Page images
PDF
EPUB

into the street and burnt: and the next day the mob made a grand procession, and burnt Mr. Wesley in effigy. The house was a second time attacked, and the boards demolished, which had been nailed against the windows; and a fellow posted up a notice at the public exchange, with his name affixed, that he was ready to head any mob, in order to pull down any house that should harbour a Swaddler.

The press also was employed against the Methodists, but with little judgment and less honesty.— One writer accused Mr. Wesley of "robbing and plundering the poor, so as to leave them neither bread to eat, nor raiment to put on." He replied victoriously to this accusation: "A heavy charge," said he, "but without all colour of truth; yea, just the reverse is true. Abundance of those in Cork, Bandon, Limerick, and Dublin, as well as in all parts of England, who, a few years ago, either through sloth or profaneness, had not bread to eat, or raiment to put on, have now, by means of the preachers called Methodists, a sufficiency of both. Since, by hearing these, they have learned to fear God, they have learned also to work with their hands, as well as to cut off every needless expense, and to be good stewards of the mammon of unrighteousness." He averred also, that the effect of his preaching had reconciled disaffected persons to the government; and that they who became Methodists were, at the same time, made loyal subjects. He reminded his antagonists, that when one of the English bishops had been asked what could be done to stop these new preachers, the prelate had replied, "If they preach contrary to Scripture, confute them by Scripture; if contrary to reason, confute them by reason. But beware you use no other weapons than these, either in opposing error, or defending the truth." He complained that, instead of fair and honourable argument, he had been assailed at Cork with gross falsehoods, mean abuse, and base scurrility. He challenged any of his antagonists, or any who would come forward, to meet him on even ground, writing

as a gentleman to a gentleman, a scholar to a scholar, a clergyman to a clergyman. "Let them," said he, "thus show me wherein I have preached or written amiss, and I will stand reproved before all the world; but let them not continue to put persecution in the place of reason: either private persecution, stirring up husbands to threaten or beat their wives, parents their children, masters their servants; gentlemen to ruin their tenants, labourers, or tradesmen, by turning them out of their favour or cottages; employing, or buying of them no more, because they worship God according to their own conscience: or open, bare-faced, noon-day Cork persecution, breaking open the houses of His Majesty's Protestant subjects, destroying their goods, spoiling or tearing the very clothes from their backs; striking, bruising, wounding, murdering them in the streets; dragging them through the mire, without any regard to age or sex, not sparing even those of tender years; no, nor women, though great with child; but, with more than Pagan or Mahometan barbarity, destroying infants that were yet unborn." He insisted, truly, that this was a common cause; for, if the Methodists were not protected, what protection would any men have? what security for their goods or lives, if a mob were to be both judge, jury, and executioner? "I fear God, and honour the king," said he. "I earnestly desire to be at peace with all men. I have not, willingly, given any offence, either to the magistrates, the clergy, or any of the inhabitants of the city of Cork; neither do I desire any thing of them, but to be treated (I will not say as a clergyman, a gentleman, or a christian) with such justice and humanity as are due to a Jew, a Turk, or a Pagan.'

[ocr errors]

Whitefield visited Ireland, for the first time, in the ensuing year, and found himself the safer for the late transactions. Such outrages had compelled the higher powers to interfere; and, when he arrived at Cork, the populace was in a state of due subordination. He seems to have regarded the conduct of Wesley and his lay-preachers with no favourable eye: some dreadful offences, he said,

