"Why, plaze your worship," cried one, "they sing psalms all day and make folks get up at five o'clock in the morning. Now, what would your worship advise us to do?" "Go home," replied the magistrate, "and be quiet."
Not satisfied with this, they hurried him off to another magistrate. A few friends followed, but were soon beaten back by a Walsall mob, which rushed upon them like wild beasts. All but four of Wesley's friends were vanquished. These stood by him to the last. One of these was a brave woman whose English blood boiled over. She is said to have knocked down four Walsall men one after another, and would have laid them all sprawling at her feet had not four brawny men seized her and held her while a fifth beat her until they were quite ashamed to be seen—five men beating one woman!
The mob tried to throw Wesley down, that they might trample him under their feet. They struck at him with clubs, and must have nearly killed him had they hit him. They cried, "Knock his brains out!" "Drown him!" "Kill the dog!" "Throw him into the river!" One cried, "Crucify him! crucify him!"
During all this Wesley was calm. It only came into his mind, he says, that if they should throw him into the river it might spoil the papers in his pocket. He finally escaped out of their hands, and, meeting his brother at Nottingham, Charles says that he "looked like a soldier of Christ. His clothes were torn to tatters." Subsequently the leader of that mob was converted, and being asked by Charles Wesley what he thought of his brother, "I think," said he, "that he was a mon of God, and God was with him, when so many of us could not kill one mon!"
While preaching at Roughlee a drunken rabble assembled, led on by a godless constable. Wesley was arrested and taken before a magistrate. On the way he was struck on the face and head, and clubs were flourished about his person with threats of murder. The justice demanded that he promise not to come to Roughlee again. Wesley answered that he would sooner cut off his head than make such a promise. As he departed from the magistrate the mob followed, cursing him and throwing stones. Wesley was beaten to the earth and forced back into the house. Mr. Mackford, who came with Mr. Wesley from Newcastle, was dragged by the hair of his head, and sustained injuries from which he never fully recovered. Some of the Methodists present were beaten with clubs, others trampled in the mire; one was forced to leap from a rock ten or twelve feet high into the river, and others escaped with their lives under a shower of missiles. The magistrate witnessed all this with apparent satisfaction, without any attempt to stay the murderous tide.
SAMUEL WESLEY'S GRAVE, UPON WHICH JOHN PREACHED HIS FAMOUS SERMON.
At another place a crowd assembled, arrested a number of Methodists, and dragged them before a magistrate, who inquired, "What have the Methodists done?" "Why, your worship," said one, "these people profess to be better than anybody else. They pray all the time, by day and by night." "Is that all they have done?" asked the magistrate. "No, sir," answered an old man, "may it please your worship, they have converted my wife. Till she went with them she had such a tongue! Now she is as quiet as a lamb." "Carry them back, carry them back," said the magistrate, "and let them convert all the scolds in town!" At Bristol the mob cursed and swore and shouted while the preacher declared the Gospel. A Catholic priest in the congregation shouted, "Thou art a hypocrite, a devil, an enemy to the Church."
These are a few examples of what occurred almost daily, and that for many years. At Poole, at Lichfield, at St. Ives, at Grimsby, at Cork, at Wenlock, at Athlone, at Dudley, and at many other places he encountered similar opposition, until the presence of a Methodist preacher was the signal for a mob. Many of the preachers were impressed into the army on the pretense that their occupation was irregular and their lives vagabondish. But wherever they went they were true to God and to the faith as they felt it in their hearts.
The cause of all this opposition was the preaching of justification by faith, entire sanctification, and the urging of clergy and laity to a holy life. Thomas Olivers tells Richard Hill that the man he had maligned was one who had published a hundred volumes, who had traveled yearly five thousand miles, preached yearly about one thousand sermons, visited as many sick beds as he had preached sermons, and written twice as many letters; and who, though now between seventy and eighty years of age, absolutely refused to abate in the smallest degree these mighty labors; but might be seen at this very time, with his silver locks about his ears, and with a meager, worn-out, skeleton body, smiling at storms and tempests, at such difficulties and dangers as "I believe would be absolutely intolerable to you, sir, in conjunction with any four of your most flaming ministers."