help us to see the progress of the building. Remembering
THE DEVIZES
In a former volume we have described the processes by which the foundations of the Methodist Church were laid by John and Charles Wesley and those who were associated with them in their courageous attempt to evangelize the people of England.
Among the workers John Wesley occupies the chief place, but he would have been the first to confess that without the aid of his brother, his assistants and helpers, his local preachers and exhorters, his band and class-leaders, and the officers of his Societies, his work would have failed.
He knew, moreover, that the success of his mission had been secured in a remarkable degree by the moral and spiritual excellence of the members of his numerous Societies.
Their consistent conduct in their own neighbourhoods had emphasized and illustrated his teaching and that of his itinerating evangelists. The foundations of the Methodist Church were laid during the years 1739 to 1746.
We shall now proceed to describe events which will help us to see the progress of the building.
Remembering at all times the fellow workers of John Wesley, it is essential that we should watch him with special care.
He dominates the position.
His counsel, example, and influence knit the Societies into an invincible unity.
If that unity had been destroyed the Methodist Church, which has now stood for nearly two centuries, would never have been built.
Searching the highways and byways of England for the horseman with whom we have become familiar, we catch sight of him, on January 13, 1747, riding from Newbury to The Devizes.
He is probably reading a book ; but it is possible that he is attempting to solve the problem presented by the name of the town to which he is going.
That problem still keeps the archaeologists busy.
We shall be safe if we follow the leading of Dr. Edwin Guest.
He says that the district where the Roman road from London to Bath stooped down into
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a Welsh territory was known as 'the borders,' and that, when Devizes was founded, in the twelfth century, it took its name from the district, and was called Divisae, according to the phraseology of the period.
He considers that ' Devizes' is nothing more than a barbarous anglicism for ' Divisae.'
Mr.
Freeman carries us a little farther.
He says, 'the castle "ad Divisas"' has become Devizes, or, rather, The Devizes.
The article was used as late as Clarendon's time, and we fancy much later ; the popular name of the place is " The Vize.''' *
Mr. Freeman's ' fancy' was justified, for the Journals of the Wesleys furnish clear evidence of the use of the article in their days.
When John Wesley reached The Devizes he found that the Society which had been formed there was in great peril.
Riding into the town, he was greeted with oaths, curses, and threatenings.
He soon learned that the outburst against the Methodists had been caused by the curate.
It had become known that Wesley was to preach in the evening at Mr. Clark's, and throughout the day the curate had gone from house to house stirring up the people against the Methodists.
He had done more.
He had set up an advertisement in the most public places of the town which announced that 'An Obnubilative Pantomime Entertainment' was to be exhibited at Mr. Clark's.
Wesley omits the latter part of this advertisement, as it contained a kind of double entente which a modest person could not well repeat.
In spite of the curate's exertions Wesley preached.
Many of the mob came into the house ; they listened and stood still; no one opened his mouth ; attention sat on the face of every hearer.
There was no storm that night ; but in a few weeks it broke on the Society with exceptional fury.
On January 14 John Wesley rode to Bristol, where he spent a week in great peace.
It was during this restful interval that an event occurred which is of great interest in the eyes of those who watch the quiet evolution of the constitutional system of Methodism.
Among the more prominent of Wesley's lay preachers Joseph Cownley stands out clearly.
He was born at Leominster, in Herefordshire.
In 1744 he began to preach in his native town.
His work was so successful that towards = 1 See Guest's Origines Celticae, ii. 255; Freeman's English Towns and Districts,
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II the end of 1746 Wesley sent for him to meet him in Bristol.
In January, 1747, he was accepted as an itinerant preacher ; and in the ' Old Room' in the Horsefair we are able to see the » manner of his appointment to his responsible work.
He kneeled down; and then Wesley having put a New Testament into his hand, said to him, ' Take thou authority to preach the gospel,' and gave him his benediction.
This simple ceremony sheds light on Wesley's method of receiving a 'labourer' in early days; it also illumines the path heafterwardstravelled.
After a ' peaceful week ' in Bristol John Wesley recommenced -his work.
