Little farther remarkable happened during the three years and ten months of my residence in this city, except the incident that occasioned my removal. By being a constant spectator of the debauchery of the young, and the sensuality of the old, I conceived an increasing dislike of their manners, and sought the company of a few secluded young men, who like myself were severe students. Toward the close of this period I became acquainted with some who were tinged with methodism; and, by frequently listening to their conversation, my thoughts were turned into the same channel. The want of zeal in prayer and every part of religious duty, the tedious and dull sermons heard in the churches, and what methodists call preaching themselves and not their Saviour, were the frequent topics of our animadversion.
This was a doctrine most aptly calculated to inflame an imagination like mine, which was ardent and enthusiastic. Beside it relieved me from a multitude of labours and cares, for, as I proceeded, Thomas Aquinas and his subtilizing competitors were thrown by in contempt. I had learned divinity by inspiration, and soon believed myself fit for a reformer. The philosopher Aristotle with his dialectics and sophisms were exchanged, for those of the philosopher Saint Paul; from whom I learnt that he who had saving faith had every thing, and that he who wanted it was naked of all excellence as the new born babe. This nakedness I had discovered in myself, and in the language of the sect was immediately clothed in the righteousness of Christ Jesus! I, in common with my methodistical brethren, was chosen of the elect! My name was inscribed in the book of life never to be erased! My sins were washed away! Satan had no power over me; and to myself and my new fraternity I applied the text, that 'the gates of hell could not prevail against us!'
To these mysteries, which all the initiated allow are suddenly unfolded, descending like lightening by the inspiration of the spirit and illuminating the darkened soul, to these mysteries no man perhaps was ever a more sudden or a more combustible kind of convert than myself. I beamed with gospel light; it shone through me. I was the beacon of this latter age: a comet, sent to warn the wicked. I mean, I was all this in my own imagination, which swelled and mounted to the very acme of fanaticism.
Under the impulse of these wild dreams, in which my soul delighted, I was sometimes tempted to rise up a prophet, preach salvation to the poor, and confound the wise. Persecution I must expect, but in that I should glory: it was the badge of blessedness, the mark of election, the signing of the covenant. Elevated to these celestial heights, with what contempt did I look down on the doctors, proctors, and preachers of Baal (for such were all the unenlightened) and on their dignities, paraphernalia, and many coloured robes. What were these but the types of Babylon? the ensigns of the scarlet whore? the purple tokens of the beast? In the most extravagant eccentricities of mind it is remarkable what a mixture there is of truth and falsehood, and how nearly and frequently they approach each other.
During the height of this paroxysm, a famous gospel preacher, a divine man, on his way from Shropshire to London, came to hold forth in the vicinity of Oxford: not in churches, they were shut upon him, but in the fields; not to the rich, not to the worldy wise, not to the self righteous, they were deaf, but to the poor in spirit, to the polluted, the hardened reprobate, who wished by faith and repentance, though dyed in sin like scarlet, to be washed white as wool. To hear this teacher of the word, who set up his stool near a village on the Witney road, I repaired: I and many a moaning old woman beside; watchful, with our chorus of amen and our sobs and groans at every divine ejaculation, to aid the heaving motions of the spirit, and take heaven by storm.
The elect were assembled, and with them a greater number of the unconverted; heads were uncovered, a hymn was sung, and a long extempore string of intercessions, praying that the Lord would lay bare his arm and strike the guilty with terror; that Christ crucified would be among them; that they might be washed in the blood of the immaculate lamb; and that the holy spirit would breathe the God-man Jesus into all hearts, with many more absurdities, was uttered.
