Chapter XII - Wesley Faces Mobs
The Wednesbury Riots.--Before the Magistrate.--A
Noble Champion.--"Always Look a Mob in the Face."--Stoned
at the Market Cross.--Causes of the Disturbance.--Quieter Times.
THE Wesleys had been censured by bishops, cursed by High Church
clergy, and slandered by a host of pamphleteers. But this stormy
course of violent words was only the prelude to the ferocious
attacks of the mobs which came, like wild beasts, howling on
their track in the moral wilderness of England.
The "Black Country," in the northern part of Staffordshire,
was the scene of one of the earliest and most violent persecutions.
The towns of Wednesbury, Walsall, and Darlaston had won for
themselves an unenviable notoriety for lawlessness. The brutal
sports of these towns reflected the moral condition of the people.
Bull baiting and cockfighting provided scenes of riotous delight.
Charles Wesley was the first Methodist who preached at Wednesbury,
in November, 1742. John soon followed, and a society of one
hundred members, increased to more than three hundred by the
following May, was speedily formed. The storm soon broke. Charles
preached in May at Walsall from the steps of the market house
the mob roaring, shouting, and throwing stones incessantly,
many of which struck him, but none hurt him.
Soon after this the rioters of the three towns turned out in
force and smashed windows, furniture, and houses. People were
promiscuously struck and bruised. The magistrates, on being
appealed to by the Methodists for protection, told them they
were themselves to blame for the outrages, and refused all assistance.
Wesley, in London, received a full account of this terrible
six-days' riot, and thus writes: "I was not surprised at
all; neither should I have wondered if, after the advices they
had so often received from the pulpit as well as from the episcopal
chair, the zealous High Churchmen had risen and cut all that
were Methodists in pieces!"
Wesley proceeded at once to the scene to render what assistance
he could. But no redress could be obtained. In October he went
again to this den of wild beasts. While he was writing at Francis
Ward's the mob beset the house and cried, "Bring out the
minister; we will have the minister!" Wesley asked some
one to take their captain by the hand and lead him in. After
a few words the lion became a lamb. Wesley now asked him to
bring two of the bitterest opponents inside. He soon returned
with a couple who "were ready to swallow the ground with
rage; but in two minutes they were as calm as he." Then,
mounting a chair in the midst of the mob, he demanded, "What
do any of you want with me?"
Some said, amid the clamor, "We want you to go with us
to the justice."
"That I will," said Wesley, "with all my heart."
The few words he added had such an effect that the mob shouted,
"The gentleman is an honest gentleman, and we will spill
our blood in his defense."
Some dispersed to their homes, but Wesley and the rest, some
two or three hundred, set out for the magistrate's house. Darkness
and heavy rain came on in about half an hour, or by the time
they had walked a mile, but they pushed forward another mile,
to the justice's house at Bentley Hall. Some of the advance
guard told that officer, Mr. Lane, that they were bringing Wesley.
"What have I to do with Mr. Wesley?" quoth the magistrate.
"Take him back again."
When the crowd came up and knocked for admission the magistrate
declined to see them, sending word that he was in bed. His son
came out and asked their business. A spokesman answered, "To
be plain, sir, if I must speak the truth, all the fault I find
with him is that he preaches better than our parsons."
Another said: "Sir, it is a downright shame; he makes
people rise at five in the morning to sing psalms. What advice
would your worship give us?"
"To go home," said young Lane, "and be quiet."
Not getting much satisfaction there, they now hurried Wesley
to Walsall, to Justice Persehouse. Although it was only about
seven o'clock, he also sent word that he had gone to bed, and
refused to see them. Yet these very magistrates had recently
issued an order calling on all officers of justice to search
for and bring before them any Methodist preacher found in the
district.
At last they all thought it wise to make their way home, and
some fifty of the crowd undertook to convey Wesley back to Wednesbury.
