The pit was supposed to have been formed by
subsidences resulting from the mining operations below, and as he used
it on subsequent occasions when preaching to immense congregations, it
became known as "Wesley's Preaching Pit." It must have been a pathetic
sight when, in his eighty-fifth year, he preached his last sermon there.
"His open-air preaching was powerful in the extreme, his energy and
depth of purpose inspiring, and his organising ability exceptional; and
as an evangelist of the highest character, with the world as his parish,
he was the founder of the great religious communion of 'the people
called Methodists.'" It was therefore scarcely to be wondered at that
the Gwennap pit should be considered as holy ground, and that it should
become the Mecca of the Cornish Methodists and of others from all over
the world. Wesley died in 1791, and in 1803 the pit was brought to its
present condition--a circular pit formed into steps or seats rising one
above another from the bottom to the top, and used now for the great
annual gathering of the Methodists held during Whitsuntide. The idea was
probably copied from St. Piran's Round, a similar but much older
formation a few miles distant.
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