1 ^iiii^^ iiliill i! iiii :iiii|i(tilil P^^ 'iiiitiiiip THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES U.O^ ru uJe^ ^^ly THE ILLUSTRATED History of Methodism IN Great Britain and America, FROM THE DAYS OF THE WESLEYS TO THE PRESENT TIME. BY / REV. IV. H.nDANIEIiS, A.M. AUTHOR OF "MOODY: HIS WORDS, WORK, AND WORKERS;" " THE TEMPERANCE REFORM AND ITS GREAT REFORMERS," ETC. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BISHOP HARRIS, D.D., LL.D. Jllitsiratetr toitb oijcr 250 (!5ngrafatngs, ISlaps, mxiJ Cfjarts. SOZZ> ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. METHODIST BOOK CONCERN: PHILLIPS & HUNT, SOS Broadway, New York. HITCHCOCK & WALDEN, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis. J. P. MAGEE, Boston. J. B. HILL, San Francisco. H. H. OTIS. Buffalo. WM. BRIGGS, Toronto, Ontario. JOSEPH HORNER, Pittsburgh. HUMPHREY PICKARD. Halifax, N. S. 1879. Copyrif^ht, 1S79, by Phillips & Hunt, New York. OFFICIAL IINDORSEIVIENT OF THE REV. DR. WHEDON, The Book Editor of the Methodist Boole Concern. Office of the ^Ietuodist Quartkely Review, 805 Broadway, New York, Sejit. 22, 1879. Rev. AV. H. Daniels, A. M. : Your •• Illustrated History of Methodism " is written ^vitll an accuracy, a lifp, and a freshness which will, I think, insure it a deserved and wide-spread popularity. The numer- ous engraved illustrations, fresh from their originals, aid to give reality to the narrative. Every Methodist who has not the time for readins; Dr. Abel Stevens' s-reat work should read yours. And not only Methodists, but all Protestant Christen- dom is interested in the wonderful re^'ival, of which AVesley and Whitefield were leaders, and will find rich entertain- ment and quickening power in the perusal of your pictorial history. D. D. WHEDOK PREFACE. 1^7^ DuEESTG the last hundred and fifty years that little band of young men at Oxford derisively called " The Holy Club " has grown into a world-mde Christian communion. Its regular clergy numbers twenty thousand, its actual membership over three millions, and its adher- ents about twelve millions of souls. Methodism is supernatural. Such historic marvels as the Empire of the first Napoleon may be accounted for on natural principles, with a liberal mixture of the infernal ; but the rise of this vast religious empire cannot be referred to the operation of any laws or forces known to state-craft or philosophy : science did not discover it, logic did not deduce it, kings did not will it, nor legislators enact it ; but, like the new Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, it came down out of heaven : a divine benefaction of spiritual light, and joy, and power. To worthily record the sweep of this divine movement would require the inspiration of a prophet and the experience of an apostle. Human sight is too slow to discover, and human speech too weak to portray, the majesty and glory of this work of grace ; and whoever thoughtfully approaches such a task must ever be oppressed to think how far this theme transcends his powers. Another embarrassment is found in the immense mass of historic material which has accumulated in the archives of the Church. Hun- dreds of volumes, and almost countless pages in other forms, both written and printed, invite the research of the student and claim the attention of the historian : though this embarrassment partially disap- pears when he discovers to how great an extent his predecessors have reproduced the same materials in different forms. Why then reproduce them still again ? To this question there are several rephes. In the first place, it had become painfully evident to those in charge of the literature of our Church that her glorious and helpful history was generally neglected. The able and stately volumes of former authors have evidently been thrust aside by the mass of other and lighter reading constantly kej^t before our people, especially our young peoj)le, and it therefore became the plain duty of the ofiicial publishers of the Church to make an effort to restore its history to its lost place in popular attention and interest. "With this end in view the present work was projected. 550039 8 Preface. Again, a marked change has taken place in tlie liistoric methods since the voluminous works of Bangs and Stevens were written ; new material has accumulated ; the rapid improvement of the engraver's art invites its more liberal use than in any previous volume of Church history. In view of these facts it has been the endeavor of the Church authorities charged with such duties to furnish her people with a book which, by its freshness and beauty, as well as by its vigor and com- pactness of style, should attract them to the study of characters and events at once the most delightful and important. To say that the size of this volume does not admit of even the briefest sketch of all our distinguished men and women is far below the truth. Xo work of any practical size could contain so much. God has so abundantly blessed our Church in this respects that the effort to record his bounty to Methodist minds and hearts would be like attempting to gather up and set forth the work of the simshine and tlie rain upon this fruitful land of ours. Only a few representa- tive characters and careers among the multitudes which, if they were not so many, M'ould any one of them be worthy of a volume, can possi- bly find place in these pages. The author is under especial obligations to the Rev. Mr. Tyerman and Dr. Smith for the assistance he has found in their large and admi- rable works ; as well as to the Rev. Dr. Jobson, the Wesleyan Book Steward, for the ample literary and artistic materials supplied. The American side of this volume owes much to Drs. Bangs and Stevens, to Bishop Simpson, from M'hose admirable " Cyclopaedia," by the courtesy of the author and publishers, valuable literary and ai-tistic matter has been obtained, to the leading literary men of the Methodist Church of Canada, and to the numerous biographers of our deceased celebrities, whose labors are almost oppressive in plentifnlness and excellence. To the brethren who so cheerfully aided the author in his tour of research among historic scenes and places he here again expreoc^-s his thanks. The annals of Methodism have long been a favorite study with him who now attempts to collate and record them. In a retrospect of his work there are portions of it which he wishes might have been done better ; but he feels no twinge of self-condemnation in view of any kno\\'n unfaithfulness or neglect. Others might have done better; he may do better in the future by the help of this additional experience ; but he has certainly given himself unreservedly to tliis work, and done it " heartily as unto the Lord." May the Lord and the Church be pleased graciously and indulgently to accept it at his hands. W. H. DAXIELS. INTRODUCTION. Having been requested to write an introduction to the " Illustrated History of Methodism," about to be published by our Book Concern, I most cheerfully comply; because I um in full accord with the general drift and purpose of the book, and more especially because I deem it of the first im- portance that our people should give more attention to the study of our history as a Church. Methodism is not a new system of philosophy, ethics, or theology ; neither is it a mere method in religion, as its name might imply. It does not belong to that class of institutions Avhich can properly be said to be " founded " by any one, as dynasties or schools are said to be founded, by this adven- turer in politics, or that reforaier in religion ; and the author of this volume is right, as it seems to me, in saying that John Wesley was '' as much the product as the promoter of Meth- odism." It was not John Wesley who founded Methodism so much as it was Methodism which founded John Wesley. The tide which bore him on in his wonderful career was one of those outpourings of watei's such as the Prophet saw in his vision ; '' first ankle deep, then rising to the knees, then to the loins, and finally waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over." May God give to the Church a realiza- tion of the words of the angel who showed him the vision, and who said : " And eveiy thing shall live whither the river cometh." Ezekiel xlvii, 9. Wesley, before his conversion, was an ardent youth, capa^ ble of organizing and conducting a Holy Club ; which, however 10 Introduction. fell to pieces on his first considerable absence from Oxford ; but he was no more capable of planning and leading the great exodus of British souls out of State-Church formalism than was Moses, just after he had finished his studies in the schools of Egypt, capable of leading a nation of slaves out from among the brick-kilns. In each case it was God's good pleas- ure that the people should go out, and he raised up and trained a leader for them ; but the real leader, in both cases, was He who dwelt in the fire and in the cloud. Neither Moses nor Wesley knew one day the pathway they should travel the next, and the most and best that can be said of either of these men is, what Paul says of himself : they were "not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Acts xxvi, 19, The author of this volume has drawn the portraits of his characters with a free, bold hand. It is somewhat of a sur- prise to find among some of the illustrations which so admi- rably adorn these pages the portrait of the great John Wes- ley as a very boyish-looking young man ; for most of his admirers never think of him as less than sixty years of age. His ritualism, also, during those early years iu which he had such a " troublesome soul on his hands and did not know what to do with it," is placed in full and striking contrast Avith his experience and views after his conversion ; a con- trast somewhat startling to those who have never had any other than a general idea of the man ; but which is true to the life, and useful withal, as sho\ving that Wesley was w^hat he was in the days of his power, not chiefly by means of his great talents and culture, but only by and through the abun- dant grace of God. They fail to understand him who speak of him as the " founder of Methodism." As well might the Apostle Peter be called the founder of Pentecost. It is a matter of great satisfaction to me, and I trust it Avill be to the Church at large, that the author, in these Introduction. 11 pages, gives special prominence to the missionary spirit and histoiy of Methodisjn, both in his account of the British Wesleyans, and of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It has ■come to my knowledge that certain detractions have been attempted against the workings of our Missionary Society ; I wish, therefore, to say v^hat my opportunities of observa- tion enable me to say intelligently, that never since Method- ism was planted in this laud did our Church make more rapid progress in new fields than it does to-day : it is my sincere belief that the work of God moves on now as rapidly and efficiently in the missionary circuits and stations of our Church along our vast frontiers as it did when the frontiers were east of the AUeghanies. In our foreign missionary fields the same comparison holds good. There are as many sinners from among the heathen in India and China converted and brought into the Methodist Episcopal Church, in proportion to the outlay of labor and money to that end, as there are from the regular Methodist congregations in j^ew York, Philadelphia, or elsewhere in the United States. Or, to state the case in a financial way : it may I)e said that a dollar will go as far in the w- ork of saving sin- ners in either our home missionary or foreign missionary circuits and stations as it will in our oldest and most favored localities in this land ; and in no period of our history were results any greater in proportion to the outlay of labor and money than they are to-day. In this work Mr. Daniels has seen proper to depart, in one noticeable instance, from certain fashions which some for- mer ^vriters have followed. He tells us that the heroic age of Methodism has not yet passed away — a statement in which I concur, and which I -svish most heartily to indorse. It is not necessary to undervalue the present race of Methodist preachers in order sufficiently to honor the fathers ; and it is 12 Inteoductiox. a liistonc mistake to set forth the difficulties with which the fathers of our Church were obliged to contend as entitling them to a monopoly of heroic honors. If the privations, dan- gers, and suffei'ings which are cheerfully endured on our mis- sion stations, in the destitute portions of great cities, in wild mountain regions of the interior, and in our border work both West and South, could only find a pen to write them and a voice to tell them, the story would be every way wor- thy a place beside that of the pioneer Bishop himself and of his glorious itinerant compeers. Methodist preachers do not lie on the ground and sleep in the ^voods on their circuits in New York and Pennsyl- vania, for the sim})le reason that there is no occasion for such conduct ; but they are doing this very thing yet in Western and Southern fields. Men are not mobbed and murdered in Marvland and Vii'ijinia for doino; the work of a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, but they are mobbed and mur- dered in Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas. If any doubtful brother is anxious to know whether there is still a call for heroism of the old stamp in the Methodist ministry, let him volunteer for some of our frontier appointments ; and he may be able to satisfy himself, within a very brief space of time, that these are heroic days — martyr days, even — of Methodism,. as truly as in the closing years of the last century. Our Church has never yet Ijeen frightened fi'om its duty by difficulties. However hard the work, or however great the danger, there have always been eager volunteers for the service ; and such, no less than lieretofore, is the state of the case to-day. At the risk of being misunderstood, though the fact is plain enough, I should like to call attention to what the au- thor in this volume calls "The overflow of Methodism.'' For many years the social -states of our Societies was such that Inteoduction. 13 there was a constant temptation for persons who were con- verted among us to unite with some more popuLar body of believers ; and thus the figures given in our Minutes from year to year have not shown the whole number of conver- sions which have blessed the labors of our preachers and people. No accurate statement of this constant ovei'flow can ■ever be made, but the movement has been considerable and important, and while we have grown less rapidly because of it, other denominations have been strengthened and cheered thereby. Perhaps, also, the doctrines and methods of our sister Churches have through this agency been somewhat modified and inspirited. If so, we give thanks to Almighty God. If Methodism were able to claim all its own it would probably be superior in numbers to all the other orthodox Protestant bodies in America put together : a state of things which would neither be o-ood for us nor for our neio;hbors. No insignificant portion of the best ^vorking talent of other denominations has been under Methodist tutelage. We judge this large class of Christian ^vorkers to be all the more com- petent and effective on this very account, and we have no sympathy with those who accuse Methodism of some inher- ent weakness because it does not always retain in its own communion all persons converted at its altars. A word ought to be added as a Just commendation of this latest and best work of the author, whose accounts of other great religious movements have been so widely circulated and read, and which have proved so great a blessing, both in England and America. He has done his work well — faith- fully, loyally, wisely, lovingly. May it be approved by the great Head of the Church, and be a great and lasting blessing to our people. WILLIAM L. HARRIS. CONTENTS PART I, WESLEY AND HIS TIMES. CHAPTER I. EXGLASD i:S" THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUET. England under the Georges. — The Churcli in England vs. the Churcli of En- gland. — Outline of English State Churchism. — The Reformation, only a partial and temporary success in England. — Irreliocious learning. — The Dissenters. — State of religion in Scotland. — Ireland. — Methodism a benediction. CHAPTER II. THE WESLEY FAMILY. John Westley. — Samuel Wesley. — The mother of the Wesle5-s. — Mrs. "Wes- ley's Home School. — 'Mis. Wesley's "Conventicle." — Epworth politics. — A brand plucked from the burning. — Samuel Wesley as an author. — The Charter- House School. CHAPTER III. THE HOLY CLUB. Wesley ordained. — John Wesley, "Sometime Fellow of Lincoln College." — Charles Wesley, the first "Methodist." — Pious labors of the Holy Club. — George Whitefield. — Whitefield at Oxford. — Whitefield's experience of conversion. — The doctrines of the Holy Club. — The Holy Club broken up. CHAPTER IV. THE MISSION TO AMERICA. A soul to be saved. — The colony of Georgia. — A word in season. — Wesley's scholarship. — Troubles thicken. — An "escape from matrimony." — Wesley's fare- well to Georgia CHAPTER V. WHITEFIELD ORDAINED AND THE WESLEYS CONVERTED. Whitefield's theology. — Praying without a book. — Whitefield sails for Geor- gia. — The conversion of Charles Wesley. — The conversion of John Wesley. — Wesley at Herrnhut. — Mrs. Wesley's conversion. Contents. 15 CHAPTER VI. THE GOSPEL IN WORD AND IN POWER. Prison ministry. — Society and banks. — Whitefield's return from America. — Power accompanies the Word. CHAPTER Vn. "the world is my parish." Field-preaching. — Bristol and Kingswood. — Wesley takes to the fields. — The world is my Parish. — The Kingswood school. — Wesley and Beau Nash. — John Wesley and his critics. — Dr. Doddridge on the Methodists. — The "New Room" and the "Old Foundry. — Some Moravian heresies — Mr. Wesley leaves the Mo- ravian Society. — The Methodist United Soqjety. — Lay-preachers. — Howell Harris. — John Cenuick. — Thomas Maxfield. CHAPTER Vni. the calvinistic controversy. Opinions, — Lady Huntingdon. — Trevecca College. — Class-meetings. — The quar- terly visitation. — Wesley at Newcastle. — Wesley preaching on his father's tomb. — Death of Mrs. Wesley. — Mrs. Wesley's new tomb. CHAPTER IX. STORMY DAYS FOR METHODISM. The Black Country. — Wesley and the Methodists denounced as Papists and traitors. — Wesley faces his enemies. — Tlie press-gang. — Caught in his own trap. John Nelson. — Nelson impressed for a soldier. CHAPTER X. " fightings without AND FEARS WITHIN." The first Methodist Conference. — Wesley's Churchmanship. — Early Methodist reading houses. — Methodism carried into Ireland. — Methodism in Cork. — Wesley as a disciplinarian. — Wesley's money matters. — The Foundry Bank. — Wesley as a medical man. — Another "escape from matrimony." — Marriage and Separation. — More matrimony. — Marriage of George Whitefield. CHAPTER XL TWO HISTORIC IRISH METHODISTS. Adam Clarke. — Ordination of Adam Clarke. — A narrow escape. — Clarke's Commentary. — Adam Clarke's views of marriage — Adam Clarke's theology. — Gideon Ousley. — Ousley's conversion. — His call to the ministry. — Ousley among the Lish peasants. — A sacred language. — A saddle for a pulpit. — Irish Methodist emigrants.— Ousley as an author. — M'Quigg and the Irish Bible. 16 Contents. CHAPTER XII. TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS : FRIENDS AND FOES. ^lethodism in Scotland. — Early Methodist discipline. — Conference roll in 1751. — The Rev. John Fletcher. — Checks to Antinomianism. — Fletcher's "appeal." — Mrs. Mary Fletciier. — The Fletcher Memorial College and Chapel. — Revolt of the American Colonies. — The courtesies of debate. — More Wesleyan politics. — Row- land Hill vs. John Wesley. — City Road Chapel. — A decline. — Strength of Meth- odism in 1780. CHAPTER XIII. A WORTHY CLIMAX TO A GLORIOUS CAREER. Wesleyan ordinations. — Alexander Mather ordained as superintendent. — The deed of declaration. — A vigorous old age. — Death of Chas. Wesley. — The tomb of Chas. Wesley. — Wesleyan hymnology. — Chas. Wesley as a poet. — Wesley and the Anti-Slavery Society. — Wm. Wilberforce. — Wesley's last visit to Ireland. — The Irish Conference. — Wesley's last circuit. — A brave ride. — Visiting the classes. — Wesley's last Conference. — Statistics 1780 to 1790. — Plain words to rich Meth- odists. — Death of John Wesley. — Wesley's will. — Wesley's tomb. CHAPTER XIV. IN MEMORIAM. Monument to John and Chas. Wesley in Westminster Abbey. — Dean Stanley on John Wesley. — Bishop Simpson's response. — Livingstone and Wesley. — John Wesley as a preacher. — Wesley as a scholar. — Wesley's method in theology. PAET II. AMERICAN METHODISM. CHAPTER XV. METHODISM TRANSPLANTED TO AMERICA. The heroic age of Methodism. — Methodism a theological reform. — 1776 and before. — Robert Strawbridge. — Methodism in New York. — Philip Embury. — The first Methodist sermon in New York. — Barbara Heck. — Captain Webb. — The rig- ging loft, — The first Methodist Church in America. — Taylor's letter to Wesley. — Early Methodism in Philadelphia. — St. George's Church. — Methodist beginning in Baltimore. CHAPTER XVI. THE ENGLISH MISSIONARIES. Volunteers for America. — Robert Waltham. — Bnardman and Pilmore. — The ar- rival of the missionaries at Philadelphia. — Francis Asbury. — Elizabeth Asbury. — Asbuiy's views on itinerancy. — Rankin and Shad ford. — First Methodist Confer- Contents. 17 «nce iu America. — Asbury settles the Societies in Baltimore. — Strawberry Alley. — Lovely Lane. — The last missionaries from England. — Whitefield's last visit to America. — Whitefield's slave. — The quadruple alliance. CHAPTER XVII. METHODISM AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Wesley's " Calm Address." — William Watters. — Philip Gatch. — Benj. Abbott.- •Gough of Perry Hall. — The second American Conference. — Freeborn Garrettson. — A prison for a i)u1pit. — A great revival in Virginia. — Asbury in seclusion. — The English missionaries depart. — Otterbein and the United Brethren. CHAPTER XVIII. A CHURCH FOR THE NEW NATION. War versus religion. — Asbury again at the front. — An ordained Wesleyan min- istry. — The Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D. — Dr. Coke becomes a Methodist. — Dr. Coke and. Methodist Missions. — A missionary vpife. — Coke's Commentary. — Dr. •Coke and the Irish Conference. — British Wesleyan Home Missions. — Missions among French prisoners of war. — Dr. Coke's last mission. — Richard Whatcoat. — Thomas Vasey. — Rev. James Creighton. — The validity of American Episcopacy, f CHAPTER XIX. THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Black Harry. — The Christmas Conference. — Election and consecration of Bishop Asbury. — The Methodist Discipline. — On slavery. — On baptism. — Preach- ers' fund. — The first home mission fund. — Statistics, 1875. CHAPTER XX. PROGRESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. Bishop Coke an Abolitionist. — The first Southern Conference. — Visit of Bishops Coke and Asbury to Washington at Mount Vernon. — Bishop Coke departs for England. — Wesley's defense of Bisliop Coke. — Bishop Coke's second visit to the United States. — Cokesbury College. — A dancing-hall transformed into a Method- ist school-house. — The old Light-street parsonage. — Pioneering. — Has he a horse? — Riciimond NoUey. — Asbury's episcopal discipline. — The first Conference in New y,,ik. — Encouraging reports. — Revival scenes. — O'Kelly and the "Republican MtUi' dist Church," — Thomas Ware. CHAPTER XXI. EARLY METHODISM IN NEW ENGLAND. Tiie first Methodist Societies in New England. — Methodism an intruder in New England.— The Calvinistic controversy again. — Asbury among the sons of the Pib'-rims. — IMetliodism in Boston. — Jesse Lee.— The first Conference in New 18 CONTEISTTS. Englaiul. — Tlie Wcsleyan Academy.— Minor Raymoml, D. D. — The We.'^leyaiv L'niversity.— Wilbur Fisk, D.D.— Stephen Olin, D.D. — '^ Zion's Herald."— Tlio Boston University. — Father Taylor, the sailor preacher of Boston. CHAPTER XXII. WESTERN I'lOXEERS. Oliio. — Francis M'Cormick. — Aslmry in the Indian country. — Some Method- ist geography. — Henry Boelim. — Bishop ArKendree. — Episcopal lu.xury. — James B. Finley. — The ]Methodist Episcopal Churcli tlie first temperance society. — The North-west. — Fort Dearborn. — ilarsdin's triljute to American Methodism. • . CHAPTER XXIII. BISHOP ASBURY AXD HIS EARLY SUCCESSORS METHODISM IN THE SOUTH-WEST. Episcopal gravity and humor. — Asbury a judge of men. — Asbury on matri- mony. — Asbury's last sermon. — Bishop Ge rge. — Bishop Roberts. — Bishoji Hed- ding. — The radical movement. — The iMethodist Protestant Church. — Nicholas Snethen. — Bishop Emory. — Bishop Waugh. — Bishop Morris. — Alabama. — Mis- souri. — Jesse Walker in St. Louis. — South-western Methodism. CHAPTER XXIV. THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH. Bisliop Andrew. — Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church. South. — Border troubles. — Methodism during the war. — The Methodist Episcopal Church again in the South. — Fraternity re-established. — A memorable day. — Meeting of the Joint Commission. — Statistics of the Methodist Episcopal Cliurch, Sooth. — Education. CHAim^:R XXV. (iKU.M.VN MKTIIOUISM. Wm. Nast. — Other German missionaiies. — German Methodism in St. Louis. — German Conferences organized. — The German missions. — Dr. Jacoby. — Dr. Liel)- hart. — The institutions of German Metliodism. — Present condition and influence of German IMethodism. CHAPTER XXVI. LATER CHARACTERS AND EVENTS. Pacific Coast Methodism. — Oregon. — California. — Methodism in Mormondom. — Bishop Hamlinc. — Bishop Janes. — Bishop Baker. — Bishop Ames. — Bishop Burns. — Bishop Roberts. — BisIiop Clark. — Bisliop Thomson. — Bishop Kingsley. — Lay Delegation. — Tlie Ce:iU'nnial of American Methodism. — Centennial statistics.. — Other Methodist bodies. ContejSTts. 19 CHAPTER XXVII. THE STAFF OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Bishop Scott. — Bishop 8iiii|)son. — Bisliop Bowiiian. — Bishop Hiirris. — Bishop Foster. — Bishop Wiley. — Bisiiop Meri'lU. — Bishop Andrews. — Bisliop Haven. — Bishop Peck.— General Conference Officers, — The Book Concern, — The Book .Vsjcnts. — Reuben Nelson, D.D. — John M. Phillips. — Tiie Rev. Sandford Hunt, D.D.— Luke Hitchcock, D.D.— John M. Walden, D.D., LL.D.— The Missionary Society.— John P. Durbin, D.D.— Thos. M. Eddy, D.D.— The Rev. R. L. Dashiell, D.D.— The Rev. J. Morrison Reid, D.D.— Sunday-schools.— John H. Vincent, D.D. —The Rev. Richard Sutton Rust, D.D.— The Rev. Alpha J. Kynetf, D.D.— The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. — The Editorial Staff. — Rev. Daniel Deni- son Wliedon, D.D.— Tiie Rev. Daniel Curry, D.D. —The Rev. Charles H. Fowler, D.D., LL.D.— Francis S. Hoyt, D.D.— Rev. Dr. O. H. Warren.- The Rev. Alford Wheeler, M.T>., D.D.— Arthur Edwards, D.D. —Rev. Benjamin St. .James Fry, D.D. —Rev. H. C. Benson, D.D.— Rev. J. H. Acton, D.D.— Rev. J. C. Hartzell, D.D. CHAPTER XXVm. MODERN BRITISH METHODISM. After John Wesley what? — Hostilities resumed. — Episcopal party. — "Super- intendent" Mather. — "Alarming- Progress of ]\Iethodism." — "Superfluous jMeth- odist Pre-'chers."— Metliodist ordinations. — Bunting, the Prime-Minister of En- glisli Mctiiodism. — Bunting and Lay Representation. — Robert Newton. — Cente- narv of British Methodism. — The Wesleyan Theological Institution. — Rev. Geo. Osborn, D.D.— The Didsbury Branch.— Rev. William B. Pope, D.D.— Rev. Dr. WiiiiX. — W^esleyaii Missions. — Rev. Win. Morley Punshon, LL.D. — Rev. Wm. Ar- tliur. M.A — iletropolitan Chapel Fund.— Rev. Gervase Smitli, D.D. — Rev. Fred- erick Jobson, D.D. — Wesleyan Book and Periodical Editor. — Rev. Benj. Greir- ..-v. I)D. CHAPTER XXIX. COLONIAL METHODISM. .Mis-ion in Newfoundland.— Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. — Metliodisni in Canada West. — Rev. William Case, tiie Father of Canadian Missions. — British We>leyanism in Canada.— Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D.D., LL.D. — Rev. Enoch Wood, D.D.— Rev. Humphrey Pickard, D.D. —Rev. Ale.x. Sutlierland, D.D.— Rev. Edward Hartly Dewart, D. I).— Rev. Wm. Briggs.— Rev. Duncas Dunbar Curry, D.D— IN-v. Geo. Douglas, LL.D— Bishop Carman.— Rev. S. Y. Stors, D.D. — Austi':d.isi;in Conference. CHAPTER XXX. STATISTICS. General summary of 31cthodists throughout the world. — Comparative growth of American Churches from 1766 to 1876.— Growth of lay membership compared with that of po])ulation. — The ]\Iethodist Episcopal Church in the Southern States. — Theological institutions.— Universities and colleges. — Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church. — Conference summaries.— Female Colleges and Academies. — Conclusion. — The overflow of Methodism. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGB Abbott Preaching in the Jersey Woods. 437 A "Black Country" "Welcome, (Wesley at Wednesbury) 209 A Brand Plucked from the Burning.... 72 A Brave Ride 3.'57 Adam CLrke 25G A Double-Decked Meeting-House 234 A Frontier Eesidence 616 A Map of tlie Savannah Country in 1740. 104 A Modern Prison Chapel 149 Among the Swiss Mountains 286 A New-gate Congregation 148 An Inhospitable Country 222 Au Irish Funeral 271 An Irish Hovel 276 A Roadside Sermon in the Saddle 267 Arresting a Methodist 454 Armiuius 187 Arthur, Rev. Wm 762 A " Saddle-Bags " Man 519 Asbury and Wasliiugton 463 A Southern Swamp 115 A Yiew in the Black Country — Dudley nt Night 207 A Word in Season 110 Barbara Heck 383 Bishop Ames 689 Bishop Andrews 714 Bishop Baker 686 Bishop Bowman 708 Bishop Burns 691 BLshop Clark 694 Bishop Kmory 611 Bishop Fo.'iter . 711 Bishi.p George 598 Bi-shup HamUue 083 Bishop Harris 710 Bishop Maven 716 Bishop Hedding 603 Bisliop Janes 684 Bi.-^hop Kingsley 698 BislK'p Kingsloy's Monument 699 PAGE Bishop Merrill. 713 Bishop M'Kendree 569 Bishop Pierce 648 Bisliop Roberts 600 Bishop Scott 704 Bishop Simpson 706 Bishop Soule 621 Bishop Thomson 696 Bishop Waugh 612 Bishop Whatcoat 481 Bishop Wiley 712 Bocardo 87 Bunting, Rev. Jabez 745 Captain Webb 386 Carman, Rev. Albert, D.D., Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada 777 Case, Rev. Wm 770 Centenary Church, South. St. Louis. Mo. 645 Chapel of Lincoln College 83 Charles Wesley's Tomb 327 Cliicago in Ruins 737 Clirist Church Meadow 103 Cincinnati Wesleyan College 573 City Road Chapel 306 Cromwell, Oliver 49 David Seth Doggett. D.D r,.-.o Dickinson College 730 Dining-Hall of Charter House 77 Dining Hail of Christ Church College. . . 56 Dr. Johnson 295 Dunmore Castle, Coast of .^yr. Scothind. 281 Durbin, Rev. John P 728 Eddy, Rev. Thomas M 7 9 Edward T. Taylor 562 Elizabeth Asbury— The Mother of Bish- op Asbury -113 Elizabeth Fry 147 Embury's House 382 Entrance to the Hall of Christ Church College, O.xford 54 Enocli M. Marvin. DP 6.^4 List of Illustrations. 21 PAGE First Methodist Sermon in Baltimore, 401, 501 First Mflhodist Conference 422 First Methodist Sermon in Baltimore. . . 501 First Metliodist Preaching House in Bos- ton 537 Fletcher, John 279 Francis Asbury 409 Freeborn Garrettson 449 Frontispiece of Part III 744 Gateway of St. Mary's Church, Oxford . . 97 George III 297 Gibraltar 128 Grace M. E. Church, Wilmington, Del. . 4P.8 Graves of Bishops Asbury, George, Em- ory, and Waugh 620 Hartley Preaching in Prison 450 Healey on the Athlone Circuit 236 Heck Hall, Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanstou, 111 701 Henry B. Bascom, D.D 640 Holland Nimmonds M'Tyeire, D.D 656 Home of Asbnry's Ciiildhood 411 Howard-Street M. B. Church, San Fran- cisco, Cal 677 Hubbard Hinds Kavanaugh, D.D 646 Illinois Wesleyan University 740 Interior of Fetter Lane Chapel, 1867 153 Interior of Old Strawberry Alley M. E. Church 425 Interior of Present City Road Cliapel, London 307 Interior of St. Mary's Church 95 Isaac Watts 329 James B. Finley 583 James Osgood Andrew 627 Jesse Lee Preaching Under the Old Elm on Boston Common 536 Jobson, Rev. Frederick 764 John Calvin, (From an old Portrait) .... 186 John Christian Keener 658 John Early, D.D 643 John Knox's Churcli in Edinburgh 59 John Knox 57 John Nelson 218 John Taylor's Penance 255 John Wesley at Fortj'^ Years of Age. . . . 203 Jolin Wesley and Count Zinzendorf 143 John We.^'tley, Grandfather of John and Charles Wesley "Lady Huntingdon 194 Livingstone 354 Lovely Lane M. E. Church, Baltimore. . . 492 Madeley Church 288 Mamwood Cottage, Handsworth, Stafford- shire, England, in which Asbury com- menced his Itinerant Ministry 4 94 Martyrs' Memorial 52 Meridian-street Methodist Episcopal Church, Indianapolis 568 Methodist Book Concern, 805 Broadway, New York 720 Methodist Episcopal Clnircli, Morris- town, N. J 524 Metliodist Episcopal Church, Salt Lake City 678 Methodist Protestant Church, Pittsburgh 609 Metropolitan Memorial M. E. Church, Washington, D. C 461 Monumental Tablets in the St. George's M. E. Church, Philadelphia 399 Mount Vernon Place M. B. Church, Bal- timore 402 Mr. Weslej^'s Monument 205 New Kingswood School 169 Nicholas Snetheu 608 Old Newgate Prison, London 136 Old " Wesley Chapel," John-street, New York 379 Orphan-House, Wesleyan Schools, New- castle. (On the site of the old Orphan- House) 201 "Parson" Butler's Attack on the Meth- odist Chapel at Cork 226 Pembroke College Tower 94 Peter Cartwright, D.D 680 Pliilip Doddridge 176 Piiilip Embury 380 Pickard, Rev. Humphrey 773 Pope, Rev. Wm. B 757 Portrait of Henry Boehm 578 Procession of Religious Criminals on their way to Prison 50 Punshon, Rev. Wm. Morley 760 Quadrangle of Lincoln College 84 62 Radcliffe Librar.y, Oxford 85 22 List of Illustratioxs. Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stauley, D.D., LL.D. 350" Rev. John Stiramerfield 703 Rev. John Wesley, at tlie age of 23. . . . 82 Rev. John Wright Roberts, Bishop of Liberia 692 Rev. Philip William Otterbein 460 Rev. Reuben Xelson, D.D 723 Richard Boardman, Joseph Pilmoor .... 404 Robert Strawbridge 375 Robert Paine, D.D 635 Rowland Hill 303 Ryerson, Rev. Egerton 771 Smith, Rev. Gcrvase 763 Some of the Prisoners 88 South Coast of England 161 South Leigh Church 134 St. Mary's Church, 0.-?ford 89 Stephen Olin. D.D 559 St. George's Church, Philadelphia 397 St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, New York 403 Strawbridge's Log Chapel ou Sam's Creek, Maryland 369 Susanna Aunesley 64 Susanna Wesley, Mother of John Wesley 60 The Broad Walk, Oxford The Charter House School The Church Lot in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. The Dr. Coke Memorial Schools, Brecon. The Fletcher Memorial College and Chapel at Lausanne The German Methodist Book Concern and Tract House, Bremen The John Dickins Tablet The Late Henry Slicer, D.D The Man-of-War Class-Meeting The Xew Rectory at Epworth 98 76 596 474 294 659 72lj 689 1 312| 74; PAGE The Old Foundry 177 The Old Light-street Parsonage 513 The Rigging Loft 389 The Stone Chapel 377 The Young Pretender 70 Thomas Coke 470 Thomas Rankin 418 Thomas Ware 529 Trevecca College 197 Union M. E. Church, St. Louis 590 View Among the Thousand Islands ... 767 Watson, Rev. Richard .^i. 750 Wesleyau Association Buildiij^, (Brom- field-street, Boston) 560 Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Mass. 553, 554 Wesley and Beau Nash 171 Wesleyan Theological Institution at Rich- mand, near London 756 Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. 557 Wesley Preaching ou his Father's Tomb 185 Weslej^'s Orphan-House at Newcastle. .. 200 Wesley's Tomb, Burial Ground, City Road Chapel 345 Wesley's Tree 335 West Front of Christ Church College, Oxford 79 Westminster Abbey — North View 368 Whitefield at the age of Tvvenij--four. . 91 Whitefield, George 426 Whitefield's Last Exhonation 434 Wilbur Fisk, D.D 556 William Capers 630 Willamette Universit}-, Salem, Oregon.. . 672 William M. Wightman, D.D., LL.D 652 William Wilberforce 331 MAPS A^^D CHARTS. Map of the Thirteen Colonies 32, 436 Map of the United States, from the Close of the Revolution to the Purchase of Louisiana, 1783-1803 462 Map of Great Britain and Ireland 31 Map of the United States 33-36 Chart, showing the Tour of Bishop Harris in the Eastern Hemisphere on his ilis- si"5nary Circuit of the Globe 37-40 Lithographic Chart, showing the ratio of Church accommodation in the United States 778 INDEX. PAOE A Bran'l Plucked from the Burning 71 A Church for the New Nation 464 "Act for Abolishing Diversity of Opin- ions" 49 ■"Act of Toleration " 51 "Act of Uniformity " 61 Acton, Rev. J. H 740 Adam Clarke 256 Adam Clarke's Theology '. . . 264 Adam Clarke's Views of Marriage 263 A Dancing-Hall Transformed iuto a Meth- odist School-house 512 A Decline 308 After John Wesley, What? 745 A Great Revival in Virginia 450 A Groan from ''Edinburgh Review "... 751 Alabama 616 Alarming Progress of Methodism 750 Alexander Mather Ordained as Superin- tendent 314 Ames, Bishop 639 A Missionary Wife 475 A Narrow Escape 261 1766 and Before 374 "An Escape from Matrimony " 115 An Ordained Wesleyan Ministry 467 Another " Escape from Matrimony ".. . . -45 Antislavery Incident related by Mr. Wes- ley \ 332 Appointment of Adam Clarke and Wife to the charge of the Dublin Circuit. . . 334 A Prison for a Pulpit 449 Arthur, Rev. Wm 761 A Sacred Language 272 A Saddle for a Pulpit 273 Asbury again at the Front 465 Asbury a Judge of Men 592 Asbury among the Sons of the Pilgrims. 542 Asbury in Seclusion 454 Asbury in the Indian Country 575 Asbury on Matrimony 593 Asbury "Settles" the Societies in Balti- more 424 Asbury's Episcopal Discipline 521 .Asbury's Last Sermon 594 Asbury's Views on Itinerancy 415 A Soul to be Saved 104 A Vigorous Old Age 324 A Word in Season 110 A Worthy Climax to a Glorious Career.. 312 Ball, Joseph, a Baptist Deacon 538 Bangs, Quotation from 396 Bangs, Rev. Nathan 586,727 Barbara Heck 382 Barnard, Sir J ohn 53 Benjamin Abbott 440 Benson, Rev. H 740 Bishop Ames 687 Bishop Andrew 625 Bishop Andrews 714 Bisliop Asbury and his Early Successors — Methodism in tlie South-west 590 Bishop Asbury — incident in connection with John Dickins' family 722 Bishop Baker 685 Bishop Bowman 707 Bishop Burnet on Ordination in State Church 53 Bishop Butler. Quotation, "Analogy". 53 Bishop Carman 776 Bishop Clark 693 Bishop Coke 503 Bishop Coke an Abolitionist 503 Bishop Coke Departs for England 506 Bishop Coke's Second Visit to the United States 507 Bishop Emory 610 Bishop Foster 710 Bishop George 597 Bishop Hamliue 682 Bishop Harris lOd 24 IXDEX. PAGF. Bishop Haven 715 Bisliop Heddiug — the Radical movemeut 603 Bishop Janes 684 Bishop Kingrsley 698 Bishop Merrill 712 Bishop M'Kendree 578 Bishop Morris 613 Bishop Morris' Account of Jesse Walk- er's Work 618 Bishop of Lichfield on State of Religion in England 53 Bishop Peck 717 Bishop Peek, Quotation from 674, 676 Bishop Roberts 692 Bishop Scott 705 Bishop Simpson 705 Bishop Simpson's Reply to Address of Dean Stanley on John Wesley 353 Bishop Thomson 695 Bishop Waugh 612 Bishop Wiley Vl 1 Black Harry ^ 493 Black, William 546 Boardman and Pilmoor 405 Bond, Rev. John W. ; His Opinion of Bish- op Asbury 591 Border Troubles 635 Boston's Criticisms on Whitefield 546 Briggs, Rev. Wm 776 Bristol and Kingswood 163 British Methodism 745 British Wesleyan Home Missions 477 British Wesleyanism in Canada 772 Bruiison, Dr. Alfred ' . 586 Bunting and Lay Representation 754 Bunting, Rev. Jabez.. 753 Burke, William: Incident by 574 California G75 Captain Webb 386 CapUiin Webb's Labors in England for American Methodism 391 Captain Webb's Labors on Long Island, in New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsyl- vania 391 Carver, W 680 Ca.se, Rev. Wm 770 Caught in his Own Trap 216 Cenuick's, John, Work in Dublin 235 Centenary of British Methodism 755 Centennial Statistics 702 Charles Wesley and the ShefiBeld Mob. . 208 PAGK Charles Wesley as a Poet 328 Charles Wesley the first " Methodist". . 8S Ciiaplain M'Cabe 734 Checks to Antinomianism 290' Chicago Fire — Methodist Relief Fund.. . 736 Cliichester, Bishop of; Letter to Young Clergyman 55- City Road Chapel 305 Clarke's Commentarj- 26 J Clark, John 585 Class-meetings 198 Cokesbury College 509' Coke's Commentary 476 Colonial Methodism 767 Conclusion 784 Conference Roll in 1751 284 Conferences during 1789 524 " Conventicle Act " 68 Convention of Reformers 607 Credentials of "Superintendent" Coke. . 485- Crooks, Rev. Dr. George R 69^ Curry, Daniel, D.D., Quotations from .. . 693 Curry, Rev. Daniel 735 Curry, Rev. Duncan Dunb;ir 776 " Cyclopaedia of Methodism " 707 Damon, Rev. W. C 680 Dashiell, Rev. R. L 729 Dean Stanley on John Wesley 350' Death of Charles Wesley 326 Death of John Wesley 343 Death of Mrs. Wesley 204 Declaration and Basis of Fraternity 653^ Dclamotte, Wesley's Companion in Geor- gia 106 De Piiy, Rev. W. H 738 Destruction of the Bath Society, and nar- row escape of Wesleyan Methodism . . 310 Dewart, Rev. Edward Hartley 775 Dickins, John 720 Doering, C. H 663 Dorciiester, Rev. Dr., Quotations from. . 539 Douglas, Rev. Geo 776 Dow, Lorenzo 616 Drapp's, Rev. Joseph, Criticism on John Wesley 113 Dr. Coke and Methodist Missions 473 Dr. Coke and the Irish Conference 476 Dr. Coke becomes a Methodist 472 Dr. Coke's Last Mission 478 Dr. Doddridge on the Metliodists 175 Dr. Fowler, Quotation from 690 Index. 25 PAGE Dr. Jacoby 660 Dr. Johnson 295 Dr. Myers, Quotation from 629 Dr. Rigg, Quotation from 118 Durbiu, Rev. John P 727 Early Methodism in New 'Engiand 537 Early Methodism in Philadelphia 390 Early Methodist Discipline 282 Early Methodist Preachirig-Houses 233 Eddy, Rev. Thomas M 728 Education 657 Edwards, Dr. Jonathan, on Revival under his Ministry 158 Edwards, Jonathan, on Condition of the Churches in New England 540 Edwards, Rev. Arthur 739 Election and Consecration of Bishop As- bury 490 Embury, Philip 241 Emily Wesley; Letter to her brother John on Auricular Confession 90 Emory, Quotation from 501 Encouraging Reports 524 Episcopal Gravity and Humor 590 Episcopal Luxury 582 Epworth Politics 09 Erection of Portland Chapel in 1792 392 Erskine, Rev. Ralph, concerning "Bodily Exercises '' in sudden Conversions. ... lOO Father Taylor, the Sailor Preacher of Bos- ton 562 " Fetter Lane Society." 