But they had. not gone a hundred yards when the mob of Walsall
burst upon them. They showed fight but, being wearied and greatly
outnumbered, were soon overpowered, and Wesley was left in the
hands of his new enemies
Some tried to seize him by the collar and pull him down. A
big, lusty fellow just behind him struck at him several times
with an oaken club. If one of these blows had taken effect,
as Wesley says, "it would have saved all further trouble.
But every time the blow was turned aside, I know not how, for
I could not move to the right hand or left? Another, rushing
through the crowd, lifted his arm to strike, but on a sudden
let it drop and only stroked Wesley's head, saying, "What
soft hair he has!" One man struck him on the breast, and
another on the mouth with such force that the blood gushed out;
but he felt no more pain, he affirms, from either than if they
had touched him with a straw; not, certainly, because he was
over excited or alarmed, for he assures us that from the beginning
to the end he was enabled to maintain as much presence of mind
as if he had been sitting in his study, but his thoughts were
entirely absorbed in watching the movements of the rioters.
When he had been pulled to the west end of the town, seeing
a door half open--which proved, strangely enough, to be the
mayor's, though he did not know it--he made toward it to go
in; but the owner, who was inside, would not suffer it, saying
the mob would pull the house down to the ground. However, Wesley
stood at the door, and raising his voice to the maddened throng,
asked, "Are you willing to hear me speak?" Many cried
out, "No! No! Knock his brains out! Down with him! Kill
him at once!" Others said, "Nay, but we will hear
him first!" Then he spoke a while, until his voice suddenly
failed. Now the cry was: "Bring him away! Bring him away
!" Recovering his strength, he began to pray aloud. Then
the ruffian who had headed the rabble, a prize fighter at the
bear garden, struck with awe, turned and said: "Sir, I
will spend my life for you! Follow me, and not one soul here
shall touch a hair of your head!" Others of his companions
joined with him in this new departure. An honest butcher also
interposed and thrust away four or five of the most violent
assailants. The people fell back to the right and left, and
in the charge of his new-found protectors Wesley was borne through
the infuriated crowd and escorted to his lodgings at Wednesbury,
having lost only one flap of his waistcoat and a little skin
from one of his hands. He says concerning it: "I took no
thought for one moment before 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 boots." "I never saw such a chain of
providences before; so many convincing proofs that the hand
of God is on every person and thing, overruling all as it seemeth
him good."
In the midst of all these perils four brave Methodists--William
Sitch, Edward Slater, John Griffith, and Joan Parks--clung fast
to Wesley's side, resolved to live or die with him. None received
a blow save William, who was knocked down, but soon got up again.
When Wesley asked William Sitch what he expected when the mob
seized them he answered with a martyr's spirit, "To die
for him who died for us." And when Joan Parks was asked
if she was not afraid she said: "No, no more than I am
now. I could trust God for you as well as for myself."
When Wesley reached Wednesbury the friends were praying for
him in the house from which he had started. His sufferings awoke
general sympathy. Next morning, as he rode through the town,
he says, "Everyone I met expressed such a cordial affection
that I could scarce believe what I saw and heard." Charles
Wesley met him at Nottingham. He says his brother "looked
like a soldier of Christ. His clothes were torn to tatters."
Charles went straight from Nottingham to the scenes of the rioting,
boldly bearding the lions in their den. He was constitutionally
a timid man, as he often confesses, but there was nothing he
feared so much as to offend his own conscience.
He arrived at Wednesbury five days after the miraculous escape
of his brother, and found the Methodists "standing fast
in one mind and spirit, in nothing terrified by their adversaries."
He writes: "We assembled before day to sing hymns to Christ
as God. As soon as it was light I walked down the town and preached
.... It was a most glorious time." The clergyman at Darlaston
was so struck with the meek behavior of the Methodists in the
midst of suffering that he offered to join the Wesleys in punishing
the rioters. As for "honest Munchin," the nickname
for George Clifton, the captain of the rabble, who had rescued
Wesley, he was so impressed with Wesley's spirit that he immediately
forsook his godless, profligate gang, and was received on trial
into the Methodist society by Charles. The latter asked him,
"What think you of my brother?" "Think of him?"
was the answer, "That he is a mon of God; and God was on
his side, when so mony of us could not kill one mon." Clifton
lived a good life after this, and died in Birmingham, aged eighty-five,
in 1789, two years before Wesley. He was never weary of telling
the story of that night when he might have taken life, had not
God stayed his hand.