On January 22 he set out to fulfil an appointment at Wick, a village near Bristol.
In riding by the wall through St. Nicholas Gate a cart turned short from St. Nicholas Street and came swiftly down the hill.
In the narrow passage a collision occurred.
Wesley's horse was thrown down and shot his rider over his head.
The cart-wheel passed close to his side, but did him no injury.
A crowd gathered ; but one of the bystanders asked him to go into his shop, where he got rid of some of the mud that besmeared his clothes.
Then he mounted his horse, rode to Wick, and arrived there by the time appointed.
When he got back to Bristol he found that a report of his death had spread through the town.
But he joined with the great congregation in praising God, and preached on ' Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast.'
After visiting the little Societies in Somersetshire and Wiltshire, John Wesley travelled to London.
On his way he passed through The Devizes, and found that although much pains had been taken to raise a mob the labour had been lost.
There was only a slight disturbance when he preached.
The next day, after preaching once more, he and his companion mounted their horses.
A quiet civil multitude watched their departure ; their attitude strengthened Wesley's opinion that there was no such thing as raising a mob at The Devizes!
When he first expressed this opinion in the hearing of his brother, Charles Wesley made a sceptical note of it.
On February 24 Charles Wesley and his friend, Mr. Meriton, a clergyman from the Isle of Man, rode into The Devizes.
The news of their arrival soon was noised abroad.
They were staying with Mr. Clark, and when they stepped into the street, they were greeted with the sound of the bells of the church
1See Early Methodist Preachers, ii. 7.
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: rung backward, ' out of tune and harsh.'
It was the tocsin summoning the rioters to begin their work.
The street was full of men rushing hither and thither.
They finally grouped themselves into a mob, the centre of which was the curate, its leader being 'the chief gentleman' in the town.
We have seen the curate before, but must pause for a moment to give him a clearer definition.
He was an Oxford man, and claimed to have been present when Charles Wesley preached before the University.
In a sermon delivered in The Devizes church the curate declared that in his University sermon Charles
Wesley had said, ' If you do not receive the Holy Ghost while I breathe upon you, you are all damned.'
This singular reporter had gone about the town stirring up the people, and trying to persuade the gentry to assist him in his opposition to the Wesleys.
He had failed to raise a mob during the visits of John Wesley ; but when Charles Wesley arrived his prospects of success brightened.
He was seen in the street, surrounded by a crowd, and ' dancing for joy.'
Charles Wesley and his companion had gone to the house of Mr. Rogers, where the Methodists were gathered together,
' praying and exhorting one another to continue in the faith, and through much tribulation enter the Kingdom.'
Suddenly the mob dashed up to the door.
The air was rent with the cry, 'Bring him out!
Bring him out!'
Charles Wesley's name was frequently shouted.
The mob intended to throw him into the horse-pond, but they had, first, to get him into their clutches.
For an hour they continued the hubbub, varying the proceedings by smashing the windows and tearing down the shutters of the shop.
The mob raged without, the Methodists prayed within.
The house was in a state of siege.
A wagon blocked up the door.
The evening darkness was growing, and lights had been placed in the street to prevent
Wesley from stealing away unperceived.
One man, however, managed to escape from the house.
He found the Mayor, and persuaded him to come to Mr. Rogers's house.
He appeared with two constables, and spoke affably to the rioters.
For some reason the rioters dispersed for a time ; but they gathered again at the inn, and wreaked their vengeance on the preachers' horses.
Charles Wesley slept in the house next door to Mr. Rogers's, a Baptist magnanimously giving him shelter.
At seven o'clock
THE DEVIZES
the next morning he walked quietly to the house of Mrs.
Phillips and began to preach.
The mob surged into the street.
The little congregation was assembled on the ground floor of the house, and Charles Wesley ordered all the doors to be thrown open.
This order gave the leaders of .the mob their opportunity.
They had brought a fire-engine with them, and they began to pour a stream of water into the house.
Mr.
Burough, a constable who was friendly to the Methodists, deprived them of the spout, but some of them ran for the larger engine, and soon it began to play upon the people.
Windows were broken, rooms flooded, and their contents spoiled.