151 Field Preaching 162 Fightings Without and Fears Within. . . 226 First General Conference of Church South 637 First Kentucky District 570 First Kentucky Conference, 1790 570 First Methodist in Boston 551 First Methodist Society in Indiana 585 First Mission Conference in Germany. . . 667 First New Jersey Conference 524 First Western Conference, 1788 570 Fletcher's A ppeal 291 Fort Dearborn 588 Foss, Rev. Cyrus D. ; Author's obliga- tions to 559 Fowler, Rev. Dr. Charles H 678, 736 Francis Asburj' 408 Francis Burns 690 PAOB Francis M'Cormick 573 Fraternity an Actual Fact 649 Fraternity Re-established 642' Freeborn Garrettson 448 Fry, Rev. Benjamin St. James 739 Fuller, K. Q., D.D., Quotation from 632- Fuller, Rev. B. Q 742 General Conference of 1848 636 General Conference Officers — The Book Concern 719 George Shndford 419 George Whitefield 91 George Whitefield, Death of, in America in 1770 42T German Conferences Organized 664 German Melliodism 659 German Methodism in St. Louis 663 German Sunday-school and Tract Depart- ment 667 Gibson, Edmund, Bishop of London, Criticism on John Wesley 173 Gideon Ouseley 266 Goodrich, Hon. Grant, Quotation from Letter 589 Gough, of Perry Hall 446 Gregory, Rev. Benjamin 765 Guier, Philip 241 Hamilton, Quotation from 545, 546 Hamilton, Rev. W., Quotation from .... 511 Hamline, Mrs. Bis^hop 683 Hartzell, Rev. J. C 741 Hartzell Rev, J. C, Quotation from Ser- mon of 623 Has he a Horse ? 518 Hatfield, Rev. Dr. Robert M 678 Heath, Rev. Mr., his Call to the Ministry 269 Heath, Rev. Mr., President of Cokesbury College 510 Henry Boehm 577 High-Church Party vs. Dissenters 746 Hitchcock, Rev. Luke, D.D 724 Hopkey, Miss Sophia Christiana 116 Hostilities Resumed 747 Hoyt, Rev. F. S 738 Huntingdon's, Lady, fear of the Heresy of Free Grace in Trevecca College. . . . 28^ Hunt, Rev. Saudford, D.D 724 Influential Friends 458 In Memoriam 349 26 Index. PAQR Irelaud 58 Irish Methodist Emigrants 277 Irreligious Learning 55 Jackson, Quotation from i:5] James B. Finley 582 Jameson, J. M 680 Jesse Lee 54G Jesse "Walker in St. Louis 617 Jobson, Rev. Frederick 764 Jobson, Rev. Frederick, D.D., Quotation from 350 John Cennick 183 John M. Phillips 723 John M. Waldeu 725 John Nelson 218 John "Wesley and his Critics 172 John "Wesley as a Preacher 355 John "Wesley; "Sometime Fellow of Lin- coln College" 82 Kidder, Rev. D. P YBl King, John, the First Methodist Preach- er in Baltimore 40ii King, the Dissenter 23 Knox, John 5 Kobler, John 57 Kynett, Rev. A. J 733 " Ladies' Repository." 693 Lady Huntingdon 195 Later Characters and Events 672 Lay Delegation 700 Lay Preachers — Howell Harris 182 Lecky on Scotch Taste in Religion.. ... 57 Lecky on Theology in Churches of the Estabhshment 53 Lee, Jason 673 Letter from George Heck to the Author. 383 Liebhart, Rev. H 742 List of Wesley's "Works 360 Livingstone and Wesley 354 Lord Sidmouth's Act 751 Losee, Rev. Wm 769 Lovely Lane 426 Ludwig Nicholas, Count of Zinzendorf. . 143 Luke Hitchcock, D.D 724 L3'^on, Christian. ... 6G3. Macaulay's Estimate of John Wesley. . . 349 Male Free School, Baltimore 514 Marriage and Separation 248 PAQF Marriage of George Whitetield 253 Marsden's Tribute to American Method- ism 589 M'Cabe, Rev. Dr. C. C. — " Chaplain M'Cabe" 681 Meeting of the Joint Commission 652 Mead's, Prof., Opinion of Effect of Meth- odism on Congregationalism 542 M'Eldowny, Rev. J., D.D 681 Metliodism a Benediction 58 Methodism and the American Revolu- tion 437 Methodism an Intruder in New England. 539 Methodism a Theological Reform 373 Methodism Carried into Ireland 233 Methodism During the War 638 Methodism in Boston. 545 Methodism in Cork 237 Methodism in Mormondom 678 Methodism in New York 378 Methodism in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 768 Methodism in Scotland 279 Methodism, Ordination 753 Methodism Transplanted to America... 369 Methodist Beginnings in Baltimore 400 Methodist Chapels in England, Ireland, and Scotland in 1784 312 Methodist Theological Seminary 667 Minor Raymond, D.D 554 Minutes of the Conference of 1747 232 Mission in Newfoundland 768 Missions among French Prisoners of War 477 Missouri 617 Mitcheh, William 586 M'Nabb, Alexander, expelled by Wesley for believing that the Conferences should make Appointments * . . 309 Molesworth, Lord 480 Montesquieu, "Notes on England " 53 Monument to John and Charles Wesley in Westminster Abbey 349 Moravian Notion of " Quietism" 179 More Matrimony 253 More Wesleyan Politics. ... 302 Mormon Editor on the Methodists 679 M'Quigg and the Irish Bible 278 Mrs. Mary Fletcher 292 Mrs. Wesley's " Conventicle " 66 Mrs. Wesley's Conversion 145 Mrs. Wesley's Home School 66 Index. 27 PAGE Mrs. Wesley's Letter to her Son " Jackey " 81 Mrs. Wesley's New Tomb 205 Mr, Wesley leaves the Moravian Society. 180 Mr. Wesley's Estimation of the Vicar of Madeley 294 Mr. Wesley's Letter to the Conference, to be read after his Death .^24 M'Tyeire, Bishop, Incident by 520 Murraj', Grace 245 Nast, Rev. W 742 Nelson Impressed for a Soldier 223 Nelson, Rev. Reuben, D.D 723 New England Annual Conferences Di- vided 62G Newman, Rev. Dr. J. P G40 Newton, Rev. Robert, D.D 025, 754 "New York Tribune," Sept. 25, 1870, Quotation from 624 Nicholas Suethen 608 "No Popery" 51 Notes from Wesley's Journal on Irish Conference 333 ■Ogle, Captaiu Joseph 585 Oglesby, Joseph 617 Oglethorpe, James Edward 105 Ohio 571 O'Kelly and the '■Republican Metliodist Chureii" 526 On Baptism 500 Ou Slavery 499 Opinions ! Opinions ! 1 85 Ordination of Adam Clarke 259 Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South 632 Osborn. D.D., Rev. George 757 Other German Missionaries 661 Other Methodist Bodies 702 Otterbein and the United Brethren 459 Ouseley as an Author 277 Ouseley's Conversion 268 Ouseley's Ministry among the Irish Peas- ants 269 Pacific Coast Methodism — Oregon 673 Peck, Dr. Jesse T 677 Peck, Rev. Nathan R 677 Persecution of Methodists in Cork under Butler 238 Persecution of the Methodists in Staf- fordshire 213 PAGE Philip Embury 381 Philip Gatch 440 Philhps, John M 723 Pickard, Rev. Humphrey 773 Pierce, Rev. Dr. Lovick 637 Pierce, Rev. Gustavus M 678 Pierc3, Quotation from 47 7 Pioneering 517 Pious Labors of the Holy Club 87 Plain Words to Rich Methodists 339 Plan of Pacification 749 •■ Plan of Separation " 631 Pope, Rev. Wm. B 757 Power Accompanies tlie Word 162 Praying without a Book 129 Preachers' Fund 501 Preamble and Resolutions Adopted by General Conference of Slave-holding Slates 633 Present Condition and Influence of Ger- man Methodism Prison Ministry Progress under Difficulties Punshou, Rev. Wm. Morley Rankin and Shadford Redford, Quotation from Reformation under Henry VIII Reid, Rev. J. Morrison, D.D 728, Report of Committee on Church Organi- zation Resolution of Revs. J. B. Finley aud J. M. Trimble Reuben Nelson, D.D Revival Scenes Rev. James Creighton Revolt of the American Colonies. Richard Whatcoat Richmond Nolly Rigg, Rev. Jas. H Roberts, Rev. William Robert Strawbridge Robert Williams Rowland Hill vs. John Wesley Rules for the Adjustment of Adverse Claims to Church Property Rust, Rev. R. S Ryerson. Rev. Edgerton Samuel Wostley Samuel Westley as an Author. Sandford, Quotations from. . . . 669 146 503 760 417 633 49 729 633 628 723 525 483 295 480 520 758 674 375 405 302 653 733 772 63 74 484 28 Index. PAGE Second Convention of the Reformers. . . 608 Section of " Discipline " on Slavery 623 Sejmour, James B 680 Sherman, Quotation from 552 Simpson's '•Cyclopaedia," Quotations from 561 Sinclair, Elder John, Incident by 588 Smith, Penelope Goulding 475 Smith, Rev. Gervase 763 Societies and Bands 150 Some Alarming Statistics 752 Some Methodist Geography 576 Some Moravian Heresies 179 Soule, Bishop 621 Souihey's Estimate of John Wesley 349 State of Religion in Scotland 57 Stanley, Dean 59 Statistics . 778 Statistics— 1780 to 1790 338 Statistics, 1785 502 Statistics of the German Conferences of the M. E. Church 670 Statistics of tiie Methodist Episcopal Church, South 657 Stephen Olin, D.D 558 Stevens, Quotation from. . .215, 423, 506, 540 St. George's Church 397 Stone, Rev. S. G 777 Stormy Da_vs for Methodism 207 Strawberry Alley 425 Strengtli of Methodism in 1780 311 Sunday-Schools 730 Superfluous Methodist Preachers 751 Sutherland, Rev. Alexander 774 Table T. — General Summary of Methodists throughout the World 778 Table IL— Growth of the Methodist Epis- copal Church by decades 779 Table III. — Comparative Growth of Amer- ican Churches from 1776 to 1876 780 Table IV. — Growth of Membersiiip com- pared with tiiat of Population 780 Table Y. — The Methodist Epis-copal Church in the Southern States 780 Table VI. — Theological Institutes of the Methodist Episcopal Church 781 Table VII. — Universities and Colleges of the Methodist Episcopal Church 782 Table VIII.— Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church 782 Table IX. — Conference Seminaries, Fe- male Colleges and Academies 783 Taylor's Letter to Wesley The Arrival of the Missionaries at Phila- delphia The Black Country The Bishop of North America Tne Book Agents The Boston University. ''The California Christian Advocate "'. . . The Calvinistic Controversy Again The Calvinistic Controversy, etc The Centennial of American Methodism . . Tlie Charier- House School The Christmas Conference The Colony of Georgia The Conversion of Charles Wesley The Conversion of Rev. John Weyley. .. The Courtesies of Debate The Deed of Declaration The Dissenters The Doctrines of the Holy Club The English Missionaries The English Missionaries Depart The Episcopal Party The First Conference iu New England. . . The First Conference in New York The First Home Mission Fund The First Irish Conference The First Methodist Church in America . The First Methodist Conference The First Methodist Conference in Amer- ica The First Methodist Sermon in New York The First Methodist Societies in New England The First Southern Conference Tlie Fletcher Memorial College and Chapel The Foundry Bank The German Mission The Gospel in Word and in Power The "Gospel Magazine " edited by Top- lady The " Half-way Covenant " The " Heroic Age " of Methodism The Holy Club The Holy Club Broken Up The Institutions of German Methodism. The Irish Conference The Kingsv.'ood School The Last Missionaries from England. . . . The Legal Hundred PAGE 393 406 207 561 722 514 076 542 185 701 75 495 105 130 134 296 315 57 100 404 456 748 551 523 501 241 389 226 422 382 537 504 295 244 065 147 304 540 370 79 102 668 333 168 426 752 Index. 29 PAGE " Tlie Melliodist " G99 "The Methodist Cliurch" GIO The Metliodist Discipline 498 Tho Methodist P^piscopal Cluirch 492 The Methodist Episcopal Church Again in the South G.'iS The Methodist Episcopal Church, South. G21 The Methodist Episcopal Church — the First Temperance Society 583 The Methodist Protestant Church 607 The Methodist '• United Society " 181 The Metropolitan Chapel Fund 762 The Missionary Society 721, 724 Tho Mission to America 1 04 Tlie Moravians 109 The Mother of the Wesleys 64 The "New Room" and the "Old Found- ry" 176 The North-west 585 The Old Light-street Parsonage 513 "The Pacific Christian Advocate".. . . . 674 The Palatines 241 The Press-gang 215 The Quadruple Alliance 432 The Quarterly Visitation 199 The Rev. John Fletcher 285 The Rev. Sandford Hunt, D.D 724 The Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D 469 The Rigging Loft 388 The Second American Conference 448 The Staflf of the Methodist Episcopal Church : Statistics 704 The Tomb of Charles Wesley 326 The " United Brethren " 144 The Validity of Methodist Episcopacy. . 48G The Wesleyan Academy 553 The Wesleyan University . . . 555 The Wesley Family GO The Willamette University 675 The Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety 732 "The World is my Pariah" 162, 167 Thomas Maxfiold 1 84 Thomas, Rtv. Eliezer G77 Thomas Vasey 482 Thomas Ware 529 Toplady, Rev. Augustus M., on Converted Ministry 55 Trevecca College 1 9G Trials and Triumphs: Friends and Foes. 279 Troubles Thicken 112 Two Ilistorii; Irish Methodists 256 Two Sorts of Abolitionists in Methodist Church C24 Tyorman, Incident from 113 Tyerraan, Rev. Luke, A.M., Quotations from, 92, 111, 158, 314, 349, 468, 469, 489 United Labor of Methodists and Presby- terians 580 Vincent, Rev. John H 731 Visiting the Classes 337 Visit of Bishops Coke and Asbury to Washington, at Mount Vernon 505 Volunteers for America 404 Walden, Rev. Joliu M 725 Walker. Jesse 587, 617 Wakeley, Quotation from 415 Warren, Rev. 0. H 738 War vs. Religion 464 Watson, Rev. Richard, Concerning "Bod- ily P^xercises " in sudden Conversions. 160 Wesley and Beau Na.sh 170 Wesley and the Methodists Denounced ns Papists and Traitors 211 Wesley and the Antislavery Society. . . . 330 Wesleyan Hyranologj- 327 Wesleyan Missions 759 Wesleyan Ordinations 313 Wesleyan Theological Institution 75G Wesley as a Disciplinarian 242 Wesley as a Medical Man 244 Wesley as a Politician 297 Wesley as a Scholar 357 Wesley at Herrnhut 142 Wesley at Newcastle 200 Wesley, Dogmatism 114 Wesley Faces his Enemies 214 Wesley, John, Account of his Conversion 136 Wesley, John, Enters Christ Church Col- lege 79 Wesley Ordained 80 Wesley Preaching on his Father's Tomb, 202 Wesley takes to the Fields 165 Wesley's Churchmauship 230 Wesley's "Calm Address" to the British Colonies in North America 437 Wesley's Clerical Friends 313 Wesley's Defense of Bishop Coke 507 Wesley's Farewell to Georgia 120 Wesley's, John, Objections to the Doc- trine of Election 190 30 Index. PAGE Wesley's Last Circuit 334 Wesley's Last Conference. 33S Wesley's Last Visit to Ireland 332 Wesley's Letter to Friends in America. . 438 Wesley's Letter to Lord Xor^i 298 Wesley's Method iu Tlieolopry 360 Wesley's Money Mntters 243 Wesley's Notion of the American In- dians 106 Wesley's Opinion of the Irish 235 Wesley's Ride through the Sea over the Cornwall Sands 336 Wesley's Scholarship Ill Wesley's Scholastic Honors 83 Wesley's Tree 335 Wesley's Will 346 Western Book Concern 722 Weslley, John 61 Whatcoat and Vasey 480 Wheatley, James, the first Methodist Offender on whom Judicial Sentence was Passed 283 Whedon, Rev. D.D 734 Whedon, Dr., Quofcitions from 487 Wheeler, lie v. Alfred 738 Whitefiell :ii Oxford 94 PAGE Whitefield enters the Calvinislic Arena. 187 Whitefield, Mr., and the Dissenters 129 Whitefield Ordained, and the Wesleys Converted 1 2.3 Whitefield Sails f.)r Georgia 13a Whitefield's Account of his First Sermon. 124 Wliitefield's Ivxperience of Conversion.. 96 Whitefield's Letter on Slavery 431 Whiiefield's Loiter to John Wesley .... 188 Whitefield's Return from America 152 Whitefield's Slaves 429 Whitefield's Theoloiry 126 Wilbur Fisk, D.D 555 Wilbur, Rev. James H.—'- Father AVil- bur" 674 William Nasi 659 William Walters 43& William Wilberforce 330 Withrow, Rev. W. R 775 Woman's Foreign Missioaar\- Society. . . 734 Wood, Rev. Kuoch .' 773 Young, Benjamin 585 •' Young Pretender " 70 Ziou's Herald 560 XJi.-Eulger Sc.Cin 6 Xongituae "West * from Greenwich MAP OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. ■MAI- OF THE THIKTEEX COLONHKS, CHART SIIOWIXG THE TOUR OF BISIloP IIAIiRIS IX THK i: H ERX HEMISPHEEE 0:S^ HIS MISSIONAET CIKCUIT OF THE GLOBE. PART I. WESLEY AID HIS TIMES. ^ ■< ^ ^ ^ 5 =3 s VIEW OF OXFORD. CHAPTER I. ENGLAND AND HER CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE history of Methodism opens in the latter part of the year 1Y29, at the University of Oxford, England, where four young men — John "Wesley, Charles Wesley, Robert Kirldiam, and Wilham Morgan — had banded themselves together for mutual assistance both in schol- arship and piety. There was need enough of such mutual help, for at that day scholarship and piety were the two most unusual attainments among university men. To improve their minds these persons agreed to spend three or four evenings in the week together in reading the Greek Testament, the Greek and Latin classics, and on Sunday even- ings, divinity; to improve their souls, they adopted a set of rules for holy living, including the exact observance of all the duties set forth in the Prayer Book of the English Church, besides such others AS they were able to invent for themselves, all of which they kept as strictly and religiously as if they had found them laid down in the book of Exodus or Deuteronomy. Their exceptional diligence in study, and their still more remarkable sanctity of manners, soon 44 Illustrated History of Methodisji. brouglit down upon them a storm of ridicule and abuse, and the name "Methodist" was flung at them in derision on account of the clock-work regularity of their lives — a name destined to become a title of honor, and to stand for the largest spiritual communion of Chris- tians in the world. £iig'land Under George II. — This was in the third year of the second of the Georges, a prince alike deficient in mental capacity and moral worth. In those days it was not the fashion for kings to practice the Christian virtues : indeed, the almost universal profligacy of royal courts would indicate that it was regarded as the high pre- rogative of kings and princes to break all the ten commandments, and the more frequently they did so the more did they display their dig- nity and power ; since nothing could be a greater proof of royalty than a fearless disobedience of the law of God. English historians agree in condemning the manners and morals of the reigns of the four Georges ; yet it is but just to set over against the repulsive pict- ures which they draw the still more infamous scenes which were constantly witnessed in the Roman Catholic countries of Europe. Bearing in mind then the fact that, with all its public and private abominations, Protestant England in the eighteenth century was a vast improvement on the England of any previous age, except during the Protectorate of Cromwell, the actual state of the kingdom, its rulers, its people, its schools, and its Church as compared with the Christian England of to-day may be studied with interest and profit ; as showing how great a need still existed in this foremost country of Europe in religion, intelligence, and morals, of such a spiritual refor- mation in its religion as that with which Great Britain was blessed under the leadership of that chief of all the great reformers, John Wesley. This was the money era. There was nothing which could not be bought or sold. From the reeldng royal court down through all the upper orders of society there was one long carnival of luxury, licen- tiousness, and display. Gold lace, velvets, brocades, and jewels were the current substitutes for virtue among women and honor among men ; and with such examples set them by lords and ladies the poorer classes — sometimes also called " the lower classes " — of society, made all haste to fill themselves with pleasure by defihng themselves with sin. England in the Eighteenth Century. 45 In 1736 every sixth house in London was a gin-shop. The sign- boards of inns adver- tised to make a man drank for a penny, dead drunk for two pence, and promised straw to lie on while he was getting sober. From these dens of in- iquity bands of young men would sally forth by night for a drunken frolic, and commit ev- ery sort of depredation upon the persons and property of peaceable citizens, sometimes even torturing them with their swords, breaking heads, split- ting noses, and sub- mitting both men and women to the \alest possible indignities. The capital swarmed with desj)erate and shameless adventurers, plotting how to fasten themselves and their families upon the Church or the civil hst, or picking up a precarious living as professional wits ; tell- ing vile jokes or sing- A BIT OF OLD LONDON. Orange Court, Drury Lane, about 1740. 46 Illustrated History of Methodism. ing lewd sougs, not only iu ale-houses and bagnios, but also in the assemblies of polite society. The ignorance of the common people was another curse of the kingdom. In the year 1715 less than twenty-five thousand of the childi-en of the poor were sent to school ; being only about one fourth of the number of scholars now in the Wesleyan Methodist day schools of England, to say nothing of the schools connected with the other communions. As for law, it was plenty enough, but justice was far more rare. ^_ The prisons were full to burst- ing ; and there was a public hang- ing every week, by which large numbers of sinners, great and small, were assisted out of the world without perceptibly im- - proving it. Neither the Tyburn •;\\ gallows, nor the array of heads '»»}—: 1-^ t 8 newly cut off for treason — with lii^-' ' f ^"^ which it used to be the custom to ?_^ ~'"" decorate Temple Bar and the gate-way of old London Bridge — availed to frighten the people into good behavior, since it was e\'ident that what was called Justice in Great Britain was chiefly a means of protecting the king against his subjects, and defending the rich against the poor. The Church in England, versus the Church of Engiand.— But where was the Church all this while ? On the throne, in the person of the king ; in the court, foremost in intrigue; in the House of Lords, where bishops hob-nobbed with peei-s of the realm ; in grand cathedrals splendidly endowed ; in fat livings all over the kingdom ; in all the resorts of pleasure and fashion ; but not among the surging throngs of common sinners, who were so sunk in ignorance and atheism that they hardly knew, or boldly denied, that they had any souls to be saved. The Church of England, like that of Laodicea, though proud of its traditions, its wealth, and its power, was " wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Its wealth and offices were constantly prostituted to personal and political OI.I1 I.OXDOX BRIDGE. .England in the Eighteenth Century. 47 ends. For rojal favorites and zealous partisans it had titles, benefices, and prefermonts ; for the masses of the people it had httle else to give, in return for the conformity and the tithes it exacted, except the forms of the holy sacraments, and a hturgy which might almost as well have been in papal Latin for any good the unschooled nistics could find in it as it was drawled or rattled out by some haK-starved curate, while his rector was giving himseK up to a life of rural pleasure or courtly intrigue. It is true, the Lord had a few faithful servants both among the clergy of the Establishment and the ministry of the Non-conformists Churches, but for the most part both priests and people were not only destitute of the power of godhness, but also of the form thereof. In studying the history of the great Methodist revival, and its re- lation to the communion within which it commenced, it should not be forgotten that Christ has a Church in England, which is not of En- gland ; a Church older than Henry YIII. ; older than Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury ; older than the paganism of the Saxon conquest ; older than the Romanism of the papacy. There were Chris- tian Churches, and Christian martyrs too, in Britain long before that very prudent prince, the Emperor Constantino, could make up his mind to break with the Roman idolaters and allow himself to be bap- tized. There were British Christians, scattered by persecution among the Scottish highlands and the mountains of Wales, hunted by pagan Britons, and afterward by pagan Saxons ; persecuted, now by Roman- ists in the name of the Pope, and now by Anghcans in the name of the King — these are the people from whom has descended the true Angh- can Church. The Church in England is spiritual, the Church of England is political ; the one is from heaven, the other is of men ; their historic lines sometimes cross each other, but they seldom coincide for any great length of distance or time. Outline of English 8tate-Cliiirchisni. — A brief sketch of the career of the Church of England, as distinguished from the Church ill England, though not essential to this history, wiU greatly assist in understanding many of the events which have a vital connec- tion with the "Wesleyan revival. In the 3^ear 596 England was Romanized by Augustine ; not the Saint of that name, but a Roman monk who was sent by Pope Gregory 48 Illustrated History of Methodism. the Great to take advantage of the marriage of the heathen King of Kent with a Christian princess. This marriage was tlie beginning of pohtical rehgion in England. " Strangers from Rome " was the title by which Augustine and his forty monks introduced themselves to King Ethelbert — Romans first, and Christians afterward — and when they had made a Roman and a Christian of the King, his subjects dutifully followed him, and as many as ten thousand of them are said to have been baptized in a single day. Here beginneth the royal headship of the Church of England. The monks now turned their attention to converting the pagans in other parte of the British islands ; using mild measures at first, such as sprinkling the temples with holy water, taking down the idols Thor, Woden, and other ISTorse divinities, and setting up images of Roman saints ; all this with a view to convert these British temples into Romish churches, and to displace the pagan by the Christian form with the least possible shock to the pagan mind. It was this pohtic Roman monk, Augustine, who, in the French city of Aries, in the year 597, was consecrated by Pope Gregory as the first Archbishop of Canter- bury, and Metropolitan of England ; and chiefly along his hue of policy and prelacy, with varying fortunes, but with always the same flavor of statecraft about it, the Church of England has ascended to our day. From the beginning of the eighth to the middle of the sixteenth century the power of Rome over the English nation had increased, until the papal sanction was necessary to the settlement of all polit- ical, as well as spiritual, questions. The high oflBces in the English ( hurch "were at the disposal of the Pope ; spiritual courts were estab- lished for the trial of " spiritual persons," whereby all crimes, murder not excepted, became frequent among ecclesiastics, for whom, so far as Jiuman law was concerned, any iniquity was safe; and so greedy were they of filthy lucre, and so successful in accumulating it, that at one time nearly half the wealth of England was under their control. The Reformation under Luther, which promised so much for Europe, produced only a temporary impression upon the Church of England. Protestantism did, indeed, set up a new system of doctrine and discipHne, which was a vast improvement on the ever-multiplying heresies of Rome ; but the Reformation soon lost its power as a rehg- ion by aspiring after, or rather groveling after, political supremacy. England in the Eighteenth Century. 49 Meanwhile, Henry VIII. of England projected a Reformation of Ills own. He had special use for a Church as well as for an army and navy, and in his hands the one was as much a political instrument as the other. In 1531 this infamous prince was proclaimed by his obe- dient convocation of English bishops as " The only and supreme lord, -and, as far as the law of Christ permits, even the supreme head of the Church of England ;" and in 1539 his Parliament passed an " Act for Abolishing Diversity of Opinions," by which those who ventured to OLIVER CROMWELL. "hold different notions of faith and practice from those set forth in his royal manifesto were condemned " to suffer the pains of death as fel- ons," or to be " imprisoned during the king's pleasure." In the new liturgy which Henry's obedient clergy composed for his Church in 1548, occurs this prayer :— " From the tyranny of the Bishop of Eome and all his detesta]-»le enormities, good Lord, deliver us ! " Yet, after centuries of intrigue, 4 50 Illustrated History of IMethodism. martyrdom, aud murder, England Lad simply freed herself from the great Komau pontiff and set up a little j)ope of her own. But Henry's Church was born to trouble. England was too rich a prize to be easily wrenched from the grasp of Rome, and hence it was that the kingdom s^^img back and forth from AngHcanism to Roman- ism and from Romanism to Anglicanism again ; making, on one of these journeys, a detour off into Presbyterianism ; but, having had too much of Cromwell and his roundheads, who must needs erect their re- ligious opinions into a State Church like all the rest, the nation, after various rehgious contortions, laj)sed into a condition of disgust at all religion ; at least, all political religion ; and there was mournfully httle religion in England at that day of any other sort. The path of the Church of England is plentifully stained with martyrs' blood as well as with that of a meaner sort ; yet even this is void of power or praise to the political Church of the kingdom, since the fagot and the ax have served at different times in the name of the official religion, now to punish one form of faith and now another. The people of England have been marched to prison in like coffles of slaves to the auction block, and some of her priests and bishoj)* have been beheaded or burned ''for their rehg- ion ; " but with every martyr's memorial which one may meet, set up in honor of those who have sealed their faith with their blood, it is needful to inquire on account of what particular form of faith this particular mar- tyr died — for so many different reasons, in its crooked course down the centuries, has the estabhshed Church of England murdered men and •women. Under the Romish system the State was held to be the crea- ture and servant of the Church ; in Protestant England, since the day& of Henry and Elizabeth, the Church, /. een the servant of the State. The old kings were treated platoons I'KOCKSSION OF RELIGIOUS CRIMINALS ON THEIR WAY TO PRISON. England in the Eighteenth Centuky. 51 like little deities, whose food and wine must be offered on bended knee ; now they were prelates, whose oj^inions in religion, inspired by schem- ing ecclesiastics, constituted the orthodoxy of the Church, and whose will was, presumably, the will of God. The apostasies and martyrdoms under the varying forms of Church law, which followed the accession of Papist or Protestant kings and queens, served still further to corrupt the morals of the kingdom. There was, indeed, an " Act of Toleration," which permitted Non- conformists to maintain their own forms of worship on condition that they should also support, financially, the established religion of the State ; but in their eyes its worship was no worship, its ministry was no ministry, its sacraments no sacraments, while, on the other hand, they were denounced by the Church party as rebels, blasphemers, reprobates, in a state of sin and misery, and in danger of eternal damnation. One deep and lasting impression, however, was made upon the peo- j)le of England by these politico-religious oscillations, namely : hatred of the Pope. The reign of " bloody Mary,'' from 1553 to 1558, when Papacy was the State religion, aroused the wrath of the English people to such a degree that on her death and the accession of Elizabeth in the last-named year, the triumph of Protestantism was substantially com- plete, and to this day the party cry of " No Popery ! " will rouse the blood of English artisans and peasants, and call forth ringing cheers from almost any great assembly of free-born Britons. But the value of hatred as a saving grace, even though it be the hatred of the Pope himself, cannot be very considerable : Protestantism, pure and simple, is simply no religion at all : nevertheless, protesting and hating is s,o much easier than praying and loving that, in the eighteenth century, anti-popery had come to be considered a form of religious faith, an! Protestantism was made to cover a multitude of sins. The spiritual value of this last reformation, or revolution of the State religion, may be estimated in the light of the fact that when the transition took place from the extreme Popery of the reign of Mary to the extreme Protestantism of Elizabeth, nearly all the clergy of the State Church succeeded in overleaping the gulf without the loss of their places. Out of the nine thousand four hundred beneficed clergy of the Church of England, only one hundred and seventy-two quitted 01' Illustrated History of ^Iethodism. their offices or '' livings " rather than change their rehgion.* No won- der tliat such a convenient " rehgion " rapidly sunk into contempt among a people whose love of what is genuine, as opposed to all preten- sion, is a well-known national characteristic. The "Anglican Church," says one of its most eminent bisho]3s, " was an ecclesiastical system under which the people of England had lapsed into heathenism. :ixi.i^x'Vi:s MK^loiilAi or a state hardly to be distinguished from it." But what else was to be expected from a Church whose constitution was a political contriv- ance invented to meet the exigencies of the State, whose offices were often given as bribes and presents from kings and nobles in recogni- tion of partisan zeal or family claims, and whose sacraments even were regarded by the clergy as exclusive official prerogatives more than as * Smith's " History of "Wcsle.van Methodism," vol. i, p. •".. . England in the Eighteenth Century. 53 ordinances of the Lord ! To seek for any substantial Christianity as the product of such a Church is only an attempt to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. Throughout this wretched era the Lord had here and there some faithful servants to declare his pleasure and defend his word. These God-fearing men, although in a hopeless minority, lifted up their voices against the iniquities of the time, and from the outpourings of their shame and sorrow the most vivid pictures of the irrehgion of the age may be drawn. It was an age that builded the tombs of the mar- tyrs, but which avoided the remotest approach to their heroic hfe and death. The Bishoj) of Lichfield says : — " The Lord's day is now^ the devil's market day : more lewdness, more drunkenness, more murders, more sin is contrived and committed on this day than on all the other days of the week together. . . . Sin, in general, has grown so hardened and rampant as that immoralities are defended ; yea, justified on principle. Every kind of sin has found a writer to vindicate and teach it, and a bookseller and hawker to di- vulge and spread it." Bishop Burnet, in 1Y13, speaking of the candidates for ordination in the State Church, says : " The much greater part of those who come to be ordained are ignorant to a degree not to be apprehended by those who are not obliged to know it. The easiest part of knowledge is that to which they are the greatest strangers : I mean the plainest parts of the Scriptures." Bishop Butler, in the preface to his "Analogy," which is itseK a piece of devout rationalism, declares that " it has come to be taken for granted that Christianity is not so much a subject of inquiry, but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious." Sir John Barnard, once Lord Mayor of London, and for forty years its representative in Parliament, complains that " it really seems to be the fashion for a man to declare himself of no religion ; " and Mon- tesquieu, in his " ISTotes on England," says, that " not more than four or five members of the House of Commons were regular attendants at church." Lecky, in his work entitled " England in the Eighteenth Century," describes the theology preached in the churches of the Establishment 54 Illistuated History of Methodism. as little more than another form of rationalism. " It was," says he, " the leading object of the skei^tics of the time to a-sert the sufficiency of natural relioion. It v/as tlie leading object of a large proportion of EXTRAXCK To 'illK IIAI.I, (iK ( IIKIST CIU IICII COLLEGE, OXFORD. the divines to pi'ove tliat Christianity was little more than natural re- ligion accredited by historic proofs and enforced by tlie indisputable sanctions of rewards and punishments. Beyond a belief in the doc- ti'ine of tlie Trinity and a general acknowledgment of the veracity of 'EXGLAXD IX THE EIGHTEENTH CeNTURY. 55 the gospel narratives, tliej taught httle that might not have been taught by the disciples of Socrates and Confucius." The Rev. Augustus M. Toplady, himself a minister of the Estab- hshed Church, who died in 1778, said, in a sermon preached not long before his death : " I beh6vfe'no denomination of jDrofessiug Chris- tians, the Church of Rome excepted, was so generally void of the hght and life of godhness, so generally destitute of the doctrine and of the grace of the Gospel, as was the Church of England, considered as a body, about fifty years ago. At that period a converted minister in the Establishment was as great a wonder as a comet." Such was the Established Church, the poHtical as distinguished from the spiritual Church, under whose aus]3ice5 in the eighteenth century the Idngdom of Great Britain almost went back to barbarism. " If I had not been Prime Minister," said Premier Walpole, " I would have been Archbishop of Canterbury," and though he neither feared God nor regarded man, this place in the Church of England would, no doubt, have been within his reach if his personal ambition had taken that pai-ticular turn. Irreli§"IOMS Iieariiiii§". — The universities, too, with all their splendor of architecture and all their wealth of endowment, had fallen into a state of intellectual and moral stagnation. In 1729 the heads of Oxford issued a notice complaining of the spread of open deism among the students, and urging that they be more carefully instructed in theology. But how was this to be done ? The writings of the Christian Fathers were too full of superstition for the classical taste of the times ; they were, therefore, displaced by the literature of ancient Greece and Rome ; and as for the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, few university men thought the book worthy their atten- tion in any tongue whatever. The Bishop of Chichester, in a letter to a young clergyman, says : — " IS'ame me any one of the men famed for learning in this or the last aee who have seriously turned themselves to the study of the Scriptures. ... A haj^py emendation on a passage in a pagan writer, that a modest man would blush at, will do you more credit and be of more service to you than the most useful employment of your time upon the Scriptures, unless you resolve to conceal your sentiment and speak always with the vulgar." 56 Illustrated History of Methodism. The popular literature of the day, as to its morality, was quite doAvn to the classical standard. Iniquities of speech, hidden from the un- learned, were dragged forth and exhibited in broad English ; books- and pictures held place on drawing-room tables which would now con- sign their publishers to prison ; and even the mysteries of religion England in the Eighteenth Century. 0^ were turned into ribald jests. One of the most popular clergymen of the State Church so far prostituted his literary genius as to write a poetic burlesque on the last judgment, and none of the Church digni- taries called the clerical clown to account for his impiety, because the fashionable world was laughing at his wit. The Dissenters — that is to say, the Presbyterians, Independ- ents, and Baptists — though less conformed to this world, and holding less of it in their hands, were constrained to mourn over the wastes of Zion. Many of their ministers were immoral and negligent of their duty, spending their time and strength in sports and revels, or in scrambhng for the best paying pastorates in their respective churches, with much of the same spirit as that which they so bitterly denounced in the clergy of the Established Church. Surely such an England as this needed a revival of religion ; not a "reformation," which would merely replace one State Church by another, but a coming to the front of the divine elements which priest craft and politics had so long thrust out of sight. State of Iftelt^-ioii in Scotland. — A glance at Scotland,. where the Reformation, under the lead of grand old John Knox had done so great a work, shows that portion of the kingdom to have been burdened with ver-much theology. Lecky gives this char- acteristic picture of a Scotch congregation which was quite driven out of the meeting- house by a sermon preached by the son of their old minister, who JOHN Kxox. had just come home with certain latitudinarian notions in his head, whereof one of the good elders complained to the father thus : — 58 Illustrated History of Methodism. " That silly lad has fashed a' the congregation wi' liis idle cackle ; he's been babbling the oor aboot ' the gude and benevolent God ; ' and the soids o' the heathen themsel' will gang to heaven if they follow the licht o' their ain consciences ; but not ane word does the daft young lad ken nor speer nor say aboot the gude, comfortable doctrines of election, reprobation, original sin, and faith. Hoot, mon ; awa wi' sic a fellow ! " If this be a fair showing of Scotch taste in religion, it would appear that the spiritual condition of Scotland at this time was such as to indicate the need of another Reformation. Ireland, where, a few years later, Methodism won some of its brightest triumphs, was, in the first half of the eighteenth century, thought to be hardly worth the notice of polite and respectable En- ghshmen. Among her people there were, indeed, many superior minds, but for the most part ignorance and superstition reigned sapreme. ]?Iethodi§iu a Benediction. — The Methodist revival, which must have been a gift from God out of heaven since there was noth- ing in the condition of this world out of which to produce it, was like a fresh breeze from the north on a sultrv summer's dav. Reeking: odors from all manner of social and spiritual decay filled the air, and the few godly men in England were panting for a pure breath from the upper heavens. At length it came, sweeping along like the winds which God lets loose from his fists, swaying devout souls, breaking down stubborn sinners, spreading confusion where vice and wealth had wrought together to build themselves a tower or temple, overturning hopes built on false foundations, but quenching not the smoking flax nor breaking the bruised reed. It was Heaven's bountiful answer to the silent prayer of the world's great sorrow by reason of its great sin. In the midst of this spiritual darkness God raised up a bishop, a preacher, and a poet ; three men the equals of whom liave, probably, never been" seen in the world at once since the apostolic days : the bishop was John "Wesley, the preacher was George AVhitefield, the poet was Charles "Wesley. To these three men, and those whom they gathered to their standard, did the Lord commit the precious work of awakening the British kingdom to a sense of God and duty, and by them ho wrought a reformation which stands alone in British history Eis^GLAis^D iiN" THE Eigiitee:s^th Centuey. 