om
his own, and to sustain and defend his general defiance of the usual
traditions and customs of "society."

His own feelings about it all he has described in these words:--

"The sensations of a new-comer to London from the country, are
always somewhat disagreeable, if he comes to work. The immensity of
the city must especially strike him as he crosses it for the first
time and passes through its different areas. The general turn-out
into a few great thoroughfares, on Saturday nights especially,
gives a sensation of enormous bulk. The manifest poverty of so many
in the most populous streets must appeal to any heart. The language
of the drinking crowds must needs give a rather worse than a true
impression of all.

"The crowding pressure and activity of so many must almost oppress
one not accustomed to it. The number of public-houses, theatres,
and music-halls must give a young enthusiast for Christ a sickening
impression. The enormous number of hawkers must also have given a
rather exaggerated idea of the poverty and cupidity which
nevertheless prevailed. The Churches in those days gave the very
uttermost idea of spiritual death and blindness to the existing
condition of things; at that time very few of them were open more
than one evening per week. There were no Young Men's or Young
Women's Christian Associations, no P.S.A.'s, no Brotherhoods, no
Central Missions, no extra effort to attract the attention of the
godless crowds; for miles there was not an announcement of anything
special in the religious line to be seen.

"To any one who cared to enter the places of worship, their
deathly contrast with the streets was even worse. The absence of
week-night services must have made any stranger despair of finding
even society or diversion. A Methodist sufficiently in earnest to
get inside to the 'class' would find a handful of people reluctant
to bear any witness to the power of God.

"Despite the many novelties introduced since those days, the
activities of the world being so much greater, the contrast must
look even more striking in our own time."

Imagine a young man accustomed to daily labour for the poor, coming into
such a world as that!

Thought about what they sang and said in the private gatherings of the
Methodist Societies could only deepen and intensi