gation, and the next morning to ' abundance of people' who
DORSET AS Leaving Cornwall, Wesley reached Shaftesbury on September 3.
He preached in the evening to a serious and quiet congregation, and the next morning to ' abundance of people' who had assembled in the 'Room.'
On his first visit he was prevented from preaching in the open air by heavy rain, but on September 4 we see him making his way, at noon, to the most riotous part of the town, ' where four ways met.'
It seems clear that he took his stand near the spot where John Haime opened his campaign.
Preaching from a text he carried from end to end of England, he called upon the wicked
' to forsake his way.'
The people listened in silence; 'none made a noise, or spoke one word.'
When he returned to his lodging, and was resting a constable made his appearance.
He was charged with an important message.
'Sir,' he said, 'the mayor discharges you from preaching in this borough any more.'
The constable was rendered speechless by Wesley's calm reply, ' While King George gives me leave to preach,
I shall not ask leave of the Mayor of Shaftesbury.'
As the constable departs in amazement we begin to wonder as to the precise meaning of Wesley's words.
Our thoughts go back to Bernard Gilpin, who was licensed by Edward VI "as a general preacher throughout the Kingdom, so long as the King lived.'
But the probabilities are against such a solution of the problem.
We get on sure ground when we remember the conversation in Kew Gardens between George II and the Quaker when the King received information concerning the Wesleys which gave him insight into the character and value of their work.
We also recall the fact that, in the presence of his Council, the King had declared that 'no man in his dominions should be persecuted on account of religion while he sat on the throne'; and that when his declaration was made known to the Middlesex magistrates they succeeded in stopping the mobbing of the Methodists in London.
In Bristol and Newcastle a knowledge of the King's declaration may have spread, but in the country at large the people were either ignorant of it or ignored it.
Mobs still went out with their battle shouts of 'Church and King!'
There was an element of absurdity in this war-cry, but its effectiveness is undeniable.
When the constable at Shaftesbury had communicated Wesley's message to the mayor, he must
1See John Wesley and the Methodist Societies, 73.