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 intensify the feeling of monstrosity.  They sang frequently:—­

    He taught me how to watch and pray,
    And live rejoicing every day.

But where were the rejoicing people?  Where was there indeed anybody who, either in or out of a religious service, dared to express his joy in the Lord—­or wished to express anything.  It was as if religious societies had become wet blankets to suppress any approach to a hearty expression of religious faith.  Nevertheless, by God’s grace, it all worked in this case not to crush but to infuriate and stir the new-comer to action.

Preaching, under such circumstances, was a relief to such a soul, and necessarily became more and more desperate.