he had done. "Let God look to that," was the resolute man's answer. "The cause is His. But if you do not leave off cursing and swearing, it will be worse with you than with me." The ensign then bade the corporal put that fellow into prison directly; and when the corporal said he must not carry a man to prison unless he gave in his crime with him, he told him it was for disobeying orders. To prison, therefore, Nelson was taken, to his heart's content; and, after eightand-forty hours' confinement, was brought before the major, who asked him what he had been put in confinement for. "For warning people to flee from the wrath to come," he replied;" and if that be a crime, I shall commit it again, unless you cut my tongue out; for it is better to die than disobey God." The major told him if that was all, it was no crime; when he had done his duty he might preach as much as he liked, but he must make no mobs. And then wishing that all men were like him, he dismissed him to his quarters. But Nelson was not yet out of the power of the ensign. One Sunday, when they were at Darlington, hoping to find an occasion to make him feel it, he asked him why he had not been at church. Nelson replied," I was, Sir, and if you had been there, you might have seen me; for I never miss going when I have an opportunity." He then asked him if he had preached since they came there; and being told that he had not publicly, wished, with an oath, that he would, that he might punish him severely. John Nelson did not forbear from telling him, that if he did not repent, and leave off his habit of swearing, he would suffer a worse punishment than it was in his power to inflict; and it was not without a great effort of self-restraint, that he subdued his resentment at the insults which this petty tyrant poured upon him, and the threats which he uttered. It caused a sore temptation to arise in me, " he says, "to think that an ignorant wicked man should thus torment me,—and I able to tie his head and heels together! I found an old man's bone in me; but the Lord lifted up a standard, when anger was coming on like a flood; else I should have wrung his neck to the ground, and set my foot upon him." The Wesley, however, meantime were exerting their influence to obtain his discharge, and succeeded by means of the Countess of Huntingdon. His companion, Thomas Beard, who had been pressed for the same reason, would probably have been discharged also, but the consequence of his cruel and illegal impressment had cost him his life. He was seized with a fever, the effect of fatigue and agitation of mind; they let him blood, the arm festered, mortified, and was amputated; and he died soon after the operation! 66 Resort was had to the same abominable measure for putting a stop to Methodism in various other places. A society had been formed at St. Ives, in Cornwall, by Charles Wesley. There was, however, a strong spirit of opposition in that country; and when news arrived that Admiral Matthews had beaten the Spaniards, the mob pulled down the preaching-house for joy. "Such," says Wesley," is the Cornish method of thanksgiving!-I suppose if Admiral Lestock had fought too, they would have knocked all the Methodists on the head!" The vulgar supposed them to be disaffected persons, ready to join the Pretender as soon as he should land; and men in a higher rank of life, and of more attainments, thought them" a parcel of crazy headed fellows," and were so offended and disgusted with their extravagancies, as not only to overlook the good which they really wrought among those who were not reclaimable by any other means, but to connive at, and even encourage any excesses which the brutal multitude might choose to commit against them. As the most expeditious mode of proceeding, pressing was resorted to; and some of the magistrates issued warrants for apprehending several of these obnoxious people, as being "able-bodied men, who had no lawful calling or sufficient maintenance: a pretext absolutely groundless. Maxfield was seized by virtue of such a warrant, and offered to the captain of a king's ship then in Mount's Bay, but the officer refused to receive him, saying, "I have no authority to take such men as these, unless you would have me give him so much a-week to preach and pray to my people.' He was then thrown into prison at Penzance; and when the mayor inclined to release him, Dr. Borlase, who, though a man of character and letters, was not ashamed to take an active part in prooceedings like these, read the articles of war, and delivered him over as a soldier. A few days afterwards Mr Ustick, a Cornish gentleman, came up to Wesley himself, as he was preaching in the open air, and said, "Sir, I have a warrant from Dr. Borlase, and you must go with me." It had been supposed that this was striking at the root; and that if John Wesley himself were laid hold of, Cornwall would be rid of his followers. But, however plausible this may have seemed when the resolution was formed, Mr. Ustick found himself considerably embarrassed when he had taken into his custody one who, instead of being a wild hare-brained fanatic, had all the manner and appearance of a respectable clergyman, and was perfectly courteous and self-possessed. He was more desirous now of getting well out of the business than he had been of engaging in it; and this he did with great civility, asking him if he was willing to go with him to the Doctor. Wesley said, immediately, if he pleased. Mr. Ustick replied, "Sir, I must wait upon you to your inn, and in the morning, if you will be so good as to go with me, will show you the way." They rode there accordingly in the morning the Doctor was not at home, and Mr. Ustick, saying that he had executed his commission, took his leave, and left Wesley at