cted to visit the mine "between Mattens and Masse," and
the miner was to "swear by his faith." For 200 years after the
Reformation no further provision was made, indeed none was apparently
required, as the Forest had been more than once nearly depopulated during
that period, and was said to be almost without inhabitants in 1712.

In common with many other mineral districts, especially those in the
West, the Rev. John Wesley established a connection with our Forest
miners. He visited Coleford as early as 1756, and did so again in 1763;
and his Journal thus records these visits:--"Monday, 15th March,
1756.--We reached Coleford before seven, and found a plain loving people,
who received the word of God with all gladness. Tuesday,
16th.--Examining the little society, I found them grievously harassed by
disputations. Anabaptists were on one side, and Quakers on the other;
and hereby five or six persons have been confused. But the rest cleave
so much the closer together. Nor does it appear that there is now one
trifler, much less a disorderly walker, among them." Wednesday, 17th
(August, 1763).--"Hence we rode to Coleford. The wind being high, I
consented to preach in their new room; but large as it was, it would not
contain the people, who appeared to be not a little affected, of which
they gave a sufficient proof by filling the room at five in the morning."

It appears, also, as stated in the interesting MS. of worthy Mr. Horlich,
an Independent Minister, that in the year 1783 "one Mr. Stiff
occasionally, on the Lord's Day, went to some sequestered spot in the
Forest, where himself and some of his family took their station under the
extended branches of one of the trees, for the purpose of reading the
Word of God."

But no sustained effort to impart religious instruction to the
inhabitants of the Forest was made until 1803, when the Rev. P. M.
Procter became Vicar of Newland, to which parish the Foresters were
always considered to belong. "At this time," he says, in his 'Brief and
Authentic Statement,' published in 1819, "I saw nothing of them on the
Sabbath-day. The church was only used by them as a matter of course and
necessity: indeed, a general opinion prevailed that they had no right to
accommodation, and a Forester was seldom seen in the aisle. The first
impression I received respecting the inhabitants was of the most
unfavourable kind. For some months no other intercourse took place than
what the visit