Monday, November 2. -- I preached at Windsor at noon and in the afternoon rode to Reading. Mr. J. R. had just sent his brother word that he had hired a mob to pull down his preaching house that night. In the evening Mr. S. Richards overtook a large company of bargemen walking toward it, whom he immediately accosted and asked if they would go with him and hear a good sermon; telling them, |I will make room for you, if you were as many more.| They said they would go with all their hearts. |But neighbors,| said, he, |would it not be as well to leave those clubs behind you? Perhaps some of the women may be frightened at them.| They threw them all away and walked quietly with him to the house where he set them in a pew.
In the conclusion of my sermon, one of them who used to be their captain, being a head taller that his fellows, rose up and looking round the congregation, said, |The gentleman says nothing but what is good; I say so; and there is not a man here that shall dare to say otherwise.|