liberty. : The same evening, as Wesley was preaching at Gwenap, two gentlemen rode fiercely among the people, and cried out, "Seize him! seize him for His Majesty's service!" Finding that the order was not obeyed, one of them alighted, caught him by the cassock, and said, "I take you to serve His Majesty." Taking him then by the arm, he walked away with him, and talked till he was out of breath of the wickedness of the fellows belonging to the society. Wesley at length took advantage of a break in his discourse to say, "Sir, be they what they will, I apprehend it will not justify you in seizing me in this manner, and violently carrying me away, as you said to serve His Majesty." Rage by this time had spent itself, and was succeeded by an instant apprehension of the consequence which might result from acting illegally towards one who appeared likely to understand the laws, and able to avail himself of them. The colloquy ended in his escorting Mr. Wesley back to the place from whence he had taken him. The next day brought with it a more serious adventure. The house in which he was visiting an invalid lady at Falmouth, was beset by a mob, who roared out, " Bring out the Canorum--where is the Canorum?" a nickname which the Cornish-men had given to the Methodists-it is not known wherefore. The crews of some privateers headed the rabble, and presently broke open the outer door, and filled the passage. By this time the persons of the house had all made their escape, except Wesley and a poor servant girl, who, for it was now too late to retire, would have had him conceal himself in the closet. He himself, from the imprecations of the rabble, thought his life in the most imminent danger, but any attempt at concealment would have made the case more desperate; and it was his maxim always to look a mob in the face. As soon, therefore, as the partition was broken down, he stepped forward into the midst of them :-Here I am! which of you has any thing to say to me? To which of you have I done any wrong? To you? or you ? or you? Thus he made his way bare-headed into the street, and continued speaking, till the captain swore that not a man should touch him a clergyman and some of the better inhabitants came up and interfered, led him into a house, and sent him safely by water to Penryn. Charles was in equal, or greater danger at Devizes. The curate there took the lead against him, rung the bells backwards to call the rabble together; and two dissenters, of some consequence in the town, set them on, and encouraged them, supplying them with as much ale as they would drink, while they played an engine into the house, broke the windows, flooded the rooms, and spoiled the goods. The mayor's wife conveyed a message to Charles, beseeching that he would disguise himself in women's clothes, and try to make his escape. Her son, a poor profligate, had been turned from the evil of his ways by the Methodists, just when he was about to run away and go to sea, and this had inclined her heart toward those from whom she had received so great a benefit. This, however, would have been too perilous an expedient. The only magistrate in the town refused to act when he was called upon; and the mob began to untile the house, that they might get in through the roof. 66 I remembered the Roman senators," says Charles Wesley, sitting in the Forum, when the Gauls broke in upon them, but thought there was a fitter posture for Christians, and told my companion they should take us on our knees." He had, however, resolute and active friends, one of whom succeeded, at last, in making a sort of treaty with a hostile constable; and the constable undertook to bring him safe out of town, if he would promise never to preach there again. Charles Wesley replied, "I shall promise no such thing; setting aside my office, I will not give up my birth-right, as an Englishman, of visiting what place I please in His Majesty's dominions." The point was compromised, by his declaring that it was not his present intention; and he and his companion were escorted out of Devizes by one of the rioters, the whole multitude pursuing them with shouts and execrations. Field preaching, indeed, was at this time a service of great dan if ger; and Wesley dwelt upon this with great force, in one of his Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion. "Who is there among you, brethren," he says, "that is willing (examine your own hearts) even to save souls from death at this price? Would not you let a thousand souls perish, rather than you would be the instrument of rescuing them thus? I do not speak now with regard to conscience, but to the inconveniences that must accompany it. Can you sustain them you would? Can you bear the summer sun to beat upon your naked head? Can you suffer the wintry rain or wind from whatever quarter it blows? Are you able to stand in the open air, without any covering or defence, when God casteth abroad his snow like wool, or scattereth his hoar frost like ashes? And yet these are some of the smallest inconveniences which accompany field preaching. For, beyond all these, are the contradiction of sinners, the scoffs both of the great vulgar and the small; contempt and reproach of every kind-often more than verbal affronts-stupid, brutal violence, sometimes to the hazard of health, or limbs, or life. Brethren, do you envy us this honour? What, I pray you, would buy you to be a field preacher? Or what, think you, could induce any man of common sense to continue therein one year, unless he had a full conviction in himself, that it was the will of God concerning him? Upon this conviction it is, (were we to submit to these things on any other motive whatever, it would furnish you with a better proof of our distraction than any that has yet been found) that