te a revivalist movement. Daniel Shubotham, a boxer,
poacher, and ringleader in wickedness, was brought, through Bourne's
influence, to the Saviour, on Christmas day 1800, and with his natural
energy of character took up the cause. Matthias Bailey, another of
Bourne's old associates was also won over, and cottage prayer meetings
were begun among the colliers. A meeting upon Mow Cop was proposed for a
day given to prayer. At this time Lorenzo Dow, an American Wesleyan
visited the Black Country, as the coal district of Staffordshire was
called. He spoke of the American camp meetings, himself preaching at
Congleton, when Hugh Bourne, with his brother James, was present; William
Clowes being also a hearer. They bought books of Lorenzo Dow, which had
a marked effect on the future. On May 31st, 1807, a camp meeting was
held on Mow Cop, a hill in the neighbourhood, Bourne and Clowes being
present. Stands were erected and addresses given from four points.
Bourne organized two companies, who continued by turns praying all the
day; others giving accounts of their spiritual experiences, among whom
Clowes was prominent, and his words are "The glory that filled my soul on
that day exceeds my powers of description." Persons were present on this
occasion from Kilham in Yorkshire and other distant places, one, Dr. Paul
Johnson, a friend of Lorenzo Dow, coming from Ireland.

The movement had now taken definite form and substance. Another camp
meeting followed at the same place on July 19, lasting three days; a
third on August 16th, at Brown Edge; a fourth on August 23rd, at
Norton-in-the-Moors. At this time was held the Annual Wesleyan
Conference, at which handbills were issued denouncing this separate
movement. For a brief moment Bourne, Clowes and Shubotham hesitated; but
the question was seriously considered at a meeting at the house of a
friend, Joseph Pointon, when it was "revealed" to Bourne that the camp
meetings "should not die, but live;" and from that moment he "believed
himself to be called of God" for the new work; and shortly his brother
James, James Nixon, Thomas Cotton, and others, gave themselves to the
cause.

For some years the labours of these men and their associates were chiefly
devoted to the pottery and colliery districts of Staffordshire, where a
remarkable change was brought about in the moral condition of the
hitherto almost brutalized people. The area of work was then gradually
enlarged, extendin