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Introduction
In 1742, John Wesley extended his northern preaching tour to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a large, cramped city by the North Sea, founded on coal mining and the coal-trade of England’s east coast. Many areas were grindingly poor, and over time ignorance and want had so tightened their grip that violence and addiction kept areas such as Sandgate, down on the Quayside, utterly wretched. Naturally, it was to Sandgate that Wesley at once demanded to go.
In May, 1742, after a visit to Birstal, where he stayed with John Nelson, examined the little society he had formed, and preached to the people, Wesley pushed on to Newcastle. After he had rested awhile, he walked into the town. Lady Huntingdon had begged him to make some effort for the poor colliers,* and he found that there was great need. So much drunkenness, cursing, and swearing, even from the mouths of little children, he had not seen or heard before in so small a compass of time. “Surely,” he says, “this place is ripe for Him who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”*
Full of this feeling, he went out at seven o’clock on the Sunday morning, to “Sandgate, the poorest and most contemptible part of the town,” and standing with his companion, John Taylor, at the end of a street to sing the hundredth psalm. Before the service ended 1,200 to 1,500 people had gathered round him. He chose those words, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.”*
* Selina Hastings (1707-1791), Countess of Huntingdon, was a prominent Methodist. Her social position allowed her to appoint Church of England chaplains of sympathetic mind who might otherwise have found themselves outcasts in the church. She espoused many charitable causes, including the Foundling Hospital for which George Frideric Handel wrote his oratorio Messiah, first performed just a few months before the events in this story. See The Story of ‘Messiah’.
* Referring to Luke 5:32.
* In the Coverdale translation found in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer, which as a Church of England clergyman Wesley habitually used, this Psalm begins “O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands”. See Psalm 100. Isaac Watts (1674-1748) had paraphrased it in Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne (1719), and before him Scottish minister William Kethe (?-1594) wrote All People that on Earth do Dwell in 1561.
* From Isaiah 53:5.
Précis
One Sunday morning in May 1742, John Wesley rose up to preach in Sandgate, down by the River Tyne. He had chosen Sandgate because it was the most wretched quarter of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the most in need of the gospel. He began with a psalm, and then preached on the Suffering Servant, from Isaiah, to over a thousand open-mouthed locals from the slums. (63 / 60 words)
One Sunday morning in May 1742, John Wesley rose up to preach in Sandgate, down by the River Tyne. He had chosen Sandgate because it was the most wretched quarter of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the most in need of the gospel. He began with a psalm, and then preached on the Suffering Servant, from Isaiah, to over a thousand open-mouthed locals from the slums.
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Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 70 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: despite, if, not, otherwise, ought, unless, whereas, whether.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did Wesley fix upon Sandgate as the place to preach?
Suggestion
Because Sandgate’s slums seemed the most wretched. (7 words)
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.