It was John Wesley's rule, confirmed, he says, by experience,
"always to look a mob in the face." An indescribable
dignity in his bearing, a light in his eyes, and a spiritual
influence pervading his whole personality often overawed and
captured the very leaders of the riots.
At St. Ives, in Cornwall, when the mob attempted to break up
his meeting, he says: "I went into the midst, and brought
the head of the mob up with me to the desk. I received but one
blow on the side of the head, after which we reasoned the case,
till he grew milder and milder, and at length undertook to quiet
his companions." A similar incident is recorded a few years
later when a lieutenant at Plymouth-dock, with his retinue of
soldiers and drummers, headed a raging crowd. "After waiting
about a quarter of an hour," says Wesley, "perceiving
the violence of the rabble still increasing, I walked down into
the thickest of them and took the captain of the mob by the
hand. He immediately said: ' Sir, I will see you safe home.
Sir, no man shall touch you. Gentlemen, stand off! give back!
I will knock down the first man that touches him! ' We walked
on in great peace, my conductor, a very tall man, stretching
out his neck and looking round to see if any behaved rudely,
till we came to Mr. Hide's door. We then parted in much love.
I stayed in the street, after he was gone, talking with the
people who had now forgot their anger and went away in high
good humor."
Sometimes the rioters themselves were the chief sufferers from
the missiles and clubs so freely used. Wesley gives a striking
instance of this at Bolton, Lancashire, when he preached at
the Cross. One man was bawling just at Wesley's ear, "when
a stone struck him on the cheek, and he was still." A second
was forcing his way to assault Wesley, when another stone hit
him on the forehead, "the blood ran down, and he came no
farther." A third stretched out his hand, and in the instant
a sharp stone came upon the joints of his fingers, and he was
"very quiet" during the rest of the discourse, which
was finished in peace. A year later, in the same town, Wesley
was followed "full cry" to the house where he stayed.
A raging crowd filled the street and took possession of every
room in the house. One friend who ventured out was thrown down,
rolled in the mire, and thrust back in such a state that "one
could scarce tell who he was." Wesley called for a chair
and quietly stood upon it. "The winds were hushed, and
all was calm and still. My heart was filled with love, my eyes
with tears, and my mouth with arguments." In a few hours
the entire scene was changed, and none opened their mouths unless
to bless or thank the Methodists!
When Wesley was preaching at Gwennap two men raging like maniacs
rode furiously into the midst of the congregation and began
to lay hold upon the people. Wesley commenced singing, and one
man cried to his attendants, "Seize him, seize him, I say;
seize the preacher for his majesty's service." Cursing
the servants for their slowness, he leaped from his horse, caught
Wesley by the cassock, crying, "I take you to serve his
majesty." Wesley walked with him three quarters of a mile,
when the courage of the bravo failed, and, finding he was dealing
with a gentleman, he offered to take him to his house, but Wesley
declined the invitation. The man called for horses and took
Wesley back to the preaching place.
The next day at Falmouth more serious perils awaited him. The
rioters attacked the house where he was staying, and the noise
was like "the taking of a city by storm." The outer
door was forced; only a wainscot partition was between them
and the object of their rage. Wesley calmly took down a large
looking-glass which hung against the partition. The daughter,
Kitty, cries out, "O, sir, what must we do?"
"We must pray," he replied.
"But, sir, is it not better for you to hide yourself ?"
"No," said Wesley. "It is best for me to stand
just where I am."
The crews of some privateers, to hurry matters, set their shoulders
to the inner door, and cried, "Avast, lads, avast!"
and the door gave way. Wesley stepped forward at once and said:
"Here I am. Which of you has anything to say to me? To
which of you have I done any wrong? Toyou? Or you? Or you?"
