tacked, their windows broken, their furniture demolished.15 Such was the condition of the English police in that day that the rioters were assembled by the blowing of a horn, and virtually usurped the control of the laws for nearly half a year. They drew up a form of recantation, which they declared all Methodists should sign; and those who refused to do so were beaten, and placed in peril of their lives. Wesley, with his usual courage and sagacity, had gone to Wed nesbury to confront this formidable opposition. He knew that if Methodism were of God, it had a mission to perform toward these colliers, and their long-neglected and brutalized class throughout the land; that in approaching them it would unavoidably provoke such hostilities, and that its only policy was to meet and conquer them till it should open a clear field for itself among the lower classes generally. No man could have less natural disposition for what some might deem the ministerial heroism or romance of such adventures than he. The scholar, the accomplished divine, the well-bred gentleman, fastidiously nice, even, in matters of apparel and personal manners, these scenes of popular derision and ruffianism must have been most repugnant to him. He certainly never had the fanatical folly to court them, but he never feared them. Calm in temper, keen in sagacity, and apposite in remark, he knew how to meet them. He had come to Wednesbury expressly to do so in this instance, and he succeeded. The mob had yielded, and its very leaders had become his defenders. A less sagacious man would have supposed it well to remain on the field now that he had won it; but Wesley left the next morning. He knew that though the mass had been conquered, the fermentation in some minds had not yet entirely subsided, and might easily again break out; but that a few days of delay and town talk over the sufferings of the Methodists, and the cool bearing of their 15 Many Methodist families in Wednesbury still preserve fragments of furniture as precious memorials of the sufferings of their fathers. Watson's Life of Wesley, chap. 7. leader, could not fail to promote the favorable turn which the popular feelings had taken toward them. He therefore rode away the next day, but passed through the town, and says that " every one I met expressed such cordial approbation that I could scarce believe what I saw and heard." He went to Nottingham, where Charles Wesley was preaching. "He looked," says the latter, "like a soldier of Christ. His clothes were torn to tatters." Charles soon after visited Wednesbury to comfort the persecuted society. He found its members assembled, nothing terrified by their adversaries, and preached to them from, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith; quit yourselves like men; be strong." "Jesus," he writes, "was in the midst, and covered us with a covering of his Spirit. Never was I before in so primitive an assembly. We sang praises lustily, and with a good courage, and could all set our seal to the truth of our Lord's saying: 'Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake.' We laid us down and slept, and rose up again. We assembled before day to sing hymns to Christ, as God." As soon as it was light he walked down into the town, and preached boldly on, "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the' devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” "It was," he says, a most glorious time; we longed for our Lord's coming to confess us before his Father and his holy angels, We now understood what it was to receive the word in much affliction, and yet with joy in the Holy Ghost.' 66 He received several new members into the society, and among them was the late captain of the mob. This depraved man was not without generous feelings; he had been constantly in deep religious contrition since the night on which he had attacked and rescued Wesley. Charles asked him what he thought of his brother. "Think of him,” said he; "that he is a mon of God; and God was on his side 7716 when so many of us could not kill one mon. Thus did Methodism pluck “brands from the burning," and lift them up before the astonished mobs and magistrates as its best trophies. John Wesley was soon again in Newcastle, and the remainder of the year was spent in undiminished labors. The persecutions which broke out in many places increased the popular interest in the new movement and aroused the energy of its laborers. The year closed with forty-five itinerants in the field, besides many local preachers. Societies had sprung up in many of the principal towns; their membership cannot be ascertained, but it must have included. many thousands. There were more than two thousand in London alone.17 Wesley saw that a great work had begun; that it could not fail to affect the whole kingdom if it went on, and that it was now no time to succumb before mobs or any other difficulties. Mobs, he knew, could not last long; the laws, if nothing else, must sooner or later suppress them, and they could only result in greater impetus to the new movement. They afforded the most conclusive proof of the moral degradation of the common people, and therefore the best justification of the extraordinary efforts by which Methodism attempted to awaken the inert conscience of the land. Steadfast perseverance in these efforts was what the times required; with Wesley that could never be wanting, and it could never fail among his subordinate laborers while their leader bore their standard courageously forward. The next year was to open with new "fights of affliction," but with still greater victories. 18 Wesley's Journal, Anno 1743. Jackson's Charles Wesley, chap. 17, 17 Jackson's Charles Wesley, chap. 11. CHAPTER VI. EVENTS OF 1744: THE FIRST WESLEYAN CON FERENCE. Reports against Wesley-Terrible Mobs in Staffordshire - Charles Wesley among the Rioters John Wesley in Cornwall Scenes at St. Ives Wesley preaching at Gwennap John Nelson - His Power over the Mob - He is impressed for the Army - Characteristic Incidents - Thomas Beard, the Protomartyr of Methodism — The First Wesleyan Conference-Its Proceedings-Its Policy-Lady Huntingdon — Ministerial Education approved - Wesley's Earnest Appeal tc Men of Reason and Religion. THE year 1744 was to be signalized in the history of Metho dism not only by the first session of the Wesleyan Conference, but by formidable trials. Before the Conference Wesley made rapid excursions into various parts of England and Wales. The country was in general commotion, occasioned by threatened invasions from France and Spain, and by the movements of the Scotch Pretender. Reports were rife that the Methodist preachers were in collusion with the papal Stuart. All sorts of calumnies against Wesley flew over the land. He had been seen with the Pretender in France; had been taken up for high treason, and was at last safe in prison awaiting his merited doom. He was a Jesuit, and kept Roman priests in his house at London. He was an agent of Spain, whence he had received large remittances, in order to raise a body of twenty thousand men to aid the expected Spanish invasion. He was an Anabaptist; a Quaker; had been prosecuted for unlawfully selling gin; had hanged himself; and, at any rate, was not the genuine John Wesley, for it was well known that the latter was dead and buried. That he was a disguised Papist, and an agent for the Pre tender, was the favorite slander; and when a proclamation was made requiring all Roman Catholics to leave London, he stayed a week in the city to refute the report. He was summoned by the justices of Surrey, London, to appear before their court, and required to take the oath of allegiance to the king, and to sign the Declaration against Popery. Charles Wesley was actually indicted before the magistrates in Yorkshire, because in a public prayer he had besought God to "call home his banished ones." This, it was insisted, meant the House of the Stuarts; and he had to explain, at the tribunal, the purely spiritual meaning of the phrase, before he was acquitted. Mobs raged, meanwhile, in many places. In Staffordshire the Methodists were assailed not only in their assemblies, but in the streets, and at their homes. At Walsal the rioters planted a flag in public and kept it flying during several days. In Darlston women were knocked down, and abused in a manner, says Wesley, too horrible to be related.1 Their little children, meanwhile, wandered up and down, no neighbor daring to take them in lest he should hazard his own life. Houses were broken into, and furniture destroyed and thrown out into the street. One of the Methodists says that he was denied shelter in his own father's dwelling, the latter fearing it would be torn down. Charles Wesley, as we shall hereafter see, could, at a later date, distinguish the houses of Methodists by their "marks of violence," as he rode through the town. In Wednesbury the disorders were again frightful; and for nearly a week the mob reigned tri umphant. They were gathering all Monday night, and en Tuesday began their riotous work, sanctioned, if not led on, ny gentlemen of the town. They assaulted, one after another, all the houses of those who were called Methodists. They first broke the windows, suffering neither glass, lead, nor frames to remain. Then they made their way in, and all the tables, chairs, chests of drawers, with whatever was not easily movable, they dashed in pieces, particularly shop 1 Journal, Anno 1744. |