CHAPTER XXI.
An explosion.—A new business at the old Foundry.—Mr. Wesley and his mother at home.—Grand helpers.—Poor little Tom.—The worst man in Bristol.—And one of the best.
OW old would John Wesley be in 1716, if he was born in 1703? Thirteen, would he not? a school-boy at the Charterhouse School. In that year there was a terrible explosion at a cannon foundry, where the guns were made for war. The roof of the building was blown off, and a great many workmen were injured and killed.
After this explosion, the machinery and iron were removed to Woolwich, which, as you will learn in your geography is still the great place for making cannon and other weapons of war. All the years from 1716 to 1739 the old foundry had never been touched, there it was, still in ruins.
One day in this year, 1739, while Mr. Wesley was in London, two gentlemen came and asked him if he would preach in this old tumble-down place. He consented, and one dreary November morning at eight o'clock, before the grey clouds of night had fled, he preached to about six thousand people in the old King's Foundry.
The following week many of those who had listened to him, came and begged him to buy the old place for a meeting-house. After thinking and praying about the matter he consented, and before very long the roof was mended, galleries were made, and the first Methodist preaching-place in London was ready for use.
Class-rooms and a school-room were afterwards built, and a house fitted up where Mr. Wesley and his mother could live. At the end of the chapel was another house for his servants and some of his helpers. There was also a coach-house and stable where the travelling preachers could "put up."
Though Mr. John and Mr. Charles Wesley were so clever and worked so hard, they could never have got on without their earnest, loving helpers. There was Thomas Maxfield, one of those devoted, go-a-head men of Bristol; then there was John Nelson, a stone-mason, in Yorkshire, who, when his master wanted him to work on Sunday, refused; and, like other Methodists, having become a Christian himself he sought to win others for Christ.
Thomas Olivers was another. Poor Thomas, when he was a wee boy, only four years old, both his father and his mother died, and little Tom was left to grow up a wicked boy. He used to swear and gamble and drink, and when he became a man was one of the worst characters in Bristol. But he heard Mr. Whitefield preach, and from that time a change came over him. He felt he was too great a sinner ever to be forgiven, and would kneel down and pray for hours and hours. God saw how sorry he was for all his wickedness, and how much he longed to be different, so He just whispered His forgiveness, bidding him, "Go and sin no more," and Thomas Olivers rose up a converted man, and became as brave a Christian as he had been bold a sinner.
