No wonder, therefore, considering the bigotry of his age, that Wesley was exposed to persecution by the mobs: but his leniency towards Romanism was not the only cause of this. To-day, however, I wish to utilize the story of the attacks made on the Methodists to shew the state of the country. Mob law was powerful wherever population was dense. Towns were gradually growing up and the English system of legal machinery was devised rather for a rural population. There was no police properly so called. Shakespeare’s Dogberry and Verges would not have been caricatures in the 18th century. Wesley himself speaks of the watchmen as “those poor fools.” The violence of the mob was a feature of the 18th century in England. Perhaps you may recollect Hogarth’s picture of the chairing of a member of Parliament after an election,--the man laying about him with a flail, the prize-fights, etc. Riots play an important part in the history of the time and the no-popery riot in 1780 when Lord George Gordon stirred up the fanaticism of the London mob is only one of many similar occurrences. Never did the brothers Wesley, John and Charles, shew the courage of good breeding more conspicuously than when they faced an infuriated rabble and saved themselves and their followers by the dignity of their demeanour and the fearless mildness of their conduct amid scenes of tumult. Witness the affair at Wednesbury and Walsall. The mob dragged John Wesley from one magistrate to another. Some tried to protect him but were overpowered. To quote the Journal: “To attempt speaking was vain; for the noise on every side was like the roaring of the sea. So they dragged me along till they came to the town where seeing the door of a large house open, I attempted to go in; but a man catching me by the hair pulled me back into the middle of the mob.... I continued speaking all the time to those within hearing, feeling neither pain nor weariness.... I stood at the door (of a shop) and asked ‘Are you willing to hear me speak?’ Many cried out ‘No, no, knock his brains out, kill him at once, etc.’.... In the mean time my strength and voice returned and I broke out aloud in prayer. And now the man who just before headed the mob, 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.” Throughout the riot Wesley notices: “From first to last I heard none give me a reviling word, or call me by any opprobrious name; but the cry of one and all was “The Preacher! the Parson! the Minister!” A man rushed at him to strike him but paused and merely stroked his head, saying, “Why, what soft hair he has!” In Cornwall attempts were made to stop Methodism by calling in the aid of the Press-Gang. Thomas Maxfield was caught and offered to the captain of a ship in Mount’s Bay, who refused to take him. An attempt was actually made to press John Wesley. A clergyman, Dr. Borlase, acted in his magisterial capacity to further this infamous project. But a Mr.