George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

STONED BEFORE A BISHOP 265
to express his shame and regret at being the witness of such
an outrage, neither did he act the part of the kind Samaritan
to the injured man. The only alleviating thought to this story is
that the bishop and his clergy do not seem to have been accessory
to the assault. Whitefield, never wishful to magnify his deeds
and sufferings, nor to exaggerate another's fault, simply says
that it was ' a drunken man '
him ;
but
who threw three great stones at
the assailant must have been tolerably sober when
once he aimed so well as to hit his man on the head, and the
next time threw with such force as to lay a man on the ground ;
neither do drunken men often manage to carry three large
stones into a dense crowd. 1
Weak and suffering, yet a moral conqueror, Whitefield re-
turned to London, not forgetting on his way to call at Dorchester
Gaol to comfort John Haime, a soldier who had headed a
1 It would have been more becoming a Christian bishop had Dr. Laving-
ton tried to reform the heathen of Exeter, instead of wasting his time in
slandering others who did his neglected work. For the sake of truth it
should be stated that the city had a band of ruffians called ' Church
Rabble,' or ' The God-damn-me Crew,' who carried persecution to every
length short of death. In 1745, the crew, led by a bailiff, a sexton, a parishclerk,
and several tradesmen, and encouraged by many ' gentlemen,' who
\ laced themselves in windows to see the obscene sport, abused the Metho-
dists as they would, neither the mayor nor the magistrates interfering to
stop them. They kicked the men and subjected them to every abuse and
indignity. They rubbed the faces of the women with lamp-black and oil ;
they beat their breasts with their clenched fists ;
they stripped them almost
naked, then turned the rest of their clothes over their heads, and in that
condition kicked or dragged them along the street, or rolled them in the
gutters or in mud-heaps prepared for them. To save herself from one of
the mob who attempted even worse outrage, one woman leaped from the
gallery of the meeting-house to the floor. The riot lasted for hours, and in
the presence of thousands.—See 'An Account of a late Riot at Exeter,' by
John Cennick, 1745; and 'A brief Account of the late Persecution and
Barbarous Usage of the Methodists at Exeter,' by an Impartial Hand,
1746. The riot occurred in 1745
1747
; Whitefield was assaulted in 1749.
; Eavington's Treatise was written jn