THE POETIC SPIRIT 199 



humanity will rejoice, that in Cornwall at all events 

 these exhibitions are declining. 



Last year one day a Truro acquaintance of mine 

 got into a railway carriage in which were five Method- 

 ist ministers returning from a conference they had 

 been attending. They were discussing the decrease 

 in the number of converts and the decline of revivals 

 during the last few years. One of them, a stout, 

 elderly person, said he did not take so pessimistic a 

 view of the position as the others appeared to do. 

 He thought the falling off, if there were any, was 

 perhaps attributable to the ministers themselves, and 

 then added, " All I have got to do is to preach my 

 Judgment-Day sermon to set them howling." The 

 others were silent for a little, and then one said, " Do 

 you think it wise to say much about everlasting 

 punishment at the present juncture?" No one replied 

 to the question, and after an uncomfortable interval 

 they changed the subject. 



One would hardly suppose that the "present 

 juncture " would be causing much anxiety in far 

 Bolerium ; yet even here in this ancient rocky fast- 

 ness of Dissent the trumpets of the New Theology 

 are beginning to sound in some of the chapels. Meth- 

 odism, on account of its wealth and the perfection of 

 its machine, will be the last of the sects to feel the 

 impending changes ; but this is a subject which does 

 not concern us here, and enough has perhaps been 

 said to show that Methodism with its revival cam- 

 paigns and notion as to the necessity of sudden 

 conversion, accompanied with the outward visible 



