opinions that give you liberty to live after the flesh. Satan," he said, " had preached that doctrine to him before they did, and God had armed him both against him and them." Soon afterwards he had, for the first time, an opportunity of speaking to Mr. Wesley. They walked together some way; and he says it was a blessed conference to him. When they parted, Wesley took him by the hand, and looking him in the face, bade him take care that he did not quench the spirit.

Dreams and impressions, according to his own account, rather than the desire of rejoining his family, induced him now to return to Birstall, his native place, where they resided, and where indeed he had always carefully provided for them, whether he was at home or abroad. Some little discomfort at first attended his return. John was perfectly satisfied that he had received the assurance, and knew his sins were forgiven. His wife and mother entreated him not to say this to any one, for no one would believe him. But he said he should not be ashamed to tell what God had done for his soul, if he could speak loud enough for all the men in the world to hear him at once. His mother said to him, "Your head is turned;" and he replied, "Yes, and my heart too, I thank the Lord." The wife besought him that he would either leave off abusing his neighbours, or go back to London; but he declared that it was his determination to reprove any one who sinned in his presence; she began to weep, and said he did not love her so well as he used to do, and that her happiness was

over, if he believed her to be a child of the devil, and himself a child of God. But Nelson told her he prayed and believed God would make her a blessed companion for him in the way of heaven ; and she, who was a good wife, and knew that she had a good husband, soon fell in with his wishes, listened to his teaching, and became as zealous in the cause as himself.

He now began to exhort his neighbours as well as to reprove them, and by defending his doctrines when they were disputed, was led unawares to quote texts of Scripture, expound, and enforce them, in a manner which at length differed from preaching only in the name. This he did in his own house at first, where he had the good fortune to convert most of his relations; and when his auditors became so numerous that the house could not hold them, he then stood at the door and harangued there. Ingham was settled in this neighbourhood with a Moravian society, and he, at Peter Boehler's desire, gave John Nelson leave to exhort them this permission was withdrawn, when the ill temper which the division in London had excited, extended itself here also, and Ingham would then have silenced him, but John said he had not begun by the order of man, and would not leave off by it. Hitherto Nelson had not ventured upon preaching, for preaching it was now become, without strong inward conflicts of reluctance, arising from the natural sobriety of his character, and perhaps from a diffidence of himself; he says he would rather have been hanged on a tree than

go to preach; and once when a great congregation was gathered together begging him to preach, he acted the part of Jonah, and fled into the fields. But opposition stimulated him now; he "desired to die rather than live to see the children devoured by these boars out of the German wood."

God," he says, "opened his word more and more;" in others words, zeal and indignation made him eloquent. He now wrote to Mr. Wesley, telling him what he was doing, and requesting him," as his father in the Gospel, to write and give him some instructions how to proceed in the work which God had begun by such an unpolished tool as himself." Wesley replied that he would see him in the ensuing week. He came accordingly to Birstall, and found there a preacher and a large congregation raised up without his interference. Had he been still doubtful whether the admission

*

Nelson says, in his Journal, "He sate down by my fire-side, in the very posture I had dreamed about four months before, and spoke the same words I dreamed he spoke." There is no reason either to credit this to the letter, or to discredit the general veracity of this remarkable man, because he is fond of relating his dreams. The universal attention which has been paid to dreams in all ages, proves that the superstition is natural; and I have heard too many well-attested facts (facts to which belief could not be refused upon any known laws of evidence) not to believe that impressions are sometimes made in this manner, and forewarnings communicated which cannot be explained by material philosophy, or mere metaphysics. I do not mean to apply this to such stories as are found in John Nelson's Journal, or in books of a similar kind; most of them are the effects of a distempered imagination. But the particular instance which has occasioned this note, may be explained by a state of mind which many persons will recognize in their own experience, a state when we seem to feel that the same thing which is then happening to us has happened to us formerly, though there be no remembrance of it other than this dim recognition.

of lay-preachers should make a part of his plan, this must have decided him: "Therefore," in the words of his official biographers, " he now fully acquiesced in the order of God, and rejoiced that the thoughts of God were not as his confused thoughts."

66

This was Wesley's first expedition to the north of England. He proceeded to Newcastle, being induced to try that scene of action because of the success which he had found among the colliers in Kingswood. Upon entering the town at evening and on foot, the profligacy of the populace surprized as well as shocked him. "So much drunkenness," he says, cursing and swearing, (even from the mouths of little children,) do I never remember to have seen and heard before, in so small a compass of time. Surely this place is ripe for Him who came to call sinners to repentance." At seven on a Sunday morning he walked with his companion to Sandgate, the poorest and most contemptible part of the town, and there he began to sing the hundredth psalm. This soon brought a crowd about him, which continued to increase till he had done preaching. When he had finished, the people still stood staring at him with the most profound astonishment. Upon which he said, "If you desire to know who I am, my name is John Wesley. At five in the evening, with God's help, I design to preach here again." At that hour the hill upon which he intended to preach was covered from top to bottom. "I never," he 66 says, saw so large a number of people together, either in

Moorfields or at Kennington Common. I knew it was not possible for the one half to hear, although my voice was then strong and clear, and I stood so as to have them all in view as they were ranged on the side of the hill. The word of God which I set before them was, I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely. After preaching, the poor people were ready to tread me under foot, out of pure love and kindness." Wesley could not then remain with them, but his brother soon came and organized them, and in a few months he returned, and began to build a room for what he called the wild, staring, loving society. "I could not but observe," he says, "the different manner wherein God is pleased to work in different places. The grace of God flows here with a wider stream than it did at first, either in Bristol or Kingswood: but it does not sink so deep as it did there. Few are thoroughly convinced of sin, and scarce any can witness that the Lamb of God has taken away their sins." But the usual symptoms were ere long produced. One woman had her sight and strength taken away at once, and at the same time, she said, the love of God so overflowed her soul that she could neither speak nor move. A man also lost his sight for a time, and subjects began to cry out, and sink down in the meeting. "And I could not but observe," says Wesley, "that here the very best people, so called, were as deeply convinced as open sinners. Several of these were now constrained to roar aloud for the disquietness of their hearts, and these generally not young, (as