'At that time the Methodists were looked upon as the worst of men, and the most horrible things were laid to their charge that could be invented. They were represented as hypocrites, blasphemers, disturbers of the peace of families and of the nation; and to associate with them was said to be the way to destroy body, soul, and substance. Others, indeed, might curse and swear, get drunk, profane the Sabbath, and starve their families, and yet be in no danger of persecution or ill-treatment of any kind; but, on the contrary, were deemed innocent creatures in comparison of the Methodists.'

When his heart was changed, even his nearest kin turned against him; they said 'it would be no more sin to kill me than to kill a mad dog.' Yet this man, who possessed a small estate, which sufficed for the support of his large family, was one of the bravest of volunteers: food and raiment were all I could expect or ever desired as a temporal reward.'

According to Wesley himself, Thomas Payne, a native of Gloucestershire, 1741-1783, was 'a plain, honest, zealous man; fearing neither men nor devils.' It was his privilege to have pious parents; but the good impressions of youth wore away, and enlisting in the service of the East India Company, he was sent to the island of St. Helena. He was impressed by many things: he saw a shark bite a man in two pieces; 'others, getting drunk, rolled down precipices,' while 'others fell into the sea,' so that large numbers on the island 'did not live out half their days.' His growing seriousness was

stimulated by what he may be excused for calling an extraordinary occurrence :

'One night, as I was standing sentinel at Mr. M's door, I heard a dreadful rattling, as if the house was all shaken to pieces, and tumbling down about my ears. Looking towards it, I saw an appearance, about the size of a six-weeks' calf, lying at the door. It rose, came towards me, looked me in the face, passed by, returned again, and went to the door. The house shook as before, and it disappeared. A few days after, our head innkeeper, Mr. M, told the officer of the guard, that the same night Mrs. M― died, he, with eight persons more sitting up, observed the house shake exceedingly; that they were greatly surprised, and carefully searched every room, but to no purpose; that not long after there was a second shaking, as violent as the former; that a while after the house shook a third time; and just then Mrs. M- died.'

His religious convictions returned, but for long he was in the Slough of Despond, continually having 'some dreadful dream presaging the wrath to come.' Some laughed at him, and one fellowsoldier, to provoke him, used an expression of an unusually blasphemous kind, and judgment overtook him :

'Immediately a horror fell upon him, and from that hour he had no rest, day or night, till he made an open confession to a magistrate that seven years before he had murdered a soldier, whose apparition followed him wherever he was.'

The man was condemned to death, but Payne seems to have been instrumental in his conversion. Payne's distress rather increased than otherwise. He dreamed that he was on 'a frightful precipice,' one being about to hurl him down, 'when I was turned into a white dove, and flew up again.' The man in the dream, however, corresponded to one who afterwards bore false witness against him, so that he was sent back to England, where he enlisted again. He did good work in the army, but, his discharge being paid for, he afterwards served as a local preacher in Ireland and elsewhere. He was hardly more than a young man when he died.

Like the above soldier adventurer, Richard Rodda, 1743-1815, supplied Wesley with some account of himself. Like some of his comrades, he could tell of wonderful experiences in early life at home. Thus, as an infant of four years, 'as I was lying on the ground, and looking up to heaven, I thought I saw the form of a large trec. While I gazed on it, something inwardly said, "This is the tree of life." Soon after, his mother falling into a deep consumption' was so reduced in strength that she 'could not walk across the room.' The surgeons of the time were for most part a source of danger rather than of benefit; but 'she was perfectly restored by making a hole in the ground, and breathing into it for a quarter of an hour every morning.'

In early life he was providentially saved from drowning 'forty fathoms under ground,' as by a miracle. Afterwards, being the victim of a

dangerous fever, he was supposed to be dead, and he even thought himself that his 'soul had actually left the body, and was mounting upwards like a bird in the air.' He adds: 'I saw the eternal Sun of Righteousness shining more glorious than the sun in his meridian lustre. Indeed, I had such views of God and glory as I never had before or since.' He was impressed for the navy, but got off, many of his neighbours who were shipped off being less fortunate. Rodda did good itinerant work for nearly a third of a century, and in the latter part of his life laboured in London.

Thomas Walsh, a native of Limerick, 1730-1758, passed away as quite a young man; but besides being a convert from Romanism, he was remarkable for that persevering application which enabled him to read both the Old and the New Testaments in their original tongues, while Irish and English were to him as native languages. He ruined his health by too close application.

He

If his bones had been brass, and his flesh iron, they must have yielded to the violence which his life and labours offered to his constitution. enjoyed good health till about the nineteenth year of his age, which was the year of his conversion to God. But from the twentieth to the twenty-eighth, which was the last year of his sojourning among men, his life may be said to be no other than a lingering death; as he never was a whole day free from pain or weakness.'

The life of John Pawson, 1737-1806, like so

many of the others, was written by himself, and there is a concluding note by Dr. Adam Clarke. The account is valuable, because we see something of the everyday eighteenth-century life 'in a very obscure village near Leeds,' while his parents were strict church-people. 'My father maintained his authority in his own house, and his word gave law to his children,' he says; adding, 'we had not the Gospel preached in Thorner, and . . . I am of opinion that there was not a single person in the place who had any saving knowledge of God.'

The first time that young Pawson sat in a Dissenting place of worship was at a Quaker meeting, when he heard a woman speak for more than an hour.' He was thoroughly astonished to find that those outside of the Established Church were of such quiet behaviour, and of such good morals. When, however, he showed signs of being enlightened by the Methodists, his father, who was a regular church-goer, could not have been more distressed had his son turned libertine. The influence of John influenced others, so that the peace of the family was broken, and the youthful offender was threatened with severe pains and penalties. In due time all this trouble passed away through the conversion of the father himself. The following passage relates to the Gordon riots in London in 1780:

'The time was certainly awful, and it was truly wonderful that no more mischief was done. They might have been suppressed in the beginning with the greatest ease, but were strangely suffered to