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.
“A sea of flame is common enough in some quarters,” said Wesley. “I
myself have seen the Atlantic palpitating like a furnace, and our ship
dashed flakes of fire from the waters that were cloven by her cut-water.
But the sounds which you say you heard--think you not that they came
from a distant thunderstorm?”
“Likely enough, sir, likely enough,” replied the man after a pause; but
he spoke in a way that assured Mr. Wesley that he knew very well that
the sounds had not come from a thunderstorm, however distant. He had had
plenty of experience of thunderstorms, near at hand as well as far off.
“Or Admiral Hawke's ships--might not some of the Admiral's fleet have
come within a mile or two of the coast and discharged their carronades?”
Wesley suggested.
“Ay, sir, the boom of a ship's gun carries a long way on the water,”
said the fisherman, but in a tone that suggested graver doubt than
before.
“'Tis clear you are convinced that what you heard was stranger than
either thunder or gunpowder,” said he.
“Nay, sir, what I am thinking of is the sudden uprise of the sea,” said
Polwhele. “Without warning our smack began to sway so that the mast
well-nigh went by the board, albeit there was ne'er a draught o' wind.
And there was summat besides that I kept back from all the world.”
“A greater mystery still?” said Wesley.
“The biggest of all, sir; after the last rumblings my mates thought that
we had been long enough anchored on the fishing bank; so we got in the
grapple and laid out sweeps to pull the smack to the shore.”
He made another pause, and looked into the face of his auditor and then
out seawards. He took a step or two away and stood thoughtfully with
pursed out lips.
“And then?” said Wesley.
“And then, sir, then--sir, the oar blades refused to sink. They struck
on something hard, though not with the hardness of a rock or even a sand
bank. 'Twas like as if they had fallen on a floating dead body--I know
what the feel is, sir. When the _Gloriana_, East Indiaman, went ashore
forty years agone, and broke up on the Teeth--you know the reef, sir--we
were coming on the bodies o' the crew for weeks after, as they came to
the surface, as bodies will after eight days--some say ten, but I stick
to eight.”
“But if you came upon the body of a drowned man the night before last
you would surely have reported it, Polwhele,” said Wesley.
“It were dead bodies that we touched wi' our blades, but they was the
dead bodies of fishes. There they floated, sir, thick as jelly bags
after a Spring tide--hundreds of them--thousands of them--all round the
boats--big and little--mackerel and cod and congers and skates and some
monsters that I had never seen before, with mighty heads. They held the
boat by their numbers, blocking its course till we got up a flare o'
pitch and held it out on an oar and saw what was the matter. That was
how it came about that we landed with fish up to the gunwale, though we
had hauled in empty seines--or well-nigh empty half an hour before.
And if all the other boats had been out that night they would have been
filled likewise. I tell you, sir, all we picked up made no difference
to the shoals that was about us. But I said no word to mortal man about
this event nor e'en to my own wife. What would be the good? I asks you,
sir. The poor folk be troubled enow over Dick Pritchard, as no doubt
you heard. I would that Tuesday was safe o'er us. List, you can hear the
voice o' Simon Barwell baying the boys into the fold like a sheep dog.
Simon was a sad evil liver before he heard you preach, sir, and now he's
telling the lads that they have only another day and half to repent, so
they'd best not put it off too long.”
Wesley looked in the direction he indicated and saw a young fellow
mounted on a fish barrel, haranguing a group of men and women. He was
far off, but his voice every now and again reached the place where
Wesley and the old man stood.
“There be some that holds that Simon himself would ha' done well to
begin his repentance a while back,” resumed Polwhele. “And there's some
others that must needs scamp their penitence, if I have a memory at all;
howsomever, Dick Pritchard----”
“Ah, friend,” said Wesley, “if I could think that the repentance which
is being brought about through fear of Monday will last, I would take
joy to stand by the side of Pritchard and learn from him, but alas, I
fear that when Monday comes and goes----”
“But will it come and go?” cried the old man eagerly.
“I cannot tell--no man living can tell if to-morrow will come and go, or
if he will live to see the day dawn. We know so much, but no more, and I
hold that any man who says that he knows more is tempting the Lord.”
“And I hold with you, Mr. Wesley; only not altogether so fast since
those happenings I have rehearsed to you. What was it slew them fish,
sir?”
