When Mr. Wesley told the society in Fetter Lane, London, of the good plan the Bristol people had made, they adopted it too, and always after that wherever the Methodists commenced a society, the penny-a-week rule was followed.
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.