It would be endless to describe the dangers and sufferings Harris had to pass through. At Machynlleth, as he preached from a window, an attorney and a clergyman led up a mob to attack him, and one of the two fired a pistol at his head. However, he was unhurt, except by the sticks and stones with which the mob pursued him as he left the town. At Newport his clothes were torn to rags, and he was wounded by the stones thrown at his head. At Caerleon he was pelted with dung and dirt, with eggs and stones and dead dogs, and his companion was totally blinded for life. A drum was beaten whilst he preached to drown his voice. At Bala he fared still worse, and was all but killed. The other Methodist preachers met with the same treatment. There were now many in South Wales, including ten clergymen, and it would seem that those who persecuted the Methodists were soon kept in full employment. One of the squires gave two of his men, Dick, a Welshman, and Mike, an Irishman, a bountiful supply of whiskey, and then sent them off to thrash the preacher. They wanted to hear a little of what he had to say before they began. “Now, let’s at him!” said Mike, after a few minutes. “No,” said Dick. “Then I’ll go my own self and hit him,” said Mike. “If you do,” said Dick, “I’ll hit you, and such a blow that you shan’t want another.” So the preaching went on, and Dick and Mike went peaceably home. “Did you thrash him well?” asked the squire. “Not at all, at all, master,” said Mike. “Sure enough it was Dick’s fault, he threatened to bate me instead of the preacher.”
At another place a strange plan was thought of to stop the preaching. The village choir were mustered, and made to sing the 119th Psalm close to the preacher, in which they persevered for hours without ceasing. One preacher, who was used to preach on a little mound in Denbighshire, had a narrow escape. A hole was dug in the mound, two feet in width, filled with gunpowder, and covered with turf. A train was placed which was to be lighted during the preaching. But a man who was passing by an hour before, observed the train, and, though not a Methodist, he thought he would like to play a trick to the people who had made the plot. So he scraped out the powder, separated the train, and watched to see the disappointment of the man who really came, when the preaching began, and set a light to it. This preacher was afterward imprisoned for six months in Dolgelly Gaol, where the magistrate who imprisoned him went to see him. “Well, Lewis,” he said, “here you are still, and here you are likely to be forever.” “No, sir,” said Lewis, “neither you nor I shall be here forever.” “If you were but to give me a little money I could get you out.” “Indeed, sir!” said Lewis, “I think that you ought to get me out for nothing, for you had most to do in putting me in.” The magistrate knew this, for he had been told that he had acted unlawfully in his sentence upon Lewis, and was therefore anxious to get him out, making at the same time a little money by it. However, Lewis’s friends proved that his imprisonment was unlawful, and the magistrate had to release him for nothing. Another preacher was taken away from his little motherless children, and sent into the navy. He died in a foreign land. He had at first been leader of the choir in the parish church, where it struck him one day that he and the rest of the choir had never made the Lord their object in singing, but their thought had been to have their singing admired by the congregation. He felt that, if he told the truth, he ought not to give out the hymn saying, “Let us sing to the praise and glory of God,” it would be more truthful to say, “Let us sing to our own praise and glory.” Thus convinced of sin, he had begun to read the Bible, and to hear the Methodists, and before he was seized he had preached the gospel diligently.
Others besides the preachers had to suffer. The Methodist farmer would find that cows had been turned into his corn, that his tools were broken to pieces, that the winnowed corn would be mixed up again with the chaff. He had to submit to be at last turned out of his farm by the landlord. One of these men had to take refuge in a cave far up on the side of Snowdon, where a shepherd fed him for weeks. Afterward, in order to be near his family, he lived in a hole in a furze bank, covered up with the furze. A poor widow had to leave her house, and live with her children in a shed she built on a common. Thus it was no small matter to make a stand for Christ, and we should be thankful to hear of so many who rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame and ill-treatment for His blessed name. All this was going on when, in the summer of 1745, Wesley went for a little while to preach amongst the Welsh mountains. He was cheered and refreshed by all that he saw and heard amongst God’s persecuted people, and no doubt they were cheered, too, by having him for a while amongst them.
On leaving Wales, Wesley returned, by way of Bristol, to London. In September, we find him again in the North, where things were in a disturbed state. The people of Newcastle had, just before Wesley entered the town, received the alarming news that Charles Edward Stuart had taken possession of Edinburgh, and would soon march southwards into England.
The walls of Newcastle were mounted at once with cannon, and the people either fled, or removed their goods, and prepared for an assault. The effect of all this was to rouse some to anxiety about their souls, so that they listened eagerly to the preaching, and to rouse others to greater fury against the Methodists, who were accused of plotting against the Government by secretly helping Prince Charles. Lady Huntingdon, as well as the poorer Methodists, had thus been accused. You remember that Wesley himself, when in Cornwall, had been suspected of the same plans. These accusations, however, turned out in the end, under God’s ordering, to be for the advantage of the Methodists, for Lady Huntingdon, hearing that several preachers had been ill-used on these pretenses, sent a remonstrance to the king, George II, by means of Lord Carteret, one of the Secretaries of State, who was connected with her family. The king sent the following reply through Lord Carteret—“My royal master,” writes Lord Carteret, “commands me to assure your ladyship that, as the father and protector of his people, he will suffer no persecution on account of religion; and I am desired to inform all magistrates to afford protection and countenance to such persons as may require to be protected in the conscientious discharge of their religious observances.”
No doubt this had the effect of lessening, in some degree, the persecutions to which Methodists had been exposed, though they continued to suffer, as you will hear, from time to time, and not infrequently from enraged mobs, and from many in a higher class who should have protected them. Every public event that happened, seems to have been turned into an occasion for attacking the Methodists, as, for instance, on this journey into the North, the band of preachers, including Wesley, were pelted with dirt and stones; “the mob,” says Wesley, “being ready to knock out all our brains for joy that the Duke of Tuscany (who was an ally of England) was chosen Emperor of Germany.” Meanwhile the Newcastle Methodists were peaceably employed in hearing the Word and in prayer, praying specially for King George, and for the defeat of Charles Stuart. They were well aware that, were he to conquer England, Popery would be forced upon the nation; and whilst Wesley was preaching to them, the report was spread elsewhere that he was with Charles Stuart near Edinburgh.
Before the end of the year Wesley returned to London, and it was just as he arrived there that Prince Charles marched into England, and made his way as far as Derby. There, as perhaps you know, he was forced to retreat, and to return with the remains of his army to Scotland. The Methodists, who had met constantly for prayer at the Foundry and elsewhere, received the news of his retreat as an answer from the Lord.
The following year Wesley continued his journeys, now including Sussex. A clergyman at Shoreham, Mr. Perronet, had invited the Methodists to preach in Sussex, because it was through them he had himself found peace in believing.