Before Whitefield had an opportunity to answer, poor Beard, as one of the first of Methodism’s martyrs, had been called to inherit a martyr’s crown. Wesley, in 1744, wrote thus concerning him:―― “Thomas Beard, a quiet and peaceable man, who had lately been torn from his trade, and wife and children, and sent away as a soldier; that is, banished from all that was near and dear to him, and constrained to dwell among lions, for no other crime, either committed or pretended, than that of calling sinners to repentance. But his soul was in nothing terrified by his adversaries. Yet the body, after a while, sunk under its burden. He was then lodged in the hospital at Newcastle, where he still praised God continually. His arm festered, mortified, and was cut off: two or three days after which, God signed his discharge, and called him up to his eternal home.” The case of Thomas Beard was far from being a solitary one. Magistrates, as well as mobs, hated the Methodists, and were always ready to approve of the violent proceedings of the press-gangs of the period. Not a few of both Wesley’s and Whitefield’s preachers and people were driven from their homes, and dragged into the army. Two purposes were thought to be served by these high-handed acts; first, the army obtained the recruits it greatly needed; and, secondly, as both mobs and magistrates imagined, the voices of Methodists and Methodist preachers were likely to be silenced. The last was a huge mistake. It may fairly be questioned whether the Methodists, who were forced into the army and navy, did not, in such positions, render greater service to the cause of Christ and of Methodism, than they could have rendered had they remained at home unmolested. Passing men like John Nelson, Thomas Beard, and many others, pressed into regiments at home, there were a considerable number with the English army in Flanders, whose heroism and Christianity will always shed a lustre on Methodism’s early annals. Wesley mentions some of these with the highest approbation, as, for instance, John Haime, John Greenwood, William Clements, John Evans, and others. Whitefield also, in his periodical, the _Christian History_,[105] published a number of letters, written by soldiers belonging to his own community, as well as by some who were Wesley’s followers. One man, at Ghent, under the date of December 24, 1744, tells of being recently converted under the preaching of a “dragoon,” belonging to “the first regiment of guards,” in which regiment there were now “about a hundred members of that branch of the Society, that is, the _United Society_.” He continues: “The Lord adds to our number daily, and works very powerfully amongst us.” Another, at the same place, blesses God that he ever heard John Cennick preach. Anthony Conjuet, “a drummer in the English camp in Flanders,” relates that he and the regiment of English Guards had lately been “seven hours under the firing of the French