Charles Wesley had retired to an upper room.
The rioters burst into the house, laid hold of one man, dragged him out, and threw him into the horse-pond ; breaking his back, it is said, in the process.
The fire-engine at last gave out and had to be replenished.
While it was being filled certain ' gentlemen' sustained the jaded energies of the mob by bringing them pitchers of ale.
The situation became desperate.
Mr.
Meriton, feeling that the end was come, hid his money and watch 'that they might do good to somebody' when found.
The crisis came.
The rioters were on the point of breaking into the house when suddenly Mr. Burough, the constable, remembered the Riot Act.
At the peril of his life he read it.
The scene changed.
With the exception of 'the guard,' in less than an hour the mob had dispersed.
The siege had lasted for three hours.
It had been conducted by a thousand "wild beasts.'
Charles Wesley says, ' None but the Invisible Hand could have kept them one moment from tearing us to pieces.'
The conduct of the constable causes us to wonder why the Mayor was not conspicuous in this scene.
Like the prudent man commended in the Proverbs, having ' foreseen the evil' he had left the town.
And so 'the curate's mob,' being free from magisterial restraint, indulged in an orgy of rufhianism.
The truce was transient.
Once more Mrs. Phillips's house was beset.
Charles Wesley, who had an extensive knowledge of the foul-mouthedness of a mob, declares, that he had never heard such threatenings, curses, and blasphemies.
It seemed hopeless to resist the besiegers, and Mr. Meriton counselled surrender before the night.
Charles Wesley, however, thought they had better wait ' till the Lord should point out the way.'
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at, We listen to the conversation in that upper room.
As they were talking to each other quietly Charles Wesley paused.
He had heard a strange sound over his head.
The rioters were untiling the roof.
At this point the voice of a little girl was heard calling outside the door of their room.
They listened and she said, 'Mr. Wesley!
Mr. Wesley! creep under the bed.
They will kill you.
They are pulling down the house.'
Then her voice was drowned in the shout of a ruffian close to them, 'Here they are behind the curtain!'
Thinking that the moment of death had come, the little group retired to the farthermost corner of the room.
Wesley said, ' This is the crisis!'
Then they waited.
After a few moments a great silence fell on the house.
They ' heard not a breath without ; they wondered what was come to them'
; they thought of the stilling of the tempest 'on deep Galilee.'
After an hour of this extraordinary quietness Mr. Clark knocked at the door and brought with him a constable who had been among the rioters.
He tried to extract from Wesley a promise that he would not come to The Devizes again to preach, but failed.
Then he went away and gave his answer to the mob.
When he had gone, Charles Wesley and Mr. Meriton, perceiving that the rioters were hesitating, prepared to depart.
They sent for their horses.
The constables, having recovered their courage, had gathered their posse to guard them.
But the crowd watched them with hungry eyes.
Charles Wesley saw that the constables' defence was worthless.
What should be done?
Mr. Meriton thought that they had better escape by the back door.
Charles Wesley lifted his heart to heaven and again asked for counsel.
The message came, ' Jesus said unto her, Said I not unto thee, if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the glory of God ? '
After reading that verse he ' went forth as easy as Luther to the Council.'
When they entered the street they were received with a general shout.
They mounted their horses and rode along at a slow pace, making their way through a yelling crowd.
"Such fierceness and diabolical malice ' Wesley had never seen before in human faces.
The companions were separated ; looking back, Wesley saw Mr. Meriton on the ground, and two bull dogs upon him.
His horse, which had been worried by the dogs, came racing along, but was stopped by Wesley.
The dogs were called off, and Mr. Meriton joined his friend,
THE DEVIZES
remounting his horse with great composure.
Then these soldiers of the cross rode on leisurely, till out of sight.
Out of sight of the mob; but we keep our eyes on them as they mend their pace, and come to Seend; then, at seven o'clock, they arrive at Wraxall.
Friends gather round them.
They tell the story of their deliverance.
Then they sing a hymn.
It is rarely heard now; but in the far-off days we are describing it often rose from the lips of a persecuted people.
We do not know when it was written by Charles Wesley.
