He was the peer, in intellectual endowments, of any literary character of that most literary period. No gownsman of the university, no lawned and mitered prelate of his time, was intellectually the superior of this itinerant Methodist--a bishop more truly than the Archprelate of Canterbury himself in everything but the empty name. The hosts of literary pamphleteers and controversialists that rained their attacks upon his system, in showers, were made to feel the keenness of his logic and the staggering weight of his responsive blows. It is a fine sight to look upon, from this distance, that of this single modest man, an unpretentious knight of true religion and consecrated learning, beset for forty years by scores, yes, hundreds, of assailants, armed in all the ostentation of churchly dignity, shooting at him their arrows of tracts and sermons; newspaper writers pouring upon him their ceaseless squibs; malicious critics assailing his motives and his methods with innuendoes and false suggestions; ponderous professors tilting at him with their heavier lances of books and stately treatises; and he, alone, giving more than thrust for thrust, and his brother Charles furnishing the inspiring accompaniment of martial music until one man had chased a thousand, and two have put ten thousand to flight.[L] Speaking of the physical effects produced by Mr. Wesley's preaching, the same writer says: Wesley is in Bristol for nine months--such a nine months Bristol never saw before. No! nor England, nor the world since the day of Pentecost. Wesley's notions of propriety were destined to be still further shocked. Among the multitudes that thronged around him strange physical demonstrations began to appear. They shocked even Whitefield when he heard of them, and he remonstrated with Wesley for seeming to permit or encourage them. Men were smitten by his words as a field of standing corn by a tempest. Intense physical agony prostrated them upon the ground. They stood trembling, with fixed eyeballs staring as though they were looking into eternal horror. Some, who seemed utterly incapable of anything like enthusiasm, were struck as dead. Others beat their breasts and begged for forgiveness for their sins. Others were actually torn and maimed in unconscious convulsions. The story of the demoniac in the gospels was, to all appearances, realized over and over.