PEOPLE – WESLEY, John. Pulpit

Accreditation The Standard 1936

Pulpit Used by John Wesley

GUISBROUGH RELIC AT WARRENBY

   An old pulpit, in excellent condition stands unused in the school room of the Warrenby Wesley Church. From it John Wesley preached stirring addresses, but not at Warrenby.
No record is available of a visit of the Revivalist to that village, but the pulpit was originally at Guisborough, and it was there that it was used by John Wesley.
A mat is still on the floor, is though it were but yesterday that a congregation listened with rapt attention to the words which fell from his lips, word which were to be the instrument of a great spiritual revival throughout England.
It lacks a door and the banister post is broken, but these are the only signs of deterioration. A novel feature of the pulpit is that there are two drawers in it, underneath the floor. They are at present full of gas fittings, a remnant of the time – not so many years ago – when the church lighting was changed over to electricity.
How the pulpit came to be transferred from Guisborough is very doubtful, as is the date of removal. But it is certainly more than sixty years ago. It now stands in the schoolroom, but this part of the building was originally the church itself.
Since the extension of the building the pulpit has only been used intermittently. In 1918 the church was closed owing to the smallness of the congregation, and the pulpit again came into its own, for services held in the schoolroom.