He now spent three weeks more at Bristol, during which he opened the first Methodist chapel at Trowbridge, a chapel built by Lawrence Oliphant, who, while a soldier, had been converted under the preaching of John Haime, in Flanders. Wesley writes: “September 17.—I rode to Trowbridge, where one who found peace with God while he was a soldier in Flanders, and has been much prospered in business since his discharge, has built a preaching house at his own expense. He had a great desire that I should be the first who preached in it; but, before I had finished the hymn, it was so crowded, and consequently so hot, that I was obliged to go out and stand at the door; there was a multitude of hearers, rich and poor.” About the time that Wesley preached at the opening of Trowbridge chapel, Samuel Bowden, M.D., bespattered the Wiltshire Methodists by the publication of a satirical poem, entitled “The Mechanic Inspired; or, the Methodist’s Welcome to Frome,” dedicated to Lord Viscount Dungarvan. A few of the first lines of this scurrilous production will suffice as a specimen of all the rest: “Ye vagabond Levites, who ramble about, To gull with your priestcraft an ignorant rout, Awhile your nonsensical canting suspend, And now to my honester ballad attend. The dupes of sly, Romish, itinerant liars, The spawn of French Prophets, and mendicant friars; Ye pious enthusiasts! who riot, and rob, With holy grimace, and sanctified sob.”[215] Such were some of the choice epithets heaped upon Wesley and his helpers by this refined and accomplished son of Æsculapius. On September 27, Wesley thought he “had strength enough to keep a watchnight, which he had not done before for eleven months;” but, at eleven o’clock, he almost lost his voice; and, the next evening, at Weavers’ Hall, Bristol, it entirely failed. He now set out for London, halting at Salisbury on the way. While here, he walked to Old Sarum, “which,” says he, “in spite of common sense, without house or inhabitants, still sends two members to the parliament.” On October 4, he arrived in London, where he seems to have continued during the remainder of the year. It was a year of great feebleness and affliction; but Wesley, though an invalid, crowded into it as much work as would have been done by any ordinary man in the best of health. What were the works he published? 1. “An Extract of the Rev. John Wesley’s Journal, from November 25, 1746, to July 20, 1749.” 12mo, 139 pages. 2. “An Answer to all which the Rev. Dr. Gill has printed on the Final Perseverance of the Saints.” 12mo, 12 pages. This is a poem of thirty-seven stanzas of eight lines each, many of which are scorchingly sarcastic. The tract is now extremely scarce, and hence we give the following lengthened quotations. The devil, addressing the elect, is made to say— “God is unchangeable, And therefore so are you, And therefore they can never fail, Who once His goodness knew.