Then he spoke a few words to them; and the people shouted:  “The gentleman is an honest gentleman, and we will spill our blood in his defence”.

But they changed their minds later on; for they met a Walsall crowd on their way, who attacked Wesley savagely, and those who had been loud in their promises to protect him—­fled!

Left to the mercy of the rable, he was dragged to Walsall.  One man hit him in the mouth with such force that the blood streamed from the wound; another struck him on the breast; a third seized him and tried to pull him down.

“Are you willing,” cried Wesley, “to hear me?”

“No, no!” they answered; “knock out his brains, down with him, kill him at once!”

“What evil,” asked Wesley, “have I done?  Which of you all have I wronged by word or deed?” Then he began to pray; and one of the ringleaders said to him:—­

“Sir, I will spend my life for you; follow me, and no one shall hurt a hair of your head.”

Others took his part also—­one, fortunately, being a prizefighter.

Wesley thus describes the finish of this remarkable adventure:—­

“A little before ten o’clock God brought me safe to Wednesbury, having lost only one flap of my waistcoat, and a little skin from one of my hands.  From the beginning to the end I found the same presence of mind as if I had been sitting in my own study.  But I took no thought from one moment to another; only once it came into my mind that, if they should throw me into the river, it would spoil the papers that were in my pocket.  For myself I did not doubt but I should swim across, having but a thin coat and a light pair of shoes.”

At Pensford the rabble made a bull savage, and then tried to make it attack his congregation; at Whitechapel they drove cows among the listeners and threw stones, one of which hit Wesley between the eyes; but after he had wiped away the blood he went on with his address, telling the people that “God hath not given us the spirit of fear”.

At St. Ives in Cornwall there was a great uproar, but Wesley went amongst the mob and brought the chief mischiefmaker out.  Strange to say, the preacher received but one blow, and then he reasoned the case out with the agitator, and the man undertook to quiet his companions.

Thus Wesley went fearlessly from place to place.  He visited Ireland forty-two times, as well as Scotland and Wales.  When he was eighty-four he crossed over to the Channel Islands in stormy weather; and there “high and low, rich and poor, received the Word gladly”.

He always went on horseback till quite late in life, when his friends persuaded him to have a chaise.  No weather could stop him from keeping his engagements.  In 1743 he set out from Epworth to Grimsby; but was told at the ferry he could not cross the Trent owing to the storm.

But he was determined his Grimsby congregation should not be disappointed; and he so worked on the boatmen’s feelings that they took him over even at the risk of their lives.