had been given; and he condemned all politics as below the children of God; alluding, apparently, to the decided manner in which Wesley always inculcated obedience to government as one of the duties of a Christian; making it his boast, that, whoever became a Methodist, became at the same time a good subject. Though his success was not so brilliant as in Scotland, it was still sufficient to encourage and cheer him. "Providence," says he, "has wonderfully prepared my way, and overruled every thing for my greater acceptance. Every where there seems to be a stirring among the dry bones; and the trembling lamps of God's people have been supplied with fresh oil. The word ran, and was glorified." Hundreds prayed for him when he left Cork; and many of the Catholics said, that, if he would stay, they would leave their priests: but, on a second expedition to Ireland, Whitefield narrowly escaped with his life. He had been well received, and had preached once or twice, on week days, in Oxminton Green; a place which he describes as the Moorfields of Dublin. The Ormond Boys, and the Liberty Boys, (these were the current denominations of the mob factions at that time,) generally assembled there every Sunday-to fight; and Whitefield, mindful, no doubt, of his success in a former enterprise, under like circumstances, determined to take the field on that day, relying upon the interference of the officers and soldiers, whose barracks were close by, if he should stand in need of protection. The singing, praying, and preaching went on without much interruption; only now and then a few stones, and a few clods of dirt, were thrown. After the sermon, he prayed for success to the Prussian arms, it being in time of war. Whether this prayer offended the party-spirit of his hearers, or whether the mere fact of his being a heretic, who went about seeking to make proselytes, had excited, in the catholic part of the mob, a determined spirit of vengeance; or whether, without any principle of hatred or personal dislike, they considered him as a bear, bull, or badger, whom they had an opportunity of tormenting,

the barracks, through which he intended to return as he had come, were closed against him; and when he endeavoured to make his way across the green, the rabble assailed him. "Many attacks," says he, "have I had from Satan's children, but now you would have thought he had been permitted to have given me an effectual parting blow." Vollies of stones came from all quarters, while he reeled to and fro under the blows, till he was almost breathless, and covered with blood. A strong beaver hat, which served him for a while as a skull-cap, was knocked off at last, and he then received many blows and wounds on the head, and one large one near the temple. "I thought of Stephen," says he," and was in great hopes that, like him, I should be despatched, and go off, in this bloody triumph, to the immediate presence of my Master." The door of a minister's house was opened for him in time, and he staggered in, and was sheltered there, till a coach could be brought, and he was conveyed safely away.

The bitter spirit of the more ignorant Catholics was often exemplified. The itinerants were frequently told, that it would be doing both God and the Church service to burn all such as them in one fire; and one of them, when he first went into the county of Kerry, was received with the threat that they would kill him, and make whistles of his bones. Another was nearly murdered by a ferocious mob, one of whom set his foot upon his face, swearing that he would tread the Holy Ghost out of him. At Kilkenny, where the Catholics were not strong enough to make a riot with much hope of success, they guashed at Wesley with their teeth, after he had been preaching in an old bowling-green, near the Castle; and one of them cried, "Och! what is Kilkenny come to!" But it was from among the Irish Catholics that Wesley obtained one of the most interesting of his coadjutors, and one of the most efficient also during his short life.

Thomas Walsh, whom the Methodists justly reckon among their most distinguished members, was the son of a carpenter at Bally Lynn, in the county of

Limerick. His parents were strong Romanists; they taught him the Lord's Prayer and the Ave Maria, in Irish, which was his mother tongue, and the hundred and thirtieth psalm in Latin: and he was taught also, that all who differ from the Church of Rome are in a state of damnation. At eight years old he went to school to learn English: and was afterwards placed, with one of his brothers, who was a schoolmaster, to learn Latin and mathematics. At nineteen he opened a school for himself. The brother, by whom he was instructed, had been intended for the priesthood he was a man of tolerable learning, and of an inquiring mind, and, seeing the errors of the Romish church, he renounced it. This occasioned frequent disputes with Thomas Walsh, who was a strict Catholic; the one alleging the traditions and canons of the church, the other appealing to the law and to the testimony. "My brother, why do you not read God's word?" the elder would say, "lay aside prejudice, and let us reason together." After many struggles between the misgivings of his mind, and the attachment to the opinions in which he had been bred up, and the thought of his parents, and shame, and the fear of man, this state of suspense became intolerable, and he prayed to God in his trouble. "All things are known to Thee," he said, in his prayer," and Thou seest that I want to worship Thee aright! Show me the way wherein I ought to go, nor suffer me to be deceived by men!"

He then went to his brother, determined either to convince him, or to be convinced. Some other persons of the Protestant persuasion were present: they brought a Bible, and with it Nelson's Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England; and, with these books before them, they discussed the subject till midnight. It ended in his fair and complete conversion. "I was constrained," said he, "to give place to the light of truth: it was so convincing, that I had nothing more to say; I was judged of all; and at length confessed the weakness of my former reasonings, and the strength of those which were opposed

to me.

About one o'clock in the morning I retired

« PreviousContinue »