The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 260

occasions, one of them having been a prize fighter at the bear gardens....
“By how gentle degrees does God prepare us for His will! Two years
ago, a piece of brick grazed my shoulders. It was a year after that the
stone struck me between the eyes. Last month I received one blow, and
this evening two, one before we came into the town, and one after we
were gone out; but both were as nothing: for though one man struck me
on the breast with all his might, and the other on the mouth with such
force that the blood gushed out immediately, I felt no more pain from
either of the blows than if they had touched me with a straw.”—John
Wesley, Works, vol. 3, pp. 297, 298.
The Methodists of those early days—people as well as preachers—endured
ridicule and persecution, alike from church members and from the
openly irreligious who were inflamed by their misrepresentations. They
were arraigned before courts of justice—such only in name, for justice
was rare in the courts of that time. Often they suffered violence from
their persecutors. Mobs went from house to house, destroying furniture
and goods, plundering whatever they chose, and brutally abusing men,
women, and children. In some instances, public notices were posted,
calling upon those who desired to assist in breaking the windows and
robbing the houses of the Methodists, to assemble at a given time and
place. These open violations of both human and divine law were allowed
to pass without a reprimand. A systematic persecution was carried on
against a people whose only fault was that of seeking to turn the feet of
sinners from the path of destruction to the path of holiness.
Said John Wesley, referring to the charges against himself and his
associates: “Some allege that the doctrines of these men are false,
erroneous, and enthusiastic; that they are new and unheard-of till of late;
that they are Quakerism, fanaticism, popery. This whole pretense has
been already cut up by the roots, it having been shown at large that every
branch of this doctrine is the plain doctrine of Scripture interpreted

259