from without, it would not have penetrated where it was so much needed.
But as the revival preachers were churchmen, and labored within the pale
of the church wherever they could find opportunity, the truth had an
entrance where the doors would otherwise have remained closed. Some of the
clergy were roused from their moral stupor, and became zealous preachers
in their own parishes. Churches that had been petrified by formalism were
quickened into life.

In Wesley's time, as in all ages of the church's history, men of different
gifts performed their appointed work. They did not harmonize upon every
point of doctrine, but all were moved by the Spirit of God, and united in
the absorbing aim to win souls to Christ. The differences between
Whitefield and the Wesleys threatened at one time to create alienation;
but as they learned meekness in the school of Christ, mutual forbearance
and charity reconciled them. They had no time to dispute, while error and
iniquity were teeming everywhere, and sinners were going down to ruin.

The servants of God trod a rugged path. Men of influence and learning
employed their powers against them. After a time many of the clergy
manifested determined hostility, and the doors of the churches were closed
against a pure faith and those who proclaimed it. The course of the clergy
in denouncing them from the pulpit, aroused the elements of darkness,
ignorance, and iniquity. Again and again did John Wesley escape death by a
miracle of God's mercy. When the rage of the mob was excited against him,
and there seemed no way of escape, an angel in human form came to his
side, the mob fell back, and the servant of Christ passed in safety from
the place of danger.

Of his deliverance from the enraged mob on one of these occasions, Wesley
said: "Many endeavored to throw me down while we were going down hill on a
slippery path to the town; as well judging that if I was once on the
ground, I should hardly rise any more. But I made no stumble at all, nor
the least slip, till I was entirely out of their hands.... Although many
strove to lay hold on my collar or clothes, to pull me down, they could
not fasten at all: only one got fast hold of the flap of my waistcoat,
which was soon left in his hand; the other flap, in the pocket of which
was a bank-note, was torn but half off.... A lusty man just behind, struck
at me several times, with a large oaken stick; with which if he had struck
me once on the back part