But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; (II Corinthians 6:4-5)
The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, tells us of what happened to him in Wednesbury when the mob came “pouring out like a flood.”
“To attempt speaking was vain; for the noise on every side was like the roaring of the sea. So they dragged me along till we came to the town when the mob came pouring down like a flood. To attempt speaking was vain; for the noise on every side was like the roaring of the sea. So they dragged me along till we came to the town; when, seeing the door of a large house open, I attempted to go in; but a man, catching me by the hair, pulled me back into the middle of the crowd. They made no more stop till they had carried me through the main street, from one end of town to the other.”
The Quaker George Foxe tells us what happened to him at Tickhill.
“I found the priest and most of the chief of the parish together in the chancel. So I went up to them and began to speak, but immediately they fell upon me; the clerk took up the Bible as I was speaking and struck me on the face with it, so that it gushed out with blood, and I bled exceedingly in the steeple-house. Then the people cried: ‘Let us have him out of the Church”; and when they had got me out they beat me exceedingly, and threw me down, and over a hedge; and afterwards they dragged me through a house into the street, stoning and beeting me as they drew me along, so that I was besmeared all over with blood and dirt….Yet when I was got upon my legs again declared to them the word of life and shewed them the fruits of their teachers, how they dishonoured Christianity.”
The mob has often been the enemy of Christianity; but nowadays it is not the violence but the mockery or the amused contempt of the crowd against which Christians must face.
Taken from William Barclay’s The Letters to the Corinthians Pg 254-255