The theory of Mr. W. C. Sheldon, who attributed it to the time of the 'tumults' in Wednesbury, may be correct.
As we listen to the singing of the Methodists in Wraxall on that February evening, these words steal across the years :
Worship, and thanks, and blessing, And strength ascribe to Jesus!
Jesus alone Defends His own, When earth and hell oppress us.
Jesus with joy we witness, Almighty to deliver ; Our seals set to, That God is true, And reigns a King for ever.?
1Charles Wesley's Journal, 1. 442-449; Methodist Hymn-Book, 465; W.H.S.
Proceedings, iv. 123.
ADVANCE IN THE NORTH
WHEN Charles Wesley and Mr. Meriton were enduring the assaults of the rioters at The Devizes, John Wesley was steadily making his way to the North of England.
On February 24, the first day of the riots, we see him at Tetney, near Grimsby, examining the little Society there.
He says, 'I have not seen such another in England.
In the class-paper, which gives an account of the contribution for the poor, I observed one gave eightpence, often tenpence, a week; another thirteen, fifteen, or eighteen pence ; another sometimes one, sometimes two shillings.
I asked Micah Elmoor, the leader, an Israelite indeed, '' How is this?
Are you the richest Society in all 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, nor any friend to give them a lodging." ' + It must be remembered that at this time the money contributed weekly in the classes was given to the poor.
The reference to the ' class-paper ' should also be noted.
We do not know when ' class-books ' were generally introduced as substitutes for the ' papers.'
Dr. John Lyth, writing of York, says that the 'class-paper' was superseded by the 'class-book' in that city somewhere about the year 1819.*
In the evening of the day when the assault on Charles Wesley and Mr. Meriton was waxing furious in The Devizes,
John Wesley was at Hainton, which lies at some distance from Tetney.
The sun had set ; but he found a larger congregation had assembled than he had seen before in the place.
Hainton had a considerable Roman Catholic population; and, at previous visits, his preaching had impressed many of them.
4 Wesley's Journal, iii. 281.
* Early Methodism in York, 155.
ADVANCE IN THE NORTH
Instead of entering into controversy, he had addressed himself to the supreme question, 'What must I do to besaved?'
At this visit, standing in the evening twilight, he declared to Protestants and Romanists 'the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ.'
He felt that he was speaking ' winged words'
; they flew, as arrows from the hand of the Most High, to the heart of every hearer.
It is impossible to ignore the contrast between the Hainton congregation and the roaring mob at The Devizes.
Following John Wesley's journey to the North, we check our footsteps again and again in order that we may note facts that show the advance of Methodism among the English people.
It is necessary to resist many of the appeals to our attention, but it is imperative that we should yield to some of them.
York arrests us.
At that time the city, which afterwards became, and still is, a famous Methodist stronghold, was successfully held against the intrusion of the Wesleys and their preachers by Archbishop Herring.
Mr. Abbey, in The English Church and its Bishops, 1700-1800, has given us a sketch of Dr. Herring.
It was a time when 'comprehension' was in the air; and that fact may explain why the Archbishop was friendly with some of the leading Nonconformist ministers.
But Wesley and the Methodists were the objects of his invincible dislike.
He wrote a circular letter concerning them and sent it to all the clergy of his diocese.
John Wesley answered it in his Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion.
He addressed himself to the following propositions which the letter contained:
(1) That the religion Wesley preached consisted in enthusiastic ardour; (2) That such religion can be attained by very few ; (3) That it can be understood by very few; (4) That it cannot be practised without breaking in upon the common duties of life ; and (5) That all this may be proved by Wesley's own account of it.
Such assertions invited and received a crushing reply from the calm and relentless logician.
The Archbishop's 'circular letter' had been accompanied by a copy of the well-known pamphlet entitled Observations on the Conduct and Behaviour of a certain
Sect, usually distinguished by the name of Methodists.
Dr.
Herring had probably extracted his ' propositions' from that production, which Wesley had answered.
He does not seem to have read that answer.
Notwithstanding the slightness 1Wesley's Farther Appeal, Works viii. 58, 8vo ed.
