Black Down (1862)



THE REVIVAL UNDERGROUND.—I heard the other day that a considerable Revival had been for some time operating, under the manifest power of the Holy Ghost, at Black Down, in the parish of Mary Tavy, about four miles from this place. Al­though I have no preaching labour there, yet, as I have for years been in the habit of visiting occasionally from cottage to cottage with tracts, furnished me by Mr G. Milner, of Bristol, I decided to go and inquire.

Black Down is a very large common, originally a part of Dartmoor, from which it is now separated only by a narrow strip of cultivated valley. In this valley are situated several mines, with, perhaps, the largest water-wheels in the world. The mines are called Huel Friendship. This circumstance has led to the settlement of a very large mining population; but as the mines are not so prosperous as once they were, it has be­come reduced. There is a Wesleyan chapel, at which, I believe, the blessing began and continues.

The first conversions were about seven or eight weeks since, and the work at first was very slow. Lately, it has been greatly increased, and now the number of converts is reported to be about eighty. I took with me a parcel of tracts, and distributed in the cottages and over the working-floors of the mine about 150 or 200, obtaining these particulars on the spot. At a part of the mine, where several young females were looking over some of the old workings for a closer extraction of mineral stone, I made an observation, on presenting one of them a tract about the Revival. She said smiling, "Oh, we are all converted here, sir!" I thought she was joking; so I made the remark, it was a serious matter if they were not. There were then ten on the spot, and I found they really all professed very seriously to have found peace. As I was leaving, one said, "There are two more belonging here, sir; can you not leave them a tract? They are converted also." Of course I did so, quite overwhelmed at the measure of the Lord's mercy. After visiting all the lower part of these cleaning floors, and finding the impression was very general, I went to the upper floors at a little distance higher up the hill; for the mines run over 300 fathoms deep, and extend around in the course of the veins. Here I gave each a tract, and the captain of the floors told me there were several there converted. One he also particularly mentioned as now under deep conviction. One had found peace the night before. "And," said he, "it is a good thing, too, for they are twice as easy now to keep steady to the work as they were before." Supposing this will interest you, and perhaps your readers, I remain yours truly in Jesus,

E. DINGLE From the 'Revival Newspaper', Volume VI, page 146.

Additional Information

The original building stood on the same site as the new one.


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