But we must now go back to John Wesley, whom we left at Durham in June. He traveled from place to place, reaching Oxford in August. Here he was to preach before the University at St. Mary’s Church, it being his turn, as a fellow of Lincoln College. He felt it would be the last time he would be allowed to preach on such an occasion, and therefore spoke very plainly. After traveling backwards and forwards between London and Bristol we find him in the beginning of 1745 again in the North traveling over the snow-covered moors. Turnpike roads were, it seems, unknown in those parts till some years after, and the moors were a trackless waste of deep snow. “We were often,” he says, obliged to walk, it being impossible to ride, and our horses several times fell down while we were leading them.” On reaching Newcastle in February, he says, “Many a rough journey have I had before, but one like this I never had—between wind, and hail, and rain, and ice, and snow, and driving sleet, and piercing cold. But it is past. Those days will return no more, and are therefore as though they had never been.” You see, it was no easy work to be a Methodist preacher, and you see, too, the difference between doing disagreeable things merely because they were disagreeable, as Wesley had done at Oxford, to “gain favor with God,” and doing them for Christ’s sake, not to gain salvation, but to carry out God’s blessed purposes. In the one case we should be insulting Christ by thinking to earn by our sufferings that which He has earned for us by His precious blood; in the other case we are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, just because as saved people we are one with Him, and are glad to suffer in His cause, for His sake, and not to gain merit for ourselves. After many wanderings we find Wesley in June again in Cornwall, where there had been more riots, and where Thomas Maxfield, who had been preaching, had been “sent for a soldier,” with many other Methodists. The warrant for their apprehension was shown to Wesley, and he saw written amongst the names of those yet to be seized, “a person, his name unknown, who disturbs the peace of the parish.” This meant himself. In fact about a fortnight later, as he was preaching at St. Just, Mr. Eustick, a neighboring squire, came up and apprehended both Wesley and his companion, Mr. Shepherd. It seems, however, that Mr. Eustick had been drinking so much that evening, that, having carried Wesley off to his inn, he left him there, and did no more, but said he would come again in the morning. In the morning, however, he did not appear, and Wesley went to find him, wishing to show him that he was not ashamed of his doings. Mr. Eustick had now fully come to himself, and no longer felt inclined to do anything further in the matter. He was glad when Wesley and Mr. Shepherd went on to another village, called Gwennap. Here, as soon as the preaching began, another squire rode up in a violent rage, leaped off his horse, cursing and hitting his servants because they had not obeyed his orders; then, catching him himself by his gown, he dragged him off, saying, “I take you to serve his Majesty.” Wesley spoke to him calmly, as they proceeded for nearly a mile, and represented to him that he was acting in an unjustifiable manner in thus seizing him by force. The squire seemed awe-struck by Wesley’s calmness, and, letting him go, said he was free to go back to Gwennap, if he pleased. Wesley told him that his proceedings had roused such a rabble of rough men, who were following them along the road, that he doubted whether it would be wise to go back. “Then,” said the squire, “I will take you back myself,” and, putting Wesley on one of his horses, he himself got on another, and escorted him safely into the village of Gwennap, where he left him in peace.
