wing it."

As we shall presently see Hugh Bourne became one of the two originators
of the Primitive community, the other was his friend and neighbour
William Clowes, a sketch of his career was published some years ago, {74}
from which we cull the leading particulars. He was born at Burslem 12th
March, 1780, his mother, a daughter of Aaron Wedgewood, being a near
relation of Josiah of that name, the inventor of the famous Wedgwood
pottery. At ten years of age (1790) he began work in his uncle's
pottery, which he continued for several years. At that time dancing,
gambling and pugilism were the chief amusement of the factory men and
colliers of Staffordshire, and for some years he led a wild life of
dissipation, yet this was accompanied, at times, with a sense of
self-condemnation and spiritual consciousness. "When I was ten years
old," he says, "I remember being at a prayer meeting conducted by Nancy
Wood, of Burslem, in her father's house, when, convinced of the sin of
disobedience to my parents, I wept bitterly." Conflicts between good and
evil continued to disturb him for several years. When a young man, at a
dance in Burslem, he was so suddenly convicted of sin, that he abruptly
withdrew. Shortly afterwards he married, but he and his wife quarralled
so violently that he left her, and went off, taking with him only his
mother's prayer book. After some wandering, without a penny in his
pocket, he returned and begged his wife to attend the Wesleyan Chapel
regularly with him, but she refused. He then, prayer book in hand, took
an oath that he would serve God and avoid dissipation. This oath,
however, was broken; but once more in the early hour of a cold January
morning he went forth, and seeing a faint light burning in a window, he
entered the house, to find a few humble methodists gathered for an early
prayer meeting. There, he says, he knelt unnoticed, but there he "died
to sin, and was born of God. This, I said, is what they call being
converted. I was fully persuaded that I was justified by faith, and had
peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." From that day, Jan.
20th, 1805, he began a new life.

The time now approaches when the two, Hugh Bourne and William Clowes
began the great work of their life. At the beginning of the 19th century
Bourne, being much employed at Harriseahead, near Bemersley, was shocked
at the general lack of the means of grace, and he endeavoured in 1800 and
1801 to promo