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n of his knowledge of the people whom he assailed, he was determined there should be no Methodism in the city of York.
However, John Nelson was busy in the neighbourhood.
Among other places he had formed a Society in Acomb, and the village was regularly visited by the lay preachers from Leeds and Birstall.
But, says Dr. Lyth, 'some powerful opposition arrested Methodism at the gates of the city.'
How did it find an entrance?
Let us watch John Wesley on his journey.
On February 27, 1747, he preached at Acomb at seven o'clock in the evening.
The congregation was surprisingly quiet.
Many had come from York, and, though the preacher used the utmost plainness of speech, several of them came again at five o'clock the next morming.
At the close of the service he spoke to a few ' who were desirous to join heart and hand together in seeking the kingdom of God.'
This was the commencement of the York Society.
It numbered at first less than half a dozen members.
They were formed into a class, under the care of Thomas Slaton, of Acomb, which met in the house of Thomas Stodhart, the grandfather of a once well-known hymn-tune composer.
Thomas Slaton led the class for a year, and was then succeeded by Thomas Stodhart, whose house was at the bottom of the Bedern.
Leaving the little company of York Methodists to commence their perilous upward journey, we must quit the neighbourhood for a time, and follow Wesley as he rides farther North.
He is on his way to Newcastle ; but on March 1 he reaches a small Yorkshire village which possesses special interest.
He had visited the place before.
Under the date March 28, 1745, when he was in Newcastle, the following significant entry appears in his Journal:
'A gentleman called at our house, who informed me his name was Adams; that he lived about forty miles from Newcastle, at Osmotherley, in Yorkshire, and had heard so many strange accounts of the Methodists that he could not rest till he came to inquire for himself.
I told him he was welcome to stay as long as he pleased, if he could live on our Lenten fare.
He made no difficulty of this, and willingly stayed till the Monday sennight following, when he returned home fully satisfied with his journey.'
On Monday, April 15, 1745, Wesley preached at Northallerton, and Adams and some of his neighbours
1 Journal, iii. 169.
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met him after the service.
Adams expressed a wish that he would preach in his house at Osmotherley, and he at once consented.
Horses were saddled, and the little cavalcade rode away.
They reached their destination between nine and ten o'clock at night ; but the people of the village gathered together, and Wesley preached to them.
The 'next morning he preached again.
His text was Rom. iii. 22, which declares 'the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference.'
The congregation was large; several of the people had sat up all night for fear they should not wake in the morning.
On inquiry Wesley found that many of them either were or had been Roman Catholics.
He wondered at the ways of God.
Without any care or thought of his own he had been brought 'into the centre of the Papists in Yorkshire." + Wesley's congregation had listened to him so attentively that he was encouraged to visit Osmotherley a second time in 1745.
It was on September 16, when the country was surging with the excitement produced by the Pretender's invasion of England. A cautious critic might have suggested that such a visit to 'the centre of the Papists in Yorkshire' at such a time might have been postponed ; but Wesley went to Osmotherley to see his friend Adams.
He does not seem to have preached, but he saw the ' poor remains' of the old chapel on the brow of the hill, as well as those of the monastery, called Mount Grace.
He says:
'The walls of the church, of the cloister, and some of the cells, are tolerably entire ; and one may still discern the partitions between the little gardens, one of which belonged to every cell.
Who knows but some of the poor, superstitious monks, who once served God here according to the light they had, may meet us by and by in that house of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?'
Considering Wesley's acquaintance with the works of the best and most spiritual Roman Catholics, it is not difficult to divine the answer he would have given to his own question.
He was a strong Protestant ; but the strength of his convictions did not blind him to the excellence of people who differed from him in creed and opinion.
The breadth of his charity was a part of his mental and moral equipment ; 1 Journal, iii. 171.
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! without it he never would have succeeded in a mission that was slowly opening before him, and for which he was being prepared—a mission to the most Roman Catholic county in this kingdom.
Osmotherley was often visited by Wesley.
A Methodist Society was formed there.
At this point it is only necessary to refer to the controversy which has arisen, and still continues, concerning the position of Adams at the time when
Wesley first preached in the village.
