dren; for he that feeds the young ravens will be mindful of us. He will give you strength for your day; and after we have suffered a while, he will perfect that which is lacking in our souls, and then bring us where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest." Early in the morning he was marched, under a guard, to Leeds; the other pressed men were ordered to the alehouse, but he was sent to prison; and there he thought of the poor pilgrims who were arrested in their progress; for the people came in crowds, and looked at him through the iron grate. Some said it was a shame to send a man for a soldier for speaking the truth, when they who followed the Methodists, and till that time had been as wicked as any in the town, were become like new creatures, and never an ill word was heard from their lips. Others wished that all the Methodists were hanged out of the way. "They make people go mad," said they; and we cannot get drunk or swear, but every fool must correct us, as if we were to be taught by them. And this is one of the worst of them." Here, however, he met with some kindness. The jailer admitted his friends to see him, and a bed was sent him by some compassionate person, when he must otherwise have slept upon stinking

straw.

On the following day he was marched to York, and taken before some officers. Instead of remonstrating with them upon the illegal manner in which he had been seized, and claiming his discharge, he began to reprove them for swearing; and when they told him he was not to preach there, for he was delivered to them as a soldier, and must not talk in that manner to his officers, he answered, that there was but one way to prevent him, which was by not swearing in his hearing. John Nelson's reputation was well known in York, and the popular prejudice against the Methodists was just at its height. "We were guarded through the city," he says, "but it was as if hell were moved from beneath to meet me at my coming. The streets and windows were filled with people, who shouted and huzzaed, as if I had

But the

been one that had laid waste the nation. Lord made my brow like brass, so that I could look on them as grasshoppers, and pass through the city as if there had been none in it but God and myself." Lots were cast for him at the guard-house; and when it was thus determined which captain should have him, he was offered money, which he refused to take, and for this they bade the sergeant hand-cuff him, and send him to prison. The hand-cuffs were not put on but he was kept three days in prison, where he preached to the poor reprobates among whom he was thrown, and, wretches as they were, ignorant of all that was good, and abandoned to all that was evil, the intrepidity of the man who reproved them for their blasphemies, and the sound reason which appeared amidst all the enthusiasm of his discourse, was not without effect. Strangers brought him food; his wife also followed him here, and encouraged him to go on and suffer every thing bravely for conscience sake. On the third day a court-martial was held, and he was guarded to it by a file of musqueteers, with their bayonets fixed. When the court asked, "What is this man's crime?" the answer was, "This is the Methodist preacher, and he refuses to take money:" upon which they turned to him, and said, "sir, you need not find fault with us, for we must obey our orders, which are to make you act as a soldier: you are delivered to us; and if you have not justice done you, we cannot help it." John Nelson plainly told them he would not fight, because it was against his way of thinking: and when he again refused the money, which by their bidding was offered him, they told him, that, if he ran away, he would be just as liable to suffer as if he had taken it. He replied, "If I cannot be discharged lawfully, I shall not run away. If I do, punish me as you please." He was then sent to his quarters, where his arms and accoutrements were brought him and put on. "Why do you gird me," said he, "with these warlike habiliments? I am a man averse to war, and shall not fight, but under the Prince of Peace, the Captain of my salvation: the

weapons he gives me are not carnal, like these." He must bear those, they told him, till he could get his discharge. To this he made answer, that he would bear them then as a cross, and use them as far as he could without defiling his conscience, which he would not do for any man on earth.

swer.

