1864 333 and decorous to what they were in Primitive Methodist Meeting Houses. I used to hear a good many scandalous accounts of these proceedings from the lads and young men at home, when I was a youth. On my going into Yorkshire among the mill-hands I did not find that they were much more conducive to religion and morality than were those in country places in Devon and Cornwall. Probably the most valuable work to be achieved by the resident minister would be the undoing of the mischief wrought by the Evangelist. I believe that the genuine Methodists, and the Con-gregationalists at the present day have freed themselves from this perilous emotionalism, and insist on a growth in Grace. But the Baptists, the Primitive Methodists, and the Bible Christians still adhere to the substitution of feelings for spiritual and moral growth. The film between religious ecstasy and sensuality is as fine as gold-beaters' skin and as easily rent, and suffers the one passion to merge into the other. Thus it is that morals are so bad in Wales, Cornwall and the Yorkshire dales, where religious profession is loudest. Mr. Hawker of Morwenstow wrote : " When the voice of God is thrilling, Breathe not a sound ; When the tearful eye is filling, Breathe not a sound : When the memory is pleading, And the better mind succeeding, And the stricken heart is bleeding, Breathe not a sound. When the broad road is forsaken, Breathe not a sound, And the narrow path is taken, Breathe not a sound : When the angels are descending, And the days of sin are ending, When that Heaven and Earth are blending, Breathe not a sound." A Primitive Methodist preacher at Bude, when he read this, exclaimed, " Bah ! the writer was not even a Christian." For with such as him, Assurance takes the place of Humble Trust.