Was he then a priest of the Roman Church?
Methodist antiquaries have investigated that question.
It will be sufficient to indicate the conclusions reached by two of them.
In the Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society an article on this subject, by the Rev. J. Conder Nattrass, appeared a few years ago.
It was entitled 'Adams, the Osmotherley Priest.'
After examining the question in dispute, Mr. Nattrass sums up as follows:
'The identity of Wesley's friend with Peter of Alcantara Adams can scarcely be doubted.
But whether he was a priest when he first made the acquaintance of Wesley in 1745, and still more whether he so continued to the end of his life, may well be questioned.'
In a subsequent number of the Proceedings the Rev. T. E. Brigden, after examining a long list of authorities, wrote this note :
Probably our conclusion will be that Thomas Adams was at one time a priest ; that he renounced Romanism; that he married; that he was not a priest when Wesley made his acquaintance ; that Wesley never called him a priest; that a few nineteenth-century writers did so and followed a local tradition.
In Wesley's record of his visit to Osmotherley on Sunday, March 1, 1747, there is no mention of Adams; but his recollection of the events of that day filled him with delight.
He reached Osmotherley about ten o'clock in the morning.
Mr.
Dyson, the clergyman, had just come into the village.
He was the incumbent of Osmotherley, but resided at Carlton-inCleveland.
Wesley sent him a message offering to assist him if he pleased, either by reading prayers or preaching.
Mr.
Dyson came to him immediately, and said he would willingly accept his assistance.
As they walked to church together Mr. Dyson said, ' Perhaps it would fatigue you too much 1W.H.S. Proceedings, vii. 28-31, xi, 164-165.
ADVANCE IN THE NORTH
2I to read prayers and preach too.'
Wesley gladly accepted the double service.
Mr. Dyson lent him the church for an afternoon service.
At three o'clock a large congregation assembled.
Those who had been opponents of the Methodists were deeply affected ; and, says Wesley, ' All were convinced we are no Papists.
How wisely does God order all things in their season!'
It was a memorable experience., It brought a gleam of March sunshine into the stormy days of Wesley's life.
The next day Wesley rode to Newcastle, and stayed there until April 20.
He preached in the neighbouring towns, examined the Societies, and filled up his time with fruitful work.
After examining the classes at Newcastle, he notes the fact that the Society, which the first year consisted of above eight hundred members, had been reduced to four hundred.
But, according to the old proverb, Wesley held that the half is sometimes more than the whole.
Throughout his career he never yielded to the illusion of numbers.
His aim was to secure the moral and spiritual tone of the members of his Societies.
In order to achieve his purpose he relied on two things—courage and steadiness in the preachers who examined the classes, and common sense and common honesty in the leader of each class.
In illustration he records the questions which he sometimes put to the leaders of the classes when he examined them.
He says:
'I ask, Does this and this person in your class live in drunkenness or any outward sin?
Does he go to church, and use the other means of grace?
Does he meet you as often as he has opportunity ?'
If the leader would not answer these questions, it was open to any member of the class to answer them for him.
Then 'from things alleged and proved' the examiner proceeded to exercise discipline.
After such a thorough examination of the four hundred members of the Newcastle Society, Wesley says, ' We shall not be ashamed of any of these when we speak with our enemies in the gate.'
The discipline exercised in the early Societies was strict, but it resulted in the training of a multitude of people whose irreproachable conduct was one of the chief causes of the triumph of Methodism.
During this visit to Newcastle Wesley snatched some time for reading Neal's History of the Puritans.
The book attracted him.
He had become acquainted with it some years before.* 4See John Wesley and the Religious Socteties, 295.
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Studying it again more thoroughly, he confesses that he was amazed at two things; first, the execrable spirit of persecution which drove the Puritans out of the Church, and with which Queen Elizabeth's clergy were as deeply tinctured as ever Queen Mary's were; and, secondly, at the weakness of the Puritans, whom he calls ' those holy confessors,' many of whom spent so much of their time and strength in disputing about surplices and hoods, or kneeling at the Lord's Supper.