He walked on as he talked until he came to the middle of the
street, when, raising his voice, he cried with great dignity:
"Neighbors, countrymen! Do you desire to hear me speak
?"
"Yes, yes," they answered; "he shall speak."
The captains of the mob, admiring his courage, commanded silence
while he spoke, and afterward conducted him in safety to another
house.
The reasons assigned by the rioters themselves for their opposition
to Methodism were very various and curious, but they often echoed
the pulpit cries of the day, or were the outcome of passing
popular and unreasoning excitement ready to seize on any excuse
for violence. When Wesley visited St. Ives the second time,
in 1744, he found the mob had pulled down the preaching house
"for joy that Admiral Matthews had beat the Spaniards such
is the Cornish method of thanks giving. I suppose, if Admiral
Lestock had fought too, they would have knocked all the Methodists
on the head." The violence of the clergy was not any more
intelligent. The bigoted rector of Penzance had several Methodists
committed to prison, among them Edward Greenfield, a tanner,
who had a wife and seven children. Wesley asked what objection
there was to this peaceable man, and the answer came: "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!"
The main responsibility of these riots lay with the clergymen
and "gentlemen" who stirred up the excitable people,
and cannot be attributed to any illegal or rash actions of the
Wesleys.
Miss Wedgwood, who is far from being a Methodist, says, concerning
John Wesley: "Nothing that could form the flimsiest pretext
for the treatment received by his followers can be brought home
to him. He does not appear to have separated families; he never
went where he had not a perfect right to be; he addressed those
whom he regarded as beyond his pale in courteous and modern
language; he never thrust his exhortations on anybody. The attacks
of enemies, and even the accounts of alienated disciples, may
be read without extracting a single anecdote that we should
think discreditable to him; indeed, it is from this source that
we derive much valuable, because unconscious, testimony to the
good influence of his code on secular life. We cannot, then,
admit that Wesley's errors of judgment or limitations of sympathy
had even the slightest share in producing the popular fury of
which instances have just been given."
It is noteworthy that, while Wesley's persecutors passed quickly
away, nearly all who took patiently the spoiling of their goods
lived long and peaceful lives. Wesley notes the sad end of many
persecutors. Egginton, the Vicar of Wednesbury, who delivered
a sermon against the Methodists which Wesley pronounced the
most wicked he ever heard, and who was responsible for the violence
of the mob, died in a few months. At Bristol, in 1743, a clergyman
preached terrible sermons in several city churches against the
upstart Methodists, and was about to do so in the Church of
St. Nicholas, when, after announcing his text, he was seized
with a rattling in the throat, fell backward in the pulpit,
and expired the following Sunday. In some instances those who
planned the death of the preachers were themselves wounded,
and even killed, by their companions. The Methodists were not
driven out; they more and more became masters of the situation,
and after 1757 peace reigned almost everywhere. It was due largely
to Wesley's good generalship, his perfect command of his forces,
and the noble example which he himself set. Isaac Taylor's verdict
is, "When encountering the ruffianism of mobs and of magistrates,
he showed a firmness as well as a guileless skill, which, if
the martyr's praise might admit of such an adjunct, was graced
with the dignity and courtesy of the gentleman." Wesley
was always the gentleman and the scholar. As Rigg says: "It
was contrary alike to his temper and his tactics, to his courtesy
and to his common sense, to say or do anything which might justly
offend the taste of those with Whom he had to do .... Wesley's
perfect, placid intrepidity, his loving calmness and serenity
of spirit, amid whatever rage of violence and under whatever
provocations and assaults, must always remain a wonder to the
historian. His heroism was perfect; his self-possession never
failed him for a moment; the serenity of his temper was never
ruffled. Such bravery and self-command and goodness, in circumstances
so terrible and threatening, were too much for his persecutors
everywhere. He always triumphed in the end."
Chapter 13: In Conference with the Preachers
Text scanning, proofreading,
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