In hell or earth or sky.'
They sob, they swell, they meet the spirit in its most hushed and plaintive mood; they roll and bear it aloft in its most inspired and prophetic moods, as on the surge of more than a mighty organ's swell. Among the mines, and quarries, and wild moors of Cornwall, among the factories of Lancashire and Yorkshire, in the chambers of death, in the most joyful assemblages of the household, they have relieved the hard lot, and sweetened the pleasant one; in other lands, soldiers, and slaves, and prisoners have recited with what joy those words have entered into their life. So early as 1748, when a sad cluster of convicts, horse-stealers, highway robbers, burglars, smugglers, and thieves, were led forth to execution, the turnkey said he had never seen such people before. When the bellman came, as usual, to say to them, 'Remember, you are to die to-day;' they exclaimed, 'Welcome news! welcome news!' The Methodists had been in their prison, and their visits had produced these marvellous effects; and on their way to Tyburn, the convicts sang that beautiful sacramental hymn of Charles Wesley:—
'Lamb of God, whose bleeding lore
We still recall to mind;
Send the answer from above,
And let us mercy find.
Think on us who think on Thee,
And every struggling soul release;
Oh, remember Calvary,
And let us go in peace.'