59 as a spiritual revival of religion without admixture of State-craft or the patronage of Parliament or King. It has been lately claimed by one high in the Enghsh Churcli that these men were the jDroduct of England's ecclesiastical system, and that, therefore, the common judgment of history against the State Church of their day has been unjust." As well might it be said that the car- cass of Samson's dead lion j)roduced the honey he afterward found in it. If ay, rather let it be said that God in his mercy set himself to save the Enghsh Church from its death and corruption ; and that the Wes- leys and Whitefield were the proj)hets whom he sent to prophesy to the bones of that valley, and to raise up from among the dead an ex- ceeding great army to the j^raise of his infinite grace. *Dean Stanley, at his Methodist Reception in St. Paul's M. E. Church, New York, 1879. JOHX Kxox s cuuiicn l^ edixbukgii. c^//^ / Susanna Wesley. Mother of John Wesley. CHAPTER II. THE WESLEY FAMILY. A CAREFUL student of human nature lias said, " When God sets out to make a great man he first makes a great woman ; " a state- ment emmently true in tlie case of Jolm Wesley ; but only one side of the tmth, for on his father's, as well as on his mother's side, he inherited great talents and high moral endowments. The Wesley, or Westley, family was one of high respectability in the The Wesley Family. 61 south of England. Its annals can be traced as far back as the four- teenth century, and it is interesting to find in almost every generation an eminent clergyman and scholar. Thus in 1403 George Westley was prebendary of Bedminster and Eadeclyye ; in 1481 John "Westley, *' bachelor in degrees," was rector of Langton Matravers ; in 1497 John Wannesleigh was rector of Bettiscomb ; in 1508 John "Wennesley was chaplain of Pillesdon, all of which parishes were in the county of Dorsetshire, in which, after the lapse of one hundred and thirty yeais, the name of the family, which had undergone such changes in orthog- raphy, again appears, beginning with Bartholomew AVesley, the great grandfather of John and Charles AVesley, rector of Charrmouth and Catherston, who gained the title of "the fanatical parson" on account of his ojDposition to State Church pretensions and his sacrifices for the sake of his opinions. On the accession of Charles II. to the English throne, Bartholomew Wesley, as well as hundreds of other clergymen, was ejected from his " livings," and forbidden, by the " Five Mile Act," to approach within that distance of his former parishes. Jolin \^^e§t3ey, his son, was educated for the priesthood at the University of Oxford. During the civil war the splendid halls and chapels on which Cardinal Wolsey had lavished untold wealth were turned into store-houses, magazines and barracks ; but when Crom- well became master of England under the title of " Lord Protector," the Oxford Colleges were repaired, the schools re-opened, and this John "Westley, grandfather of John and Charles Wesley, was one of the first as well as one of the foremost scholars admitted thereto. In 1658, the year of Cromwell's death, he became the minister at Whitchurch, a small market town in Shropshire ; but with the disap- pearance of the Commonwealth, and the re-estabhshment of the throne and the episcopal form of Church Government, he was denounced as one of Cromwell's Puritans, seized by the State Church ofiicers, and carried to prison at Blandford ; but so admirable was his conduct at the examination that he was allowed to return to his parish, his gentleness and piety having quite disarmed his envious and spiteful accusers. The 24th of August, 1662, was the day appointed for carrying into effect the " Act of Uniformity," by which the episcopal form of gov- ernment was to be fully restored in the dmrch, and by which all its 62 Illustrated History of Methodism. ministers were required, not only to use the Book of Common Prayer, but also to avow their " unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained therein." Mr. Westley, who would not compromise his conscience for the sake of his " living," preached his farewell sermon on the preceding Sunday, August 17th, and thenceforth became an outcast and a wander- er, hunted from to^vn to town, repeatedly thrust into prison, but ever maintaining his faith and his patience, unmoved alike by threats or promises, preaching the Gospel as he could find opportunity, and fur- JOHX AVESTLEY, GEAXDFATIIEK OF JOHX AND CHARLES WESLEY. nishing an admirable illustration of that tenet of his faith entitled " the perseverance of the saints," until his sufferings broke his heart and wore out his life, and he sunk into a premature grave about 1670. Such was the grandfather and namesake of John AVesley, the Meth- dist : gentle, incorruptible, devout, with a conscience quick as the apple of an eye, and with a most unconcjuerablc will. lie could not be permitted to hold his place in the Church of England — but that he was a tnie and faithful member of the Clmrcli In England there is no occasion to deny. The Wesley Family. 63 Samuel Westley, in the next generation, was also a clergyman. He was left an orphan in his infancy, which fact may account for the slight impression made upon him by the heroic sacrifices and sufferings endured by his father and grandfather in defense of the rights of conscience. In the academy at Newington Green, a private school of the Dis- senters, in which he was placed to be trained for a ISTon-conformist minister, he had for his school-fellows the famous Daniel De Foe, and a lad named Crusoe, after whom the immortal hero of the lonely island was named. Here young "Westley soon distinguished himself as a writer, and when only seventeen years of age he was selected to reply to certain severe articles which had been published against the Dissenters ; but the course of reading by which he sought to prepare himself for his task had the opposite effect upon his mind from what he had intended, for it led him to espouse the cause of the Establish- ment, and he became thenceforth a sturdy defender of the State Church, and an ardent Tory in politics, which sentiments in after years cost him no little trouble. Knowing the opposition he was sure to encounter from his mother, as well as from an old aunt, who ap- pears to have offered an asylum to the widow and her family, and to have been his patron at school, young Westley left her house one morning very early, with only the sum of two pounds and sixteen shillings in his pocket, and started for Oxford, where he entered him- self at Exeter College, where in due time he took his bachelor s degree. In 1690 he was ordained as deacon in the Established Church, and presented to the small " living " of Soutli Ormsby by the Marquis of Normanby. This nobleman, who owned the parish, thought to own its minister also, but the Reverend Samuel was not the man to be kept in subjection, and, having turned the marquis' mistress out of doors, who had insisted on being a visitor at the rectory, he himself was thrust out of his " living," but soon afterward obtained the rectorship of the parish of Epwoi-th, in Lincolnshire, a position in the gift of the Crown, where he passed the remainder of his life, and where his two famous eons, John and Charles, were born ; the former on the 17th of June, 1703, and the latter on the ISth of December, 170S.* * Rev. Samuel Wesley left the " t " out of the family name about the time of his removal to Epworth. 64 Illustrated History of Methodism. It would seem that the Ruler of events was planning these two men several generations beforehand, and was carefully developing just those elements of mind and body which were to be required in the great mission on which he had determined to send them. In the grandfather of the Methodist AYeslevs he seems to have arrived at the proper pattern for the great leader, John Wesley, and in their father, [he ideal for the poet of this great revival, Charles Wesley ; for John is almost John Westley over again, while Charles is the fac simile of his father Samuel, though in both cases there is a very considerable ascent as well as descent. SUSANNA ANNESLEY. The ]?lollier ol' the "IVesleys. — All writers of Methodist history dwell with rapture on the talents and virtues of that admirable English matron, Mrs. Susanna Wesley ; while to the devout student thereof the gracious purpose of God is manifest in preparing and unit- The Wesley Family. 65 ing two such noble lines of power and genius as those which were joined in the persons of Samuel Westley and Susanna Annesley. This lady was the youngest daughter of Eev. Samuel Annesley, LL.D., a nephew of the Earl Anglesea and a graduate of Oxford, where his studiousness and his piety were as admirable as they were rare. He was afterward settled in the parish of St. James, in London, and was also appointed lecturer at St. Paul's ; but, being a Kon-conformist, as those ministers of the Establishment were called who refused to submit to the " Act of Uniformity," he was ejected from his prefer- ments, and, being a gentleman of fortune, he became a leader and ben- efactor among his JSTon-conformist brethren, wdio, like him, had been driven from their parishes, but wlio, unlike him, were poor. Singularly enough, his daughter, while scarcely more than a child, passed through the same change of sentiment as that already men- tioned in the case of her future husband. She, too, had studied the controversy between the Established Church and the Dissenters, and had thereby become an ardent friend of the Establishment. Thus it would appear to have been a part of the divine purpose that the great religious leader, John Wesley, should not only inherit tliat vigor of personal opinion which was the outcome of English Nonconformity, but that he should be born and reared within the bosom of the Estab- lished Church : a fact not to be forgotten in tracing his career as a Methodist and a Churchman. In the year 1689 the Eev. Samuel Wesley and Susanna Annes- ley were married, the age of the bride being about twenty, and that of the bridegroom about twenty-seven. For about forty years this his- toric household dwelt in the parish of Epworth, the father dividing his time between the care of his parish and voluminous literary labors, chiefly in the form of poetry ; while the mother kept at home, guided the house, bore children — eighteen or nineteen of them in all, though only ten survived their infancy — trained them in a school of her own, and also attended to such parish duties as the frequent absence of her husband left upon her hands. Of this great family three sons and seven daughters grew up to maturity. They all possessed unusual tal- ents, and all three of the sons became ministers of the EstabHshed Church. It seems almost incredible that the wife of a parish clergyman, 66 IlLUSTEATED HiSTOEY of METHODISil. upon a salary which was too small even to allow his family proper food and clothing, a lady of delicate health and of refined tastes, which were continuallY shocked by the rnde people among whom she liyed, shonld haye been able to endure such toils and privations without losing either her spirit or her life ; but in spite of all these depressing cir- cumstances and surroundings she actually kept herself so far in ad- vance of her college-bred sons, especially in things pertaining to the word and kingdom of God, that for years she was their acknowledged spiritual counselor and guide. Among other helpful things she wrote for them some most admirable expositions of Scripture, and of por- tions of the Book of Common Prayer. She grounded her children in the nidiments of learning ; trained tliem up to be ladies and gentle- men, and, in spite of the continual misfortune which came upon the family because her husband was more of a poet and a politician than was good for him, she ever remained the same courteous, seK-poised, far-seeing, courageous Christian woman. Mrs. l\^esley's Home School. — The family of the rector was the only one in the parish that could boast of any learning ; there- fore if the children were not to grow up barbarians they must, of ne- cessity, for a long time be schooled at home. This great task fell ahnost wholly to the mother, and her success therein adds no little em- phasis to the princijjles on which she conducted it. Her theory was that even in babyhood the child sliould be taught that one lesson which it was capable of learning, namely, submission ; the next lesson was obedience, that is to say, intelligent submission to parental authority ; the next lesson was piety, that is, intelligent and loving submission to God. ^Vt five years old it was her rule to begin their secular educa- tion, and from this time they studied regularly in the family school, of wliich Mrs. AVesley was both the teacher and mother. Dr. Adam Clarke, whose Irish gallantry no doubt gave its height- ened color to the boundless admiration in which ho held the mother of the Wesleys, tells us that this great family of little children were M'on- derfully gentle and polite, not only to their parents and visitors, but to each other and to the servants as well ; and that " they had the common fame of being the most loving family in the county of Lincolnshire." Jirn, 'Wesley's "Conventicle." — A glimpse of the illiterate and ungovernable rustics among whom they Hved and labored is given The Wesley Family. 67 ill two of Mrs. Wesley's letters to her husband, while he was absent for some months in attendance npon the meeting of Convocation at London ; bnt, what is of more importance, they contain an acconnt of that notable effort on the part of Mrs. Wesley to promote tnie religion in her OAvn family and among her neighbors by an irregular but won- derfully efficient means of grace, to wit, a private meeting at the rectory on Sunday evenings, conducted by Mrs. Wesley herself. The curate who assisted the rector with the duties of his two small parishes, Epworth and Wroote, was, in the judgment of Mrs. Wesley, unable to edify her husband's people, and, seeing the attendance at church fall off, she commenced to hold private meetings for her own family, and such others as chose to attend. These little services were similar to those conducted at the parish church, consisting of portions of the service from the Prayer Book, and a sermon read by Mrs. Wesley. Xot wishing to trespass npon her husband's rights by holding relig- ious service in his parish without his consent, she wrote to him de- scribing their little meetings, and mentioned that they were evidently doing the people much good. Mr. "Wesley objected to this singular proceeding, and suggested that, to avoid the scandal of having a sermon read in public by a woman, she should find some man to read it. Mrs. Wesley replied : " As for your j^rojDosal of letting some other person read. Alas ! you do not consider what a people these are. I do not think one man among them could read a sermon without spell- ing a good part of it out. And how would that edify the rest ? " In relation to her liusband's objection on the ground of her sex, she replies : " As I am a woman, so I am also mistress of a large family. And though the superior charge of the souls contained in it lies upon you, as head of the family and as their minister, yet in your absence I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my care as a talent committed to me under trust by the great Lord of all the families of heaven and earth." AVhen the attendance at the little meetings at the parsonage had increased to between two and three hundred, the stupid curate, jealous of the woman for having a larger congregation in her house than he could draw at the parish church, wrote ta his rector, complaining of 6S Illustrated History of Metiiodis^i. this disorderly assembly — this conventicle,* as irregular religious serv- ices were spitefully called — and Mr. Wesley, whose High-church notions always lay near the surface, at once Avrote to his wife desiring her to suspend her meetings. In reply Mrs. AYesley gives the following account of how she came to hold the meetings : — '' Soon after you went to London, Emily [one of her daughters] found in your study an account of the Danish missionaries, which, having never seen, I ordered her to read to me. I was never, I think, more afJected with any thing than with the relation of their travels, and was exceedingly pleased with the noble design they were engaged in. Their labors refreshed my soul beyond measure, and I could not forbear spending good part of that evening in praising and adoring the divine goodness for inspiring those men with such ardent zeal for His glory, that they were willing to hazard their lives and all that is esteemed dear to men in this world to advance the honor of their Master, Jesus. " For several days I could think or sjjeak of little else. At last it came into my mind : Though I am not a 07ia7i nor a minister of the GosjDel, and so cannot be employed in such a worthy employment as they were, yet if my heart were sincerely devoted to God, and if I were inspired with a true zeal for his glory and did really desire the salvation of souls, I might do somewhat more than I do. I thought I might live in a more exemplary manner in some things. I might pray more for the people and speak with more warmth to those with whom I have an opportunity of conversing. " However, I resolved to begin with my own children ; and accord- ingly I proposed and observed the following method : I take such a proportion of time as I can best spare every night to discourse with each child, by itself, on something that relates to its principal concerns. On Monday I talk with Molly ; on Tuesday with Hetty ; Wednesday with Nancy ; Thursday with ' Jackey ; ' [" Jackey " Wesley ! who, since that day, ever conceived of John Wesley as a boy?] Friday *The famous "Conventicle Act" was passed by the British Parliament in 1C64. It for- bade the assembly of more than five persons besides the resident members of a family for any religious purpose not according to the Book of Common Prayer. Mrs. Wesley's conven- ticle was, however, strictly according to that book, for she used no other service than that laid down in it. The Wesley Family. 69 with Patty ; Saturday with Charles ; and with Emily and Sukey together on Sunday. " With those few neighl^ors who then came to me I then discoursed more fully and affectionately than before. I chose the best and most awakening sermons we had, and I spent time with them in such exer- cises. Since this our company has increased every night ; for I dare deny none that asks admittance. Last Sunday I believe we had above two hundred, and yet many went away for want of room. " But I never durst positively presume to hope that God would make use of me as an instrument in doing good ; the furthest I durst go was — It may be : who can tell ? " After mentioning tlie good which had been done — among other things, that the meeting had wonderfully conciliated the minds of the people toward their pastor and his family, so that they could now live in peace among tliem — Mrs. Wesley closes with these wifely and Christian sentences : — " If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience. But send me -^(mx ])Ositive command in snch full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before tlie great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ." Such dutiful words from his wife and parishioner, which at the same time brought the rector face to face with God, and challenged him to exercise his right and power with the same obedient heart toward his superior as that she held toward hers, seems to have given a new turn to the argument, and to have left the victory with the woman; for we hear nothing more of the rector's objections, and ''The Society," as Mrs. Wesley named her assembly, continued its meetings until the rector's return. Epworth Politics. — The sharpness and power of this lady's mind is suggested by her reference to the fact that her " conventicles " had been the means of establishing peaceful relations between the family of the rector and the people of the parish. This was touchino- her husband in a vital spot ; for his political partisanship had kept the parish in a ferment of sullen ugliness which sometimes broke out into open violence against the rector and his family. 70 Illusteated Histoey of Methodism. The bitterness of the quarrels between the two factions into which the parish and the kingdom were divided can hardly be appreciated at the present day. The reigning King was William III., Prince of Orange, who, with his wife, Mary, the eldest daughter of King James IL, had come over from the Dutch Netherlands at the invita- tion of the leaders of the Protestant party in England, and possessed himself of the throne which James, on account of his tyranny in the interests of the Papists, had been compelled to abdicate. IIIK VULXG rKETKXDKK. James II. was now dead, and the Papist party in England, called Jacobites, claimed to bold allegiance to his son, known in history as the " Young Pretender,"' in whose interest the Jacobites were contin- ually plotting and planning for another revolution, with a view to set up the Pomish Church again as the Church of England. The Epworth rector was a firm supporter of William and Mary, but his wife, although as good a Protestant as himself, did not believe in the The Wesley Family. 71 legitimacy of their title, though she prudently kept her oj)inion to herself. One day at family worship the rector noticed that his wife did not say "Amen" in the proper place after the form of prayer for the king and royal family, and when the service was over he straightway inquired the reason. " I do not believe in the title of the Prince of Orange," said Mrs. "Wesley. This raised the j)atriotic wrath of her husband, who instantly replied : — " If we have two kings we must have two beds." And he actually lefi his family and his parish and remained away from them for more than half a year, till Queen Anne, another daughter of the exiled James II., came to the throne, in whose title both the husband and the wife believed ; whereupon the family was once more united. If the learned and pious rector of the parish could make such an exhibition of bad temper over a difference of political opinion in his own household, what might not be expected of the rabble in the wild €xcitements of festivals and elections ? A Brsind Plwckecl from tlie Burning. — The parish of Epworth was divided against itself, and so wild was the zeal of the Jacobites on the one hand and the Orangemen on the other that it often broke out into deeds of violence. The election for the county of Lincoln in May, IYO.5, was very bitter and exciting. Mr. Samuel Wesley, with more valor than discre- tion, entered warmly into the contest in support of the candidate of the Orangemen, who was, nevertheless, defeated ; and, on his return from the polling-place at the county-seat, the Epworth Jacobites cele- brated their victory by raising a mob, which surrounded the rectory and kept up a din of drums, shouts, noise of lire-arms, and such like, till after midnight. The next evening one of the mob, passing the yard where the rector's children were playing, cried out, " O ye devils ! we will come and turn ye all out of doors a-begging, shortly ;" a threat which must have had a strange significance to the Wesleys, whose fathers had suffered that identical outrage at the hands of the Church to which the rector was now devoting his tongue and his pen. It would have been " an eye for an eye " if the Jacobites had been able to execute 72 Illustkated History of Methodism. their threat by means of another revolution ; but as they were not they kept up an infamous style of persecution, stabbing the rector's cows, cutting off a leg of his dog, withholding his tithes, arresting and thrusting him into jail for small debts, and finally, after one or two unsuccessful attempts, burning the rectory to the ground, and fulfill- ing their threat of turning him and his family out of doors. -.^^^^.^^ A BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING. This last event occurred when his son John was about six years old. In the dead of a winter's night the father was awakened by the fire comiri^ into his chamber through the thatched roof, and, hastily arousing his family, they fled down stairs, and with great difficulty escaped with their Hves. By some mischance little John was left behind, fast asleep ; but being awakened, he sprang to the window and The Wesley Family. 73 began to cry for help. It was too late ; the house was filled with smoke and flame ; there was not time to fetch a ladder, and the frantic father tried in vain to ascend the stairs, but they were already too far gone to support his weight ; and, half dead with suffocation and frantic with distress, he fell on his knees and commended his poor lost boy to God. But meanwhile a stout man had placed himself against the wall of the house, and another had climbed upon his shoulders, and httle Jack, leaping into his arms, was rescued out of the very jaws of the flame. The next instant the whole blazing mass of the roof fell in. This fire occurred in the year 1709. The letters of Mrs. Wesley to her husband, above quoted, bear the dates of February 6th and 12th, 1Y12, whereby it would appear that the wrath of their enemies had followed them year after year until, in the absence of the rector, his wife, under the blessing of God, so established her influence with the people as to bring them in crowds to the rectory for prayer and instruction, thus becoming the real preacher of the Gospel of peace ; after which time there is no further record of ill-will on the part of the Epworth people toward their pastor or his family. John Wesley, in after years, was always deeply affected by this narrow escaj^e from so terrible a death, and on the margin of a picture which was painted to commemorate the event he wrote the significant words : — " Is not this a 'brand jplucked fronx the hurning ? " The notable success of Mrs. Wesley's " Society," as appears from her letter to her husband, above quoted, in harmonizing her hus- band's parish, after years of such confusion and violence, was an argu- ment in favor of her course which could not be overthrown. It was evident that the Head of the Church was her patron and defender ; and, what is especially noticable, she understood how to use the fact of her wonderful success without descending to spiteful personalities in her discussions with her husband, or even abating one jot of the wifely duty and respect which she owed to him. John Wesley was afterward distinguished for his almost inimitable skill as a logician, who could win a victory in a debate with fewer words and in better temper than any other man of his time. Is it not plain that this amiable sharpness and this logical power were among his birth inheritances from his admirable mother ? 74 Illusteated Histokt of Methodism. Samuel "Wesley as aii Author. — The fatlier of the Les- leys was a poet, and, according to his theory, poetry and poverty natu- rally went hand in hand. His first cnracy in London yielded him only thirty pounds a year, about one hundi-ed and fifty dollars ; but to this he added thirty pounds more by his Kterary work, and on this slender inconie he married Susanna Annesley — one of the most sensible things recorded of him — and liyed in lodgings until he received the "living'' of South Ormsby, worth about fifty pounds a year. In 1693 he published the first of his large poetic works, entitled, '•' The Life of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; A Heroic PHE XEW KECTORY AT EPWORTH. Poem in Ten Books: Dedicated to Her Most Sacred Majesty [Queen Mary] ; Attempted by Samuel Wesley, Eector of South Ormsby, in the County of Lincoln." This poem, however valueless in itself, earned for him the favor of his queen, who the next year returned his compliment by conferring on him the "living" of Epworth, and afterwards that of AVroote, a poor little village a few miles distant, both together wortli about two Innidred and fifty pounds a year. These livings he held till his death ; which event occurred on the 25th of April, 1735, in the seventy-second year of his age and in the thirty- ninth year of his service as rector of the parish of Epworth. The Wesley Fa^hly. 75' His other works are more remarkable for length than depth, and of the vast mass of rhyming rubbish which he threw oif only a few stanzas have found place even in the Hvmn books published by his own sons. He possessed to a notable degree the power of persistent mental application, and what may be called the mechanical skill of versifi- cation, but without that divine enlightenment and that creative j)ower in which consists the measureless difference between a sacred poet and a beater of rhymes. The Rev. Samuel Wesley is entitled to no small honor for being one of the first men in England to perceive the opportunity and duty of carrying the Gospel into foreign parts. He even wrote out a plan for a great system of British missionary colonies or settlements in India, China, Abyssinia, and in the islands of St. Helena, St. Thomas, etc., which plan was approved by the Bishop of York ; but for want of missionary spirit among the Enghsh clergy this scheme, which Adam Clarke declares was such as might easily have been carried into execu- tion, was suffered to fall to the ground — but not to jDcrish, for his sons, John and Charles, inherited his missionary zeal, and their labors, with God's blessing, have resulted in a scheme of evangelization which has belted the earth with !Methodist circuits and stations, and which ^vill never be suspended till all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. "With the other members of the Wesley family this volume has httle concern. Samuel, the eldest son, became a learned and respect- able minister in the Established Church, in which capacity he thought himself called upon to protest against the extravagancies of his younger brothers ; of the daughters, the most of whom grew up to be brilHant and talented women, those who care to know more can find what little there is on record in Dr. Adam Clarke's " Wesley Family." The Charter House School. — At the age of eleven " Jackey " Wesley, after five years' tuition in the home school taught by his mother, which was by far the best institution of learning he ever attended, was placed at the Charter House School in London.* * The name of this school is derived as follows : la the days when the monasteries of England were numerous, rich, and powerful, the order of Carthusian monks estab- lished a monastery on this site which they called a Chartreuse, the name given to their religious houses in the various parts of Europe ; but in the time of Henry VIII. this monas- 76 Illustrated History of Methodism. In this school the law of the strongest prevailed. All sorts of petty tyrannies were practiced by tlie big boys upon the little ones, and " Jackey" Wesley was no exception to their rule. The regular rations issued to the boys included meat as well as bread, but the big boys, like so many big dogs, would pounce upon the little chaps as they came from the cook's house with their rations in their hands, and rob them of their meat, thus forcing them to become vegetarians in spite of themselves, until they became strong enough to fight for their meat, and later on for that of their juniors also. TUE CHARTER HOUSE SCHOOL. Such outrages have l)een defended on the ground tliat the hardship which this injustice inflicts is useful in teaching the small boy to be patient under difficulties, and to make the best of misfortunes ; but there is little said concerning the savagery which is produced among the larger ones by this abuse of those whom circumstances have placed tery shared the fate of many others, and the ruins of it were at length purchased by Thomas Sutton, who repaired the edifice and built a hospital, and established a school therein, on whose double foundation or endowment eighty pensioners of not less than fifty years of age, and foity-two boys as charity scholars, were to be maintained. The allowance from the endowment to each scholar was forty pounds a year, and it was no small \necc of good for- tune to the Epworth rector to secure one of these scholarships for his son John. The Wesley Family. 77 in tlieir power. If the theory of these great schools were to train the youth of England to submit uncomplainingly to the impositions of unjust laws or the tyranny of usurped authority, nothing could be better adapted to that end than the system above mentioned, lint " Jackey " managed to thrive in spite of his tormentors: taking a run every morning three times around the ample play-grounds, accord- ing to his father's direction, and eating his ration of bread with a good appetite, sharpened by the sight of some tall young gentleman (?) de- vouring two cold cuts of boiled beef or roast mutton, the one being his DINING HALL OF CHARTER HOUSE. I»y right, the other " by conquest " — a phrase which the British nation has done so much to translate from robbery into heroism. Two years later his younger brother, Charles, was sent to school at Westminster, where his brother Samuel w^as one of the ushers, as cer- tain of the younger assistant teachers were called, and who paid the cost of his younger brother's course of study. Little Charles was a spirited lad, well knit, active, and afraid of nothing, which qualities not only made him a favorite — for boys are always hero-worshipers — but irained liim the title of " captain of the school." His leadership, 78 Illustrated History of Methodism. however, was of a different sort from that wliieh would have led him to rob his inferiors, cringe to his superiors, and tight his equals ; he had a heroic spirit, and was as generous as he was brave. Dr. Smith, in his admirable " History of TTesleyan Methodism," mentions a case in point : — " There was a Scotch laddie at school, whose ancestors had taken sides with the Pretender, as the papist claimant to the throne was called, and who, in consequence, was greatly persecuted by the other boys ; but the "• captain " took him under his own special charge ; defended him, fought for him, and saved him from what would otherwise have been a life of intolerable misery. This lad was James Murray, afterward the great Baron Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice of England.'" While Charles AVesley was a pupil at AYestminster a wealthy Irish gentleman, Garret Wesley, Esq., wrote to the Rev. Samuel Wesley in- quiring if he had a son named Charles ; giving out that he wished to adopt a boy of that name. The result was that for some years the school bills of the lad were paid on the stranger's account by his sup- posed agent at London ; but when the question M'as submitted to the young man himself whether to go to Ireland, as the adopted son of Garret Wesley, or stay in England and take his chances as the son of a poor clergyman, he made choice of the latter, a decision which his brother John called a " fair escape ; " and another boy became the heir of the Irish Wesley's name and fortune. This was Richard Colley Wesley, afterward Lord Mornington, and grandfather of the Duke of Wellington, whose name stands in the army list of 1800 as " The Hon. Arthur Wesley, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Thirty-third Regiment;" more commonly written " Wellesley," which is only a modern corrup- tion of the name, perhaps for the purpose of escaping the suspicion of relationship between the Irish duke and the Methodist reformers. WEST FRONT OF CHKIST CHUKCH COLLEGE, OXFORD. CHAPTER III. THE HOLY CLUB. JN the year 1720 John Wesley, then a youth of seventeen, was ad- mitted to Christ Church College, Oxford, to which college his brother Charles followed him six years after. The excellent use he had made of his time at the Charter House gained for him a high position as a student at Oxford, and he soon be- came quite famous for his learning in the classics, and especially for his skill in logic. But Christ Church was, and still is, the most aristo- cratic, fashionable, and luxurious of all the Oxford colleges, whose ordi- 80 Illustrated History of Methodism. nary function is to give a mild scholastic flavor to the manners of the prospective noblemen of the realm, and was, therefore, ill adapted to train a religious leader for his work. On his arrival he was surprised at the extent to which all manner of dissipations, among which drinking and gambling were only the least disgraceful, prevailed at this central seat of British learning. For a time yoimg Wesley was carried by the current out of his moral latitude ; but not for long. Ever since his rescue from the flames his mother had felt impressed to devote herself with special care to the training of this son, toward whom there is in the family records a slight tinge of favoritism, and the suggestion of a presenti- ment in the mind of that good woman of certain great tilings which lay before him. In her private journal these words occur with refer- ence to him, written not very long after the fire at the rectory : — "And I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child that Thou hast so mercifully pro\'ided for, than ever I have been ; that I may do my endeavor to instill into his mind the principles of thy true religion and virtue. Lord, give me grace to do it sincerely and prudently, and bless my attempts with good success." Although John was saved through his mother's teachings and in answer to her prayers from falling into outward sins, the religious nature which he possessed did not very strongly manifest itself until sometime in his twenty-second year. Six years at the Charter House, with its classics and its ruffianism, and five years at Christ Church College, with its aristocratic iniquity, were not calculated to keep ahve the memory of the godly training which he received at home. He confesses himself to have lost his childish religion and to have become " a sinner," but not to any desperate degree ; for the heavy sinning at Oxford implied heavy expense, and young Wesley was a poor man's son, who could not afford to be fashionably wicked, even if he bad possessed that desire. We hear now and then of his debts, a frequent topic in the correspondence of the Wesley family ; but, on the whole, his poverty proved his protection, and helped to develop the grace of frugality for which he afterward became conspicuous. Wesley Ordained. — In January, 1725, being then twenty- two years of age, he writes to his father for advice as to whether he should apply for ordination in the Established Church ; he, like all the The Holy Club. 81 rest of the male "Wesleys, taking to the priesthood with a hereditary instinct ; and in the correspondence there is a hint that he had been the subject of some spiritual awakening, and was looking toward a clerical life not only as a means of hving, but as a safeguard against habits of sin in which he was fearful of becoming confirmed. His father replies that there is no harm in trying to obtain holy orders with a view to a respectable livelihood, " but that the principal spring and motive must certainly be the glory of God and the service of the Church in the edification of our neighbor. And woe to him who, with any meaner leading view, attempts so sacred a work." His mother writes him as follows : — Epworth, Fehruarij 23, 1725. Dear Jacket: — The alttn'ation in your temper has occasioned me much ■speculation. I, who am apt to be sanguine, hope it may proceed from tlie operation of God's Holy Sinrit; that by taking away your relish of sensual •enjoyments he may prepare and dispose your mind for a more serious and close application to things of a more sublime and spiritual nature. ... I heartily wish you would now enter upon a serious examination of yourself, that you may tnow whether you have a reasonable hope of salvation. If you have, the satisfaction of knowing it would abundantly reward your pains ; if not, you will find a more reasonable occasion for tears than can be met with in a tragedy. Now I mention this, it calls to mind your letter to your father about taking orders. I was much pleased with it, and liked the proposal well, but it is an unhappiness almost peculiar to our family that your father and I seldom think alike. I approve the disposition of your mind, and think the sooner you are a deacon the better, because it may be an inducement to greater application in the study of practical divinitj^ which, I humbly conceive, is the best study for •candidates for orders. Mr. Wesley differs from me, and would engage you, I believe, in critical learning, wliicli, tliough incidentally of use, is in no wise preferable to the other. I earnestly pray God to avert that great evil from you of engaging in trifling studies to the neglect of such as are absolutely necessary. I dare advise nothing. God Almighty direct and bless you. I wish all to be well. Adieu, Susanna Wesley. One of the most successful educators in America has said that ^' one great want of our times is a society for the suppression of useless knowledge." Mrs. Wesley in her day was evidently of the same opin- ion. With the constant example before her of a man of learning and genius wasting his lifetime in " beating rhymes," delving in Oriental 82 Illustrated Histoiiy of Methodism. literature to the neglect of the souls in his parish, turning the Gospel into a "heroic poem," and grinding out pious or classic platitudes in verse on every sort of occasion, appears to have been a powerful motive with her in her efforts to prevent her sons from " engaging in trifling studies." Fortunately for John, he eschewed the counsel of his father and followed the advice of his mother, plunging into the study of " practical divinity," including such books as Thomas a Kem- pis on " The Imitation of Christ," Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying," etc. ; and in the following September he was ordained a deacon in the Estabhshed Church. John IfVesIey; " Soinetiiiie Fellow of* liincolii Col- le§-e." — In 172G he succeeded in obtaining one of the twelve Fel- lowships of Lincoln College, one of the smallest, poorest, and most scholarly of the nineteen colleges wliich are comprised in the Uni- versity of Oxford, and thither he at once removed, glad to escape from his surroundings at Christ Church, and happy now in hav- ing a permanent means of sup- port which would permit him to devote his life to the duties of a Christian minister and scholar. Some of the Fellowships in the rich colleges at Oxford yielded REV. JOHN WESLEY, AT THE AGE OF 23. . an annual income oi six or seven lumdred pounds; those at Lincoln College, however, were far less valuable, but ample for the supply of his wants. The position of Fellow was both honorable and easy. Its duties consisted in residing \n the college, taking such part as might be agreeable in the general management of its affairs, and helping to maintain the college dignity by a life of learned leisure ; it was, in a word, a scholastic sinecure, requiring some distinguished merit to obtain it, continuing until death, marriage, or the presentation of some fat " living," requiring little other college labor, except drawing the The Holy Club. 83 endowment money from the college bursar, and spending it in a manner becoming a gentleman. For a man of Wesley's turn of mind this was, indeed, a paradise, x^o more debts to baunt him ; no more burdens to lay upon bis poor fatber; an assured position among Engbsb scholars, and a comfortable home for life in the midst of tbe best helps to learning then to be found in the world. His ordi- nation gave him additional respectability and influence ; it would, also, secure for him a chance of succeeding to some of the small " livings " in the gift of the college, provided he wished to remain a ''•' Fellow," or perhaps open up his way to an ample benefice in case he wished to become rector of a parish and make a start in the race for episcopal honors. There was great rejoicing at the Epworth rectory over the news that " Jackey " had gained a Fellowship at Oxford. The event served to perpetuate the clerical and scholarly honors of the family, and would add to their income, if in no other way, by re- lieving them of the sup port of this member of the family. ISTow per- haps mother and daugh- ter might clothe them selves decently as bt came their station, which they hithei to had been preventt d from doing, not so much by the smallness of their income as by its unfortunate manage- ment in the hands of the poet parson ; and the father might now occa- sionally call on his clerical son to assist him in the duties of his parish, which, by reason of his literary schemes, had sometimes been sadly neglected . Wesley's Scholastic Honors. — In 1727 the Rev. John Wesley took his degree of Master of Arts, having already been honored by an election to the office of " Lecturer in Greek," and " Moderator CHAPKL OF LIXCULX COLLEGE. 