The next day Wesley rode to Falmouth to see an invalid lady. Scarcely had he arrived at the house when an innumerable multitude of people surrounded it, yelling and shouting in wild confusion. The poor lady and her daughter at first endeavored to quiet them, “but they might as well have attempted to still the raging of the sea,” says Wesley, in his description of this strange scene. The mob only shouted the louder, “Bring out the Canorum! Where is the Canorum?” “Canorum,” it seems, was the Cornish name for “Methodist.” The two ladies thought it best to hide themselves where they could, leaving Wesley and Kitty the maid locked up in the parlor. The rabble meanwhile broke open the house door, and rushed into the passage, which was only separated from the parlor by a wainscot partition. Against this wainscot they kicked and battered with fearful oaths. “Oh, sir!” exclaimed the terrified Kitty, “what must we do?” Mr. Wesley who had been occupied in taking down the looking-glass, which hung upon the wainscot, fearing lest it should be shattered, now put it in a safe place and replied to Kitty’s question, “We must pray.” But Kitty was too much frightened to have any thought left except how to escape. She entreated Mr. Wesley to hide in the cupboard. “No,” he said, “it is best for me to stand just where I am.” Amongst the raging crowd were some sailors from the men-of-war in the harbor. They set their shoulders to the parlor door, calling out in chorus, “Avast, lads! avast!” Away went all the hinges at once, and the door fell in with a tremendous crash. Wesley stepped forward at once into the passage, saying, “Here I am. Which of you has anything to say to me? To which of you have I done any wrong?” And purposely leaving his hat behind, that his face might be seen, he pushed his way into the middle of the street, where he called aloud, “Neighbors! countrymen! do you desire to hear me speak?” “Yes! yes!” shouted the mob, “He shall speak. He shall! Nobody shall hinder him.” After a few words calmly spoken, one or two of the leaders of the mob turned upon their followers, swearing that nobody should touch the Canorum. Some gentlemen now came up, saying, “Are you not ashamed to use a stranger thus?” and placing themselves round him they led him through the town to a house close to the harbor. In those evil times it is pleasant to find that the gentleman who took the chief part in thus rescuing Wesley was a neighboring clergyman, Mr. Thomas. These friendly gentlemen desired Mr. Wesley to rest in the house, whilst they went to fetch his horse, which they sent on to Penryn to meet him, thinking it safer he should himself go by water. They therefore led him out at the back-door of the house, and put him in a boat. The mob meanwhile gathered at the end of the town, intending to waylay him as he left, but finding he had escaped by means of the sea, some of them ran along the beach to meet him at the landing-place at Penryn.
On getting out of the boat Wesley walked up to the foremost man, and said, “I wish you a good night.” The whole party stood as if spell-bound, whilst he mounted his horse, and then, as he rode away, the leader called after him an awful curse, and led back his followers to Falmouth. That evening when Wesley went to preach on a hill near Helstone, he found a party of gentlemen on horseback ready to seize him. He rode up to them, and said, “Gentlemen, have any of you anything to say to me? I am John Wesley.” At this they seemed extremely angry, nor did they appear the least to believe him, till a neighboring clergyman came up and told them he had known the gentleman at Oxford, and that he was really John Wesley. They then explained that they had been informed he was a spy sent by Prince Charles Edward, and that the Methodist societies were being formed to help the Pretender in his conquest of England.
There were very many amongst the poor near Helstone, who would gladly have gone to the preaching, but were kept back by fear of the squire, Sir Francis Vyvyan, who proclaimed to them as they came out of church, “If any man dares hear these fellows he shall not come to my Christmas feast!” So they turned away from God’s blessed invitation, “Come, for all things are now ready,” and had in exchange the feast the squire gave them when Christmas came. No doubt they were a merry party, but it was to be the squire’s last Christmas feast! The next year, just before Christmas came, Sir Francis Vyvyan was called into the presence of God.
For about a week longer Wesley preached in the Cornish villages. Almost everywhere some attempt was made to stop the preaching, but everywhere the Lord stood by him, and strengthened him, and there was blessing such as he had never known before. Multitudes, it would seem, were turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.
Towards the end of July, Wesley sailed across the Bristol Channel into Wales. You may perhaps wonder, after reading of these riots, how it was that there were to be found in so many places, north and south alike, such numbers of people who were enraged with the preaching of the gospel. Why was it so? Why should one harmless man rouse such multitudes to rage and fury? The best answer may be given in the words of a Cornish gentleman to whom Wesley put a question of this sort. It would seem that a poor miner, who had been left in peace as long as he was remarkable for nothing but cursing, drunkenness, and wickedness, was, as soon as he became a well-conducted Methodist, taken from his wife and seven children by the neighboring magistrate, and “sentenced to banishment or death,” as Wesley says, in other words, sent abroad as a soldier. “What offense has the poor man given?” asked Wesley. “Why, sir,” replied the Cornish gentleman, “the man is well enough in other things, but his impudence the gentlemen cannot bear. Why, sir, he says he knows his sins are forgiven!” “Yet,” you may say, “Why should the gentlemen be angry at his knowing his sins were forgiven?” Let