f the great facts and doctrines of
Christianity, but they do not make enough of them; they do not dwell on
them as their constant theme." They made many such complaints. They
charged me with winning from my hearers, for a partial and defective
view of the Gospel, the love and reverence which were due only to a very
different view. They called me a legalist, a work-monger, and other
offensive names. They charged me too with spoiling the people, with
giving them a distaste for ordinary kinds of preaching, and making it
hard for other preachers to follow me. The complaints they whispered in
the ears of their friends soon found their way to mine. I endeavored to
justify myself by appeals to Scripture, to Wesley, and to other
authorities. It would have been better perhaps if I had kept silent and
gone quietly on with my work. But some of my friends thought otherwise.
They wished to be furnished with answers to my traducers, and so
constrained me to speak. My defence only led to renewed and more violent
attacks. My opponents could not think well of my style of preaching,
without thinking ill of their own. They could not acknowledge my method
to be evangelical, without confessing their own to be grievously
defective, and to have expected them to do that would have been the
extreme of folly. They could do no other therefore than regard me as a
dangerous man, and do what they could to bring my preaching and
sentiments into suspicion, and prepare the way for my exclusion from the
ministry. This was the second cause of the unhappy feeling which took
possession of my mind.

A few quotations from a Journal written about this time may be of use
and interest here.

CHAPTER IX.

EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY.

I heard T. Batty yesterday. His text was, "Come unto Me all ye that
labor, and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." He urged people
to come to Christ, but he never told them what it was to come to Him. We
cannot come to Him literally now, as people did when He was on earth;
but we can leave all other teachers and guides, and renounce the
dominion of our appetites and passions, and put ourselves under His
teaching and government. In other words, we can become Christians; we
can learn Christ's doctrine and obey it, and, thus obeying, trust in Him
for salvation. But Mr. Batty said not a word about this. He talked as if
all that people had to do, was to roll themselves on Christ, or cast
themselves on Him just as they we