84 Illusteated Histoey of MeTH0DIS3I. of the Classes." In 1T2S he was ordained priest or presbyter by Dr. Potter, the Bishop of Oxford, though there is no evidence of his inten- tion to devote himself to the pastorate. His position as Greek lecturer attracted to him certain persons, who, like himself, read the Greek Testament for devotion ; as well as a number of private pupils who sought his assistance in that depart- ment of learning. In Hebrew, too, Wesley was one of the best scholars of his time, he having commenced the study of it when little more than a child. Concerning his office of " Moderator of the Classes," he says : " For several years I was moderator in the disputations which were held six times a week at Lincoln College in Oxford. I could not avoid acquiring hereby some degree of expertness in ar- guing, and especially in pointing out well- covered and plausi- ble fallacies. I have since found abun- dant reason to praise God for giving me this honest art. By this, when men have hedged me in by what they called demonstrations, I have been many times able to dash them in pieces ; in spite of all its covers, to touch the very point where the fallacy lay, and it flew open in a moment." It is evident that Wesley was a distinguished scholar at Oxford, and even that he had achieved all these scholastic honors before he was twenty-five years of age. In the next two years, 1727-29, John Wesley divided his time be- tween Oxford and Epworth, at which latter place he served as curate to his father, and pursued his studies in " practical divinity " with his mother. There were, indeed, magnificent and famous halls of the- ology at the University, but Wesley seems to have been of the opinion that in none of them was there a doctor or professor who was equal to his mother. But at length the college authorities desired liis return QUADRANGLE OF LINCOLN COLLEGE. The Holy Club. 85 to Oxford for permanent residence on account of his duties as Moder- ator of the Classes, and he bade his old home farewell. Charles Wesley the first "Methodist." — His brother Charles had now been a student at Christ Church for more than two years, the first of which he spent in any thing else except study. When reproved by his elder brother for his folly he would reply : — " What ! would you have me to be a saint all at once ? " But soon KADCLIFFE LIBRARY, OXFORD. after John had gone down to Epworth to assist his father Charles be- came deeply serious. In a letter to his brother asking such advice as he had so lately scouted, he says : — " It is owing in a great measure to somebody's prayers (my moth- er's, most likely) that I am come to think as I do, for I cannot tell how or where I awoke out of my lethargy, only it was not long after you went away." Charles' piety first showed itself in honest, hard work with his S6 Illusteated History of Methodism. books, then in attendance upon the sacrament of the Lord's Supper every week ; and, being now desirous of doing something more by way of working out his salvation, he persuaded two or three of his young friends to join him in a systematic efEoii; to attain a state of absohite hohness. They adopted a system of rules for holy living, apportioned their time exactly among their various scholarly and religious duties, allowing as little as possible for sleeping and eating, and as much as possible for devotion. It was this regularity of life that earned them the name of "Methodists," a term derived from the Greek word uedodiKog, which signifies " One who follows an exact method ; " but John Wesley subsequently turned the tables upon his adversaries in a dictionary which he published for the " People called Methodists," in which he defined the word " Methodist " as " One who hves accord- ing to the method laid down in the holy Scriptures." It thus appears that the Holy Club was organized by Charles Wes- ley while his elder brother was absent at E23worth ; but when John returned to Oxford, Charles and his two friends, Kirkham and Morgan, received him with great dehght, and, by reason of his superior age and acquirements, he at once became the head of their little fraternity. His reputation as a scholar brought him certain young gentlemen who desired his personal instruction, and thus he became a private tutor as well as a college lecturer. Some of these pupils became interested in the plan of holy living which the members of the Club were so en- thusiastically pursuing, and were permitted to attend the meeting of the Club as visitors, in the hope that they would at length become members. John Wesley's views of his duty to his pupils appear in one of his addresses to the tutors of the University, who were, no doubt, amazed and ofEended that this mere boy in years, and especially in appearance, should venture to offer advice concerning a work upon which he had so recently entered and to wliieh they had devoted their lives : — "Ye venerable men," he exclaims, "who are more especially called to form the tender minds of youth, to dispel thence the shades of ignorance and error and train them u]) to be wise unto salvation : Are you fiUed with the Holy Ghost? Do you continually remind those under your care that the one rational end of all our studies is to know, love, and serve the only trae God and Jesus Christ whom he The Holy Club. 87 lias sent ? Do you inculcate upon them, day by day, that love that alone never faileth, (whereas whether there be tongues, they shall fail, or philosophical knowledge, it shall vanish away,) and that without love all learning is but sj)lendid ignorance, pompous folly, and vexation of spirit ? . . . Let it not be said that I speak here as if all under your care were intended to be clergymen. Not so : I only speak as if they were all intended to become Christians." * BOCAEDO. Pious liabors of the Holy Club. — Besides their frequent meetings for the study of the Greek Testament and devotional exer- cises, the Wesleys and their two friends began a systematic visitation of the poor and the sick, and presently extended their charity to the poor debtors in Bocardo. This " Bocardo " was a room over the north gate of the ancient city wall, and at that time in use as the debtors' * " Wesley's Works," vol. i, page 86. 88 Illustrated History of Methodism. prison at Orford. [It was from this place that Archbishop Cranmer was led forth to martyrdom, after ha\^ng been led up to the top of the tower of St. Michael's Church adjoining the prison, to witness the burn- ing of Ridley and Latimer, in order that the sight of their sufferings might move him to recant. This tower is seen in the center of the cut.], To this work they devoted two or three hours every week ; though before entering upon such a novel enterprise they thought it best to- consult Mr. Samuel Wesley about it, who gave his approbation, pro- vided the jailer was satisfied with it, and the bishop of the diocese had no objections. It was, doubtless, a new experience for the Bishop of Oxford to have a Fellow of Lincoln Col- lege and two or three students of Christ's Church asking his per- mission to do any such undignified thing as to visit the poor, and preach the Gospel to the miser- able wretches in the debt- ors' prison ; but, finding they Avere really intent upon this holy work, he graciously gave his consent, and thus the Holy Club entered upon its first apostolic ministry. Like the man in the Gospel who was so well satisfied with himself, the members of the Holy Clab fasted twice in the week ; they denied themselves all luxuries and many comforts that they might have more money to give to the poor ; they kept the forty days of Lent so strictly as to be half -starved when the great annual fast was over ; they practiced all the rules for the attainment of holiness that they could find in the Book of Common Prayer, " De Imitationes Christi,^^ Law's " Sermons," Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying," " The Whole Duty of Man," etc., they sought for separation from the world, and managed to live, in the midst of the teeming folly and dissipation of Oxford, a life of almost monastic severity. There is always something attractive in the life of a devotee, not SOME OF THE PRISOXEES. The Holy Club. 89 always in spite of, but sometimes because of, the privations and suffer- ings which he endures. Oxford laughed at the members of the Holy Club ; but among the young men, and young women, also, who lived in the town and observed the sanctity of the lives of these four men, there were those who were attracted rather than repelled. In 1732 the membership of the Club was strength- ened by the addition of Messrs. Ingham, Broughton, Clayton, Gambold, and Hervey : the last name being familiar as that of the author of the well-known "Meditations." At one time the list of membership in- creased to twenty-seven, most of whom were members of the different colleges, or private pupils of John AVesley ; and Mr. Clayton, in a letter to Wesley, gives us a glimpse of one of the lady members, whom he mentions as " poor Miss Potter "—Could it have been the daughter of the bish- op ? — and of whom he says : " I wonder not that she has fall- en;" that is, fallen from the high ritual- istic practices and painful devotions of the Holy Club. And no wonder that some of the members should backslide when the self-mortifications enjoined by their rules were such as to earn the censure of good men as well as the ridicule of bad men ; when the newspapers joined in the popular cry against them ; when a mob would collect at the door of St. Mary's Church, where the Methodists were in the habit of receiving the ST. MARY S CHURCH, OXFORD. 90 Illustrated History of Methodism. Lord's Supper every week, and shamefully entreat them as they passed in ; Avhen certain Church authorities ridiculed and denounced them as " enthusiasts," " fanatics," " papists," " supererogation men," etc., the latter name being flung at them because they insisted on keeping all the fasts prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, sometimes with such vigor as to leave them scarce strength enough to walk. As the spiritual head of the Club, the youthful Rev. John "Wes- ley published a book of prayers of his own composition for their private use ; and that he held to auricular confession is proved by the following quotation from a sharp letter written him by his sister Emily, in reply to one of his own : — " To lay open the state of my soul to you or any of our clergy is what I have no inclination to at present, and I beheve I never shall. I shall not put my conscience under the direction of mortal man frail as myself. To my own Master I stand or fall, l^ay, I scruple not to say that all such desire in you or any other ecclesiastic seems to me like Church tyranny and assuming to yourselves a dominion over your fellow-creatures which God never designed you to hold." He also proposed the formation of a fraternity, a kind of monkish order, to which their habits were directly tending ; but Clayton, who was at that time serving a parish in Manchester, and there- fore caught an occasional glimpse of the great world which these Oxford devotees temporarily shut out from their reckoning, opposed the idea as a possible " snare for the consciences of weak brethren ; " and thus England was spared the infliction of a Protestant Loyola in the person of Wesley, who, if he had been allowed to carry out his designs, was brave enough, learned enough, and heroic enough to have become the general of an order no whit less enterprising and ambitious than that of the Jesuits themselves. The extent to which the success of the Holy Club depended on the personal magnetism of John "Wesley is shown by the fact that while he was absent on a visit to his old home at EjDworth, sometime in the year 1733, its membership dwindled from twenty-seven to only Ave ; a reduction scarcely to be lamented, for a more perfect speci- men of Pharisaism the Cln-istian world has rarely seen ; and its own members in after years confessed it to have been a futile effort to save The Holy Club. 91 themselves, instead of coming to the Saviour set forth in the Word of God. George Whitefield. — It was during the dechne and fall of the Holy Club that George Whitefield was added to its number; indeed, he appears to have been its last as well as its most notable accession. This greatest preacher of modern times, if not of all times, bv whose marvelous eloquence and spiritual ]30wer the Methodist revival WHITEFIELD AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-FOUK. was at first chiefly promoted, and who afterward divided with Wesley for awhile the honors of Methodist leadership, was born in the city of Gloucester, England, December 16, 1711. His father and mother kept the Bell Inn, but his father died when he was only two years old, and his mother, having but a mean opinion of her business, carefully kept her son from all connection with it, until the failing fortunes of the family, caused by his mother's second and unhappy marriage, made it needful for him to leave his school and take the place of pot-boy of the Bell. This was in his fifteenth year. 92 Illustrated History of Methodism. Ill a very frank account of himself, whicli Mr. Whitefield published when he was about twenty -six years old, he says : — " I can truly say I was froward from my mother's womb. How- ever the young man in the gospel might boast that he had kept all the commandments from his youth, with shame and confusion of face I confess that I have broken them all from my youth. Whatever fore- seen fitness for salvation others may talk of or glory in, I disclaim any such thing. If I trace myself from my cradle to my manhood, I can see nothing in me but a fitness to be damned." * Yet he says he had some early convictions of sin ; that he was fond of being a clergyman, and used frequently to " imitate ministers reading prayers ;" and that of the money wliich he used to steal from his mother for cakes and fruits and play-house tickets, he was accustomed to give a portion to the poor ! His talent for di-amatic performances was noticed by the master of the school, who composed some small plays for him to act, sometimes even in a female character and dressed accordingly, of wliich he de- clares himself to be particularly ashamed, and of which he sets down his opinion thus : — " And here I cannot observe with too much concern of mind how this way of training up youth has a natural tendency to debauch the mind, to raise ill passions, and to stuff the memory with things as con- trary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as light to darkness, as heaven to hell!" While he was serving as tapster at the Bell, he was still dreaming of tlie hfe of a parson, and even composed two or three sermons, though he had no one to preach them to ; and, indeed, he was far enough from being fit to preach in any other respect except in his tal- ent as a speaker. He was often anxious about his soul, and would sit up far into the night reading his Bible, thinking over his sins, and wishing he could go to Oxford and study for the holy ministry, a wish which, however wild it seemed at the time, was not long after grati- fied. Of this change from tapster to theologue he writes as follows : — " After I had continued about a year in this servile employment, my mother was obhged to leave the inn. My brother, who was brought up for the business, married, whereupon all was made over to • Ttterman's " Life of George Whitefield." The Holy Club. 93 Mm, and I being accustomed to the house, it was agreed that I should remain as an assistant. But God's thoughts were not as our thoughts. It happened that my sister-in-law and I could by no means agree. I was much to blame, yet I used to retire and weep before the Lord, little thinking that God by this means was forcing me out from the public business, and calling me from drawing wine for drunkards to draw water out of the wells of salvation for the refreshment of his spiritual Israel." It appears that during a visit to his brother at Bristol he had been powerfully wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, of which experience he says : — " Here God was pleased to give me great foretastes of his love, and fill me with such unspeakable raptures, particularly once in St. John's Church, that I was carried ont beyond myself. I felt great hunger- ings and thirstings after the blessed sacrament, and wrote many letters to my mother, telHng her I would never go into the public employ- ment again ; " but from this state of grace he fell on returning to Gloucester, and being without employment, having forsworn the dram- selhng, he fell in with idle companions, by whom he was led into secret vice, and almost into open apostasy from God, though it was impossible for him to be an infidel, toward which abyss he was led by the ideas and influence of some of his Gloucester companions. One day an old school-fellow paid him a visit, and explained to him how it was possible for a poor lad to i^ay his way at college as a servitor, and George, who had been deeply impressed that God had some special work laid out for him, saw in this an ojien door through which, in sj)ite of his poverty, he might pass to learning and the pulpit. "With this view he at once resumed his studies at the Glou- cester Grammar School, took up his religious duties, and presently became quite a noted leader in religion among the boys of his school. " For a twelvemonth," he says, " I went on in a round of duties, receiving the sacrament monthly, fasting frequently, attending con- stantly on public worship, and praying often more than twice a day in private. One of my brothers used to tell me he feared this would not hold long, and that I should forget all when I came to Oxford. This caution did me much service, for it set me upon praying for perse- verance ; and, under God, the preparation I made in the country was 94 Illustrated History of Methodism. a preventative against the manifold temptations whicli beset me at my first comino- to tliat seat of learning." W^liitefielfl at Oxrord.— At eighteen years of age Whitefiekl was admitted to Pembroke College, Oxford, and, being a polite and ready servitor, which trade he had learned at the Bell Inn, he at once became a favorite with the gentlemen of his college, who gave him all the patron- age he conld attend to, and thus placed him in a position of comparative inde- pendence. As might be supposed, this young pietist suffered no little persecution for refusing to join in the " excess of riot " of some of his college acquaint- ances ; but nothing could shake him. He liad also heard of the Methodists and their Holy Club, and greatly de- sired to be among them, but his pov- erty, his modesty, and his youth, pre- vented him from presuming to seek acquaintance among persons so far above him. It happened, however, that he fell in with Mr. Charles Wesley, who was pleased with him, invited him to breakfast, intro- duced him to his brother John, who also took a kind interest in the lad, gave him private instructions in things of religion, and, greatly to his delight, introduced him to their little fraternity. He was a young man of pleasing appearance, courteous manners, heroic courage ; a soul capable of ecstasies, revelations, and all the heights and depths of religious emotions ; a natural orator, of such dra- matic power that in after years the prince of actors envied him ; and so wonderfully endowed with faith and fervor, and so completely in har- mony with the supernatural world, that he could make his vast audi- ences feel, if they did not see, the invisible and eternal realities of death and judgment, heaven and hell. If Whitefield was a devotee before he became a member of the Holy Club, he was afterward a very fanatic. He was so bent upon TEMBKOKi; ( oi.l.Ki;]; TOWER. The Holy Club. 95 conquering the flesli and attaining to the high spirituality of which he read in his books of devotion, that he would lie for whole hours to- gether prostrate on the ground, or on the floor of his study, with his arms extended in the form of a cross, pouring out his soul in silent or INTERIOR OF ST. MARY's CHURCH vocal prayer, fighting desperate battles with the devil, whose presence he realized with the most vivid horror ; he would sometimes expose himself in the cold until his flesh became almost black ; he used the 96 Illusteated History of Methodisji. worst food — coarse bread, and sage tea without sugar — though his place as servitor gave him a chance at the best, for the remainder of the ele- gant repasts which he served to his wealthy patrons were regarded as the servitor's perquisites ; he wore shabby clothes, put no powder on his hair, fasted till he was half starved, lived in alternate ecstasy and misery, attended the weekly communion at St. Mary's Church along with the other Methodists, visited the poor and the sick, and strove, through self -mortification, prayer, alms-giving, and frequent use of the sacraments, to become a saint of the holiest sort. ^Vhitefield's Experience of* CouTcrsiou. — That work of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of the behever in Christ which is now so well understood among Methodists, was at this time almost unheard of, even in the orthodox communion of the English Church. To be converted signified, in the doctrinal teachings of English pul- pits, a gradual process by which, often through very slow degrees, a baptized member of the Church might, somehow or other, come into a salvable condition, at which, however, there was no expectation of his arriving until the hour and article of death. Even to this day a mi- nority only of the English clergy believe, experience and preach instantaneous conversion ; and during the progress of the recent revivals in that kingdom under the leadership of the American evan- gelists certain of the clergy made bitter attacks upon the movement, denouncing it, among other reasons, because it gave so much promi- nence to the idea of " instantaneous conversion." AVhitefield, the dreamer, the enthusiast, the would-be martyr, was the first member of the Holy Club to come into this divine experience of regeneration. No member of the Holy Club, not even John Wesley himseK, understood this heavenly mystery. Their ideas of hohness were of a condition of soul which could be worked up by prayers, fasts, alms, and sacraments. Of that state of grace which is wrought in the soul by the power of the Sj^irit of God through faith in the atonement of Jesus Cln-ist, they had no loiowledge, partly be- cause they had no one to point out the force of the Scriptures which treat upon this jxjint, and partly because they were so intent on mak- ing themselves holy that they overlooked the fact that salvation was by faith instead of by works. In the awful straggles of soul through which Whitefield passed, The Holy Club. 97 his mind was so tormented that he could not perform his college duties, and for a time such was his behavior that he was actually believed to have become insane : — " Near live or six weeks,'- he writes, " I was fighting with my cor- ruptions, and did little else besides kneeling down by my bedside, feel- ing, as it were, a j)ressure upon my body as M'ell as an unspeakable oppression of mind, yet offering up my soul to God to do with me as GATEWAY OF ST. MARY S CHURCH, OXFORD. it pleased him. It was now suggested to me that Jesus Christ was among the wild Ijeasts when he was tempted, and that I ought to fol- low his example ; and being willing, as I thought, to imitate Jesus Christ, after supper I went out into Christ Church Walk, near oui college, and continued in silent prayer under one of the trees for near two hours. The night being stormy, it gave me awful thoughts of the dav of judgment. The next night I repeated the same exer- 98 Illustuated History of Methodism. cise at tlie same place. . . . Soon after tliis the lioly season of Lent came on, w^hicli our friends kept very strictly, eating no flesh during the six weeks except on Saturdays and Sundays. I abstained fre- quently on Saturdays also, and ate nothing on the other days, except Sundays, but sage tea without sugar and coarse bread. I constantly walked out in the cold mornings till part of one of my hands was quite black. This, with my continued abstinence and inward conflicts, at length so emaciated my body that at Passion-week, finding I could scarce creep up stairs, I was obhged to inform my -kind tutor of my situation, who immedi- ately sent a phj'sician to me. This caused no small triumph among the collegians, who be- gan to cry out, ' What is his fasting come to now ? ' " This fit of sickne.- ,■- continued upon me for seven weeks, and a glo rious visitation it was. The blessed Spirit was all this time purifying my soul. All my form- er gross and notorious, and even my heart sin.-;, also, were now set home upon me, of which I '^'"^^ ^^^^^ ^^'^^^^^' oxfokd. wrote down some remembrance immediately, and confessed them be- fore God morning and evening. . . . " About the end of the seven weeks, and after I had been groaning under an unspeakable ])ressure of body and mind for above a twelve- month, God was pleased to set me free. . . I found and felt in myself that I was delivered from the burden that liad so heavily oppressed me. The spirit of mourning was taken from me, and I knew wliat it was truly to rejoice in God my Sa\Tour, and for some time could not iivoid ringing psalms wherever I was ; but my joy gradually became more The Holy Club. 99 settled, and, blessed be God ! has abode and increased in my soul, save a few casual intermissions, ever since, 'Now did tlie Spirit of God take possession of my soul, and, as I humbly hope, seal me unto the days of redemption." It was during this time that John Wesley had helped him out of his despondency and advised him to continue his performance of the external duties of religion. At a time when he was tempted to abandon them and give over the struggle in despair, Charles Wesley lent him a book to read, entitled, the " Life of God in the Soul of Man," from which he learned that " a man may go to church, say his prayers, re- ceive the sacrament, and yet not be a Christian ; " and this book, through the blessing of the divine Spirit, was the means of bringing him into the experience of saving grace. " Holding the book in my hand," he says, " I thus addressed the God of heaven and earth : — " ' Lord, if I am not a Christian, for Jesus Christ's sake show me what Christianity is, that I may not be damned at last.' I read a little further, and discovered that they who know any thing of religion know it is a vital union with the Son of God — Christ found in the heart. O, what a ray of divine light did then break in upon my soul ! " I knoAv the place : it may, perhaps, be superstitious, but whenever I go to Oxford I cannot help running to the spot where Jesus Christ first revealed himself to me, and gave me a new birth." This was in the year 1735, when Whiteiield was in his twenty-first year. Cool-headed, cool-hearted rationalists will certainly scoff at such ;; radical, terrible, glorious conversion as that of George Whitefield. Half-way-covenant believers, whose sluggish souls were never stirred to the depths, perhaps because their souls have no depths to be stirred, will say that this man was the victim of a pious delusion : materialists will call his supernatural experience a case of fanatical en- thusiasm ; but they who through faith have been made " partakers of the Divine nature " will understand the mystery and pray for the mul- tiplication of such experiences among l^oth ministry and j^eople. The decided character of Whitefield's testimony concerning his conversion is worthy of special attention, occurring, as it does, at a time when the doctrine of Assurance of Faith was very rarely heard. Whitefield was saved so gloriously that he had no difficulty in recog- nizing the fact. Is it true, then, that the reason why so many profess- 100 Illustrated History of Methodism. ins: Christians are in (l(nil)t about their experience of saving grace is to be found in the fact that their experience of grace really amounts to so little t Yea or nay, this certainly is true, that all the great souls whom God has set to be leaders in his Church have passed through the same deep convictions, and fought the same desperate battles with the powers of darkness, as those recorded of this Apollos of the eighteenth century. They have not only been baptized with water, but also with the Holy Ghost and with fire. It was three years after this tliat the AVesleys came into tlie cxpei'i- ence of the new Ijirth. They approached it with sclnilarly research, AVhitefield with alisolute desperation ; they were gentlemen, he was only a poor, despised servitor who felt himself unworthy of their notice ; they were teachers and in holy orders, he was a poor, broken- hearted devotee, lust in the abyss of his own depravity, and only crying out for (rod: they were Pharisees, he was a publican — and of course he came into the kingdom long before them. The cloetriiie«* of the Holy Club wiv orthodox. They were the doctrines of the Book of Common Prayer, flavored witli mysticism and somewhat tainted M'ith popery. John "Wesley, as has been seen, was instructed by his mother in the theology of his dissent- ing grandfather Dr. xVnnesley, as well as in that of the Established Churcli, of which ]iis father was a clianipion. Besides these, Mrs. AVesley held certain views of her own ; as, for instance, she rejected the doctrine of unconditional election of a part of the Imman race to eternal glory, and reprol)ation of the remainder to eternal woe ; and taught lier son to bi'licve tliat tliis inference of tlie AVestminster doctors was a slander against the justice of God. The whole AVesley family accepted the Apostles' Creed as the best statement of theoretical religion ; so also did the Holy Club, and they strove after inward holi- ness by tlie practice of outwai'd morality and by the help of all the means of grace of which they had any kiiowleilge. What was the fault of all this ( None at all ; it was good as far as it went ; l)ut it was oidy one side of the subject — the human side; it was an attenqit to ti'nin and de- velop the old nature into a state of holiness, instead of seeking for the new nature which is born of God : it was trying to turn the carnal mind from its enmity toward G(jd, instead of displacing it The Holy Club. 101 witli the mind that was in Christ ; it was cnkivatinjj; the corrnpt tree so as to make it bring forth good frnit ; it was going abont to establish tlieir own rigliteousncss, whereby they overlooked the righteousness that is by faith. Tn those days, Mhile, as Bunyan has it, Mr. Wesley was in charge of Mr. Legality, he tlnis speaks of his work : — " 1 ])reached much, but saw no fruit of my labor. Indeed, it could not be that I should, for I neither laid the foundation of repentance nor of believing in the Gospel ; taking it for granted that all to whom I preached were believers, and that many of them needed no repentance.'' Nevertheless, while those who could not comprehend him called him " a crack-brained enthusiast," his outward piety was tlie admiration of the pious, as well as the despair of the profane. As a Iligh-Churcli- man of the most ultra sort, Wesley believed that one who had been baptized by a regularly ordained clergyman of the Church of England or of the Church of Kome was thereby made a Christian, and the chief difference he saw in such persons was in tlie degree of their faithful- ness to the vows taken by godfathers and godmothers on their behalf. Repentance with him was synonymous with reformation, that is, repentance toward one's self and his own past life instead of repent- ance toward God ; faith witli him signified holding correct religious opinions, and being in fellowship witli the Established Church ; but of that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which claims him as a personal and present Saviour the Holy Club had a very faint conception. The Witness of the Spirit they understood to be no more than a kind of spiritual glow which might be sup^^osed to indicate the divine approbation, instead of the inter-communion between the soul of the regenerated believer and the Holy Spirit of God, whereby he assures them of their having passed from death unto life. " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit,'' saith the apostle, " that we are the children of God ; " and again, " For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, -whereof the Holy Spirit is witness to us." But the Holy Club looked for a perfecting themselves by themselves, with the help of God, to be sure, and they sought for a sense of God's smile upon the success of their efforts to please him. They made a splendid effort to attain salvation by law, and they came as near to it, no doubt, as any class of men since 102 Illusteated History of Methodism. the world began ; they were admirable specimens of theological and ecclesiastical piety ; but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than they. The whole land was blatant with heresy and reeking vrith vice, and they determined to oppose the tide. With what ? With exhortations ; with condemnations of sin ; with sacraments and litm'gies ; and, above all, with the power of pious example. No wonder they failed. It is hard work for a man to lift himself. Even their miserable parish in Bocardo, on which they spent so much time and money, was httle credit to them, for the poor debtors took their alms, hstened to their prayers and jDreaching, and relapsed into brawHng and fighting again as soon as they were gone. The preacher was not yet converted himseK ; how, then, could he be expected to strengthen his brethren? Only Whitefield, out of this whole com- pany of Oxford devotees, had escaped from the bondage of self-right- eousness, and found his way into the hberty of the cliildren of God. Why was he thus favored above the rest ? EA-idently because he was the first to reach the point of absolute despair of being able to save himself. The Holy Club Broken tp. — Xot long after his conver- sion Whitefield, prostrated in body by his terril)le struggles of soul, left Oxford for a visit to his home in Gloucester ; Gambold was ordained and settled as a curate in the httle village of Stanton-Har- court ; Broughton went up to London as curate at The Tower ; Inffham took a cm-acv in Essex : the two Weslevs went up to Westminster, where their brother Samuel resided ; Hervey went home to Hardingstone, and for a season Oxford was clear of its MethocUsts. Had the fire burned out ? Xot at all. God was only scattering the brands that he might set the whole kingdom in a blaze. The subsequent careers of the different members of the Holy Club are various ; some of them painful. William Morgan was the first to represent the Club above, he having, shortly after its dissolu- tion, fallen into a melancholy or mania which presently resulted in liis death. Charles Kinchin, a lovely character, soon followed him. James Hervey will be loved and honored as one of the brightest examples of Christian living, and the author of " The Meditations," one The Holy Club. 103 of tlie sweetest devotional compositions in the English language. On the other hand, the High-Churchism of Clayton was a serious blot on his clerical career. Broughton's usefulness was crippled and cut short by his imperfect, stunted, stereotyped views of Christian truth. Westley Hall, who married one of the Wesley sisters, was a disgrace both to his family and the Church ; though it may be charitably hoj)ed he died a penitent. John Whitelamb, another of Wesley's brothers-in- law, sank down into an ecclesiastical village drone. Gambold was a good man, though injured by the visionary and fanciful notions of the Moravians. Ingham was for many years one of the most successful evangelists, whose work was blessed to the conversion of multitudes of souls throughout England and Ireland ; but by reason of certain ill- judged connections which he formed, his last days were not his best. From year to year this band of brothers, the Oxford Methodists, drifted further and further apart in their views of doctrine and Church government, and at length were even brought into painful col- lision with each other ; but, with the exception of Hall, they were all sincere, earnest, laborious ministers of Christ, while the Wesleys and Whitefield have attained a place in the history of the Church which will render their fame immortal. ^^ ^^.-^K c;?>, 0? '^'V^ CHRIST CHURCH 3IEAD0W. CHAPTER IV. THE MISSION TO AMERICA. A Soul to be Naved. — It was John Wesley's intention after he had obtained his Fellowship at Lincoln College to spend his life at Oxford in efforts to save his soul. This M-as all the time np])erniost in his mind. Tie studied tlie Greek and Hebrew Scriptures to save hi& soul ; he fasted and prayed to save his soul ; he preached in churches and tanght in prisons to save his soul ; he fed the hungry and clothed the naked to save his soul ; he led a life of severity and self- mortification and made himself the object of ridicule and abuse to save liis soul. Poor man! He had a troublesome soul on his haruls, and A ilAl' OS THE SAVANNAH COUNTRY did llot IvllOW wluit tO do witll it. ^^' ^■^"- His old father, now about to die, greatly desired John to succeed him in the Epworth rectorship, but the son resisted all his fatherly entreaties on the plea that he could save liis soul better at Oxford than at Epworth. His fatlier then urged that his ordination vows made it his duty to take a parish as soon as one could be had ; whereupon he yielded the point, for duty was, with him, the end of all argument, and applied for the Epworth "living;" but liis overmuch severity in religion liad reached the ears of certain men who had the power of influencing the appointment, and his application was refused. ]^ow his way was clear; he could stay in Oxford, give himself up to pious studies and labors, be a The Mission to America. 