Part 23 (2/2)

Then he spoke a feords to theentleman, and ill spill our blood in his defence”

But they changed their minds later on; for they ely, and those who had been loud in their promises to protect hied to Walsall One man hit him in the mouth with such force that the blood streamed from the wound; another struck him on the breast; a third seized hi,” cried Wesley, ”to hear me?”

”No, no!” they answered; ”knock out his brains, doith him, kill him at once!”

”What evil,” asked Wesley, ”have I done? Which of you all have I wronged by word or deed?” Then he began to pray; and one of the ringleaders said to him:--

”Sir, I will spend my life for you; follow me, and no one shall hurt a hair of your head”

Others took his part also--one, fortunately, being a prizefighter

Wesley thus describes the finish of this remarkable adventure:--

”A little before ten o'clock God broughtlost only one flap of my waistcoat, and a little skin fro to the end I found the sa in ht from one moment to another; only once it came into my mind that, if they should throw me into the river, it would spoil the papers that were in my pocket Forbut a thin coat and a light pair of shoes”

At Pensford the rabble regation; at Whitechapel they drove cows a the listeners and threw stones, one of which hit Wesley between the eyes; but after he had wiped away the blood he went on with his address, telling the people that ”God hath not given us the spirit of fear”

At St Ives in Cornwall there was a great uproar, but Wesley went ae to say, the preacher received but one blow, and then he reasoned the case out with the agitator, and the man undertook to quiet his companions

Thus Wesley went fearlessly from place to place He visited Ireland forty-two tihty-four he crossed over to the Channel Islands in storh and low, rich and poor, received the Word gladly”

He alent on horseback till quite late in life, when his friends persuaded hi his engagements In 1743 he set out from Epworth to Grimsby; but was told at the ferry he could not cross the Trent owing to the storation should not be disappointed; and he so worked on the boats that they took him over even at the risk of their lives

At Bristol, in 1772, he was told that highwaymen were on the road, and had robbed all the coaches that passed, so,” as he writes, ”that God would take care of us; and He did so, for before we cahwaymen were taken, and so ent on unmolested, and came safe to Bristol”

This immense labour had no ill effect upon his health In June, 1786, when he was entering his eighty-fourth year, he writes: ”I am a wonder to myself It is noelve years since I have felt such a sensation as weariness I a”

When Wesley was on his death-bed he wrote to Wilberforce cheering hiainst the slave trade

”Unless God has raised you up for this very thing,” writes Wesley, ”you will be worn out by the opposition of ainst you? Go on in the naht till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it”

Wesley died, at the ripe age of eighty-eight, in the year 1791 He had saved no money, so had none to leave behind; but he was one of those ”poor” persons who ”ifts and bequests was ”6 to be divided a the six poor rave; for I particularly desire that there be no hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp”

SOME CHILDREN OF THE KINGDOM

Shortly after Mwanga, King of Uganda, came to the throne, reports were made to that weak-State, to collect an ar thus beco against theif necessary Thus he coes, who received instruction froarded himself as little better than a brother