we now do for the good of souls what you cannot, will not, dare not do. And we desire not that you should; but this one thing we may reasonably desire of you do not increase the difficulties, which are already so great, that, without the mighty power of God, we must sink under them. Do not assist in trampling down a little handful of men, who, for the present, stand in the gap between ten thousand poor wretches and destruction, till you find some others to take their places." The wholesome prosecution of a few rioters, in different places, put an end to enormities which would never have been committed, if the local magistrates had attempted to prevent them. The offenders were not rigorously pursued; they generally submitted before the trial; and it sufficed to make them understand, that the peace might not be broken with impunity. "Such a mercy is it," says Wesley, **to execute the penalty of the law on those who will not regard its precepts! So many inconveniences to the innocent does it prevent, and so much sin in the guilty." CHAPTER XV. SCENES OF ITINERANCY. WHEN Wesley began his course of itinerancy, there were no turnpikes* in England, and no stage-coach which went further north than Wesley probably paid more for turnpikes than any other man in England, for no other person travelled so much and it rarely happened to him to go twice through the same gate in one day. Thus he felt the impost heavily, and, being a horseman, was not equally sensible of the VOL. II. D York. In many parts of the northern counties neither coach nor chaise had ever been seen. He travelled on horseback, always with one of his preachers in company; and, that no time might be lost, he generally read as he rode. Some of his journeys were exceedingly dangerous,-through the fens of his native country, when the waters were out, and over the fells of Northumberland, when they were covered with snow. Speaking of one, the worst of such expeditions, which had lasted two days in tremendous weather, he says, "Many a rough journey have I had before, but one like this I never had, between wind, and hail, and rain, and ice, and snow, and driving sleet, and piercing cold. But it is past. Those days will return no more, and are therefore as though they had never been.. Pain, disappointment, sickness, strife, And pain, like pleasure, is a dream." For such exertions and bodily inconveniences he was overpaid by the stir which his presence every where excited, the power which he exercised, the effect which he produced, the delight with which he was received by his disciples, and, above all, by the approbation of his own heart, the certainty that he was employed in doing good to his fellow-creatures, and the full persuasion that the Spirit of God Iwas with him in his work. At the commencement of his errantry, he had sometimes to bear with an indifference and insensibility in his friends, which was more likely than any opposition to have abated his ardour. He and John Nelson rode from common to common, in Cornwall, preaching to a people who heard willingly, but seldom or never proffered them the slightest act of hospitality. Returning one day in autumn from one of these hungry excursions, Wesley stopt his horse at some brambles to pick the fruit. "Brother Nelson," said he, "we ought to be thankful that there are plenty of blackberries, for this is the best country I ever saw for getting a stomach, but the worst that ever I saw for getting food.* Do the people think we can live by preaching?" They were detained some time at St. Ivest, because of the benefit derived from it. This may account for his joining in what was at one time the popular cry. Writing, in 1770, he says, "I was agreeably surprised to find the whole road from Thirsk to Stokesley, which used to be extremely bad, better than most turnpikes. The gentlemen had exerted themselves, and raised money enough to mend it effectually So they have done for several hundred miles in Scotland, and throughout all Connaught in Ireland. And so undoubtedly they might do throughout all England, without saddling the poor people with the vile imposition of turnpikes for ever." ness. Wesley has himself remarked the inhospitality of his Cornish disciples, upon an after visit in 1748, but he has left a blank for the name of the place. About four," he says, "I came to ; examined the leaders of the classes for two hours: preached to the est congregation I had seen in Cornwall-met the society, and earnestly charged them to beware of covetousAll this time I was not asked to eat or drink. After the society, some bread and cheese were set before me. I think, verily, will not be ruined by entertaining me once a year." A little society in Lincolnshire. at this time, were charitable even to an excess, "I have not seen such another in all England," says Wesley "In the class paper, which gives an account of the contribution for the poor, I observed one gave eight pence, often ten pence a week; another thirteen, fifteen, or eighteen pence; another sometimes one, sometimes two shillings. I asked Micah Elmoor, the leader, (an Israelite, indeed, who now rests from his labour,) how is this? are you the richest society in England? He answered, I suppose not; but all of us, who are single, persons, have agreed together, to give both ourselves, and all we have, to God; and we do it gladly, whereby we are able, from time to time, to entertain all the strangers that come to Tetney, who often have no food to eat, nor any friend to give them a lodging." ↑ In his last Journal, Wesley notices the meeting house of the Methodists at this place being "unlike any other in England both as to its form and materials. It is exactly round, and composed wholly of brazen slags, which, I suppose, will last as long as the earth." |