was no deep-sea sailor.