There was a spirit in all this which, when it had ceased to excite ridicule from his comrades, obtained respect. He had as good opportunities of exhorting and preaching as he could desire: he distributed also the little books which Wesley had printed to explain and vindicate the tenets of the Methodists, and was as actively employed in the cause to which he had devoted himself, as if he had been his own master.At last the ensign of his company sent for him, and accosting him with an execration, swore he would have no preaching nor praying in the regiment."Then," said John, "Sir, you ought to have no swearing or cursing neither; for surely I have as much right to pray and preach, as you have to curse and swear." Upon this the brutal ensign swore he should be damnably flogged for what he had done. "Let God look to that," was the resolute man's an"The cause is His. But if you do not leave off your cursing and swearing, it will be worse with you than with me." The ensign then bade the corporal put that fellow into prison directly; and when the corporal said he must not carry a man to prison unless he gave in his crime with him, he told him it was for disobeying orders. To prison, therefore, Nelson was taken, to his heart's content; and, after eight-and-forty hours' confinement, was brought before the major, who asked him what he had been put in confinement for. "For warning people to flee from the wrath to come," he replied; "and if that be a crime, I shall commit it again, unless you cut my tongue out; for it is better to die than to disobey God." The major told him, if that was all, it was no crime: when he had done his duty, he might preach as much as he liked, but he must make no mobs. And then wishing that all men were like him, he dismissed him to his quarters. But Nelson was not yet

out of the power of the ensign. One Sunday, when they were at Darlington, hoping to find an occasion for making him feel it, he asked him why he had not been at church. Nelson replied, "I was, Sir, and if you had been there, you might have seen me; for I never miss going when I have an opportunity." He then asked him if he had preached since they came there and being told that he had not publicly, wished, with an oath, that he would, that he might punish him severely. John Nelson did not forbear, from telling him, that if he did not repent, and leave off his habit of swearing, he would suffer a worse punishment than it was in his power to inflict; and it was not without a great effort of self-restraint, that he subdued his resentment at the insults which this petty tyrant poured upon him, and the threats which he uttered." It caused a sore temptation to arise in me," he says, "to think that an ignorant wicked man should thus torment me, and I able to tie his head and heels together! I found an old man's bone in me; but the Lord lifted up a standard, when anger was coming on like a flood; else I should have wrung his neck to the ground, and set my foot upon him." The Wesleys, however, meantime, were exerting their influence to obtain his discharge, and succeeded by means of the Countess of Huntingdon,His companion, Thomas Beard, who had been pressed for the same reason, would probably have been discharged also, but the consequence of his cruel and illegal impressment had cost him his life. He was seized with a fever, the effect of fatigue and agitation of mind: they let him blood, the arm festered, mortified, and was amputated; and he died soon after the operation!

Resort was had to the same abominable measure for putting a stop to Methodism in various other places. A society had been formed at St. Ives, in Cornwall, by Charles Wesley. There was, however, a strong spirit of opposition in that country; and when news arrived that Admiral Matthews had beaten the Spaniards, the mob pulled down the preachinghouse for joy. "Such," says Wesley, "is the Cor

nish method of thanksgiving!-I suppose if Admiral Lestock had fought too, they would have knocked all the Methodists on the head!" The vulgar supposed them to be disaffected persons, ready to join the Pretender as soon as he should land; and men in a higher rank of life, and of more attainments, thought them "a parcel of crazy-headed fellows," and were so offended and disgusted with their extravagancies, as not only to overlook the good which they really wrought among those who were not reclaimable by any other means, but to connive at, and even encourage any excesses which the brutal multitude might choose to commit against them. As the most expeditious mode of proceeding, pressing was resorted to; and some of the magistrates issued warrants for apprehending several of these obnoxious people, as being "able-bodied men, who had no lawful calling or sufficient maintenance"-a pretext absolutely groundless. Maxfield was seized by virtue of such a warrant, and offered to the captain of a king's ship then in Mount's Bay; but the officer refused to receive him, saying, "I have no authority to take such men as these, unless you would have me give him so much a-week to preach and pray to my people." He was then thrown into prison at Penzance; and when the mayor inclined to release him, Dr. Borlase, who, though a man of character and letters, was not ashamed to take an active part in proceedings like these, read the articles of war, and delivered him over as a soldier. A few days afterwards Mr. Ustick, a Cornish gentleman, came up to Wesley himself, as he was preaching in the open air, and said, "Sir, I have a warrant from Dr. Borlase, and you must go with me." It had been supposed that this was striking at the root; and that if John Wesley himself were laid hold of, Cornwall would be rid of his followers. But, however plausible this may have seemed when the resolution was formed, Mr. Ustick found himself considerably embarrassed when he had taken into his custody one who, instead of being a wild hare-brained fanatic, had all the manner and appearance of a respectable clergyman, and was