105 Methodist of the saiuthest sort, and, somehow or other, manage to save liis soul. The Colony of CJeorj^ia.— On the 25th of April, 1735, Samuel Wesley died, and after the burial his son John went up to London, where a strange experience awaited him. Just at this time the project of James Edward Oglethorpe (after- ward General) for colonizing a crowd of poor debtors, who. by his influence had been released from the prisons of England, was receiving much attention. Those were the days of harsh government. The gallows was the penalty for petty thefts ; thousands of men in Great Britain rotted in prison for the misfortune of being poor ; a small debt was quite enough to expose a struggling deljtor to the penalty of imprisonment, and an indiscreet bargain doomed many a well-meaning dupe to hfelong confinement ; for, once within the walls of a debtors' prison, a poor wretch was often as completely lost to the world as if he had been in his grave. Oglethorpe, whose attention had been attracted by this great abuse, obtained a Parliamentary Commission to inquire into the state of the English prisons, the result of which was, that a large number of debt- ors were released from confinement and restored to fight and lil)erty. But what was to be done with these people, to whom, indeed, the prison had opened its doors, but against whom all other doors were now shut i There was still a small strip of sea-coast in America which had not been "granted" to any body, bounded by the Saviinnah River on the north and the Altamaha on the south ; and here, by royal charter, was located the Colony of Georgia ; the country being vested in a board of twenty-one trustees for a period of twenty-one years, " in trust for the poor." The sum of thirty-six thousand pounds was raised by public subscription to aid this popular charity, ten thousand of it being a donation from the Bank of England, and in the month of Xovember, 1733, the first ship-load of superfluous English poverty, comprising one hundred and twenty persons, with Oglethorpe at their head, landed at the spot where now stands the beautiful city of Savannah. The next year their numbers were increased by a company of persecuted Protestants from Saltzburg, in Germany, whose afiiictions coming to the knowledge of the English Society for the Propagation 106 Illustrated History of Methodisji. of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, led to tlie proposal to settle tliem also in Georgia ; whieli kind offer they joyfully accepted, and soon became .. tliiiving community, fearing God and loving one another. Three other ship-loads of emigrants subsequently reached the colony ; one of Scotch Highlanders, one of Moravians, while the third was a mixed nmltitude, which had been attracted by the accounts of this open door into a new world, and with wliom Oglethorpe returned a second time to America, taking with him the pious young " Fellow of Lincoln College " as their spiritual adviser. John Wesley was sent out to Georgia by the Society above-men- tioned as a kind of missionary chaplain, at a salary of £50 a year. He was accompanied by his brother, Charles "Wesley ; by Ingham, one of the Holy Club from Oxford ; and by a young man named Delamotte, who had become a great admirer of Mr. Wesley, and who, against the wishes of his family, tm'ned his back on a good business opening at home to become the servant of this missionary in the wilds of Xorth America. But what has changed the purpose of this Oxford devotee ? Xothing. The purpose is not changed ; only the means of its accomplishment. Here are his own words relative to tliis momentous step out from his beloved Oxford into the Western wilderness : — .,;,^ "My chief motive is the hope of saving my o^vn soul. I hope to learn the true sense of the Gospel by preaching it to the heathen. They have no comments to constnie away the text, no vain philosophy to cor- rupt it, no luxurious, sensual, covet- ous, ambitious expounders to soften its unpleasing truths. They have no party, no interest to serve, and are, therefore, fit to receive the Gospel in its simplicity. They are as little children, humble, willing to learn, and eager to do the will of God." Fine people, those savages I A greater amount of pious ignorance and absurdity it would be hard to express in the same number of words. The Missio^^ to Amebic a. 107 After setting forth how much easier he expects it will be for him to lead a life of sanctity in the wilderness, where most of his tempta- tions will be removed, he continues in the following strain : — " I have been a grievous sinner from my youth up, and am yet laden with foolish and hurtful desires ; but I am assured, if I be once converted myseK, God will then employ me both to streng-then my brethren and to preach his name to the Gentiles. " I cannot hope to attain the same degree of holiness here which I may there. I shall lose nothing I desire to keep. ... It will be no small thing to be able, without fear of giving offense, to live on water and the fruits of the earth . . . The pomp and show of this world have no place in the wilds of America." In all this ridiculous letter there is not one word about a sense of duty. So far as it is possible to gather from "Wesley's own writings, he never felt that God was sending him across the sea, or that the American heathen had any claim upon him ; it was only one of his many schemes of self-mortification to help him in saving his soul. Was it, then, a delusion of the devil ? Judging by his ridiculous failure, one might answer, Yes. Judg- ing, also, by his distinguished unfitness for such a mission at this period of his life, it would be easy to reach the same conclusion. But there is another side to the question. The Reverend John Wesley is now thirty-two years old ; a man as notable for sanctity as he is eminent for learning. He is a great honor to his college, and a valuable assistant in its scholastic work. He knows more of books and less of human nature than any other man in Oxford whose record has come down to our times ; he is a presbyter of the Church of England, on which account he claims that he belongs to a superior order of mortals, though as yet he does not think himself in a state of saving grace, and has only an official ministry to offer; and so completely is his common sense blindfolded by the rituals of his Church and his own clerical pretensions, that if he is ever to amount to any thing as a minister of the Gospel those traditional bandages must be torn from his eyes. A more remarkaljle mixture of learning and ignorance, of piety and pretension, of dogmatism and devotion, than that which made up the character of John Wesley at this transitional period of his life, it 108 IlLUSTEATED HiSTOEY of MEXHODISAt. is difficult to imagine. He is turnino; his back upon those surround- ings and duties which are most congenial to his scholarly tastes and habits, and actually anticipating with pleasure a life among a crowd of savages. Civilization has its vices, which interfere with his great desire for holiness ; he therefore eagerly exchanges it for barbarism, and dreams of saving his soul with the help of an Indian hut. He is taking his life in his hand, half expecting, anfl wholly willing, to lose it. He will preach for awhile among the colonists of Savannah, till he finds how to begin his mission among the Indians, of whom he thinks as so many "little children," destitute both of opinions and character, " willing to learn, and eager to do the will of God ;" and when this path oj)ens before him he will bid adieu to the temptations of this vain and wicked world, and bury himself in the woods. All this he deliberately chooses to do without any call of God to a missionary life, without any fitness for it except heroism, without any love for it except what results from his misapprehension of it, without any especial love for the souls to whom he proposes to minister, and without any clear sense of love for God, in whose name he is going to do it : he is simply about to make a grand experiment, to see if some- thing will not come of it that will help him to save his soul. But if his self-appointed mission be only a piece of devout self- righteousness, he fulfills it in a manner worthy of admiration. He is traveling the wrong road, but it is a splendid sight to see how he pushes on ; his zeal is not according to knowledge, but his Father in heaven understands tliis singidar child, and is giving liiiii a chance to toss upon the stormy bosom of the ocean, to dash liis head against the trees of the wilderness, to wade tlirough swamps, to freeze and starve, to be duped and abused, and be made the scapegoat of a scandalous quarrel, all with the evident purpose of widening the scope of his vision, driving some of the pious conceit out of liim. showing him liow weak and contemptible a thing is nuM-i-ly official religion, and, withal, of opening his understanding, through the teachings of some of the simple-minded Moravians, to that pivotal doctrine of the Wesleyan revival — the regeneration of the penitent sinner by tlie power of the Holy Ghost through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It wa.s arranged that Charles AV'^esley should go out to Georgia as the Governor's secretary, and he now took orders as a clergyman, that The Mission to America. 109 he might assist his brother in liis ministry. T lie two Wesleys, Ing- liam, and Dehimotte, made a solemn agreement in writing to the effect that in order to maintain nnity among themselves, no one of the four should undertake any thing of importance without consulting with the other three ; that all (|uestions should be decided by vote ; and that in case of an even division of opinion the matter, after being laid before the Lord, should be decided by lot. During the voyage they were as methodical and industrious as ever ; dividing their time, from four o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock in the evening, with brief allowance for meals, between prayers, reading the Scriptures, writing sermons, preaching, catechis- ing the children on board, giving personal instruction to chosen indi- viduals among the crew and passengers, and attendance upon the daily religious services of the Moravians, who, with their bishop, Da- vid Nitschmann, were going out to join their brethren in Georgia. On one occasion the ship encountered a terrible storm, and the sea broke over the deck while the Moravians were singing their evening hymn. The other passengers screamed with terror, but the Moravians calmly sang on, as if nothing had happened. After the service was over, Wesley said to one of them : — " Were you not afraid ? " " I thank God, no," was his reply. " But were not your women and children afraid ? " " No. Our women and cliildren are not afraid to die." This incident made a ])rofound impression upon Wesley's mind, for he records it in hi;5 Journal with the remark, "This is the most glorious day which I have ever seen." These Moravians were " regular " Christians, having the three orders of the ministry. Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, according to the English and the Romish ritual ; therefore John Wesley with a clear conscience joined in their worship of God. which he would by no means have done had they been Presbyterians, Baptists, or Quakers. They were far in advance of him in the experience of salvation, and he had the sense to see it, and the humility to confess it, and also to ask advice of their chief men in respect to the work he had laid out for himself in America. The voyage from Cowes to the Savannah Kiver was made in fifty- no Illustrated History of Methodism. seven davs, during whicli Oglethorpe treated the missionaries with great kindness. On one occasion, when some of the officers and gen- tlemen on board took liberties with Wesley and his friends, Ogle- thorpe indignantly exclaimed, " "What mean yon, sirs ? Do you take these gentlemen for tithe-pig parsons ? They are gentlemen of learn- in «• and respectability. They are my friends, and .whoever offers an affront to them insults me." This was quite enough, and thereafter the Methodists were treated with respect. "^l\,v^ A WORD IN SEASON. A ^Vord ill Season.— Oglethorpe w\as irritable, but noble- hearted and generous. One day Wesley, hearing an unusual noise in the General's cabin, entered to inquire the cause ; on which the angry soldier cried ; " Excuse me, Mr. Wesley ; I have met with a provocation too g!vat to bear. This villain, Grimaldi, [an Italian servant,] has drunk The Mission to America. Ill nearly the whole of my Cyprus wine, the only wine that agrees with me, and several dozens of which I had provided for myself. But I am determined to be revenged. The rascal shall be tied hand and foot, and be carried to the man-of-war ; for I never forgive." "Then," said Wesley, with great calmness and gentleness, "I hope, sir, you never sin." Oglethorpe Avas confounded. His vengeance was gone. He put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a bunch of keys and threw them at Grimaldi, saying, " There, villain ! take my keys, and behave better for the future." Wesley's SeholarsliEi>. — The remarkable powers of mind possessed by John Wesley are indicated by these facts : There was a large number of German-speaking people among the ship's company, his ]\[oravian friends and others, and he at once commenced the study of the German language, that he might converse with, and preach to, them. When he reached Savannah he discovered some Frenchmen and Italians also, and toward the close of his polyglot mission we find him publicly as well as privately instructing them all in their own tongues. The following is a list of his Sunday appointments at Savannah : — " 1. English prayers from five o'clock till half -past six. " 2. Italian prayers at nine. " 3. A sermon and the Holy Communion for the English, from haK-past ten to about half-past twelve. " 4. The service for the French at one ; including prayers, psalms, and Scripture exposition. "5. The catechising of the children at two. " 6. The third English service at three. *' 7. After this a meeting in his own house for reading, prayer, and praise. " 8. At six o'clock the Moravian service began, which he was glad to attend, not to teach, but to learn." * Besides this he held two services for the Germans during the week, one at the village of Hampstead and one in the town of Savannah, and two services for the French, at the village of Highgate and in town. He afterward studied Spanish in order to converse with some Sj^anisli Jews. * Tyermax's " Life and Times of Wesley." 112 Illustrated History of Methodism. TTeslej's mission opened prosperously. His census of liis new parish in 1737, gives the number at five hundred and eighteen souls. The only other settlements in Georgia were the French and German villages above named, Avliich lay four or five miles to the soutli-west ; the little hamlet called Tliunderbolt, six miles to the south-east ; the Moravian town of Xew Ebenezer, nineteen miles distant ; Darien, the settlement of the Scotch Highlanders, eighty miles, and Frederica, on St. Simond's Island, a hundred miles to the south of Savannah. Besides these there were some thousands of Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Uchee Indians within the hmits of the colony ; a lazy, drunken, gluttonous, murderous crew, absolute pagans, sunk in all the depths of savagery, some of whom would occasionally make their appearance at the white settlements to trade, to beg, and to steal ; but from first to last Wesley never found among tliem any of those docile httle children of nature who were " ready to hear, and eager to do, the will of God ;" and never during the nearly two years which he spent in America did he find how to make even a beginning of preaching the Gospel among them, they being determined " not to hear the great word which the white man had to teach." It was, therefore, necessary that he should devote himself wholly to the Europeans. His brother Charles and Mr. Ingham presently went with a few colonists to lay out the village of Frederica, al)(>ve men- tioned, and John Wesley and his devoted follower. Delamotte, began their pastoral work at Savannah. Troubles Tiiickeil.— But tlie people who smiled on him because of his friend, tlie Governor, soon began to frown on him because of himself. The doctrines and practices whose rigidness and severity had incensed a learned and church-going community like Oxford, were not hkely to find favor among such a motley crowd as tliat in Ogletliorpe's little domain of (rc<)rgia. He read morning and evening prayers publicly every day, preached very plain and searching sermons on Sunday, which cut to the bone, and caused a good many sinners to be "exceeding mad" against him for Avhat they called his '' satires upon particular persons." He organized another Holy Club, wliicli met three times a week for Scripture reading, psalm-singing, and prayer, and he and young Delamotte each set up a little school. The Mission to Amekioa. 113 Mr. Tyerman, in liis admirable " Life and Times of John Wesley," relates this characteristic incident : — Some of the boys in Mr. Delamotte's school were too poor to wear shoes and stockings, on wliich account those who conld boast of being shod used to tease them for going barefoot. The teacher tried to correct this small cruelty, but failed, and reported his want of success to his master. " I think I can cure it," said Wesley, " and if you will exchange schools with me I will try." Accordingly, the next Monday morning the teachers exchanged schools, and what was the surprise of Wesley's new scholars to see their teacher and minister coming to school barefoot ! Before the week was ended it began to be fasliionable in that school to disj^ense with shoes and stockings, and nothing further was heard of persecution on that account. In writing home to his mother Mr. Wesley describes his new home .as "pleasant beyond imagination, and exceedingly healthy," though he says that some of his parishioners are already very angry at him. While the revolt against his spiritual authority was gathering strength his brother and his friend Ingham were meeting with similar trials at Frederica. The Reverend Charles began by magnifying his •office and carrying out his rituahstic notions with a high hand. He also attempted the j)ractical but impracticable office of settling the quarrels of certain scolding women ; and in one way and another brought himself into such bad odor with these semi-barbarians that -they actually denied him a place to sleep, and he was forced to make his bed on the ground. They filled the ears of the Grovernor with stories against him, and in a short time the secretary was out of favor with his master, where- upon, having no visible protection, his few friends forsook him, he was charged with mutiny, and his life became so intolerable that "witliin three weeks after his arrival at Frederica he dispatched Inffham to Savannah for advice. The elder brother made all haste to visit the scene of hostilities, but his office as peace-maker was a sad failure ; for he had only just returned to Savannah when Charles Tnade his appearance there, having been actually put to flight by the •outrageous treatment of his parishioners. The brothers then ex- <;hanged their fields of labor, but in a month and a day John Wesley„ 114 Illustrated History of Methodism. also, -was forced to abandon liis cure of souls at Frederica and to return to Savannah, having been, as he says, " betrayed, scorned, and insulted by those I had most labored to serve." After five months Charles Wesley returned to England to beg for re-enforcements, and at the end of the first year Ingham followed him, having accomphshed literally nothing of all the pious purposes with which they set out. John Wesley and his faithful Delamotte remained for another year, when they, too, were glad to escape under circumstances which his enemies for a hundred years have used to traduce Wesley's character and belittle his fame. During the second year, in spite of the sad experience he had suf- fered, John Wesley kept on in his course of High-church dogmatism. With him a direction set down in the Prayer Book was in those days almost as binding as a text of Scripture ; and by both these books, not by either without the other, he determined to stand or fall. He in- sisted on baptizing infants by immersion unless it was declared by the parents that they were too feeble to bear it ; he would not allow per- sons to stand as godfathers and godmothers who did not certify that they had received the Holy Communion; he refused the Lord's Supper to those who did not give previous notice of their intention to present themselves ; his visitation from house to house was looked upon as a systematic espionage ; and it was charged that he attempted to establish a system of confessions, fasts, and other religious mortifi- cations, which, though well enough in accordance with the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, were not at all agreeable to these Savan- nah colonists, whom their zealous minister was trying either to lead or drive into the kingdom of heaven. He rigidly excluded all Dissenters from the Holy Communion until they gave up their principles and sub- mitted to be rebaptized by him ; nevertheless he received Roman Catholics as good and regular Christians, on which account his ene- mies denounced him as a Pomanist in disguise. In Georgia, says Tyerman, " Wesley was treating Dissenters with the supercilious tyranny of a High-church bigot." He watched liis flock too closely to suit their notions of liberty ; he used his influence •with the Governor to have strict laws enacted for the promotion of out- ward morality ; and to such a degree did he cross the tastes and temjxjr of the motley crowd, that certain of the baser sort were actually ready The Mission to Ameeica. 115 to kill liim. One stout virago invited him into her house, and, having overpowered him — for Weslej was a small, weak man — she cut off all the long auburn locks from one side of his head, leaving the other side untouched ; and the persecuted man, by way of making the most of his sufferings for the truth's sake, actually appeared in the pulpit with his hair in this one-sided condition. In January, 1737, Wesley and Delamotte paid another visit to Fred- erica, where they arrived after having lost their way in tlie woods, waded breast deep in swamps, and slept on the ground in their wet clothes, which were frozen stiff in the morning. But the ])eople O- A SOUXnEKX SWAiir. that wretched settlement w^ere as untractable as ever, and, after spend- ing some twenty days among them, during which his life was repeated- ly threatened, "Wesley left the place forever, and returned to face his enemies at Savannah, who were j^reparing a long indictment against him. " All Escape frooi Matrimony." — To make matters worse, Wesley fell in love with a beautiful and accomphshed young lady, who had first sought his help in learning the French language, and, later, his instruction in rehgion. She was the niece of the wife of 116 Illustrated History of Methodisjl one Thomas Causton, an unscrupulous adventurer who had so far won the good opinion of Governor Oglethorpe as to be made chief magis- trate of the colony, which office he administered with the most ridic- ulous state and dignity. For a time the affairs of the two young people went on smoothly enough. Causton, who acted as the young lady's guardian, was pleased with the match, the Governor did all he could to help it on, the lady herseK was an apt scholar, if not in her French, at least in her piety, and when her clerical lover fell sick she nursed him as faithfully as if she had been his wife already. Thus the poor missionary had one ray of sunshine in his dark and stormy sky. But, alas for him ! This learned gentleman, who in after years developed so great a knowledge of men, never could understand a woman. He was quite impressible to female charms ; used while at Oxford to write pious letters to high- born ladies signing himself " Cyrus," and addressing them by like fanciful titles : — chief of whom was " Aspasia," whose real name was Mary Granville, a niece of Lord Lansdowne, a beautiful, wealthy, and accomplished woman, who was haK captivated by the extraordinary learning, piety, and courtesy of the chief of the Oxford Methodists. But " something happened " — nobody knows what — and John Wesley was still a bachelor ; a little lonely, perhaps, and well he might be in such a wretched lodge in the wilderness. Miss Sophia Christiana Hopkey was a proper young person, of a thoughtful and studious turn of mind, as anxious to learn as Wesley was to teach — the most promising lamb in all liis troublesome flock ; and this young missionary did just what almost any other man might have done in a similar case, that is to say, he bestowed a larger amount of pastoral care on this sweet parishioner than was strictly necessary, and suffered her to capture what there was left of his heart. But his pupil, Delamotte, for some reason or other was displeased with the drift of affairs, and ventured to ask his master if he really meant to marry the girl ; whereupon "Wesley, who in such matters As-as ever of a doubtful mind, laid the subject before his friends, the Moravian elders. Delamotte was too active in the business, as appears from the fact that when Mr. Wesley appeared to submit his case be- fore the synod of Moravians he found his pupil already there among them. The Mission to America. 117 " Will you abide by our decision ? " asked Bishop Nitschmann. " I will," replied Mr. Wesley, after some hesitation. " Then we advise you," said Nitschmann, " to proceed no further in the matter." " The will of the Lord be done," responded Wesley ; and from that time, says Moore, one of his biographers, " he avoided every thing that tended to continue the intimacy with Miss Hopkey, and behaved with the greatest caution toward her ;" a course of conduct which might have been more to his credit if he had entered upon it earher. In Mr. Wesley's counsels to young Methodist preachers he lays down this rule : " Take no step toward marriage without consulting with your brethren ;" a piece of extra scriptural advice which certainly was not supported by his experience in this case, unless, indeed, he was of the opinion that if he had consulted with the brethren at an earlier stage of the proceedings he might have saved himself a great deal of trouble ; however that may be, it is certain that by jDublicly submitting this delicate question to the decision of the Moravian elders, and bhndly binding himself to obey their will, he committed the supreme blunder in that list of absurdities which make up the record of his mission to America. Of course the lady was indignant that her priestly lover, having won her, should ask the Moravian brethren whether or no he might take her, and she showed her resentment by immediately marrying another man, one Williamson, of whom Mr. AYesley, in his Journal, expresses this somewhat spiteful opinion : — " March 8. Miss Sophy engaged herself to Mr. Williamson, a per- son not remarkable for handsomeness, neither for greatness, neither for wit, or knowledge, or sense, and, least of all, for religion." Four days afterward they were married, and of this event the afflicted lover writes : " What thou doest, O Lord, I know not now, but I shall know hereafter." That he was deeply wounded there can be no duubt, for after a lapse of nearly fifty years, in looking back upon that sad experience he says : " I was pierced through as with a sword. But our comfort is. He that made the heart can heal the heart." It never for one moment appears to enter his mind what grief he may have caused the young lady whom he sacrificed to the opinions of men tliat had no right to judge the case at all, and his pious resignation is 118 Illustrated History of ]\Iethodis:m. a poor atonement for his manifest unfaithfulness to the woman he loved, whose afEections he had sought, and who, according to all ac- counts, was every way worthy to be his wife. If tliis had been the only unfortunate experience of this kind in the career of the great Methodist it might be possible to accept the above pious expressions as evidence of an exquisite agony, of life-long martyrdom, in consequence of his haK-formed judgment that a priest ought not to marry, at least, not without the approval of his brethren ; but this was his third love affair,* and he afterward had two more rather notable ones, as we shall see, the last of which resulted in a hasty and ill-assorted marriage ; therefore, it is difficult to be very much moved by these sorrowful words, or even to charge over to the Lord what was the plain result of his own misdoing. A heart once broken may be an object of tender sympathy, but a heart broken several times over, even though it be the heart of John AVesley, is somehow suggestive of frailty, as well as of affection. Miss Sophy declares that when "Wesley learned of hej* engagement to Williamson he renewed his addresses in the most vehement man- ner, and even offered to give up some of his severe, High-clmrch prac- tices, on account of which he had become so obnoxious to the colonists, and to settle down with her at Savannah ! f — the personal character of this lady is highly praised by Mr, Wesley's chief biographer, who accepts her statement without contradiction — but after such behavior there was no pardon possible. Besides, she was now pledged to another, and, if Wesley was willing to break his vow to the Moravians, Miss Sophy would not break hers to her affianced husband. It is not a little amusing to read in the solemn pages of some of Wesley's biographers the grave surmises of what calamities would have befallen if he had not " escaped " from this, and that, and the other love affair ; how lie would in one case have settled into a mere country par- son, in another have come to ])e a life-long missionary to the Georgia Indians, etc. As if the Lord could not make use of John Wesley jnarried as well as John Wesley single ! Is not matrimony a means of grace ? And has not God been able to make great use of other married men ? If there is any blessedness in " escaping " from impending matri- • "The Living AVesley," by Dr. Rigg. f Tyermax's "Life and Times of Wesley," p. 149. . The Mission to Amebic a. 119 mony to wMcli he by liis own conduct was repeatedly "exposed," then John Wesley is entitled to be congratulated on his good for- tune ; but sensible men, and all women whatever, are more likely to look on such halting between two opinions as an evidence of pitiful weakness instead of providential j)rotection. And why, on the latter supposition, was he suffered at last to fall into the hands of the widow Yazeille, who used actually to tear his hair ? Mrs. "Williamson was still one of his parishioners, and when, some raionths after her marriage, he gave her some pastoral reproof, and at another time publicly repelled her from the Lord's Supper, her hus- band and her former guardian took up the quarrel, framed the indict- ment above mentioned, and cited the missionary to appear before his high mightiness, Mr. Chief Magistrate Causton for trial, on the charge of various priestly tyrannies, and especially for the affront to Mrs. Williamson, whose husband sued for damages for defamation to the amount of one thousand j)ounds. The whole colony was in an uproar. It was said, of course, that Mr. Wesley had refused the Lord's Supper to the lady because she had refused to marry him ; to which he replied that he had given her the Eucharist several times since her marriage, and that the reason of his refusal on this occasion was, that she did not give notice to him, accord- ing to the rubric in the Prayer Book, of her intention to present herself at the Lord's table, and, therefore, his act could not be understood in the light of a public defamation of her Christian character and stand- ing ; the more because he had treated several other persons in the same way. To the other charges he replied that the acts complained of were ecclesiastical in their character, and over such cases Mr. Jus- tice Causton's court had no jurisdiction, notwithstanding that the grand jury of Savannah had found a true bill against him. In the action for damages he prepared to defend himself, and demanded an early trial, but it was put over from time to time on various pretexts ; and after the seventh postponement, the plaintiff, finding he could neither obtain justice nor be of any use as a minister under such conditions, gave up in despair, and announced his purpose of returning to England. Upon this the magistrates demanded that he should give bail for his appearance when wanted, but Wesley still defied their authority, 120 Illustrated History of Methodism. and in return they gave orders that he should not be permitted to leave the colony, and forbidding any person to assist him in so doing. They also brought another minister to perform service in the parish, a Mr. Dixon, who was chaplain to some soldiers at Frederica; and thus practically supplanted Mr. "Wesley in his office. Wesley's Fareivell to Georgia. — That same evening TVesley, with four other fugitives, who had reasons of their own for getting away, started in an open boat for Port Royal, in South Carolina ; which place they reached after hard toiling and rowing by sea, and great hardships by land, on the 6th of December, 1737. On the 8th Mr. Delamotte rejoined his master, at Port Poyal, when they took a small craft and started for the port of Charleston, which they reached on the 13th. On the 22d John Wesley bade a long good-bye- to the inhospitable shores of North America, and on the 1st of February reached England, only one day after George "Whitefield had set sail for the very colony that he had been compelled to leave. It appears that when their much-abused minister had actually gone- and left them, some of his old parishioners began to feel more kindly toward him, and managed to find a good word to say of him to his friend Whitefield, when he arrived ; for Mr. Whitefield, in a letter from Georgia, says : " The good Mr. John Wesley has done in America is inexpressible. His name is very precious among the people, and he has laid a foundation that I hope neither men nor de^als will ever be able to shake." Foundation of what ? Neither Mr. Whitefield nor any one else has ever been able to tell. Mr. Wesley himseK writes in a different strain, " Many reasons I have to bless God for my having been carried to America, contrary to all my preceding resolutions. Hereby I trust he hath in some measure humbled me and proved me, and shown me what was in my heart. I went to America to convert the Indians ; but O, who shall convert me ? . . . " This, then, I have learned in the ends of the earth — that I am fallen short of the glory of God ; that my whole heart is altogether cornipt and abominable ; . . . that my own works, my own sufferings, my own righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God, so far from making; an atonement for the least of those sins- The Mission to America. 121 wliicli are more in number tlian the liairs of my head, that the most epecious of them need an atonement themselves or they cannot abide his righteous judgment. ... I liave no hope but that if I seek I shall find Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." This strong statement he afterward modified by remarking that even then he had " the faith of a servant, but not of a son." Blessed is the man who can learn wisdom from his own mistakes ; and such a man was John Wesley. When he set out for Georgia he was brave enough to face all manner of death if thereby he could save his soul ; when he returned he had the added courage to confess himself to have been in the wrong. Then he was compassing sea and land to save his own soul ; now he is crying out to the Lord to save it for him. He was also in a way to be cured of his dogmatism, though the progress was slow on account of the severity of the disease. In referring to his refusing the Holy Communion to a godly man at Sa- vannah because he had not been baptized by a minister of his own order, Wesley, some ten years after, writes thus : " Can any one carry High-church zeal higher than this ? And how well have I since been beaten with mine own staff." From this time he dwelt continually upon salvation as the gift of God through faith in Jesus Christ. His first sermon on his return to London was at the Church of St. John the Evangehst, from the text, " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." His second was at St. Andrew's Church, Holborn, on " Though I give aU my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." On both of which occasions he gave such offense that the doors of those churches were henceforth shut against him. Truly those English Christians were hard to please. When at first he preached human virtue and sacramental holiness, they denounced him as a fanatic ; and now, when he preaches the failure of human righteousness and the all-sufficiency of saving grace, they shut their pulpits against him. In the one case he cut into their worldliness, in the other he wounded their pride. He has not yet attained unto that 122 Illustrated History of Methodism. sense of personal salvation of which his Moravian friends have told him, '. r. ^ but he has pretty effectually gotten rid of liiraseK. He has tried his great experiment, and it is a failure : the self-contained piety of the Holy Club, which he has preached and practiced on both sides of the ocean, now ap- pears but little better than sounding brass or a tinkling c\Tnbal. If there is to be any real salvation it must come from Jesus Christ, for " by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." Thus the orthodox ritualist has come to be in doctrine, and soon will be in experience, the evangelical Christian. He has been of small account as a missionary to Georgia, but Georgia has been of great account as a train- ins-school for him. CHAPTER V. WHITEFIELD ORDAINED, AND THE WESLEYS CONVERTED. lyrO sooner were the Wesleys gone on tlieir mission to Georgia -L 1 than their chief pupil came to the front to begin that won- derful career on account of which it may be said of him, as was said of John the Baptist, " There was a man sent from God whose name was " George "Whiteiield. On the 20th of June, 1Y36, Bishop Benson ordained him deacon, and he went forth to preach, with almost apostolic power, the gospel doctrine of regeneration. The "boy parson," as he was called, was but Httle past twenty-one years old when he took the holy vows of ordination in the old cathedral of his native town of Gloucester, concerning which event he writes to a friend, as follows : — " I can call heaven and earth to witness that when the Bishop laid his hands upon me I gave myself up to be a martyr for Him who hung upon the cross for me. Known unto him are all future events and contingencies. I have thrown myself blindfold, and, I trust, without reserve, into his almighty hands." Of his outfit of sermons, he says : " N'ever a poor creature set up with so small a stock. I thought I should have time to make at least a hundred sermons with which to begin my ministry. But so far from this being the case, I have not a single one except that which I made for a small society, and which I sent to a neighboring clergyman to convince him how unfit I was to take upon me the important work of preaching." This discourse, of which he had so poor an oj)inion, was on " The Necessity and Benefit of Rehgious Society," and three days afterward he preached it to a great congregation in the church where, in his infancy, he had been baptized. The tapster of the Bell Inn was now come to be a parson ! from standing behind the bar he was come to stand in the pulpit ! and all Gloucester must needs come to hear the youthful prodigy, who was doing such great credit to their town. Here is his account of this maiden effort : — 124 Illustrated History of Methodism. " Gloucester, June 30, 1736. " My Dear Friexd : Glory ! glory ! glory ! be ascribed to the Triune God ! Last Sunday, in the afternoon, I preached my first sermon in the Church of St. Mary de Crypt, where I was baptized, and also received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Curiosity, as you may easily guess, drew a large congregation together. The sight at first a little awed me, but I was comforted with a heart-felt sense of the divine Presence, and soon found the unspeakable advantage of having been accustomed to pubhc speaking when a boy at school, and of exhorting and teaching the prisoners and poor people at their houses while at the University. By these means I was kept from being daunted ovennuch. As I proceeded I could see that the fire kindled, till at last, though so young, and amid a crowd who knew me in my childish days, I was enabled to speak with some degree of gospel authority. A few mocked, but most for the present seemed struck ; and I have since heard that a complaint has been made to the Bishop that I drove fifteen mad. The worthy prelate, as I am informed, wished that the madness might not be forgotten before next Sunday." ^ " He preached Kke a lion," was the comment of one of his simple- minded hearers on the " boy parson's " first sermon. The Gloucester people greatly desired to have Mr. Whitefield settle permanently among them, but he declined all their kind plans and offers, and on the 30th of June returned to Oxford, where, a few days after, he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts. It was his intention to spend a few years at this seat of learning, but there was larger and better work laid out for him. The Rev. Mr. Broughton, one of the early members of the Holy Club, and now chaplain of The Tower, in London, wrote to him to come up and fiill his place for a time, as he desired to be absent in the country, and young Whitefield, with great trembling, consented. He had been but a month in London, preaching with great success, when letters came from the Wesleys in Georgia desiring that more ministers be sent out to their assistance, and at once the heart of Mr. "Whitefield was fired with missionary zeal ; but many friends who had noticed his wonderful power and genius advised him to remain in England. After his return to Oxford he received the offer of a very Whitefield Oedained. 