<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Good out of evil.—What Mr. Wesley preached.—"Hurrah!"—In
the prison.—How the wicked Methodists spoiled the woollen trade.—Emilia
Wesley says strong things.—In the sunlight.</p>
</div>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/cap-i.png" width-obs="100" height-obs="100" alt="I" title="" /></div>
<div class='unindent'><br/> KNOW you will have thought it very
unkind of the clergymen not allowing
such a good man as Mr. Wesley to
preach in their churches; and so it was,
very unkind, and very wrong. These clergymen
thought so themselves after a time; but God often
uses the wrong doings of people to bring about
a great good, and He did so in this case.</div>
<p>Perhaps if the churches had not been closed against
Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield they would never
have preached in the open air, and thousands of
people, who would not go to a church, might never
have heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>You boys and girls love father and mother and
home, do you not? And when you have been away
at day-school or boarding-school, oh! how glad you
always are to get to them again. Well, in the same<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span>
way we all come from God; He is our Father, and
heaven is our home, and all of us, deep down inside
of us, have a longing to go home again some day.
But Adam and Eve had to be punished for their
disobedience; and the punishment was that they and
all that were born after them should die, and never go
back to home and to God. This was a terrible
punishment, was it not? But you know how Jesus
Christ, God's Son, in His great love and pity for us
said He would come down from heaven, and be a man
on earth; that He would go through life just as we
have to do, and at last die. Then God said if His
dear Son did this, and lived on earth a life that should
be a beautiful copy for men and women and boys
and girls to follow; and if the people would believe
on Him and follow His example, God would forgive
them, and they should go back to Him, their Father,
and to heaven their home.</p>
<p>All this Mr. Wesley explained to the people, and
told them if they believed this and loved and followed
the Saviour that died for them, they would always be
happy, and God would give them His own peace, the
peace He has promised to those that love Him.</p>
<p>One wonders how the clergymen could disapprove
of such preaching, and why they should shut
Mr. Wesley out of their pulpit, for if they did not
preach this same Gospel they certainly ought to have
done.</p>
<p>However, Mr. Wesley got much larger congregations<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span>
outside the churches than they ever got inside, and
wherever he went hundreds of people believed the
wonderful story he told them, and became true
followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Strange things
happened at his services; some of the people were so
overjoyed at what they heard they could not help
shouting "Hurrah!" and "Hallelujah!" and they
poked each other in the ribs, as much as to say:
"Isn't that good?"</p>
<p>Then, when Mr. Wesley told them how Jesus Christ
suffered, and how cruelly Judas betrayed Him, and
that He allowed all this in order that we might be
saved, the people would burst into tears, and you
could hear their sobs all over the great congregation.
All sorts of people came to the services, thieves and
gamblers, poor people and rich people, and all heard
the same glad tidings of salvation.</p>
<p>Mr. Wesley did not remain at Bristol; several
times he went up to London, and wherever he went
crowds came to hear him. One day when he was
preaching at Newgate, a prison in London, and was
telling the people what would become of them if they
did not give up their wicked ways, a woman whom
he had known for many years as a very bad character,
burst into tears and begged Mr. Wesley to pray for
her. Many of the other prisoners did the same, and
numbers believed in Jesus Christ as their Saviour,
and became Christian men and we men.</p>
<p>It was just wonderful; but it is sad to think that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span>
if these people had only heard the Gospel before,
they might never have been the wicked men and
women they were. As soon as ever they heard, they
believed.</p>
<p>All the magazines and newspapers that were
published were full of the doings of the Methodists.
They were still called all sorts of names and abused
dreadfully. But the good people had got so used
to this that they did not mind, indeed, they hardly
expected any other treatment. In those days very
few of the poor people could read, and one newspaper
complained that nearly every one who went to hear
the Methodists wanted to learn to read the Bible, and
as soon as ever he could spell out a chapter he would
go and read it to some one who could not read,
and then they would talk about it together. This,
the paper said, wasted a great deal of time, for the
men were so busy talking and reading their Bibles
that they could not get on with their work, and the
woollen trade in Yorkshire would soon be ruined.
Of course this last was not true, and was only said to
stop the Methodists from preaching. It showed,
however, how sincere and how much in earnest the
people were.</p>
<p>But amidst all the persecutions of mobs of ignorant
and brutal men and women who knew no better, and
of abuse and slander by the rich and the educated,
who ought to have known better, nothing pained
Mr. Wesley so much as the unkind words of his<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</SPAN></span>
sister Emilia. She was his favourite sister, and he
thought a great deal about her opinion. In an angry
letter she wrote him, she said the Methodists were
"a lot of bad people."</p>
<p>However, John Wesley and his friends calmly went
on doing the work they felt God had called them
to do. The peace of God was in their hearts, and
the sunlight of His love brightened their faces, and
made them tender and forgiving to all their enemies.
As Jesus Christ prayed for the cruel men who
crucified Him, so they prayed: "Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do."</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i-096.png" width-obs="104" height-obs="102" alt="Harp" title="" /></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i-053.png" width-obs="540" height-obs="167" alt="Decoration" title="" /></div>
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