than two hundred years ago,
the best pottery in use in England came from Holland. It was mostly made
at Delft, and they called it Delftware.

Finally they got to making Delftware in Staffordshire. This was about
the middle of the Eighteenth Century. And it seems that, a little before
this time, John Wesley, a traveling preacher, came up this way on
horseback, carrying tracts in his saddlebags, and much love in his
heart. He believed that we should use our religion in our life--seven
days in the week, and not save it up for Sunday. In ridicule, some one
had called him a "Methodist," and the name stuck.

John Wesley was a few hundred years in advance of his time. He is the
man who said, "Slavery is the sum of all villainies." John Wesley had a
brother named Charles, who wrote hymns, but John did things. He had
definite ideas about the rights of women and children, also on
temperance, education, taxation and exercise, and whether his followers
have ever caught up with him, much less gone ahead of him, is not for
me, a modest farmer, to say.

In the published "Journal of John Wesley," is this: "March 8, 1760.
Preached at Burslem, a town made up of potters. The people are poor,
ignorant, and often brutal, but in due time the heart must be moved
toward God, and He will enlighten the understanding."

And again: "Several in the congregation talked out loud and laughed
continuously. And then one threw at me a lump of potter's clay that
struck me in the face, but it did not disturb my discourse."

This whole section was just emerging out of the Stone Age, and the
people were mostly making stoneware. They worked about four days in a
week. The skilful men made a shilling a day--the women one shilling a
week. And all the money they got above a meager living went for folly.
Bear-baiting, bullfighting and drunkenness were the rule. There were
breweries at Staffordshire before there were potteries, but now the
potters made jugs and pots for the brewers.

These potters lived in hovels, and, what is worse, were quite content
with their lot. In the potteries women often worked mixing the mud, and
while at work wore the garb of men.

Wesley referred to the fact of the men and women dressing alike, and
relates that once a dozen women wearing men's clothes, well plastered
with mud, entered the chapel where he was preaching, and were urged on
by the men to affront him and break up the meeting.

Then comes this interesting item: "I me