It is also noticeable that during this visit to Newcastle he gathered some young men around him, and read with them a Compendium of Rhetoric and a System of Ethics.
His mind was still busy with a scheme for the establishment of 'a Seminary for Labourers'; and we judge that he seized this opportunity to act as a tutor.
It speaks highly for the intelligence of the Newcastle ' young men' that he was led to say, "I see not why a man of tolerable understanding may not learn in six months' time more of solid philosophy than is commonly learned at Oxford in four, perhaps seven, years.'
Wesley was speaking as an old Oxford tutor; and his statement will not excite the surprise of any who have read Dr.
A. D. Godley's descriptions of the character of the teaching in the University in the eighteenth century.*
John Wesley left Newcastle on Monday, April 20.
He did so with reluctance.
He confesses that he could gladly have spent six weeks more in the neighbourhood.
The Orphan House was a place of refuge.
Mrs. Grace Murray was the housekeeper, and she and the other inmates dwelt together in peace.
But Wesley's itinerary had been fixed, and so he turned his face to the south.
He reached Qsmotherley in the evening, and found that, as he had expected, Mr. Dyson had been vehemently attacked by the neighbouring clergy and gentry for allowing him to preach in his church.
That he might be exposed to no further difficulty, instead of claiming the promise that had been given him, Wesley preached on a tombstone in the churchyard.
His comment on the occurrence is: 'Some will not hear even the word of God out of a church; for the sake of these we are often permitted to preach in a church.
Others will not hear it in a'church; for their sakes we are often compelled to preach in the highways.'
In looking at the large 1 Oxford in the Eighteenth Century, chapters iii. to vii.
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and serious congregation gathered in the Osmotherley churchyard we are surprised to see John Nelson standing in the crowd.
He seems to have been the victim of rough usage ; his head is bound up, he is pale from loss of blood.
He has ridden over from York to persuade Wesley not to go to Acomb.
After the service the two Methodist pioneers had a conversation.
Nelson informed Wesley that, if he went to Acomb, he would be assaulted by a band of men who had vowed to kill him.
They had made a similar vow in his own case; and on the previous Sunday they had nearly accomplished their purpose.
Nelson told Wesley the story of that Easter Day riot, when a mob of ' gentlemen' from York had assailed him, and almost battered the life out of him.
Anxious for Wesley's preservation, he had mounted his horse on the next day and ridden to Osmotherley.
He succeeded in changing Wesley's intention, and in persuading him to go 10 Leeds.
The doings of the ' gentlemen's mob' are fully detailed in Nelson's published Journal.
Wesley's 'notes' of the conversation he had with Nelson in Osmotherley are as follows :
Here John Nelson met me.
On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, he had preached at Acomb and the neighbouring places; on Good Friday, in particular, on Heworth Moor, to a large and quiet congregation.
On Easter Sunday, at eight, he preached there again to a large number of serious hearers.
Towards the close of his discourse a mob came from York, hired and headed by some (miscalled) gentlemen.
They stood still, till an eminent Papist cried out, ' Why do not you knock the dog's brains out?'
On which they immediately began throwing all that came to hand, so that the congregation was quickly dispersed.
John spoke a few words, and walked towards York.
They followed with showers of bricks and stones, one of which struck him on the shoulder, one on the back, and, a little before he came to the city, part of a brick hit him on the back part of the head and felled him to the ground.
When he came to himself two of Acomb lifted him up and led him forward between them.
The gentlemen followed, throwing as before, till he came to the city gate, near which lived an honest tradesman, who took him by the arm and pulled him into his house.
Some of the rioters swore they would break all his windows if he did not turn him out.
But he told them resolutely, 'I will not; and let any of you touch my house at your peril.
I shall make you remember it as long as you live.'
On this they thought good to retire.
After a surgeon had dressed the wound in his head, John went 1See Early Methodist Preachers, i. 159-165.
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is softly onto Acomb.
At five he went out in order to preach, and began singing a hymn.
Before it was ended the same gentlemen came in a coach from York, with a numerous attendance.
They threw clods and stones so fast on every side that the congregation soon dispersed.
