406 History of Methodism 



changing liis appointments from place to place. No 

 law was violated, while the council was effectually 

 eluded, and so the opposition passed into the hands 

 of the mob. These he worried out by changing his 

 appointments, so that when they went to work their 

 will upon him, he was preaching somewhere else. 

 Meanwhile, whatever the most honest purpose of a 

 simple heart could do to reconcile his enemies was 

 employed by him for that end. He eluded no one in 

 private, but sought opportunities to explain himself, 

 avowed the purity of his intentions, and even begged 

 to be subjected to the scrutiny of any surveillance 

 that might be thought proper to prove his inoffensive- 

 ness; any thing, so that he might be allowed to preach. 

 Happily for him and the cause of religion, his honest 

 countenance and earnest pleadings were soon power- 

 fully seconded by the fruits of his labors. One after 

 another began to suspect their servants of attending 

 his preaching, not because they were made worse, but 

 Avonderfully better. The effect on the public morals 

 of the negroes, too, began to be seen, particularly as 

 regarded their habits on Sunday, and drunkenness. 

 And it was not long before the mob was called off by 

 a change in the current of opinion, and Evans was al- 

 lowed to preach in town. At that time there was not 

 a single church-edifice in town, and but one congre- 

 gation (Presbyterian), who worshiped in what was 

 called the State-house, under which was the market; 

 and it was plainly Evans or nobody to preach to the 

 negroes. Now, too, of the mistresses there were not a 

 few, and some masters, who were brought to think 

 that the preaching which had proved so beneficial to 

 their servants might be good for them also, and the 

 famous negro preacher had some whites as well as 



