1760. Wednesday, January 16.--One came to me, as she said, with a message from the Lord, to tell me that I was laying up treasures on earth, taking my ease, and minding only my eating and drinking. I told her God knew me better; and if He had sent her, He would have sent her with a more proper message.
Monday, April 21.--In riding to Rosmead I read Sir John Davis's Historical Relations concerning Ireland. None who reads these can wonder that, fruitful as it is, it was always so thinly inhabited; for he makes it plain 1) that murder was never capital among the native Irish; the murderer paid only a small fine to the chief of his sept;1 2) when the English settled here, still the Irish had no benefit of the English laws. They could not so much as sue an Englishman. So the English beat, plundered, yea, murdered them, at pleasure. Hence 3) arose continual wars between them, for three hundred and fifty years together; and hereby both the English and Irish natives were kept few, as well as poor.
4) When they were multiplied during a peace of forty years, from 1600 to 1641, the general massacre, with the ensuing war, again thinned their numbers; not so few as a million of men, women, and children, being destroyed in four years' time. 5) Great numbers have ever since, year by year, left the land merely for want of employment. 6) The gentry are continually driving away hundreds, yea, thousands, of them that remain, by throwing such quantities of arable land into pasture, which leaves them neither business nor food. This it is that now dispeoples many parts of Ireland, of Connaught in particular, which, it is supposed, has scarcely half the inhabitants at this day which it had fourscore years ago.
Tuesday, June 10.--I rode to Drumersnave, a village delightfully situated.
At noon William Ley, Jaynes Glasbrook, and I rode to Carrick-upon-Shannon. In less than an hour, an esquire and justice of the peace came down with a drum and what mob he could gather. I went into the garden with the congregation, while he was making a speech to his followers in the street. He then attacked William Ley (who stood at the door), being armed with a halbert and long sword, and ran at him with the halbert; but missing his thrust, he then struck at him and broke it short upon his wrist. Having made his way through the house to the other door, he was at a full stop. James Glasbrook held it fast on the other side.
While he was endeavoring to force it open, one told him I was preaching in the garden. On this he quitted the door in haste, ran round the house, and with part of his retinue, climbed over the wall into the garden; with a whole volley of oaths and curses declared, "You shall not preach here today." I told him, "Sir, I do not intend it, for I have preached already." This made him ready to tear the ground. Finding he was not to be reasoned with, I went into the house. Soon after he revenged himself on James Glasbrook (by breaking the truncheon of his halbert on his arm), and on my hat, which he beat and kicked most valiantly; but a gentleman rescued it out of his hands, and we rode quietly out of the town.
Wednesday, September 10.--When I came to St. Ives, I was determined to preach abroad; but the wind was so high, I could not stand where I had intended. But we found a little enclosure near it, one end of which was native rock, rising ten or twelve feet perpendicular, from which the ground fell with an easy descent. A jetting out of the rock, about four feet from the ground, gave me a very convenient pulpit. Here well nigh the whole town, high and low, rich and poor, assembled together. Nor was there a word to be heard, or a smile seen, from one end of the congregation to the other. It was just the same the three following evenings. Indeed I was afraid on Saturday that the roaring of the sea, raised by the north wind, would have prevented their hearing. But God gave me so clear and strong a voice that I believe scarcely one word was lost.
Sunday, 14.--At eight I chose a large ground, the sloping side of a meadow, where the congregation stood, row above row, so that all might see as well as hear. It was a beautiful sight. Everyone seemed to take to himself what was spoken. I believe every back-slider in the town was there. And surely God was there, to "heal their backslidings."
I began at Zennor, as soon as the church service ended; I suppose scarcely six persons went away.
At five I went once more into the ground at St. Ives and found such a congregation as I think was never seen in a place before (Gwennap excepted) in this county. Some of the chief of the town were now not in the skirts, but in the thickest of the people. The clear sky, the setting sun, the smooth, still water, all agreed with the state of the audience.
1 correct