John walked down into a little ground, not far from Thomas Slaton's house.
Two men quickly followed, one of whom swore desperately he would have his life.
And he seemed to be in good earnest.
He struck him several times, with all his force, on the head and breast, and at length threw him down and stamped upon him till he left him for dead ; but, by the mercy of God, being carried into an house, he soon came to himself; and, after a night's rest, was so recovered that he was able to ride to Osmotherley.+ Such, in the barest outline, is the record of this savage assault.
In John Nelson's Journal details are supplied which show that the intention of 'the gentlemen's mob' was to kill him.
As one of the assailants was getting into the coach which bore some of the rioters back to York, Nelson heard him say, ' It is impossible for him to live ; and if John Wesley comes on Tuesday we will kill him.
Then we shall be quite rid of the Methodists for ever; for no one will dare to come if they two be killed.'
So far as Nelson was concerned their purpose would probably have been accomplished.
When, as some of them said, they had ' trodden the Holy Spirit out of him,' they uncovered a well and dragged him towards it.
But a woman confronted them.
She stood by the well, pushed several of them to the ground, and defeated their purpose.
After her fine resistance there was a pause.
Then two ladies who had come from York called the ' gentlemen' who were trying to throw Nelson into the well by their names.
Finding that some of their friends were watching them, these ruffians were seized with sudden shame.
They released their prey.
Turning to their acquaintances who had called to them, they 'looked as men confounded.'
The riot ceased; and all the mob set out for York, ' singing debauched songs.'
On Friday, May 1, John Wesley read prayers and preached in Haworth church to a numerous congregation.
With the exception of the tower the old church has disappeared, but in Jessop's Methodism in Rossendale there is a good picture of it which has been reproduced in the standard edition of John Wesley's Journal.» The parsonage at that time was 1Wesley's Journal, iii. 290.
* Early Methodist Preachers, i. 163.
8 Jessop, 72; Journal iv. 213.
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known as 'Sowdens.'
It was at some distance from the church, and stood on the edge of the moor.
Laycock, in his Methodist Heroes in the Great Haworth Round, 1734 to 1784, makes the old parsonage stand out before us.
Describing it as he saw it when he was a boy, he says that it was a large farmhouse commanding a prospect of quiet fields and the valley of the Worth.
He thinks that part of the house was built in the Stuart period.
Lying on ' the edge of the moor,' it was screened by a grove of stunted trees, which shielded it from the wild winds which sweep across the moorland immediately behind it.
'Sowdens' possesses special attraction in the eyes of a Methodist historian.
It was the home of William Grimshaw; it was the pleasant restingplace of the Wesleys and Whitefield ; in its kitchen the lay preachers often proclaimed the great truths brought to light in the evangelical revival.
May Day, 1747, marks a significant change in the relations of the Wesleys and Grimshaw.
In January Charles Wesley had visited Haworth.
He was not asked to preach in the church, but held a service in a large house, which was not nearly large enough for the congregation.
It is probable that 'the large house' was Emmott Hall, a picture of which appears in connexion with Mr. Nattrass's valuable Notes on Early Methodism in Haworth.1
Charles Wesley stayed at '"Sowdens'; and, in the morning before leaving his ' dear brother Grimshaw's,' he said to his host that 'he had feared where no fear was, there being no law either of God or man against his lending me his pulpit.'
He left Grimshaw in a chastened state of mind.
'He was much ashamed at having given place to his threatening enemies.'
He was a man of great natural courage ; but such men sometimes have a weak place in their armour; they cannot always resist the force of public opinion.
We know that for a time, the incumbent of Haworth was very sensitive to the criticisms of his parishioners ; but, when John Wesley came, he preached in the church.
Mr. Jessop says:
' In 1747 Grimshaw entered into most cordial relations with the Wesleys, and continued to his death to be one of their influential co-workers.'*
1For Mr. Nattrass's ' Notes' see W.H.S. Proceedings, x. 141-146, 165-168, 200-205.
Mr. J. W. Laycock's photographs of Emmott Hall and ' Sowdens' appear in the Proceedings x. 165.
2 Methodism in Rossendale, 76-77.