The preacher then took his text, and chose for his subject the casting of the buyers and sellers out of the temple. This was an opportunity not to be lost by me. A gospel minister was indeed a rara avis, at Oxford. I therefore took out my utensils and very industriously wrote notes, that the divine breathings of the man of God might not be lost upon me.—'Buyers and sellers,' said he, 'you must be cast out! The tables of the money changers must be overthrown; you have defiled the temple of the Saviour! In what do you trade? In vanity. In gold, silver, iron, brass, houses, corn, cattle, goods, and chattels. But gold and silver may be stolen; iron will rust; brass will break; cattle will die; corn will mildew; houses will burn; they will tumble about your ears! Repent, or you will quickly bring an old house over your heads! Your goods and chattels will but kindle the fire in which you are to burn everlastingly! What are your occupations? Why, to hoard, and sell your souls for gain, that your heirs may squander and buy a hot place in hell! I am not one of your fashionable fine spoken mealy mouthed preachers: I tell you the plain truth. What are your pastimes? Cards and dice, fiddling and dancing, guzzling and guttling! Can you be saved by dice? No! Will the four knaves give you a passport to heaven? No! Can you fiddle yourself into a good birth among the sheep? No! You are goats, and goat like you may dance yourselves to damnation! You may guzzle wine here, but you shall want a drop of water to cool your tongue hereafter! You may guttle, while righteous Lazarus is lying at your gate. But wait a little! He shall soon lie in Abraham's bosom, while you shall roast on the devil's great gridiron, and be seasoned just to his tooth!—Will the prophets say, "Come here gamester, and teach us the long odds?"—'Tis odds if they do!—Will the martyrs rant, and swear, and shuffle, and cut with you? No! The martyrs are no shufflers! You will be cut so as you little expect: you are a field of tares, and Lucifer is your head farmer. He will come with his reapers and his sickles and his forks, and you will be cut down and bound and pitched and carted and housed in hell. I will not oil my lips with lies to please you: I tell you the plain truth: you will go to hell! Ammon and Mammon and Moloch are head stoakers; they are making Bethhoron hot for you! Prophane wretches, you daily wrangle and brawl and tell one another—"I will see you damned first!"—But I tell you the day will come when you will pray to Beelzebub to let you escape his clutches! And what will be his answer?—"I will see you damned first!'"
To this rhapsody of strange but impressive vulgar eloquence I listened, with rapture, for nearly an hour; selecting and noting down the passages that I thought most remarkable, many of which were too extravagant, if repeated, to be believed. In the height of these effusions, when the divine man was torturing his lungs to be heard by the increasing croud, he on his stool, I seated uncapped in a cart by his side, who should I see approach, in a phæton and pair, but Hector Mowbray? And by his side—! Yes!—Olivia! The beauteous Olivia! no longer a child, but tall, straight, perfectly formed; every limb in the most captivating symmetry, every feature in the full bloom of youth; intelligence in every look, grace in every motion, sweetness in every smile! Attracted by curiosity, her brother arrested his course, drew up, and placed the celestial vision full in view!
Oh, frailty of the flesh! My new made garb of righteousness dropped from my shoulders! The old Adam, that had been dead in me, again revived; the workings of the spirit ceased; I gazed on an apparition which was indeed heavenly, and forgot the apostles the prophets and the martyrs! The preacher himself was heard no more; nor more would have been heard, had he not with all the effrontery of a fanatic interrupted his discourse, to address himself personally to Hector and Olivia, by which he excited sensations in me that were wholly unexpected—'Jehu driveth furiously,' said he; 'but Jezebel was given to the dogs! (My choler instantly began to rise) Sinners! drive not so fast! The way is broad, and Tophet is gaping, where is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth! You will be there, poor lost souls, sooner than you expect! The way to heaven is narrow, much too narrow for your large consciences; and, though the court is spacious, the gate is too little for you to drive in with your coaches and six! No, not even your vis a vis, nor your phætons neither, not so much as a tumbril or a buggie can get past! But perhaps you think to ride up to the gate, and there to cry, peccavi! and that then it will open, and you will be admitted? But, no! no! I tell you, no! You shall never be able to utter more than pec, pec, pec; and while with your mouths open you are stammering and stuttering to get out cavi, Satan and his blackguards shall come and peck you, even as crows peck carrion. Yes, Jehu and Jezebel! Remember! I give you warning!'
If I, one of the preacher's disciples, could scarcely refrain from falling upon him for his insolence, what must the choleric and brutal Hector feel, hearing himself repeatedly laughed at by the delighted unmannerly mob, during this impudent harangue? He dropped the reins, jumped from the phæton, sprang through the croud, and began to horse-whip the inspired man in the most furious manner.