t give way or the roof fall in, and
somebody be hurt.

At last they secured a piece of ground in what was called the Horse Fair
in Bristol, and one bright May morning, in 1739, the first stone of the

FIRST METHODIST CHAPEL

was laid, amidst great shouting of praise and thanksgiving. I have
called it a Chapel, but the Methodists called it a "Preaching House."

You may think what a great deal of money it took to carry on all the
work that the Methodists were doing; sometimes their purses were very
empty, and they wondered however they should get them filled again. But
it was God's work they were doing, and of course the money always came.

Like most Methodist Chapels nowadays, the money to pay for the Bristol
Preaching House was not got all at once; but a plan was adopted which, I
think, was a very good one. Every Methodist in Bristol promised to pay
a penny a week until all the money was raised; and as there were some
hundreds of Methodists, the debt was soon paid off. Some of the people,
however, were too poor to pay even this small amount, so it was arranged
that the richer men should each call upon eleven poorer ones every week,
and collect their pennies, and when they could not give them, the rich
man was to make it up. This was the beginning of the weekly class money
which your fathers and mothers, if they are Methodists, pay in their
class-meetings to-day.

When Mr. Wesley told the society in Fetter Lane, London, of the good
plan the Bristol people had made, they adopted it too, and always after
that wherever the Methodists commenced a society, the penny-a-week rule
was followed.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI.

An explosion.--A new business at the old
Foundry.--Mr. Wesley and his mother at
home.--Grand helpers.--Poor little Tom.--The worst
man in Bristol.--And one of the best.

HOW old would John Wesley be in 1716, if he was born in 1703? Thirteen,
would he not? a school-boy at the Charterhouse School. In that year
there was a terrible explosion at a cannon foundry, where the guns were
made for war. The roof of the building was blown off, and a great many
workmen were injured and killed.

After this explosion, the machinery and iron were removed to Woolwich,
which, as you will learn in your geography is still the great place for
making cannon and other weapons of war. All the years from 1716 to 1739
the old foundry had n