125 profitable curacy in London, which he declined, though he was almost penniless and somewhat in debt, for no other apparent reason than that he did not hear the voice of God calling him in that direction. The return of Mr. Charles Wesley from Georgia in December of that year was the signal for Whitefield to offer himself as a missionary to America. In his letter to that gentleman he ventures to ask him why he chose to go out as secretary to Mr. Oglethorpe instead of going in the character of a laborer in the Lord's vineyard, when by his own account there was such great need of such godly service — a question which must have probed the heart of this double-minded man very deeply. " Did the Bishop ordain us, my dear friend, to write bonds, receipts, etc., or to preach the gospel ? Or dare we not trust God to provide for our relations without endangering, or at least retarding, our spiritual improvement ? But I go too far. You know I was always heady and self-willed." This brief extract is of value in showing the utter forgetfulness of all things else with which Mr. Whitefield was throwing himself into his work, and at the same time it gives a hint of the filial duty which the Wesleys so faithfully jDerformed toward their mother, now a widow, and dependent on her sons for suj)port. The offer of the "boy-parson" having been accepted, he made ready for immediate departure. The little fleet with which he was to sail was to take out some soldiers for the defense of British interests in the Southern Colonies of America against the Spaniards, who were beginning to trouble them ; and as in those slow-going days such matters were not settled in haste, it was a whole year before every thing was quite ready and the three ships actually put to sea. And an eventful year it proved ; for in 1737 England was startled from its ecclesiastical slumbers as it never had been before. The httle cloud which first appeared at Oxford now overspread the heavens, and blessings began to pour down in torrents. This young missionary, whose intended departure across the sea was an excuse for his irregu-' larity, became a roving evangehst, and so wonderful was the success that attended his labors that his name was heralded all over the kingdom. He was soon in great request as a preacher of charity' sermons on behalf of schools, orphanages, and the hke. and, with a 126 Illustrated History of Methodism. careful foresiglit of what lie might need in his new and distant parish, he also improved the opportunity by raising about three hundred pounds for his Georgia mission. But the great business of this young preacher, whose Hps had been touched by a Hve coal from God's altar, was to disseminate Method- ism throughout England. He raised a thousand pounds or so for charity, because people would give to him when they would not to another man ; but he had a higher mission than to carry a contribution box, high as that much-abused mission may be. The collections were only incidental, like the miracles of the apostles, and in both cases they served to establish the power and authority of the minister, while the real business in hand was to preach the Gospel to the poor ; in which work Whitefield far excelled all men who had ever preached in that kingdom. Wliitefield's Theology.— The burden of the Enghsh pulpit in those days was morahty toward God and loyalty to the king. The people were exhorted to be good and they would be happy ; a doctrine which is well enough as far as it goes, but which falls lamentably short of the purposes for which the Gospel was ordained. The doctrine of regeneration was not then, and is not now, a very popular one among the EngKsh clergy. The pious and pugnacious Toplady, afterward one of the thorns in "Wesley's side, has been quoted to the effect that fifty years before his day " a converted minister in the Establishment was as great a wonder as a comet ; " and now, also, the case was very much the same. This was, however, the doctrine of all others which Whitefield knew how to preach. His rehgious experience was not one of those faint, intermittent, long-drawn, half-unconscious processes of grace which certain orthodox religious teachers (so-called) set forth as the appro- priate thing for all persons who wish to serve God elegantly and easily. He had been born again, and he knew it ; knew when, and where, and by what power ; he had passed suddenly from nature's darkness into the marvelous light of God's favor; he had been trans- formed by the renewing of his mind ; the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon him ; he had bathed in seas of joy and reveled in floods of glory ; no wonder, then, that for a time he preached httle else but regeneration. Whitefield Ordained. 127 This was almost like preaching a new rehgion to the people, so little had they heard of a salvation which is God's free gift ; which begins by giving sinners new hearts, and which changes the motives, as well as the manner, of their lives. ISTo wonder, therefore, that the churches in which he preached were crowded almost to SB:ffocation, and that multitudes were obliged to go away for want of even stand- ing room, or a chance to look in at the doors or windows. At Gloucester, Bristol, and Bath in particular, he was overwhelmed with people, not only those who came to hsten to his wonderful sermons, but those who came to him for personal instruction ; while the " inquiry meetings " in those early beginnings of the Methodist revival were worthy patterns for those of our own time. The second sermon Whiteheld ever preached, and the first he ever published, was upon the text, " If any man be in Christ he is a new creature ; " in which he likens this mystery to the work wrought in the body of Naaman the leper. The regenerate man, or the man who is in Chi'ist, he says, is indeed the self-same man, but he has been " made anew." Another of his sermons was from the text, " Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian," which, like many another discourse of his, was made to serve the double purpose of awakening sinners and drawing unprecedented sums of money from their purses for the treasury of the Lord. His charity sermon on the " Widow's Two Mites " would seem to have been rather a practical affair ; but Mr. "Whitefield speaks of it as other men speak of their most successful spiritual appeals, and says that under it " God bowed the hearts of the hearers as the heart of one man." After which we are prepared for his next sentence, " Almost all, as I was told by the collectors, offered most willingly." One of his notable sermons was upon " Early Piety ;" another, on the " Nature and Necessity of the New Birth ;" another, which he preached to the soldiers in the great cabin of his ship at Gibraltar en route to America, was on "The Eternity of Hell Torments;" but whether he were preaching of hell or heaven, of sin or salvation, for charity or otherwise, he kept his hearers continually face to face with the Scriptures, with the personal government of God, with the actual facts of eternal fife and death, and with the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. 128 Illustrated Histoey of Methodism. There is one word which, better than any otlier, describes White- field's preaching : — supernaturah In his day it was usual for preachers to measure the invisible by the visible, and attempt to discern spiritual truths by natural means. Not so with Whitefield. He dwelt among the divine realities which he found described in the word of God, and by hearing him relate his experience people began to take in the idea that salvation amounted to something ; that it was real and tangible ; not the unconscious effect of sacraments administered by the clergy, but a divine communication ; Christ in the soul, hell put under foot, and heaven actually begun. GIBBAXTAK. After sonie months he went up to London to see if his expedition were not ready to sail, and here, as in the provinces, he was set upon to preach charity sermons, some of the London churches being opened to him on account of his money-raising abilities, which would other- wise have been closed against him on account of his "extravagant" notions about tlie conversion of sinners. Two of the city clergy offered him the use of theii* pulpits if he would cut out certain parts of his sermon in which he t^'eated-of regeneration ; but, said the boy-parson, *' This 1 had no freedom to do, so they continued my opposers." Whitefield Oedalned. 129 Unlike his teachers, the two Wesleys, Mr. Whitefield was on friendly terms with Dissenters, some of whom used to invite the young mini ster to their houses to commune with him on his favorite doctrine of regeneration. " If the doctrine of the new birth and justification by faith was preached powerfully in the Church," said they, " there would be but few Dissenters in England." Whitefield says he found their conversation "savory," and imag- ined the best way to " bring them over was not by bigotry and railing, but by moderation and love and undissembled holiness of life." But this did not at all suit the High-church clergy of the metropolis, one of whom called him a " pragmatical rascal," and denounced the whole body of Dissenters in savagely apostolic style ; that is to say, in the style of those half-fledged apostles who forbade the casting out of devils by one who did not belong to their own company. In spite of this, and, indeed, partly because of it, Whitefield's pojralarity increased till it became almost impossible for him to walk the London streets on account of the crowd that gathered about liim. He says : " I was constrained to go from place to place in a coach to avoid the hosannas of the multitude. They grew quite extravagant in their applause, and had it not been for my compassionate High-priest, popularity would have destroyed me. I used to plead with him to take me by the hand and lead me through this fiery furnace. He heard my request, and gave me to see the vanity of all commendations tut his own." A report was circulated by his jealous enemies that the Bishop of London, at the request of the clergy, was about to silence tliis young enthusiast ; but when he waited on that dignitary to inquire about it he found that no such sword was hanging over his head. Bishop Gibson was a man of sound judgment and real l^iety, whose great power and influence, both in Church and State, led his enemies to call him the " London Pope ; " and with this prelate on his side the young mis- sionary had nothing to fear at the hands of curates and rectors, who hated the new preaching because it showed them to be still in their sins. Praying- Without a Book. — All this while Mr. Whitefield had tried to keep within the usages and traditions of the Establish- ment. He read prayers out of the Prayer Book in all public serv- 9 130 Illustrated History of Methodism. ices ; but on one occasion, in a little meeting with some friends, his overburdened soul broke out of ritualistic bounds, and for the first time he attempted to pray extempore. " Some time, I think in October," says he, " we began to set apart an hour every evening to intercede with the great Head of the Church to carry on the work begun, and for the circle of our acquaintance, according as we knew their circum- stances required. I was mouth unto God, and he only knows what enlargement I felt in that divine employ. Once we spent the whole night in prayer and praise, and many a time at midnight, and at one in the morning, after I had been wearied almost to death in preaching, writing, and conversation, and going from place to place, God imparted new life to my soul, and enabled me to intercede with him for an hour and a half and two hours together. The sweetness of that exercise made me compose my sermon on ' Intercession.' " Whatt'tfield Ssials* foa' CJeorgia. — On the 6th of January,. 173S, AVhiteliekl, having been duly appointed to the cure of souls in Savannah, and having persistently declined all the advantageous propo- sitions which loving friends and wealthy admirers could make to- detain liiiu, amid the tears and prayers of the multitudes, who literally blocked his path, went on board his ship at Gravesend and set his- face toward America. The Conversion of Charles Wesley. — -Among the Methodists of America it has always been regarded as a strange thing for a minister to come into the holy office without a new heart. God grant that it may always be so ! But the first form of Oxford Meth- odism was nothing but a desperate hutjiian effort after holiness, and n(jne of the Holy Club except Whitefield had thus far experienced that divine mystery, the new birth. During the most of this notable year, 1737, Charles "Wesley had been in England, working and worrying over Georgia affairs. The wretched state of mind in which at this time he was living will appear from the following extract from his Journal : — " January 22, 1737. I called upon Mrs. Pendarvis while she was. reading a letter of my being dead. Happy for me had the news been true ! "What a world of misery would it have saved me ! " During the month of February he was very ill, and while lying at death's door Peter Bohler, one of the Moravian missionaries who was The Wesleys Converted. 181 in London waiting for a ship to Georgia, called upon liim, and, after prayer, said to him : — " Yon will not die now. Do you hope to be saved ? " " Yes," answered Charles Wesley. " For what reason do you hope it ? " " Because I have used my best endeavors to serve God." Bohler shook his head and said no more, at which Wesley thought him very uncharitable. "What!" he continues in his Journal, "are not my endeavors a sufficient ground of hope ? Would he rob me of my endeavors ? I have nothing else to trust to." * Here is another extract from liis Journal, which shows him still in the dark : — " April 25. Soon after five, as we were met in our little chapel, Mrs, Delamotte came to us. We sung, and fell into a dispute whetlier conversion were gradual or instantaneous. My brother John was very jiositive for the latter, and very shocking ; mentioned some late instances of gross sinners believing in a moment. I was much offended at his worse than unedifying discourse. Mrs. Delamotte left us abruptly. I stayed, and insisted that a man need not know when Urst he had faith. His obstinacy in favoring a contrary opinion drove me at last out of the room. Mr. Broughton [one of the Oxford Methodists] was only not so much scandalized as myself." Charles Wesley was neither the first nor the last to be scandalized by the " obstinacy " of wiser men than himself. It is rather " unedify- ing " to have one's prejudices overthrown by obstinate, uncomfortable facts. Soon after this his illness increased upon him so that he had to be carried about in a chair ; but he still kept on with his " endeavors," and "used" a great deal of prayer for conversion. Besides his friend Peter Bolder, there was one Mr. Bray, a Smithiield brazier, an igno- rant man but a happy believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, to whose house he was carried, and who showed him tlie way of faith more perfectly, whereupon he began to cry out to God most earnestly, and to bee; that Clirist would come to him and save his soul. The follow- ing brief notes from his Journal set forth his progressive state of mind : — * Jackson's "Life of Charles Wesley," p. 110. 132 Illustrated History of Methodism. '• May 13. I Avaked without Christ, yet still desirous of finding liini. At night my brotlier came, exceeding heavy. I forced him, as he had often forced ine, to sing a hymn to Christ, and almost thought He would come while we were singing." " May 14. Found much comfort in prayer and in the AVord. I longed to find Christ, that I might sliow him to all mankind. Several persons called to-day and were convinced of unbelief. Some of them afterward went to Mr. Broughton, and were soon made as easy as Satan and their own hearts could wish." " May 17. To-day I first saw ' Luther on the Galatians.' AVho would believe our Church had been founded upon this important article of justification by faith alone ! I am astonished I should ever think this a new doctrine. I spent some hours this evening in private with Martin Luther, who was greatly blessed to me. I labored, waited, and j^rayed to feel, ' Who loved me and gave himself for one ! ' When nature, near exhausted, forced me to bed, I opened the book upon ' For He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness.' After this comfortable assurance that he would come and would not tarry, I slept in peace." The " opening of the book " was one of the customs of the Holy Club. They treated the Bible as a holy oracle to be consulted on all occasions, and for the settlement of all spiritual questions. The manner of doing it was by opening the book at random, and reading the first passage on which the eye happened to rest. This habit is frequently referred to in the Journals of the Wesleys, and sometimes in that of Whitefield. It was one of the "superstitious practices" alleged against them by their enemies, and often apologized for by their friends, though God seems at times to have greatly comforted them thereby. "Sunday, May 21, 1T38. The Day of Pentecost. I waked in hope and expectation of His coming. At nine my brother and some friends came, and sang a hymn to the Holy Ghost. My comfort and hope were hereby increased. In about half an hour they went. I betook myself to prayer, the substance as follows : " O Jesus, thou hast said, '/ will come unto you.'' Thou hast said, 'Z loill send the Comforter unto you.'' Thou hast said, ' My Father a/nd I will come unto yoii, Boii of Rev. John Wesley. — John, the elder brother, was onlj four days be- hind the younger in entering the kingdom of God. For years he had possessed religion enough to make him miserable, as well as to enable him to make other peojjle so. He was the holiest man of the Holy Club ; but his Pharisaism had been already bro- ken down by what he had learned in America ; and he had reached the point of believing that there is such a work as regen- eration, wrought by the Holy Spir- it, and that this \v» the AVord. — It sometimes appears to be the purpose of God to break into the minds and consciences of men with signs and wonders, when they refuse admittance to his Gospel in any other way. These signs and wonders are so many exclamation points to catch the eye of heedless sinners. The attention of the eye is more quickly caught than that of the ear ; people will go by thousands to see a prodigy, who would not be called out by the simple preaching of the Gospel ; thus, through their curiosity, God makes a way into their minds for his truth, and thereby his kingdom is extended. Miracles and marvels are thus doubly useful, first as testimony to the truth of the word which they accompany, and second, as a strong attraction to bring the multitude within the circle of its power. The Gospel in Word and in Power, 153 The strange scenes which often accompanied the early services of the Methodists in England are plentifully mentioned in Mr. Wesley's Journal. He claims them as evidence that God is with him, and defends himself from the storm of abuse which he encountered on account of them by boldly declaring their supernatural or subter- natnral character. The Lord and the devil, he was quite sure, both IXTEEIOR OF FETTER LAXE CHArEL, l!SuT. took these striking methods of showing their interest in the Methodist revival. But let Wesley himself speak : — "Thursday, l^ov. 25, 1738. While I was preaching at Newgate on these words, 'He that believeth hath everlasting life,' I was insensibly led, without any previous design, to declare strongly and explicitly that God willeth ' all men to be ' thus ' saved ; ' and to pray that, ' if this were not the truth of God, he would not suffer the blind to go out of the way ; but, if it were, he would bear witness to his word.' Immediately one, and another, and another, sunk to the 154 Illustrated History of Methodism. earth : tliey dropped on every side as thunderstruck. One of them cried aloud. "We besought God in her behalf, and he turned her lieaviness into joy. A second being in the same agony, we called upon God for her also ; and he spoke peace imto her soul. In the evening I "vvas again pressed in spirit to declare that ' Christ gave himself a ransom for all.' And almost before Ave called upon him to set to his seal, he answered. One was so wounded by the sword of the Spirit that you would have imagined she could not live a moment. But immediately his abundant kindness was showed, and she loudly sung of his righteousness." " Friday, 26. All i^ewgate rang with the cries of those whom the word of God cut to the heart. Two of whom were in a moment filled with joy, to the astonishment of those that beheld them." Again he writes : " While I was declaring that Jesus Christ had ^ given himself a ransom for all,' three persons, ahnost at once, sunk doAATi as dead, having all their sins set in array before them. But in a short time they were raised up, and knew that 'the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world ' had taken away their sins." Still again : " One avIio had been a zealous opposer of ' this way ' sent and desired to speak with me immediately. He had all the signs of settled despair both in his countenance and behavior. He said he had been enslaved to sin many years, especially to drunkenness ; that he had long used all the means of grace, had constantly gone to church and sacrament, had read the Scripture, and used much private prayer, and yet was nothing profited. I desired we might join in prayer. After a short space he rose, and his countenance was no longer sad. He said, ' 'Now I know God loveth 7ne, and has forgiven ^ny sins. And sin shall not have dominion over me ; for Christ hath set me free.' And according to his faith it was unto him." " April 17, 1739. At Baldwin-street [one of the Societies in Bris- tol] we called upon God to confirm his word. Innnediately, one that stood by cried out aloud, with the utmost vehemence, even as in the agonies of death. But we continued in ^^rayer till a new song was put into her mouth, a thanksgiving unto our God. Soon after, two other persons were seized with strong pain, and constrained to roar for the disquietude of their heart. But it was not long before they like- wise burst forth into praise to God their Saviour. The last who The Gospel iis" Word and en" Power. 155 called upon God, as out of the belly of liell, was a stranger in Bristol ; and in a short space he also was overwhelmed with joy and love, knowing that God had healed his backslidings." " April 21. At TTeavers' Hall, [another Bristol ' Society,'] a young man was suddenly seized with a violent trembling all over, and in a few minutes sunk to the ground. But we ceased not calling ujDon God till he raised him up full of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." " April 21. At Baldwin-street a young man, after a sharp though short agony, both of body and mind, found his soul filled with ]3eace, knowing in whom he had beheved." " I did not mention J n H n, a weaver, who M'as at Bald- win-street the night before. He was (I understood) a man of a regular life and conversation, one that constantly attended the public prayers and sacrament, and was zealous for the Church, and against Dissenters of every denomination. Being informed that people fell into strange fits at the Societies, he came to see and judge for liimseK. But he was less satisfied than before ; insomuch that he went about to his acquaintance, one after another, till one in the morning, and labored above measure to convince them it was a delusion of the devil. We were going home, when one met us in the street, and informed us that J n H n was fallen raving mad. It seems he had sat down to dinner, but had a mind first to end a sermon he had borrowed on ' Salvation by Faith.' In reading the last page he changed color, fell oft" his chair, and began screaming terribly, and beating himself against the ground. The neighbors were alarmed, and flocked together to the house. Between one and two I came in, and found him on the floor, the room being full of people, whom his wife would have kept without, but he cried aloud, ' Xo, let tliem all come ; let all the world see the just judgment of God.' Two or three men were holding him as well as they could. He immediately fixed his eyes upon me^ and, stretching out his hand, cried, ' Ay, this is he who I said was a deceiver of the people. But God has overtaken me. I said. It was all a delusion, but this is no dehision.' He then roared out, ' O thou devil I Thou cursed devil 1 Yea, thou legion of devils I Thou canst not stay. Christ will cast thee out. I know his work is begun. Tear me to pieces if thou wilt ; but thou canst not hurt me.' 156 Illustrated History of Methodism. He then beat himself against the ground again ; his breast heaving at the same time as in the pangs of death, and great drops of sweat trickling down his face. We all betook ourselves to prayer. His pangs ceased, and both his body and soul were set at liberty." Sundav, May 20. " A young man sunk down as one dead ; but soon began to roar out, and beat himself against the ground, so that six men could scarcely hold him. His name was Thomas Maxfield. Ex- cept J n H n, I never saw one so torn of the e^^l one. Mean- while many others began to cry out to the ' Saviour of all ' that he would come and help them, insomuch that all the house (and indeed all the street for some space) was in an uproar. But we continued in praver ; and before ten the greater part found rest to their souls." *• I was called from supper to one who, feeling in herseK such a conviction as she had never known before, had run out of the Society in all haste that she might not expose herself. But the hand of God followed her still ; so that after going a few stejjs she was forced to be carried home ; and when she was there, grew worse and worse. She was in a violent agony when we came. We called upon God, and her soul found rest. About twelve I was greatly importuned to go and visit one person more. She had only one struggle after I came, and was then filled with peace and joy. I think twenty-nine in all had their heaviness tm-ned into joy this day." "' Friday, October 2S. I met with a fresh proof that ' whatsoever ye ask, believing, ye shall receive.' A middle-aged woman desired me to return thanks for her to God, who, as many witnesses then present testified, was a day or two before really distracted, and as such tied down in her bed. But upon prayer made for her, she was instantly relieved, and restored to a sound mind." In another place he says : " I began reading prayers, and preaching, in Gloucester-green "Workhouse ; and on Thui'Eday, in that belonging to St. Thomas's parish. On both days I preached at the castle. At St. Thomas's was a young woman, raving mad, screaming and tor- menting herself continually. I had a strong desire to speak to her. The moment I began she was still. The tears ran down her cheeks all the time I was teUing her ' Jesus of jSTazareth is able and willing to deliver you.' O where is faith upon earth? Why are these poor wi-etches left under the open bondage of Satan? Jesus, Master 1 The Gospel in Woed and in Power. 157 Give tlion medicine to lieal their sickness ; and deliver tliose who are now also vexed with unclean spirits ! " " Tuesday, Oct. 23, 1739. At eleven I preached at Bearlield to about three thousand, on nature, bondage, and adoption. Keturning in tlie evening, I was exceedingly pressed to go back to a young woman in Kingswood. (The fact I nakedly relate, and leave every man to his own judgment of it.) I went. She was nineteen or twenty ye;u-s old ; but, it seems, could not write or read. I found her on the bed, two or three persons holding her. It was a terrible sight. Anguish, horror, and despair, above all description, appeared in her pale face. The thousand distortions of her whole body showed how the dogs of hell were gnawing her heart. The shrieks intermixed were scarce to be endured. But her stony eyes could not weep. She screamed out, as soon as words could find their way, ' I am damned, damned ; lost forever. Six days ago you might have helped me. But it is past. I am the devil's now. I have given myself to him. His I am. Him I must serve. With him I must go to hell. I cannot be saved. I will not be saved. I must, I will, I will be damned.' She then began praying to the devil. We began, ' Arm of the Lord, awake, awake ! ' She immediately sunk down as asleep ; but, as soon as we left off, broke out again, with inexpressible vehemence, ' Stony hearts, break ! I am a warning to you. I am damned, that you may be saved.' She then fixed her eyes on the corner of the ceiling, and said, ' There he is ; ay, there he is ; come, good devil, come. Take me away. I am yours. Come just now. Take me away.' We interrupted her by calling again upon God : on which she sunk down as before ; and another .young woman began to roar out as loud as she had done. My brother now came in, it being about nine o'clock. We continued in prayer till past eleven, when God in a moment spoke peace into the soul, first of the fii'st tormented, and then of the other. And they both joined in singing praise to Him who had ' stilled the enemy and the avenger.' " " Wednesday, 24. I preached at Baptist Mills on those words of St. Paul, speaking in the person of one ' under the law,' (that is, still ' carnal, and sold under sin,' though groaning for deliverance,) ' I know that in me dwelleth no good thing.' A poor woman told me afterward, ' I does hope as my husband wont hinder me any more. 158 Illusteated History of Methodism. For I minded lie did shiver every bone of him, and the tears ran down his cheeks like the rain.' "' It would be easy to make a whole chapter of such cases, but these will serve to show the power M'liich accompanied the word as preached by the leader of the Methodists, and which afterward gave similar testimony to the truth under the ministry of the first Methodists in America. Xor were these marvels found among Methodists alone. The very same superhuman influences are mentioned in the history of the great revival, wliich began at about the same time, at l^orthamp- ton, in Massachusetts, under the ministry of that famous Congregation- alist divine, Dr. Jonathan Edwards. "^^ The same agonies and ecstasies axe also mentioned in connection with other great historic revivals of religion, and it is to be regretted that so many good people who have felt themselves called upon to denounce these '* extravagancies " should have overlooked the book of the Acts of the Apostles, whose records, if carefully studied, would have given them a more intelligent, as well as a more orthodox view of the case. * The revival which comineuced at Northampton spread throughout the greater part of the colony. All sorts of people — high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise, moral and immoral — simultaneously became the subjects of the Spirit's strivings, and were converted. This remarkable movement took place only a few months before Wesley set sail for Georgia, and continued for several years afterwai-d. Mr. Edwards published a narrative of its most striking incidents, in which he says : — In many instances conviction of sin and conversion were attended with intense physical excitement. Numbers fell prostrate on the ground, and cried aloud for mercy. The bodies of others were convulsed and benumbed. As chaos preceded creation, so in New England confusion went before conversion. The work was great and glorious, but was accompanied with noise and tumult. Men literally cried for mercy ; but the loudest outcries were not so loud as the shrieks of Voltaire or Volney, when the prospect of eternity unnerved them. .Stout-hearted sinners trembled ; but not more tlien philosophers of the present day would do if they had equally vivid views of the torments of the damned to which sin exposes them. There were groanings and faintings ; transports and ccstacies ; zeal sometimes more fervid than discreet ; and passion not unf requently more powerful than pious ; but, from one end of the land to the other, multitudes of vain, thoughtless sinners were unmistakably converted, and were made new creatures in Christ Jesus. Frolicking, night-walking, singing lewd songs, tavern-haunting, profane speaking, and extravagance in dress, were generally abandoned. The talk of the people was about the favor of God, an interest in Christ, a sanctified heart, and spiritual blessedness here and hereafter. The country was full of meetings of persons of all. sorts and ages, to read, pray, and sing praises. Oftentimes the people were wrought up into the highest transports of love, joy, and admiration, and had such views of the divine perfections and the excellencies of Christ, that for five or six hours together their souls reposed in a kind of sacred elysium, until the body seemed to sink beneath the wciglit of divine discoveries, and nature was deprived of all ability to stand or 6peak. — Tyerinariif Life and Times of Wesley. The Gospel in "Word and in Power. 159 In one of liis replies to a clerical opponent, in May, 1739, Mr. Wesley says : — " The question between us turns chiefly, if not wholly, on matter of fact. Tou deny that God does now work these effects : at least, that he works them in this manner. I affirm both ; because I have heard these things with my own ears, and have seen them with my eyes. I have seen (as far as a thing of this kind can be seen) very many persons changed in a moment from the spirit of fear, horror, despair, to the spirit of love, joy, and j^eace ; and from sinful desire, till then reigning over them, to a pure desire of doing the will of God. These are matters of fact, whereof I have been, and almost daily am, an eye or ear witness. What I have to say toucliing visions or dreams, is this : I know several persons in whom this great change was wrought in a dream, or during a strong representation to the eye of their mind, of Christ either on the cross, or in glory. This is the fact ; let any judge of it as they please. And that such a change was then wrought appears (not from their shedding tears only, or falling into fits, or crying out : these are not the fruits, as you seem to suppose, whereby I judge, but) from the whole tenor of their life, till then many ways wicked ; from that time, holy, just, and good. " I will show you him M'ho was a lion till then, and is now a lamb ; him that was a drunkard, and is now exemplarily sober ; the whore- monger that was, who now abhors the very 'garment spotted by the flesh.' These are my living arguments for what I assert, namely, ' That God does now, as aforetime, give remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, even to us and to our children ; yea, and that always suddenly, as far as I have known, and often in dreams or in the visions of God.' If it be not so, I am foimd a false witness before God. For these things I do^ and by his grace will^ testify." And further, on this point, he writes in his Journal : — " Perhaps it might be because of the hardness of our hearts, unready to receive any thing unless we see it with our eyes and hear it with our ears, that God, in tender condescension to our weakness, suffered so many outward signs of the very time when he wrought this inward change to be continually seen and heard among us. But although they saw " signs and wonders," (for so I must term them,) jq\ many would not believe. They could not indeed deny the facts ; 160 Illustrated Histoey of METHODis]\r. but they could explain them away. Some said, ' These were purely natural effects ; the people fainted away only because of the heat and closeness of the rooms.' And others were ' sure it was all a cheat : they might help it if they would. Else why were these things only in their private societies : why were they not done in the face of the sun ? ' " To-day our Lord answered for himself. For while I was enforcing these words, ' Be still, and know that I am God,' he began to make bare his arm, not in a close room, neither in private, but in the open air, and before more than two thousand witnesses. One, and another, and another was struck to the earth ; exceedingly trembhng at the presence of his power. Others cried, with a loud and bitter cry, 'What must we do to be saved?' And in less than an hour seven persons, wholly unknown to me till that time, were rejoicmg, and singing, and with all their might giving thanks to tlie God of their salvation." Concerning these singular bodily exercises already mentioned, the Rev. Ralph Erskine wrote to Wesley thus : " Some of the instances you give seem to be exemplified, in the outward manner, by the cases of Paul and the jailer, as also Peter's hearers, (Acts ii.) The last instance you give of some struggling as in the agonies of death is to me somewhat more inexplicable, if it do not resemble the child of whom it is said, that ' when he was yet a-coming, the devil threw him down and tare him.' I make no question, Satan, so far as he gets power, may exert himself on such occasions, partly to mar and hinder the beginning of the good work, in the persons that are touched with the sharp arrows of conviction ; and partly, also, to prevent the success of the Gospel on others. However, the merciful issue of these conflicts, in the conversion of the persons thus afEected, is the main thing." Erskine also mentions that they have something in Scotland analo- gous to what had occurred in Bristol. Sometimes, he says, a whole congregation, in a flood of tears, would cry out at once, so as to drown the voice of the minister. The Rev. Richard Watson writes upon this point : — " That cases of real enthusiasm occurred at this and subsequent periods, is indeed allowed. There are always nervous, dreamy, and The Gospel in Wokd and in Powee. 161 excitable people to be found ; and the emotion produced among these would often be communicated by natural sympathy. Xo one could be blamed for this unless he had encouraged the excitement for its own sake, or taught the people to regard it as a sign of grace, which most assuredly Mr. "Wesley never did. ISTor is it correct to represent these effects, genuine and fictitious together, as peculiar to Methodism. Great and rapid results were produced in the first ages of Christianity, but not without ' outcries,' and strong corporeal as well as mental emotions. Like effects often accompanied the preaching of eminent men at the Reformation ; and many of the Puritans and Non-con- formist ministers had similar successes in our own country. In Scot- land, and also among the grave Presbyterians of New England, previous to the rise of Methodism, the ministry of faithful men had been attended by very similar circumstances." Besides these " bodily exercises," there were about this time two or three triumphant deaths among the Methodist converts, whose dying testimonies added further confirmation of the blessed truth of regeneration through faith in Jesus Christ : and these and other such experiences, wrought into hymns by Charles Wesley, the poet of the great revival, then began to cheer the souls of believers with songs which were destined to be heard and echoed all around the world. SOUTH COAST OF ENGLAND. 11 CHAPTER VII. "THE WORLD IS MY PARISH." Field Preaching^. — It was the impetuous White- field who set the example of held preaching, but his older brethren, the Wesleys, were soon led to follow it. AVhiteheld, now returned fr(»m his first visit to America, had been ordained as a priest by his old friend Bishop Benson, who says of him: "Though mistaken on some points, I think Mr. Whitefield a very pious, well-meaning young man, with good abilities and great zeal." Going to Georgia had not cured him of any of his " enthu- siasm," or sliorn him of any of his strength. Again the churches from Avhich lie was not shut out were overwhelmed witli peoi>Ie^ thousands of whom were glad to hear, even from the church-yard, the wonderful preacher whom they could not approach near enough to "The World is My Paeish." 163 see, and tliey found the preaching to be the same doctrine over again : Regeneration by the Holy Ghost ; and the same practical outcome : conversion of sinners, and collections for the Georgia mission. At Bristol, the scene of his great success the year before, he was now denied the use of the churches, and was obliged to content him- self with a sermon on " The Penitent Thief " to the prisoners in Newgate ; but even here he did not omit the collection, which, on this occasion, he tells us, amounted to fifteen shillings. Here, also, the State-church authorities pursued him, and at their instance the mayor and magistrates commanded the jailer not to allow him to preach again in the prison, giving as a reason that " he insisted upon the necessity of being born again." What harm it could possibly do the i!