wfn.org | Re: United Methodist Daily News note 3400

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Reply-to: owner-umethnews@ecunet.org (United Methodist News list)
"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (350
notes).

Note 348 by UMNS on Sept. 25, 1997 at 16:27 Eastern (5914 characters).

TEXT: At the Roots of Methodism . . . with John Singleton

CONTACT: Thomas S. McAnally			(10-71B)
         Nashville,  Tenn. (615) 742-5470	October 1997

NOTE:  This is the first monthly feature on Methodist history by John
Singleton prepared especially for distribution by United Methodist News
Service.  Head and shoulders photo of Singleton is available. A photo of
Gwinnap Pit is also available.

At the Roots of Methodism . . .  with John Singleton*

A United Methodist News Service feature

	Almost 235 years ago in 1762, on one of his many visits to Cornwall, John
Wesley was prevented by strong winds from standing in his usual preaching
place in Gwennap parish, near Redruth.
	"But at a small distance was a hollow capable of containing many thousand
people," he wrote in his journal.  "I stood on one side of this ampitheatre
toward the top, with people beneath and on all sides, and enlarged on these
words from the Gospel for the day (Luke 10:23-24): Blessed are the eyes which
see the things that ye see  and hear the things which ye hear."
	And so Gwennap Pit - or as Wesley usually referred to it, "my ampitheatre" 
entered the Methodist story and remains, to this day, as one of his best known
open-air preaching places.
	Thousands of tin miners and other working people heard Wesley preach there at
least 18 times between 1762 and 1789, usually around 5 p.m.  He was intrigued
by the circumference and depth of this ampitheatre and frequently commented on
how his voice carried so well to the vast crowds who lined it.
	"The people covered a circle of near four score yards diameter and could not
be fewer than 20,000," he wrote in 1770.  "Yet, upon inquiry, I found they
could all hear distinctly, it being a calm, still evening."
	Something of the atmosphere can be gauged by what he wrote in the fall of
1775: "I think this the most magnificent spectacle which is to be seen on this
side of heaven.  And no music is to be heard upon earth comparable to the
sound of many thousand voices, when they are all harmoniously joined together
singing praises to God and the Lamb."
	One of the most interesting features of the Cornish landscape are the engine
houses of long disused tin mines dotted around this westernmost peninsula of
England. Their vigil over windswept moorland and rocky escarpment  like
fingers pointing to the sky  bear silent witness to an industry which
stretches back into pre-Roman times.  In its heyday, last century, more than
30,000 people were employed in nearly 400 mines throughout Cornwall.
	Tin was being dug out of the ground here when Christianity was first
introduced by the Celts from Ireland and Wales as early as the 5th century. 
And some 13 hundred years later, when Wesley and the early stalwarts of
Methodism preached to the Cornish "tinners" and the movement took strong root
in the area, tin mining was still a growing and thriving industry.
	As familiar a site as the derelict mining chimneys are the numerous chapels
in town and village today; a living presence in an area that is still a
relative stronghold of British Methodism.
	I was reminded of all this by the news that Cornwalls last working tin mine
at South Crofty, near Camborne, is likely to cease production by the end of
this year with a loss of 270 jobs.  Once the largest tin mine in the world,
its miles of tunnels are now set to be abandoned and allowed to flood. Whereas
Cornish tin was hard won from mines often extending far beneath the sea, most
of the worlds tin is now produced in opencast mines in countries such as
Indonesia and Bolivia where costs are low and extraction is far easier.
	Mining continues in Cornwall for china clay, but the  dominant industry 
tourism and leisure  has helped Methodism retain a "living link" at Gwennap
Pit with its Cornish roots.
	In an area honeycombed by mine workings the pit was almost certainly formed
by the collapse of tunnels running not far beneath the surface.
	A writer in the Cornish Banner in 1847 claimed the pit was known to have been
made by the subsidence and falling together of an old tin mine.  In 1986, when
the foundations  for a small visitor center were being dug at Gwennap Pit, a
previously unknown tunnel thought to date back to Wesleys time, if not
earlier, was discovered.
	Wesleys last visit to the pit was in 1787 at the age of 86 (when he was
still rising at 4 a.m. for prayer!).  His theme was the healing of Naaman (2
Kings 5:14).
	"I preached  in the evening at the ampitheatre, I suppose, for the last
time; my voice cannot now command the still increasing multitude," he wrote in
his journal.  "It was supposed they were now more than five-and twenty
thousand.  I think it scarce possible that all should hear."
	In 1806 a group of mine captains remodeled the pit as a memorial to Wesley. 
It consists of a circle of 300 feet in circumference at the top and 16 feet at
the bottom with tiers of grassy bank seating all the way around.  It has been
likened to an inverted dome of Londons St. Pauls Cathedral.  The Whit Monday
rally, held at Gwennap most years since Wesleys death, continues to this day
along with other gatherings and camp meetings.
	At the entrance to the site is a set of attractive wall panels which present
John Wesleys message and tell the story of Gwennap Pit to the many visitors
who still make their way here from all over the world.
	The first line on the first panel summarizes Wesleys message to all who
passed by in his day and to all who still do:
	"O let me commend my Saviour to you,
	I set to my seal that Jesus is true."
#  #  #
	*Singleton has been on the staff of the Recorder,  weekly newspaper of
British Methodism, for almost 30 years.  A lay preacher, he an active member
of an inner-city Methodist church in a multiracial East London neighborhood.
Married to Fiona, a teacher in a South London primary school, he has two sons
and a daughter. 

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