me try to show you this, for, strange as it seems to you, your heart, too, is ready to take offense at the gospel of God, and why? It is plain to us from God’s word that there are two reasons why the gospel displeases men. One is, because it shows that God can see nothing in the sinner but that which is displeasing to Him. The other is, because it tells us God saves the sinner, because He sees that in Christ, and only in Christ, which pleases Him perfectly. Therefore, you see, it makes nothing of you, and makes everything of Christ. We do not like to be made nothing of. As long as the poor miner, Ned Greenfield, was a drunken, wicked man, the sight of him would not hurt the pride of the gentlemen who thought themselves a great deal better, and who went to church, and sat respectably in their pews, whilst Ned Greenfield was cursing and swearing in the alehouse. But when it happened that this ignorant, wicked man, whom the squire would scarcely have thought worthy to hold his horse for him, really took God at His word, and believed that the Lord Jesus had borne the punishment of his sins, and that God forgave him, therefore, fully and freely, the squire would feel it an insult to himself, and to those who, like himself, had “been doing their duty,” as they would think. That they should have been so much better in every respect, and yet still fear to die, knowing that they were not sure where they were going, and that Ned Greenfield should be quite happy in the thought that he was a saved man, when he had been such a wicked sinner, was not merely putting them all on a level, but “setting himself up to be something better.” That Ned was happy on account of what Christ had done, they could not understand, nor can anyone, as long as they have never seen themselves simply as lost sinners. It would make them out to be nothing and nobody. It would also prove how displeasing sin is to God, since He needed so to show His hatred of it, as to punish His own Son. And that God so hates sin, is a fact which stirs up the anger alike of the man who is proud of his goodness, and of the man who knows he has none to be proud of. And therefore Ned’s old companions, the drunkards and the swearers, would be angry because by the preaching of the cross of Christ their sin was proved to be exceedingly sinful, whilst the respectable were offended at being put in the place of lost sinners, just as if they were no better than the drunkards and swearers. It would not offend people to preach to them that they do very well as they are, nor would it offend them to preach that though they are sinners, God is so kind He will make allowance for them and forgive them, but to tell them they are utterly sinful, and that God so hates sin that He could forgive them on no other terms than the death of His own Son, is what is called in Galatians “the offense of the cross.” Satan will allow a man to say, “I hope I am going to heaven, because I am doing my best.” He will also allow a man to say, “I hope I am going to heaven, because God is so merciful, He will make allowance for my sins.” But he will not allow you to say, “I know I am going to heaven, because Christ has been punished in my place, and God is satisfied with Him.” That is to say, as long as Christ and His precious blood are left out of the question, Satan will leave matters alone; but when that blessed gospel is preached, which is “the power of God for salvation to every one that believeth.” Satan will rouse up all his people to oppose it. He has his saints as well as his blackguards, and all will alike make common cause against the preacher who says, “Your goodness and your badness are alike unclean in God’s sight, and Christ—Christ only—is the One with whom God is well pleased. He will give you the reward that Christ has earned by that which He has done in dying for lost sinners, or, if you refuse that, the reward of your own doings, which is eternal destruction. It must be the one or the other.” Perhaps you now understand why Wesley by a few simple words about Christ roused such multitudes to fury. But let us thank God that, on the other hand, multitudes believed, and were saved. Thus the gospel is to them that perish foolishness, but to those who are saved the power of God. It brings death or life, according as we believe or reject Christ. Salvation was brought into Cornwall, as regards many thousands; but, alas! a deeper condemnation for others. So, too, Wesley found it to be in Wales.
I must tell you a little of what had been happening in Wales during the last year or two. Daniel Rowlands, the clergyman I told you of; who helped Howell Harris in preaching the gospel, did not travel about as much as Howell Harris did, but preached chiefly in his own parish of Llangeitho. People would come sixty miles over the great Welsh mountains to hear him, Sunday after Sunday. They had to start very early on Saturday, and travel by day and by night, halting to rest near some little river from time to time. As they sat resting, they would sing and pray, and thus go on their way rejoicing. Once a party from Carnarvon (about one hundred miles from Llangeitho) went in a ship to the preaching. But the wind changed on Sunday, and they had to go back by land, walking all the way. They were hooted and mocked on their homeward journey at one town after another, and at last, at Harlech, the mob rushed upon them to stone them. None were killed, but several very badly hurt. Howell Harris meanwhile went from place to place, traveling about 150 miles every week, sometimes not taking off his clothes for several nights together. Once, in the middle of the night, he arrived at a lonely farmhouse on a mountain, his clothes in tatters, his face covered with blood from thirteen cuts in his head, and he was besides covered with bruises. He had escaped but just alive from a mob in Monmouthshire. Happily the farmer was a Christian man. He took him in, and nursed him for a week, when he set off again to preach as before.