^ewgate prisoners to be born again the magistrate did not say ; the point to be gained was, to silence this too faithful, too orthodox, too evangelical preacher. But the Gospel was in him as a fire shut up in his bones. He was sent to preach : God had called him to do that work in his boyhood : for it he had been ordained both deacon and priest : sinners needing new hearts were terribly plenty : and, besides, there was his Orphan House to be built in Georgia : therefore, he must preach : heaven and earth demanded it. Bristol and Kiiig'SiFOod. — There was a village of colliers at Kingswood, near Bristol, a people whom he already knew to be almost in a state of barbarism, and on whom nothing was so likely to take saving effect as his favorite doctrine of regeneration. They were evidently too far gone in sin to be repaired ; any work that could reach their case must include a new nature and begin with a new birth. Here on Sunday, February lYth, 1739, for the first time in England, George Whitefield preached in the open air. His congregation was made up of about two hundred of the Kingswood colliers, and of his experience in this connection he writes : " I believe I was never more acceptable to my Master than when I was standing to teach these hearers in the open fields." On the 4th of March following he preached again in the open air at a place called Baptist Mills, to a congregation of three or four thou- sand people. The sight of this great throng elated him : " Blessed be God ! " says he, " all things happen for the furtherance of the Gospel : 164 Illustrated Histoey of Methodism. I now preach to teu times as many people as I should if I had been confined to the churches. Surely the devil is blind ; so are his emis- saries, or they would not so confoimd themselves." The State-church of England was a part of the machinery of the Government. The Church was the instrument of the State. The means of grace were matters for which Englishmen might be taxed. The reofular clero-v held their places bv act of Parliament as well as bv personal and political favor; they were therefore manageable. But the people called " Methodists," who were now becoming so numerous and so troublesome, were not disposed to submit to the political mo- nopoly of rehgion claimed by the clergy and magistrates ; and as for Whitefield, wliile he desired to do nothing contrary to his ordination vows in the Establishment, he could by no means I'efuse to heed the call of the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls, by whom he was appointed a preacher of righteousness. The churches were the property of the Establishment, but the out-of-doors belonged to the Lord; therefore when Whitefield found himself shut out of the Church of England, he straightway adjourned his services to the church of God. It was a bold thing to do, but TThitefield does not seem to have been conscious of any great courage in the matter. He was already somewhat calloused by the abuse of his enemies, and to be called bad names by them did him httle harm. On one occasion, at Coal-pit Heath, in the neighborhood of Bristol, while he was preaching to a congregation of many thousands, a " gentleman " who was drank interrupted him, called him a " dog," declared that he ought to be " whipped at the cart's tail " — which was one of the modes of punish- ment in that day — and offered money to any one who would pelt him with mud and stones ; but the colliers were the friends of the preacher, and instead of pelting him they pelted his adversary until the over- zealous "gentleman" was glad to make his escape and leave the Methodist to go on with his sermon. At Hannam Mount he preached to four or five thousand people, of wliich service he writes : — " The sun shone very bright, and the people, standing in such an awful manner around the moimt in the profomidest silence, tilled me with holy admiration." Two days later he estimates his congregation at ten thousand, but "The World is My Parish." 165 the voice of the preacher was so loud and clear that it could be dis- tinctly heard by every one in the vast assembly. At Rose Green, in Kingswood, his congregation covered three acres, and was computed at twenty thousand souls, upon which he exclaims : '" The fire is kindled in the country, and all the devils in liell shall not be able to quench it." Among these crowds of poor people Wliitefield collected about two hundred pounds for his Georgia orphanage, much of it with his own hands, in his own hat, which latter was sometimes almost filled with half-pence, and the carrying of such a weight through such a crowd caused him to complain of the lameness of his arms. Besides his public ministrations he gave personal instruction to inquirers in the divine mysteries of faith and regeneration : he was also teaching his brother Methodists how to carry on their work with- out any just cause of offense to the rich and the mighty, and in a way by which, without the help of their money or their influence, the Gospel could be preached to the ignorant and the poor. Out-door preaching was not forbidden by the Prayer Book, though not contem- plated by the men who made it. Such services were, indeed, iri*egu- lar, but no one could say they were unlawful. On several previous occasions, after preaching a charity sermon by special request in some Church, Whitefield had felt himself impelled to go out and preach in the church-yard to the larger congregation which awaited him there, and this new departure had already developed in him a larger freedom of manner than was fashionable at that time. When, therefore, he took to field preaching he easily broke away from the stiffness which pre- vailed within church walls, and began at once to strike out boldly and freely to reach the hearts of the people, multitudes of whom would never have heard the word of life if "Whitefield and his brother Meth- odists had not brought it out of the Church to them in the woods and fields. It was the miracle of feeding the five thousand over again. That was an out-of-door service, too, and was doubtless intended to be prophetic as well as humane. Wesley Takes to the Fields.— It was now necessary for Mr. Whitefield to leave the neighborhood of Bristol, but he could not beai- the thought of leaving this great fiock to be scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd, therefore he wrote to his friend John Wes- ley at London to come down to Bristol and carry on the work which 166 Illusteated History of Metuodis^i. he had. begun ; and, mncli to the grief of tlie London Societies, among whom Wesley had come to be a spiritual leader, as weW as much against the prejudices of his brother Charles, M^ho was sliocked at the idea of any thing so irregular as an out-of-door ser\ace, he consented to make trial of this new method of work. But first the call was made a sub- ject of special prayer by the brethren, after which the matter was sub- mitted to the " test by lot," a common practice among the Moravians, and the lot decided that he should go. Charles "Wesley apj^ears not to hare been satisfied "o-ith the knowl- edge of the divine will obtained in this manner, and submitted the case to the further test of " opening the book ; " whereupon, the book being placed upon its back and allowed to fall open, the first text which caught his eye was, " Son of man, behold I take from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke, yet thou shalt not groan nor weep." Thus to all appearances it was the will of God that John Wesley should go down to Bristol, at which place he arrived on Saturday, the 31st of April, 1739. He would have gone to the ends of the earth on the strength of such a call. Of his first service in Bristol Mr. Wesley writes : — " Saturday, 31. In the evening I reached Bristol, and met Mr. Whitefield there. I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange M-ay of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday ; having been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it liad not been done in a church." "April 1, 1739. In the evening (Mr. Whitefield being gone) I began expounding our Lord's sermon on the mount (one pretty remarkable precedent of field preaching, though I suppose there were churches at that time also) to a little society which was accustomed to meet once or twice a week in Xicholas-street." " Monday, 2. At four in the afternoon I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the liighways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to tlie city, to about three thousand people. The Scripture on which I spoke was this, (is it possible any one should, be ignorant, that it is fulfilled in every true minister of Christ?) 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He "The Wokld is My Paeish." 167 hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted ; to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind : to set at liberty them that are bmised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.' " " The World is My Parish."— This utterance of Mr. Wes- ley, which is perhaps more quoted than any other of his sayings, marks the long step in advance which he took when he began to preach in the fields. As a Churchman he was forbidden to preach in the parish of any clergyman without his consent ; but "Wesley understood the jurisdiction of the local minister to be confined to the church and those premises which properly belonged thereto ; but that it should extend to all the commons, fields, and forests, he could not for a moment allow. When he was questioned as to his good faith in hold- ing out-of-door services without the consent of the local clergy, he rephed : — " You ask, ' How is it that I assemble Christians who are none of my charge, to sing psalms, and pray, and hear the Scriptures ex- pounded? and think it hard to justify doing this in other men's parishes, upon catholic principles.' " Permit me to speak plainly. If by catholic principles you mean any other than scriptural, they weigh nothing with me : I allow no other rule, whether of faith or practice, than the Holy Scriptures : but on scriptural principles I do not think it hard to justify whatever I do, God in Scripture commands me, according to my power, to instruct the ignorant, reform the wicked, confirm the virtuous. Man forbids me to do this in another's parish ; that is, in elfect, to do it at all, seeing I have now no parish of my own, nor probably ever shall. Whom, then, shall I hear, God or man ? ' If it be just to obey man rather than God, judge you.' 'A dispensation of the Gospel is com- mitted to me ; and woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.' But where shall I preach it upon the principles you mention? Why, not in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America ; not in any of the Christian parts, at least, of the habitable earth. For all these are, after a sort, divided into parishes. If it be said, ' Go back, then, to the heathens from whence you came : ' nay, but neither could I now (on your principles) preach to them : for all the heathens in Georgia belong to the parish either of Savannah or Frederica. " Suffer me now to tell you my principles in this matter. I look 168 Illustrated History of Methodism. upon all tlie world as mj parish ; thus far I mean, that in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and mj bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation. This is the work which I know God has called me to ; and sure I am that his blessing attends it. Great encouragement have I, therefore, to be faithful in fulfilling the work he hath given me to do. His servant I am, and as such am employed according to the plain direc- tion of his word, ' as I have opportunity, doing good unto all men : ' and his providence clearly concurs ^vith his word, which has disen- gaged me from all things else, that I might singly attend on this very thing, ' and go about doing good.' " The King's^vood School.* — One of the first thoughts of the converted colHers at Kingswood was the need of Christian education for their children, and Mr. Whitefield, at his farewell service, April 2, 1739, laid the corner-stone of a school ; but the plans and the comer- stone comprised the chief assets of the enterprise when it fell into the hands of Mr. AVesley, who succeeded Whitefield in the care of the Kingswood mission. The following account of the work of grace among this benighted people, from Mr. Wesley's Journal, gives a vivid picture of the life of a great class of persons in the England of that day ; a population numbering hundreds of thousands, and scattered all over the mining districts of the kingdom : — " Few persons have lived long in the west of England who have not heard of the colliers of Kingswood ; a people famous, from the beginning hitherto, for neither fearing God nor regarding man : so ignorant of the things of God that they seemed but one remove from the beasts that perish ; and, therefore, utterly without desire of instruc- tion, as well as without the means of it. " Many last winter used tauntingly to say of Mr. Whitefield, ' If he will convert heathens, why does not he go to the colliers of Kings- wood ? ' In spring he did so. And as there were thousands who * Kingswood was formerly a royal chase, containing between three and four thousand acres ; but previous to the rise of Methodism it had been gradually appropriated by the several lords whose estates encircled it. The deer had disappeared, and the greater part of • the wood also. Coal mines had been discovered, and it was now inhabited by a race of people as lawless as the foresters, their forefathers, but far more brutal ; and differing as much from the people of the surrounding country in dialect as in appearance. They had no place of worship, for Kingswood then belonged to the parish of St. Philip, and was at least three miles distant from the parish church. "The Woeld is My Parish." 169 resorted to no place of public worship, lie went after them into their own wilderness, ' to seek and save that which was lost.' "When he was called away others went into 'the highways and hedges to compel them to come in.' And by the grace of God their labor was not in vain. The scene is already changed. Kingswood does not now, as a year ago, resound with cursing and blasphemy. It is no more filled with drunkenness and uncleanness, and the idle diversions that natu- rally lead thereto. It is no longer full of wars and fightings, of clamor and bitterness, of wrath and envyings. Peace and love are there. Great numbers of the people are mild, gentle, and easy to be entreated. :n"ew kixgswood school. They 'do not cry, neither strive,' and hardly is their 'voice heard in the streets ; ' or, indeed, in their own wood, unless when they are at their usual evening diversion, singing praise unto God their Saviour. " That their children, too, might know the things which make for their peace, it was some time since proposed to build a house in Kings- wood ; and after many foreseen and unforeseen difficulties, in June last the foundation was laid. The ground made choice of was in the middle of the wood, between the London and Bath roads, not far 170 Illustkated History of ]\Iethodism. from that called Two-Mile Hill, about three measured miles from* Bristol. " Here a large room was begun for the school, having four small rooms at either end for the school-masters (and perhaps, if it should please God, some poor children) to lodge in. Two persons are ready to teach so soon as the house is fit to receive them, the shell of which is nearly finished ; so that it is hoped the whole will be completed in spring, or' early in the summer." Such was the beginning of that famous institution ^\•llich for many years has been one of the chief training schools of the Enghsh Methodist preachers ; its doors being now open only for the sons of "Wesleyan ministers in active service. "Wesley spent the remainder of the year 1739 at Bristol and vicinity, where, in about nine months, he preached and expounded no less than five hundi'ed times ; all these services, with only eight excep- tions, being held in the open air. Wesley and Beau Nash. — The singular spectacle of a clergyman of the Church of England, in gown and bands, standing on a table, or in a cart, or on the stump of a tree in the open fields, sur- rounded by a multitude of unwashed, uncombed, uncultivated people, down whose smutty faces the tears had washed little places white, was something so wonderful as to attract the notice of the " higher classes," and accordingly, among the crowds were often seen the carriages of the nobihty and gentry, to whom, however, the preacher was quite as plain and faithful as to the ruder portion of his audience, on which account he was regarded, in certain quarters, as a very rude and even dangerous person. How stupid of him not to be able to discern between sin in the rich and sin in the poor ! During a visit to the neighboring city of Bath, which was at that time the center of the English world of luxury, fashion, and leisure, a notorious rake and gambler called Beau Nash, who was the acknowl- edged leader in Bath society, attempted to break up one of Wesley's out-of-door meetings. Soon after the preacher had connnenced his sermon the dandy appeared in gorgeous array, and impudently demanded — " By what authority dare you do what you are doing now i " " By the authority of Jesus Clirist, conveyed to nie by him who is • '^The Woeld is My Parish." 171 now Archbishop of Canterbury, when he laid his hands upon my head and said, ' Take thou authority to preach the Gospel,' " was Mr, Wesley's dehberate reply. "But this is a conventicle," said Nash, "and contrary to act of Parhament." "No," answered "Wesley, "conventicles are seditious meetings, but here is no sedition ; therefore it is not contrary to act of Parliament." " I say it is," stormed the fellow ; " and, besides, your preaching- frightens people out of their wits." WESLEY AND BEAU NASH. " Sir," said "Wesley, " did you ever hear me preach '( " "No." " How can you judge of what you never heard ? " " I judge by common report." " Is not your name Nash ? " asked "Wesley. " It is," said the beau. ""Well, sir, I dare not judge yoti by common report," was Mr. Wesley's stinging reply. The pi'ctentious fop was confounded, especially when an old woman 172 Illustrated History of Methodism. in the cougregation took part in the argument against him, and instead of breaking ujd the " conventicle," as he had boasted he would do, he was glad enough to sneak away and leave Wesley to finish his sermon. John Wesley and his Critics. — The preaching of Wesley was of a much less florid and enthusiastic style than that of Whitefield. but the crowds that waited on him were equally large. In the plainest speech he talked the plainest theology, mixed with the most downright common sense, and the multitudes seemed to relish it quite as well as they did the brilliant rhetoric of his pupil ; his word, also, was attended with greater spiritual power. Wliitefield's sermons were always " collection sermons," while Wesley was wholly intent od teaching his hearers the lesson which he himself had so long been striving to learn, namely, how to save their souls. He also took fre- quent collections, it is true, but the financial feature was far less promi- nent under Wesley than it was under Whitefield. If Wesley had held to his Holy Club notions, and simply taught the duties of religion, there would have been little or no complaint ; but when he declared that without saving faith in Christ there was no salvation, even for the aristocracy and clergy, their indignation knew no bounds. One of his favorite texts was, " By grace are ye saved through faith," and he constantly insisted that it is the grace of God, and not their own efforts at goodness, which brings salvation within reach of any behever. It was not long before both the pulpit and the press opened their guns upon him. He was denounced as "a restless deceiver of the people;" an "ignorant pretender;" a "new-fangled teacher, setting up his own fanatical conceits in opposition to the authority of God ;" a " rapturous enthusiast ;" a " Jesuit in disguise ;" and, worst of all, " a Dissenter.''^ " Every-where," says Wesley, " we were represented as ' mad dogs,' and treated accordingly. We were stoned in the streets, and several times narrowly escaped with our lives. In ser- mons, newspapers, and pamphlets of all kinds, we were painted as unheard-of monsters, but this moved us not ; we went on testifying salvation by faith both to small and great, and not counting our hves dear unto ourselves so that we might finish our course with joy." As a specimen of the churchly criticisms on Jolni Wesley, this. • "The World is My Parish." 173 from a sermon by Eev. Joseph Drapp, a London Doctor of Divinity, will suffice. He accuses Wesley of " outraging common decency and common sense ;" says his course is " so ridiculous as to create the greatest laughter, were it not so deplorable and detestable as to create the greatest grief and abhorrence, especially when vast multitudes are so sottish and wicked as in a tumultuous manner to run maddening after liim. Go not after these impostors and seducers," he cries, " but shun them as you would the plague. I am ashamed to speak upon a subject which is a reproach, not only to our Church and country, but human nature itself. To the prevalence of immorality and profanity, infidelity and atheism, is now added the pest of enthusiasm." This tirade he published in a pamphlet entitled " The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of being Eighteous Over Much ; with a Particular Yiew to the Doctrines and Practices of Certain Modern Enthusiasts." All this, and much more to the same purj)ose, because a plain-spoken young minister of the Establishment was preaching the plain Scripture doctrine of salvation by faith, and doing that preach- ing out of doors ! Whitefield, also, was treated to his full share of abuse, since his favorite doctrine of regeneration was no whit more acceptable to the English Pharisees than Wesley's teachings on salvation by faith. One Thomas Tucker, a young clergyman, in a bitter attack on Mr, Whitefield, accused him of " propagating blasphemies and enthu- siastic notions which strike at the root of all religion, and make it the jest of those who sit in the seat of the scornful ;"' to which Wesley replied on Whitefield's behalf by advising Tucker not to meddle with controversy, since his talents were not equal to its management, and it would only entangle and bewilder him. Charles Wesley and Ingham were also at work on the same lines, but for a time they appear to have escaj^ed persecution under cover of the tumult which raged around the two chief aj)ostles of the Meth- odist revival. The next onslaught was much more authoritative and serious. In August, 1739, Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, published a '■ Pastoral Letter by way of Caution against Lukewarmness on the One Hand, and Enthusiasm on the Other," a large part of which was leveled against the Methodists, whom he accuses of claiming divine 174 Illustrated History of Methodism. inspiration in their preaching, and special divine direction in their personal affairs; forgetting, no doubt, that both these benedictions were promised to believers in the word of God. But the thing wliich troubled the Bishop the most was, the fact that the Methodists boasted of " sudden and surprising effects as wrought by the Holy Ghost in consequence of their preaching ;" and that they endeavored " to justify their own extraordinary methods of teaching by casting unworthy reflections upon the parochial clergy, as deficient in the discharge of their duty, and not instructing their people in the true doctrines of Christianity." To this " pastoral letter " Whitefield wrote an answer, in a firm but respectful tone, turning the tables upon the Bishop, and charging him with propagating a " new gospel ;" quoting from the Bishop's writings the statement that '' good works are a necessary condition of our being justified in the sight of God ;" while Whitefield reasserted that faith is the only necessary condition of justification, and that good works are the necessary fruit and consequences of a saved condition of soul. " This," says Whitefield, " is the doctrine of Jesus Christ ; this is the doctrine of the Church of England ; and it is because the generality of the Church of England to-day fail to preach this doctrine that I am resoh^ed, God being my helper, to continue, in season and out of season, to declare it unto all men, let the consequences as to my private person be what they will." " The Methodists," says another critic, "are mad enthusiasts, who teach, for dictates of the Holy Spirit, seditions, heresies, and contempt of the ordinances of God and man. They are buffoons in religion, and mountebanks in theology ; creatures who disclaim sense and are below argument." Tliis writer also accuses AVhitefield of " behavior disgraceful to the Christian religion and to the ministerial office." '' The clergy," says he, " have all refused him their pulpits, and the Lord-Mayor the halls and markets of the city. He is a conceited boaster and heterodox intruder, whose next performance may be accompanied with a chorus of ten thousand sighs and groans, deepened with bassoons." In view of the alarming progress of Methodism he makes his pitiful moan as follows : — ''In Yorkshire, by the })reachiiig of tlie Methodists the spirit of • ''The AYoeld is My Parish." 175 enthusiasm has so prevailed that almost every man who can hammer out a chapter in the Bible has turned an expounder of the Scripture, to the great decay of industry and the almost niin of the woolen manu- facture, which seems threatened with destniction for want of hands to work it. Methodism has laid aside play-books and poems for Script- ure phrases and hymns of its own composing. Its disciples are never easy but when they are in a church or expounding the Bible, which they can do off-handed from Genesis to Revelation with great ease and power. They have given away their finery to tattered beggars, resolv- ing to wear the coarsest attire and live upon the most ordinary diet. Several fine ladies, who used to wear French sillvs, French hoops four yards wide, bob-wigs, and white satin smock petticoats, are turned Methodists, and now wear stuff gowns ! " Alas, alas ! "What was to become of England if Methodism went on at such a rate ? Still, we must not be unmindful of this sinister compliment to the Yorkshire Methodists for their extraordinary knowl- edge of the word of God. Such a talent for " expounding the Bible " " from Genesis to Revelation," with such " power and ease," ought to have mitigated the grief of this churchly man over such awful calam- ities as a fine lady turned Methodist, and her lamentable downfall from ^' white satin smock petticoats " to " stuff gowns." One Penruel, a curate of the Estabhshment, declared that of his personal knowledge John Wesley was a Papist ; but the Papists, for their part, denounced him ; so there was an end to that slander. Whether the attacks of the press and the pulpit were intended to excite the mob against the Methodists, it is impossible to say ; but that these attacks were well calculated to that end cannot be denied. On one occasion a mob gathered from the worst purlieus in Bristol filled the streets and alleys near the place where Wesley was preaching, and also filled the air with a perfect din of shouts, groans, and curses ; but it was remarked that within a fortnight one of the chief rioters hanged himself, and a second, being seized with serious illness, sent for Mr. Wesley to come and pray with him. Dr. Doddridge on the Methodists. — There were, how- ever, some godly men of high position who saw and felt the divine power which accompanied the new revival, and who bore brave testimony to the faithfulness and soundness of its leaders ; as proof of 176 Illustrated Histoey of ^Methodism. PHILIP DODDRIDGE. wliicli take the following extract from a letter written bv the Eev. Dr. Doddridge. Under the date of September IT, 1739, he writes con- cemins: the two "Weslevs. "Whitefield, and Ingham : — " The common people flock to hear them, and in most places hear gladly. They commonly preach once or twice every day ; and ex- pound the Scriptures in the even- ing to religious societies, who have their society rooms for that pur- pose." He then proceeds to give an account of his hearing Charles Wesley preach at Bristol, standing on a table, in a field. "' He then," continues Dr. Doddridge, " preached about an hour in such a maimer as I scarce ever heard any man preach. Though I have heard many a finer sermon, yet I think I never heard any man discover such evident signs of vehement desire." •• With unusual fervor he acquitted himself as an embassador for Christ ; and although he used no notes, nor had any thing in his hand but a Bible, yet he deUvered his thoughts in a rich, copious variety of expression, and with so much propriety that I could not observe any thing incoherent through the whole performance, which he concluded with singing, prayer, and the usual benediction." Thus in various ways the Methodist revival was promoted, and its leaders vindicated and protected, both by the praise of godly men, and the powers of the upper world. The "Xew Room'' and the "Old Foundry."— The first Methodist house of worsliip was that erected by John Wesley at Bristol in 1739, for the accommodation of the Kicholas-street and Baldwin-street " Societies." It was not dignified by the name of " church " or even " chapel," but was simply called " The ISTew Boom." More famihar to readers of Methodist history, however, is the first Methodist preaching-house in London. This was the famous "The World is My Parish." 177 " Old Foundry," tlie purchase of whicli Mr, Wesley undertook oil liis own sole responsibility, and which, as the cradle of London Methodism, deserves a somewhat minute description. In November, 1739, Mr. Wesley was invited by two gentlemen, who were strangers to him, to preach in an unused and dilapidated building in London near the Moorfields ; where on Sunday, Novem- ber 11th, he preached to two large congregations. In the mormng, at eight o'clock, there were about five thousand, and at five in the even- ing, seven or eight thousand persons present. The place had formerly THE OLD FOUNDRY. been used as a government foundry for the casting of cannon, but somewhat more than twenty years before this a terrible explosion had occurred which blew off the roof and otherwise injured the building, killing and wounding a considerable number of workmen. This acci- dent led to the abandonment of the Old Foundry and the removal of the works to Woolwich. The purchase-money was £115; but the place being "a vast un- couth heap of ruins," a large sum additional to this had to be ex]iended 12 178 Illustrated History of Methodis^l in needful repairs. To meet this expenditure some friends lent him the pm-chase money ; and offered to pay subscriptions, some four, some six, and some ten shillings a year toward the liquidation of the debt. In three years these subscriptions amounted to about £480, leaving, however, a balance of nearly £300, for which AVesley was still respon- sible. From this it would seem that the entire cost of the Old Foundry was about £800. It stood in the locality called '' Windmill Hill," now known by the name of "Windmill-street, a street that runs parallel with City Eoad, and abuts on the north-west corner of Finsbury Square. The building measured about forty yards, in front, from north to south. There were two front doors, one leading to the chapel, and the other to the preacher's house, school, and bandroom. A bell was hung in a plain beKry, and was rung every morning at five o'clock for early serv- ice, and every evening at nine for family worship ; as well as at sundry other times. The chapel, which would accommodate some fifteen hun- dred people, was without pews ; but on the ground floor, immediately before the pulpit, were about a dozen seats with back rails, appro- priated to female worshipers. Under the front gallery were the free seats for women ; and under tlie side galleries, the free seats for men. The front gallery was used exclusively by females, and the side gal- leries by males. " From the beginning," says "Wesley, " the men and women sat apart, as they always did in the primitive Church ; and none were suffered to call any place their own, but the first comers sat down first. Tliey had no pews ; and all the benclies for rich and poor were of the same construction." * The bandroom Avas behind the chapel, on the ground floor, some eighty feet long and twenty feet wide, and accommodated about three hundred persons. Here the classes met ; here, in winter, the five o'clock morning service was conducted ; and here were held, at two o'clock on "Wednesdays and Fridays, weekly meetings for prayer and intercession. The nortli end of the room was used for a school, and M-as fitted up with desks ; and at the south end was " The Book Room," for the sale of Wesley's publications. * Wesley's arrangements for the Foundrv congregation were carried out in all his London chapels until four years before his death, when, greatly to his annoyance, the lay authorities at City Road Chapel set aside his policy and allowed families to sit together. ' "The World is My Paeish." 179 Over tlie bandroom were apartments for AVesley, in which his mother died ; and at the end of the chapel was a dwelling-house for his domestics and assistant preachers ; while attached to the whole was a small building used as a coach-house and stable. Nome Moravian Heresies, — The " Societies " in London, in whose fellowship the Methodists of this period lived and labored, were at iirst wliollj composed of pious Episcopalians and Moravians, chielly the latter ; but a large number of persons who had been con- verted under the preaching of Whiteiiekl and the Wesleys were soon incorporated into them, and frequent dissensions arose between the older and younger members, which John Wesley, who was now the i-ecognized leader among them, was ofttimes called upon to settle. He could not be absent even for a few weeks without finding a quarrel on his return, either concerning the peculiar teachings of some newly arrived Moravians from Germany, or because of some petty personal grievance ; or, it might be, a rebellion against the authority of Charles Wesley, who in the absence of his elder brother felt a very great responsibility of management, and who, from first to last, had a decided talent for making trouble ; or perhaps the chronic jealousy of some of the Germans had broken out into open war against the Wesleys, and held that as new-comers and novices they should be more in subjec- tion ; while the English converts fought for the rights and preroga- tives of the Methodists under whose preaching they had been con- verted. On one occasion Mr. Wesley, returning from a brief absence, found them contending over the Moravian notion of " Quietism," as it has been called ; that is to say, the alleged duty of the inquirer after God to wait in absolute spiritual silence and inaction until the Lord should appear to do his saving work in the soul. There was one Malther, who aspired to be a theological doctor, and wdio taught, among other things, that faith does not admit of degrees ; there must be either the full assurance by the Holy Ghost of the indwelling of Christ, or else there is no faith at all ; while Wesley, following a higher authority, had taught them to look first for " the blade," then for "the ear," then for "the full corn in the ear." Some of the Mora- vians, in their attempts to honor the doctrine of salvation by faith, proceeded to the extravagance of teaching that believers were not 180 Illustrated History of Methodis:m. boiKid to obey the moral law, any more than the subjects of the King of England were bound to obey the King of France ; while AVesley believed and taught that Christ came, not to destroy, but to fiiMll the law. One of the Germans, named Bell, insisted that it was deadly poison for a man to come to the Lord's Supper, or even to read the Scriptures and pray, until he was bom of God. " If we read," said he, " the devil reads with us ; if we pray, he prays with us ; if we go to the sacrament, he goes with us." " Weak faith is no faith," said another. " As many go to hell by praying as by thieving," said a third. Against these wild notions "Wesley, who knew more of the ti-ue Moravian doctrine than the renegade Moravians themselves, contended with all his might, whereupon the Fetter Lane Society, of which he was one of the original members, voted to exclude him from its list of min- isters, though they did not, at this time, expel him from membership. Mr. W esley Leaves the ]^Ioraviaii Society. — On the 20th of July, 1T40, four days after the action above mentioned, Mr. "Wesley went to one of the Fetter Lane love-feasts, and at its con- clusion read a paper stating the errors into which they had fallen, and concluding thus : " I believe these assertions to be flatly contrary to the word of God. I have warned you hereof again and again, and besought yuu to turn back to the ' law and the testimony.' I have borne with you long, hoping you would turn. But, as I lind you more and more contirmed in the error of your ways, nothing now remains but that I should give you up to God. You that are of the same judgment, follow me." "Without saying more he then silently M'ithdrew, eighteen or nineteen of the society following him. So ended John "Wesley's connection with the Moravian Church in whicli he had learned so much and labored so well. It would seem as if God were thus cutting his chosen servant loose from one tie after another which shortened his liberty and hin- dered his work. His heart clung to the regular methods of the min- istry of the Establishment, but for no offense save that he preached too well and with too much success the Establishment turned him out of doors. The societies of his Moravian brethen, his first spiritual teachers, were then his chosen resting-place ; but from this limited ministry and fellowship he was now compelled to take his departure • "The World is My Paeish." 181 and strike out into all the world alone. The Fetter Lane Society was only too well named ; it was a heavy clog to his feet ; henceforth, in soul and body, the great leader must be free. An attempt was made by Count Zinzendorf, the following year, to bring Mr. ^^esley back into the Moravian field, l)ut without avail. The Count, with his usual manner of authority, charged Wesley with changing his religion, quarreling with the brethren, and teaching false views of Christian perfection. But Wesley had now outgrown the Moravian leading-strings. The Count, whom he had once obeyed with abject submission, could no longer play the Pope over him, and as for the Moravian theology, Wesley says : " Waiving their odd and affected phrases ; their weak, mean, silly, childish exj)ressions ; their crude, confused, and undigested notions ; and their whims, unsup- ported either by Scripture or sound reason, I find three grand, unre- tracted errors running through almost all their books, namely, uni- versal salvation, antinomianism, and a kind of new, reformed quietism." No wonder the proposed reunion failed. The Methodist " United Society." — From the Fetter Lane love-feast Wesley and the seceders proceeded to the Foundry, where, on the 23d day of July, 1T40, he formed them into the first " United Society," on a plan much resembling those from whose fel- lowship he had departed. There were twenty-five men and forty-eight women in attendance. With this little band of Methodists the world was to be overrun. " In the latter end of the year 1739," says Mr. Wesley, " eight or ten persons came to me in London, and desired that I should spend some time with them in prayer, and advise them how to 'flee from the wrath to come : ' this was the rise of the ' United Societies.' " It would appear that these eight or ten persons were members of the Fetter Lane Society who were disturbed, and, likely enough, dis- gusted, by the continued dissensions and the vagaries of doctrine which they found therein ; and it would be a natural solution of the problem of different dates, which would otherwise be confusing, to fix this vol- untary action on the part of these eight or ten persons as the first suggestion to Mr. Wesley of the necessity of a separate organization, which, a few months later, was effected by the establishment of the first United Society at the Foundiy. 182 Illustrated History of Methodism. Iiay Preachers — Ho"%vell Harris. — In the ^Moravian so- cieties, no less than in the State Church, it was held to be a sin and a shame for any but an ordained man to jDreach ; though in the Mora^'ian societies he might relate his experience and incidentally bring in a good deal of Scripture exposition there^vith. But in the year 1739 Mr. Wesley had made the acquaintance of the AVelsh evangelist, Howell Harris, a man who, with no ordination whatever, had been blessed with a success in the preaching of the Gospel in AVales almost equal to that M'hieh had attended the jDreaching of the Methodists in England. This Welshman ajjpears to have been the first man in the United Kingdom who caught the idea of preaching the Gospel on the sole authority of the Author of the Gospel, instead of on the authority of a self-constituted Church. Harris lirst commenced visiting from house to house in his own native parish, and in neighboring ones, about the same time that the Wesleys reached Georgia. Up to this period the morals of the TTelsh were deplorably corrupt : and among both rich and poor, ministers and people, gluttony, drunkenness, and licentiousness were common. In the parish churches the name of Christ was hardly ever , uttered, and in 1736 there were only six Dissenting chapels throughout the whole of northern Wales. Crowds began to gather about him. and, almost without knowing it, Harris began to preach. The magistrates and clergy threatened him ; but their threats failed to silence him. For a maintenance he set up a school, and meantime continued preaching. Xumbers were con- vinced of sin, and these the yoimg preacher, only twenty-two years of age, formed into small societies. At the end of 1737 persecuting malice ejected him from his school ; but, instead of silencing the preacher, it led him to preach more than ever. He now gave himself entirely to the Avork of an evangehst, and henceforth generally de- livered three or four, and sometimes five or six, sermons daily to crowded congregations. A wide-spread reformation followed. Public diversions became unfashionable, and religion became the theme of common conversation. Thus Howell Harris was an itinerant preacher at least a year and a half before TThitefield and Wesley ; and, as the herald of hundreds more who were to follow, he met the fiercest persecutions with an undauntsd soul and an unflinching face. Par- ' "The AVoeld is My Parish." 