“I cannot tell you that. I have heard that some of your mines are
pierced far below the sea, and that for miles out. Perhaps we shall hear
that a store of gunpowder exploded in one of them, throwing off the roof
and killing the fish in the water over it--I do not say that this is the
only explanation of the matter. I make no pretence to account for all
that you saw and heard. I have heard of earthquakes beneath the water.”
“Earthquakes in divers places, Mr. Wesley, 'twas from that text Dick
Pritchard preached last Sunday.” The man's voice was lowered, and there
was something of awe in his whisper. “He prophesied that there would be
an earthquake in divers places--meaning the sea--before the coming of
the terrible day, Monday next. Now you know, sir, why I said naught that
was particular--only hazy like--that none could seize hold upon about
Thursday's fishing. But I've told you, Mr. Wesley, whatever may happen.”
He took off his hat and walked away, when he had looked for some moments
into Wesley's face, and noted the expression that it wore.
And, indeed, Wesley was perturbed as he turned and went up the little
track that led to the summit of the cliffs, and the breezy space that
swept up to the wood. He was greatly perturbed by the plain statement
of the fisherman. He had been anxious to take the most favourable view
of Pritchard and his predictions. He had believed that the man, however
foolish and vain he might be, had been sincere in his conviction that he
was chosen by Heaven to prophesy the approaching end of all things; but
now the impression was forced upon him that the man was on a level with
the soothsayers of heathendom.
Even though he had taken a ludicrously illiterate view of the text,
“There shall be earthquakes in divers places,” he had made it the
subject of another prediction, and it seemed as if this prediction
had actually been realised, although only a single fisherman, and he a
friend of Pritchard's, was in a position to testify to it.
Wesley had heard it said more than once that the finding of water by the
aid of a divining rod was a devil's trick; but he had never taken such a
view of the matter; he affirmed that he would be slow to believe that a
skill which had for its object so excellent an object as the finding of
a spring of the most blessed gift of water, should be attributed to the
Enemy. He preferred to assume that the finding of water was the result
of a certain delicacy of perception on the part of the man with the
hazel wand, just as the detection of a false harmony in music is due to
a refinement of the sense of hearing on the part of other men.
But was he to believe that any man possessed such a sense as enabled him
to predict an earthquake?
It was impossible for him to believe it. And what then was he to think
of the man who had foretold such an event--an event which had actually
taken place within a week of his prediction?
The man could only be a soothsayer. The very fact of his corrupting
the text out of the Sacred Word was a proof of this. If he were in the
service of God, he would never have mistaken the word in the text to
mean the sea. The man was a servant of the Evil One, and Wesley felt
once more that he himself had been to blame in admitting him to his
fellowship, without subjecting him to such tests as would have proved
his faith.
And then he found himself face to face with the further question: If
the man had, by reason of his possession of a certain power, achieved
success in his forecast of one extraordinary event, was it to be assumed
that the other event--the one of supreme importance to the world, and
all that dwell therein--would also take place?
What, was it possible that the Arch Enemy had been able to get
possession of the secret which not even the angels in heaven had
fathomed, and had chosen this man to communicate it to some people in
the world?
What, was it possible that Satan, if he acquired that secret, would
allow it to be revealed, thereby losing his hold upon as many of the
people of the world as became truly repentant, and there was no doubt
that Pritchard had urged repentance upon the people?
It was a tangled web that Wesley found in his hand this day. No matter
which end of it he began to work upon, his difficulties in untangling
seemed the same. He was fearful of doing the man an injustice; but how
could he, as a faithful servant, stand by and see the work with which he
had been entrusted, wrecked and brought to naught?
And then another point suggested itself to him: what if this prediction
became the means of calling many to repentance--true repentance--how
dreadful would be his own condemnation if he were to oppose that which
had been followed by blessing!
It was the flexibility and the ceaseless activity of his mind that
increased the difficulties of his position. He, and he only, could
look at the matter from every standpoint and appreciate it in all its
bearings. If he had not had the refuge of prayer, having faith that he
would receive the Divine guidance, he would have allowed the vanity--if
it was vanity--of Pritchard to be counteracted in the ordinary--in what
seemed to be the natural way--namely, by the ridicule which would follow
the nonfulfilment of his prophecy.
He prayed.