“I am, dear brethren, your affectionate brother, “JOHN WESLEY.” It is hardly necessary to track the steps of Wesley throughout the whole of a journey which occupied the next five months. He opened the new chapel at Bath, of which more must be said shortly. On Friday, March 19, he preached in Bengeworth church at noon; and, at six, in the church at Pebworth. At West Bromwich, during a terrific storm of wind and hail, he addressed a congregation in the open air. At Madeley, he preached in the new chapel, built by his friend Fletcher, in Madeley Wood. He opened a new chapel at Davyhulme, Manchester. He also paid his first visit to Oldham, where he says: “I had such a congregation as I have not seen since I was in the Cornish amphitheatre. And all, beside a few giddy children, were seriously attentive.” This was a great improvement in the manners of the Oldham people. When Matthew Mayer commenced preaching here in 1763, he asked a man to allow him to stand before his door. “No,” replied the Lancashire savage; and then he swore that, if Mayer attempted to gather a congregation there, he would cleave his skull. Having removed to the door of Jonathan Mabbot’s, in George Street, Mayer mounted a stool; but he had no sooner sung and prayed, than the mob, led on by churchwardens and constables, surrounded him. “By what authority do you come hither?” asked the Oldham functionaries. “By what authority do you ask me?” replied Mr. Mayer. “Pull him down, pull him down!” cried the mob; and then one of the constables upset the preacher’s stool; and the zealous guardians of the Church shouted, “We want none of your preaching here.” On the Sunday following, while Mayer was preaching, the mob amused themselves by thrusting pins into the legs and arms of serious hearers; and, on the Sunday after that, a brute was hired for threepence halfpenny to strip himself stark naked, and rush into the midst of Mayer’s congregation. On another occasion, John Murlin was dragged from his horseblock pulpit, and was thrown into a dungeon; and, on another, James Hall was honoured with the presence not only of the constables, churchwardens, and Oldham mob, but also of a huntsman and his hounds. The churchwardens raved; the constables brandished their official staves; the mob bawled; the dogs barked; and the huntsman blew his horn with such vehemence that Mr. Hall found it impossible to preach, but, for an hour and a half, continued to sing and pray.[323] Leaving Oldham, Wesley proceeded to Northwich and other places in Cheshire; then to Warrington, Liverpool, Bolton, Rochdale, Bacup, and Padiham. He writes: “April 13--At one o’clock, I preached in the shell of the house at Padiham, where there is at length a prospect of peace, after abundance of disturbance, caused by one who neither fears God nor reverences man.”