Strange 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 times, as well as Scotland and Wales. When he was
eighty-four he crossed over to the Channel Islands in stormy weather;
and there "high and low, rich and poor, received the Word gladly".
He always went on horseback till quite late in life, when his friends
persuaded him to have a chaise. No weather could stop him from keeping
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 storm.
But he was determined his Grimsby congregation should not be
disappointed; and he so worked on the boatmen's feelings 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, some just previously. But
Wesley felt no uneasiness, "knowing," as he writes, "that God would
take care of us; and He did so, for before we came to the spot all the
highwaymen were taken, and so we went on unmolested, and came safe to
Bristol".
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