132 THE LAND'S END 



the change to Cornwall meant to him. That he was 

 right in his facts we know. We know, for instance, 

 that just as Cornwall is the cleanest county, so 

 some of the Welsh counties especially in the coal- 

 mining districts are the foulest. Yet the Welsh 

 are Celts too and Methodists of a hundred and 

 fifty years standing ! They are, in fact, the truer 

 Methodists if we consider what that creed is and that 

 its most essential point is that there can be no salva- 

 tion without a sudden conversion, with or without 

 the accompaniment of groanings, shriekings, and 

 other manifestations of the kind. But what are the 

 facts of the case as to the condition of Cornwall, 

 with regard to drunkenness, before its conversion to 

 Methodism ? They are not so easily got as one may 

 think. There is plenty of material, and any one 

 with a preconceived opinion on the question would 

 doubtless find something to confirm him in it. I 

 had no opinion, and my sole desire was to find out 

 the truth. My first superficial study of the question 

 made me a believer in the claim made by the Meth- 

 odists, but it did not bear a closer investigation. 

 What I found was that when tin-mining was in a 

 highly prosperous state and the population of the 

 mining centres vastly greater than it is now there was 

 a good deal of intemperance among the miners ; but 

 there is nothing to show that they were as degraded 

 as the Welsh of to-day. It is also indisputable that 

 Wesley's preaching had a profound effect on the tin- 

 miners. That is the most that can be said. That 

 the Methodism invented after Wesley's death and 