183 gons^ and coiintrj squires menaced liira, and mobs swore and flung stones and sticks at him ; but he cahnly pursued his way, laboring ahnost alone in his own isolated sphere until he met with AYhitefield in the town of Cai'difE, in ITSO.^Whiteiield says he found him " a burning and shining light ; a barrier against profanity and immorality ; and an indefatigable promoter of tlie Gospel of Christ. During the last three years he had preached almost twice every day, for three or four hours together; had visited seven counties, established thirty societies, and the good work was growing and spreading under his hands." John Ceuiiiek. — It is not quite proper, however, to reckon Harris as the first Metlwdist lay preacher : that honor belongs to John Cennick, the son of an English Quaker, who was brought up in the quiet, religious ways of that excellent people, but who, on leaving home to learn the trade of carpenter, in London, fell into the snares which always infest great cities, and soon became a gay young man of the world. In 1735 John was convinced of sin while walking in Cheapside, and at once left off song-singing, ■eardq^laying, and attending theaters. Sometimes he wished to go into a popish monastery, to spend his life in devout retirement ; at other times he longed to live in a cave, sleeping on fallen leaves, and feeding on forest fruits. He fasted long and often, and prayed nine times every day. He was afraid of seeing ghosts, and terribly apprehensive lest he should meet the devil. Fan- cying dry bread too great an indulgence for so great a sinner as himseK, he began to feed on potatoes, acorns, crabs, and grass ; and often wished he could live upon roots and herbs. At length, on Sep- tember 0, 1737, he found peace with God, and went on his way rejoic- ing. Like Howell Harris, he at once connnenced preaching ; and also began to write hymns, a number of v.diich Charles AVesley corrected for the press. In May, 1739, on the recommendation of Mr. Whitefield, Cennick was placed in charge of the i^ew Ivingswood School, in which office he also rendered good service as a preacher, and gained strong hold upon the hearts of the colliers, as well as of their children. It was not long, however, before he began to be afilicted with certain Cal- vinistic notions, on account of which he regarded it as either liis 1S4 Illustiiated History of Metiiodisji. privilege or liis duty, or both, to quarrel -with Mr. Wesley, against whom he headed a fierce opposition, based wholly upon differences of theological opinion, and, ;i6 a result, the work of revival in the region of Bristol languished for many years. Thomas Maxlield comes next in the notable army of lay preachers; a young man of fair talents and deep piety, who, in IT-iO, came to Mr. Wesley, in London, and desired to assist him as a " son in the Gospel," and whom Mr. Wesley appointed to be the leader of the Society at the Foundry. Preaching, however, was no part of his duty. But the people were hungry for the bread of life, and young Maxfield showed a rare skill in breaking it to them. His efforts as an expositor of Scripture became more and more attractive, and presently it was reported to Mr. Wesley, then at Bristol, that the young man he had appointed simply as a leader of the Foundry Society had taken it upon himself to preach ! On the receipt of these strange tidings Wesley hastened up to London to put a stop to such wickedness and folly ; but on mentioning his intention to his mother, who, after the death of her husband had removed to London, that wise, strong- souled woman replied : — '' Take care what you do. Thomas Maxfield is as truly called of God to preach the Gospel as ever you were." Mr. Wesley was now in a dilemma. He believed a great deal in the traditions of his Church ; he also had great faith in the Christian judg- ment of his mother, whose words seemed to impress themselves upon him with more than human authority. It was as if the Lord had spoken to him by the mouth of this prophetess; therefore, laying aside his prejudices, he examined the young man as to his gifts and graces, and, instead of extinguishing him as a preacher, he promoted him to a kind of lay pastorate of the souls at the Foundry, thus estab- lishing the first precedent of that vast system of "appointments" M-hich lias since hold such a prominent place in Methodist economy. CHAPTER VIII. THE CALVINISTIC CONTROVERSY, ETC. Opinion!^ ! Opinions I— What crimes have been committed in thy name ; especially in the name of theological opinions ! It is appalling to discover how little good, and how great evil, has 186 Illustrated History of Metttothsm. come of those theoretical disputes upon which irood men have ex- hausted so much talent and time ; while the small importance Mliicli the Head of the Church seems to attach to any sort of inferential tlie- oloo-y appears in the fact that he carries on his work of saving peni- tent sinners, both by means of, and in spite of, long cherished and well defended religious opinions. "Whitefield, like his teachers the Wesleys, was a believer in free o-race until he went to Aniei-ioa ; but at Northampton he met the JOHX CALVIX. (FROM AX OLD POKTIiAIT.) great Dr. Jonathan Edwards, who taught him tlie theology of Calvin, and the young evangelist, having a better voice for rhetoric than brain for logic, was thereby very much beguiled. But by means of the Calvinist Edwards and Whitefield the Lord managed to carry on his work of saving sinners as well as by the Arminian John Wesley, though by no means to the same ultimate extent. In their opinions these men were as wide apart as the poles ; but down underneath their opinions they had some real faith, some true religion, which the Lord could make use of in carrying on his kingdom without stopping to cor- The Calvinistic Contkoversy. 187 rect the one or take sides with the other ; though it is plain enough, from the providence of God as well as from the general drift of the church doctrine, which side of this question he favors. With his usual impetuosity, Whitefield plunged soul and body into the Calvinistic arena, and at once announced his doctrinal conversion in letters to his English friends. Wesley, who was quite as dogmatic as his pupil, besides being a much better logician and theologian, took up the case with great spirit ; wrote some vigorous letters with a view to ARMINIUS. helping his young pupil out of his delusions, and preached and pul)- lished a powerful sermon against Predestination, which was the signal for a general theological war. For a time these old friends maintained pleasant personal relations in spite of the great divergence in their theology ; but the debate waxed so hot, and attracted so many new combatants, that for years there was much bitterness between them, all cooperation ceased, and a complete eeparation, and almost estrangement, ensued. Writing from Savannah, under date of March 26, 1740, to Mr. Wesley, Whitefield says : — 188 Illustrated History of MEniODis:M. " My lIoxoRED Fkiexd and Bkothek: — For t)nce hearken to a child, who is willing to wash your feet. I beseech you, l»y the mercies of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, if you would have my love conlirmed tc)ward you, write no more to me about misi'epresentations wherein we differ. If possible, I am ten thousand times more con\anced of the doctrine of election, and i\\e final perseverance of those that are truly in Christ, than when I saw you last. You think otherwise. Why, then, should we dispute, when there is no probability of convincing? Will it not, in the end, destroy brotherly love, and insensibly take from us that cordial union and sweetness of soul which I pray God may always subsist between us ? How glad would the enemies of the Lord be to see us divided ! How many would rejoice should I join and make a party against you I How would the cause of our common Master suffer by our raising disj)utes about particular points of doc- trine I Honored sir, let us offer salvation freely to all by the blood of Jesus; and whatever light God has communicated to us let us freely communicate to others. I have lately read the life of Luther, and think it in nowise to his honor that the last part of his life was so much taken up in disputing with Zwinglius and others, who in all probability ecpially loved the Lord Jesus, notwithstanding they might differ from him in all other points. Let this, dear sir, be a caution to us. I hope it will be to me ; for. provoke me to it as much as you please, I intend not to enter lists of controversy with you on the points wherein we differ. Only, I pray to God that the more you judge me, the more I may love you, and learn to desire no one's appro- bation but that of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ." Two months after this Whitcficld writes again : — Cape Lopex, 2Iaij 24, 1740. " Honored Sin : — I cannot entertain prejudices against your con- duct and principles any longer, without informing you. The more I examine the writings of the most experienced men and the experiences of the most established Christians, the more I differ from your notion about not committing sin, and your denying the doctrines of election and final perseverance of the saints. I dread coming to England, unless you are resolved to oppose these tniths with less warmth than ■w'hcn I was there last. I dread vour cominir over to America, because The CALvmisTic Controversy. 189 tlie work of God is carried on here (and that in a most glorious mannerj by doctrines quite ojDposite to those you hold." In June he writes to a friend in London : — " For Christ's sake desire dear Brother Wesley to avoid disputing ■with me. I think I had rather die than see a division between us ; and yet how can we walk together if we oppose each other ? " About the same time he again addresses Wesley as follows : — Savannah, June 25, 1740. " My Honored Feiend and Beothee : — For Christ's sake, if possible, never speak against election in your sermons. No one can say that I ever mentioned it in public discourse, whatever my private sentiments may be. For Christ's sake, let us not be divided among ourselves. Nothing will so much prevent a division as you being silent on this head. I am glad to hear that you speak up for an attendance on the means of grace, and do not encourage persons who run, I am j)ersuaded, before they are called. The work of God will suffer by such imprudence. " Perhaps the doctrines of election and of final perseverance have been abused ; but, notwithstanding, they are children's bread, and ought not to be withheld from them, sujDposing they are always men- tioned Avitli proper cautions against the abuse of them. I write not this to enter into disjDutation. I cannot bear the thought of opposing you ; but how can I avoid it, if you go about, as your brother Charles once said, to drive John Calvin out of Bristol." This " children's bread " Wesley analyzes in the famous sermon above mentioned. Mr. Whitefield had professed his intention, not- withstanding his views of the doctrine of election, to continue his advocacy of the doctrine of free grace, which was to the credit of his heart if not of his head : to which Mr. Wesley replies : — " Though you use softer words than some, you mean the seK-same thing ; and God's decree concerning the election of grace, according to your account of it, amounts to neither more nor less than what others call ' God's decree of reprobation.' Call it, therefore, by whatever name you please, ' election, pretention, predestination, or reprobation,' it comes in the end to the same thing. The sense of all is plainly 190 Illustrated History of Methodism, this — bv virtue of an eternal, nnehangeable, irresistible decree of God one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned ; it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter should be saved." Wesley then proceeds to state the objections to such a doctrine : — '"1. It renders all preaching vain ; for preaching is needless to them that are elected ; for they, whether with or without it, will infal- libly be saved. And it is useless to them that are not elected ; foi they, whether with preaching or withrmt. will infalliljly be damned. " 2. It dii'ectly tends to destroy that holiness which is the end of all the ordinances of God ; for it wholly takes away those first motives to follow after holiness so frequently proposed in Scripture — the hope of future reward and fear of punishment, tlie hope of heaven and fear of hell. '' 3. It directly tends to destroy several particular branches of holi- ness ; for it naturally tends to inspire or increase a sharpness of temper which is quite contrary to the meekness of Christ, and leads a man to treat with contempt, or coldness, those whom he supposes to be outcasts from God. " 4. It tends to destroy the comfort of religion. " 5. It directly tends to destroy our zeal for good works ; for what avails it to relieve the wants of those who are just dropping into eter- nal fire I " 6. It has a direct and manifest tendency to overthrow the whole Christian revelation ; for it makes it unnecessary. " 7. It makes the Christian revelation contradict itself ; for it is grounded on such an interpretation of some texts as flatly contradicts all the other texts, and indeed the whole sco]3e and tenor of Scripture. " 8. It is full of blasphemy ; for it represents our blessed Lord as a hypocrite and dissembler, in saying one thing and meaning another — in pretending a love which he had not ; it also represents the most holy God as more false, more cruel, and more unjust than the devil ; for, in point of fact, it says that God has condemned millions of souls to everlasting fire for continuing in sin which, for want of the grace he gives them not, they are unable to avoid.'' Wesley sums up the Nvhole thus : — " This is the blasphemy clearly contained in tlie horrible decree of The Calyinistic Conteoversy. 191 predestination. And here I fix my foot. On tliis I join issue with every asserter of it. You represent God as worse than the devil." The publication of Mr. Wesley's sermons against predestination aroused the wrath of the Calvinists to fever heat. In the midst of the storm of sermons and pamphlets which it called forth Mr, White- field returned a second time from America, and, perceiving that the theological gulf between himself and his former friends was now im- passable, he began to open his mouth against them. In his reply to Mr. Wesley's sermon, he says : — " I frankly acknowledge I believe the doctrine of reprobation in this view — that God intends to give saving grace through Jesus Christ only to a certain nund)er, and that the rest of mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left of God to continue in sin, will at last suffer that eternal death which is its proper wages." Nevertheless, he argues that preachers of the Gospel are bound to preach promiscu- ously to all, since they cannot possibly know who are the elect and who are the reprobate ; and he defends the justice which dooms mill- ions of unborn sinners to everlasting burnings, by showing that this was the fate which all mankind had justly incurred by reason of the sin of Adam, and that, instead of being an act of injustice on the part of God to destroy the many, it was an act of special grace on his part to save the few. The Bible statement that " the Lord is loving to every man, and his mercy is over all his works," Whitefield explains by showing that this refers to his general and not his saving mercy ; and he goes on to deny the doctrine of Universal Redemption as set forth by Wesley, declaring it to be the highest reproach upon the dignity of the Son of God, challenging Wesley to make good the assertion that Christ died for tliem that perish, on the ground that if all were uni- versally redeemed, it would follow that all must finally be saved. Whatever may be said of the mysteries of the Calvinistic system in general, they were evidently too wonderful for Mr. Whitefield. This wide difference of opinion naturally wrought an estrangement between these old friends, both of whom, with intemperate zeal, en- tered into this war of words, and the next year Mr. Wesley makes this entry in his Journal under the date of April 2S, 1741 : — " Having heard much of Mr. WhitefiekVs unkin \ 1 ehavior since his return from Georgia, I went to him to hear him speak for himself, 192 iLLrSTRATED HiSTORY OF ^IeTHODISM. that I might know how to judge. I much approved of his phiin- ness of speech. He told me, he and I preached two different Gospels, and therefore he not only would not join with, or give me the right hand of fellowship, but was resolved publicly to preach against me and mj brother, wheresoever he preached at all. Mr. Hall (wlio went with me) put him in mind of the promise he had made but a few days before, that, whatever his private opinion was, he would never pub- licly preach against us. He said, that promise was only an effect of human weakness, and he was now of another mind." On one occasion, when the two friends met in a large social gathering, TThitefield mounted his hobby, and spoke largely and val- iantly in defense of his favorite system. TTesley, on the other hand, was silent till all the company were gone, when, turning to the spurred and belted controversial knight, he quietly remai-ked, *• Brother, are you aware of what you have done to-night ? '• " Yes.*' said ^"hirejield, " I have defended trath." '• You have tried to prove,'" replied AVesley, *• that God is worse than the devil ; for the devil can only tempt a man to sin ; but, if what you have said be true. Go^ forces a man to sin ; and. therefore, on your system, God is worse than the devil." Howell Hai'ris, the Welshman, and John Cennick, the Kings- wood school-master, both took sides with the Calvinists. The former in writing a letter says : — '•I have been long waiting to see if Brother John and Charles should receive further hght, or be silent and not oppose election and perseverance ; but, finding no hope of this, I begin to be staggered how to act toward them. I plainly see that we preach two Gospels. My dear brother, deal faithfully with Brother John and Charles. If you like, you may read this letter to them. We are free in Wales from the helhsh infection."' AVhat there is particularly ''helhsh" about the doctrine of free grace this enthusiastic predestinarian does not minutely point out. To an unprejudiced mind there would naturally appear to be more " hell " in the Calvinistic than in the Arminian view. The Methodist revival was now only just begun, but already there ivere two sorts of Methodists, one under the lead of Whitefield, the other under the lead of Weslev ; both believinor in Jesus Christ as the ' The Calvinistic Conteoveesy. 193 Redeemer and Saviour of men, and in the Holy Ghost as the Sanctifier and Comforter of believers, but separated from each other by a set of inferences falsely drawn from isolated texts : inferences which ex- plained away the universal love of God : " opinions " which, if they were true, could have no possible value either to the elect or reprobate, and whose only pui*pose seems to have been to confuse the minds and sour the tempers of all persons to whose knowledge they might chance to come. One of these parties grew into what was called the " Lady Huntingdon Connection," after the name of Mr. Whitefield's chief patroness — a Christian communion of which comparatively few people have ever heard ; the other has overrun the English-speaking world. Thus according to the faith of each was it done unto him. White- field accepted the Gospel as God's plan to save a few, and to him was given a small spiritual family in the Lord. Wesley saw in the Gospel a plan to save the many, and his spiritual household, like that of Abraham, has become as the stars of heaven for multitude. If there ever were a notable victim of the small theology of John Calvin, George Whitefield was that man. Doubtless he and the two Wesleys were made to work together. There was just that diversity of gifts which might have made these three men the three determina- tive points in the evangeKcal circle that should have encompassed the whole earth ; but before this circle could be fairly projected, as in a Httle while it would have been, that deceiver who spoils so much of the good that lies within the reach of human liands sepaiated these three chief friends by the only conceivable method by which he could have accomjDlished his infernal purpose. It is a pitiful spectacle to see a great revivalist, with two nations waiting on his ministrations, wielding the powers of the world to come, and bringing sinners by multitudes to salvation — to see such a man turned from the work of preaching the Gospel to the fruitless and foolish task of setting forth what one of the great Calvinistic di^dnes calls " the secret wiU of God." Has Jehovah from all eternity determined to save just so many of the human race, and to pass by all the rest ? Whitefield answers, " Yes." Wesley answers, " No." " But," says Whitefield, " God teaches, my friends, that election is true." 13 194 Illustrated Histoey of Methodism. '' And God teaches me to preach and print against it," answers "Wesley. Alas, for the estrangement of these apostoHc men ! If they had lived in om- day, the one would have seen his "opinions," along with LADY HUNTINGDON. Other rubbish of the same sort, thrust into out-of-the-way corners in the libraries of theological seminaries, while the other would have dis- covered that it is possible for Calvinists and Arminians to preach and pray harmoniously together, simply by keeping to the things which ai'e The Calvestistic Conteoveesy. 195 plainly laid down in the Gospel, and leaving all mere inferences thereon to take their own chances of living or dying. liacly Hniitiiig^don. — Among the distinguished persons who were led to a true faith in Christ through the labors of the Oxford Methodists was Selina, the Countess of Huntingdon. During a severe illness she had been led to consecrate herself to the Lord, and on her recovery she faithfully fulfilled her promise by a long life of benevolence and devotion. Tlirough the influence of her sister- in-la^v, Lady Margaret Hastings, afterward the wife of Ingham, of the Holy Club, Lady Selina became attached to the Methodists, and al- tliough she was an enthusiastic Churchwoman, a member of the aristocracy, and could even boast of having royal blood in her veins, she became, greatly to the disgust of the Earl, her husband, a frequent attendant of the Moravian Societies in London. On Mr. Wesley's sejDaration from the Fetter Lane Society she attached herself to his party, and invited him to preach in her house ; but when Wesley and Whitefield fell out, because of their differences in theology, Lady Huntingdon, being a Calvinist, sided with White- field, and at length by her munificent gifts, as well as on account of her piety and talents, she became the acknowledged head of a little sect of Methodists who did not beheve in free grace. After the rupture between Wesley and his pupil, Whitefield had caused a Tabernacle to be erected for his own use not far from Mr. Wesley's Foundry ; an arrangement well calculated to promote all sorts of ill will between these former friends, and the two congrega- tions of their respective followers ; but the Countess, who appears to liave had almost a controlling influence with Whitefield — whom she afterward appointed one of her chaplains — induced him to seek for a reconciliation with Wesley, and in consequence thereof the breach was healed. The two men held a union service at Whitefield's Tabernacle, at which the Lord's Supper was celebrated by over a thousand com- municants ; and the brotherly love thus restored bound their hearts together to the day of their death. Sometimes the old fire would suddenly blaze up for a moment, when they began to talk of their respective " opinions," but AVhitefield would smother it with his favorite saying, " Well, brother, let us agree to disagree." After her husband's death the Countess devoted herself wholly to 196 Illusteated History of Methodism. a religious life : her house, at Chelsea, near London, became the head- quarters of a revival movement among the nobilitj ; many ladies of rank were converted ; meetings for prayer and the reading of the Scriptures were held at their mansions, and some of the leading men of the kingdom occasionally attended the preaching of "Whitefield, both at his Tabernacle and at the house of his patroness. Only a very few of them could be persuaded to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil ; but they were all agreed that Lady Huntingdon's young chaplain was the most wonderful preacher they had ever heard. This elect lady not only devoted herseK, her time, and her influ- ence to God, but, what was more rare, her ample fortune also. She sold her country-seats, her jewels, her elegant equipages, and other appendages of a fashionable and titled lady, and devoted the proceeds to the purchase of theaters, halls, and dilapidated chapels, which she caused to be fitted up for public worship conducted by some of her chaplains. Trevecca College. — In order to provide a ministry for these chapels, Lady Huntingdon erected a theological school at Trevecca, in Wales, and called to its presidency the saintly Fletcher, Yicar of Madeley. Here any young man, who was truly converted and ready to give himseK to the work of preaching the Gospel, might receive board, tuition, and one suit of clothes a year, all at the college's expense. At first no theological tests were imposed ; but afterward, as the Calvin- istic controversy grew hotter and more bitter, the school was made so strictly an institution of the elect that no believer in free grace could be either a teacher or a pupil therein. Fletcher, on this account, resigned his charge of the school, which, as might have been expected, never rose above mediocrity. During her life the Countess is said to have bestowed more than half a million of dollars in works of religion and charity, and at her death, in her eighty-fourth year, June 17, 1791, she bequeathed twenty thousand dollars for special benefactions, and the remainder of her fortune she devoted to the support of the sixty-four chapels which she had helped to build in England, Ireland, and Wales. Like Wesley, Lady Huntingdon was greatly attached to the Estab- lished Church, but in order to retain the control of the chapels which The Calvinistic Contkoversy. 197 she had built she was forced to avail herseK of the Act of Toleration, and thus these chapels became Dissenting meeting-houses, in which her Episcopalian friends would no longer preach or worship. After her death all connection between them was dissolved, and, instead of a httle system, they became so many independent chapels. It was from this fate of Lady Huntingdon's party, which Wesley, from the first, was able to foresee, that he constantly strove to save himseK and his connection. If he had been wilhng to avail himself of the Act of Toleration his Societies would have been protected thereby ; TREVECCA COLLEGE. but they would have thereby become Dissenting bodies, which, of all things, Wesley dreaded. He taught the Methodists to claim their places as regular members of the Established Church, and to hold their rela- tions to the United Societies as a secondary matter, not involving their ecclesiastical status, but merely a provisional arrangement for helping their growth in grace ; therefore they were without protection as Dissenters, and without influence as members of the Establishment, 198 Illustrated History of Methodism. and their jDersons and their property were for niauy years subject to the mercy of any mob, magistrate, or High-Church jDarson whom Satan might stir uj) to torment them. Class-Meetiiig'S. — Like every other step in the progress of early Methodism, the establisliment of '• classes " was plainly providential. The number of members in Wesley's United Societies had now greatly increased. That at the Foundry contained, in the year 1742, about eleven hundred members. There was also a large Society at Bristol, and many smaller ones scattered over England and Wales. In th'e county of Yorkshire alone there were sixty Societies, which had been established by Wesley's companion in Georgia, who shortly after- ward joined the Moravians, and soon faded out of sight. Hitherto, Wesley and his brother, with some little assistance from the other Oxford Methodists, had exercised a pastoral oversight over these Soci- eties, but in February, 17-42, an accident led to an important addition to the simple Methodist system. In the erection of the " Xew Room " at Bristol, the first of all the Wesleyan preaching houses, a large debt had been incurred, and on the date above mentioned some of the principal members of the Bristol Society met together to consult how to raise the money to pay it. One of them stood up and said, " Let every member of the Society give a j)enny a week till the debt is j^aid." Another answered, " Many of them are poor, and cannot afford to do it." " Then," said the former, " put eleven of the poorest with me ; and if they can give any thing, well ; I will call on them weekly ; and if they can give nothing, I will give for them as well as for myself. And each of you call on eleven of your neighbors weekly ; receive what they give, and make up what is wanting." " It was done," writes Wesley ; " and in awhile, some of these informed me they found such and such an one did not live as he ought. It struck me immediately, ' This is the thing, the very thing, we have wanted so long.' " Accordingly he called together these weekly collectors of money to pay the debt of the Bristol Chapel, and desired each, in addition to collecting money, to make jDarticular inquiry into the behavior of the members whom they visited. Tliey did so. Many disorderly walkers were detected ; and thus ''he Society was purged of unworthy members. Class Meetus^gs. 199 "Within six weeks after this, on Marcli 25, Wesley introduced the same plan in London, where he had long found it difficult to become acquainted with all the members personally. He requested several earnest and sensible men to meet him, to whom he explained his diffi- culty. They all agreed, that to come to sure, thorough knowledge of each member, there could be no better way than to divide the Society into classes, like those at Bristol. "Wesley at once appointed as leaders those in whom he could most confide ; and thus, in three years after their first organization, the United Societies were regularly divided into classes. At first the leaders visited each member of their classes at their own houses ; but for convenience it was presently arranged that the class should assemble once a week, at a time and place most convenient for the whole, the time being spent chiefly in conversing with those present, one by one, the leader beginning and ending each meeting with singing and prayer. Thus class meetings began. Wesley writes : " It can scarce be conceived what advantages have been reaped by this little prudential regulation. Many now experienced that Christian fellowship of which they had not so much as an idea before. They began to bear one another's burdens, and naturally to care for each other's welfare. And as they had daily a more intimate acquaintance, so they had a more endeared affection for each other. "Upon reflection I could not but observe this is the very thing which was from the beginning of Christianity, As soon as any Jews or heathen were so convinced of the truth as to forsake sin and seek the gospel of salva- tion, the first preachers immediately joined them together ; took an account of their names ; advised them to watch over each other ; and met these catechumens^ as they were then called, apart froin the great congregation, that they might instruct, rebuke, exhort, and pray M-ith them and for them according to their several necessities," The l|iiarterly Tisitatioii, or the " Quarterly Meeting," as it is usually called in America, was another providential method developed by the circumstances and necessities of the early Methodist Societies. The appointment of leaders over the classes devolved upon Mr. Wesley, but the difficulty of finding suitable persons in sufficient numbers induced him to arrange to meet the classes himself, if 200 Illustrated History of Methodism. possible, as often as four times a year. The performance of this duty made him, of necessity, an itinerant, and from tliis time to almost the day of his death John Wesley was the greatest traveler in the United Kino-dom. As the number of the Societies increased, it became impossible for him to meet all the classes himself, and thus the duty was devolved upon his helpers, but the coming of the preacher, who, if he was not Wesley himself was his personal representative, WESLEY'S ORPHAN-HOUSE AT NEWCASTLE. was regarded as an important event in the life of the simple-minded people of which the first Societies were chiefly composed ; and this quarterly visitation became one of the strongest bonds by wliicli the Societies were held together. Wesley at Newcastle. — In the year 1742 Mr. Wesley extended his missionary journeys into the nortli of England, and on the 2Stli of May reached the smoky metropolis of ]S'ewcastle-upon- Tjne, where, even after his Kingswood experiences, he was greatly Wesley at Newcastle. 201 shocked at the degradation and wickedness of the people. Drunken- ness and swearing were habitual, and even the mouths of the little children were filled with oaths and curses. On Sunday morning, at seven o'clock, Wesley and his traveling companion, John Taylor, took their stand in Sandgate, the poorest and most abandoned part of the town, and began to sing the Old Hundredth Psalm. Presently the people began to come together to see what was the matter, and about the time Wesley had finished his 0KP^A^-^uusE wesleyax scuools, Newcastle. (On the site of the old Orphan House.) preaching, which followed the singing, he had a congregation of from tM^elve to fifteen hundred persons, some of whom he declares to have been the worst and most profane of any barbarians he had ever addressed. Concerning the profanity of this people it was said " they used the language as though they had received a liberal education in the regions of woe." Wesley's text on this occasion was, '" 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." 202 Illustrated History of Methodism. AVlieii the service was ended the people stood gaping with aston- ishment, upon which the preacher said : "• If you desire to know who I am, my name is John AVesley. At live in the evening, with God's help, I design to preach here again." At five o'clock he again took his stand on the hill opposite Keel- man's Hospital,* while just before him swarmed the denizens of Sandgate and the crowded alleys by the river Tyne. In Moorfields and Kennington Common "Wesley had preached to congregations estimated at from ten to twenty thousand people, but on this occasion he preached to the largest as well as to the wildest crowd he had ever seen, who listened to him respectfully, and after the preaching pressed upon him for a nearer view, or perhaps a shake of the hand, and were, as he says, "ready to tread him under foot out of pure love and kindness." From this time forth Newcastle became one of the strongholds of Methodism. Here "Wesley formed a society, which he calls " a wild, staring, loving society," and here he also opened a second school, some- what after the manner of the one at Kingswood, in which forty poor children were to be taught ; the scholars as well as the teachers to be selected by himself and his brother. There was also a provision for supporting a small number of orphans, from whence the school derived its popular name, " The Newcastle Orphanage." Tf^esley Preaching on His Father's Tonib.f — In June of this year Mr. Wesley made a visit to his old home at Epworth. The parish clergyman was a miserable man of dissolute habits, who hated the Methodists with all his might, and on the appearance of their leader in his parish he poured out his wrath against them in two dis- courses which Wesley describes as two of the bitterest and vilest sermons he ever heard. He was desirous of preaching to his old neigh- bors, and, being shut out of the church, he resolved to preach in the church-yard — a proceeding proper enough on general principles, but a plain breach of the law of the Prayer Book — and taking his stand upon the broad, low platform which marked the grave of his father, he preached with wonderful power tu the cruwds that gathered about him. * " Keelman " is Newcastle-English for " bargeman ; " this class of persons being very numerous at Xewcastle, where they are employed on the heavy boats or barges used in transporting coal. f See beginning of chapter. Wesley Pre aching on his Father's Tomb. 203 During the week of liis visit to Epworth lie preached from this strange pulpit every day. On one occasion his voice was drowned by the cries of the penitents ; several persons dropped down as if they had been dead, and the quiet old church-yard was turned into an "inquiry-room," in which many sinners found peace with God, and which then resounded with songs of joy, thanksgiving, and praise. John Whitelamb, "Wesley's brother-in-law, at that time the curate at Wroote, who heard him preach at Epworth, says, in writing to him : — " Your presence creates an awe, as if you were an inhabitant of another world." JOHN WESLEY AT FORTY Y'EAES OF AGE. (From Tyeniian's "Lite ami Times of Wesley.") But Epworth was, of old, a place given to rehgious persecution, and no wonder that among the descendants of j)eople who could burn the house of their clergjonan at midnight because they did not like his j)ohtics, some should be found who would annoy a Methodist because they did not like his religion. There were a good many conversions among the E^^woi'th sinners, but some of them were not allowed to live in peace. On one occasion a whole wagon load of them were arrested and carried before a magistrate. 204 Illustrated History of Methodism. " With what offense are these people charged 'i " asked the squire. " They pretend to be better than other people," said one of their accusers. " And they pray from morning till night," said another. " They have converted my wife," said another ; but he added, as a oTudging admission of the truth, " till she went among them she had such a tongue, but now she is as quiet as a lamb." " Take them back," said the justice, " take them back, and let them convert all the scolds in town." Death of 5Irs. Wesley. — After the death of his father, John Weslev, like a dutiful and affectionate son, assumed the support of his mother, and on the completion of the repairs at the Foundry removed her to a comfortable home which he had fitted up therein. The incident concerning her defense of young Maxfield, the lay preacher, shows that she took an active interest in the affairs of the Society; and the constant presence of such a woman at the head-quarters of Methodism could not fail to be of great advantage. Soon after his visit to Epworth Wesley heard that his mother was seriously ill, and hastened home, only to find her just on the borders of heaven. Her death and bm-ial are thus recorded in his Journal, under date of Friday, July 23, 1743 :— " About three in the afternoon I went to see my mother, and found her change was near. I sat down on the bedside ; she was in her last conflict, unable to speak, but I believe quite sensible. Her look was calm and serene, and her eyes fixed upward, while we commended her soul to God. From three to fom- the silver cord was loosing, and the wheel breaking at the cistern ; and then, without any stiTitro-le. or siffh, or sroan. her soul was set at hbertv. "We stood round the bed, and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she lost her speech, ' Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God.' " Sunday, August 1. Almost an innumerable company of people being gathered together, about five in the afternoon I committed to the earth the body of my mother, to sleep with her fathers. The portion of Scripture from which I afterward spoke was, 'I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth Death of Mrs. Wesley. 205 and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God, and the books were opened. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.' It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw, or expect to see, on this side eternity. We set up a plain stone at the head of her grave, inscribed with the following words : — HERE LIES THE BODY OF MRS. SUSANNAH WESLEY, THE YOUNGEST AND LAST SURVIVING DAUGHTER OF DR. SAMUEL ANNESLEY. MRS. WESLEY'S MONUMENT. The place of Mrs. Wesley's burial was at Bunhill-Fields, now in the midst of that vast aggregation of towns, called London ; a place which is also memorable as containing the tomb of John Bunyan. Mrs. Wesley's New Tomb. — In the year 1869 an appeal was made to the "boys of England," in the columns of one of the 206 Illustrated History of Methodism. English religious papers, for funds to restore the tomb of Daniel De Foe, whose body also lies in Bunhill-Fields. Shortly afterward a similar appeal appeared in the Methodist Recorder to the " Mothers and Daughters of Methodism," to erect a suitable monument over the grave of Susannah Wesley, " the mother of the Revs. John and Charles Wesley ; the former of whom Mas, under God, the Founder of the Societies of the people called Methodists." This appeal met with a hearty response, and the monument has been erected; not, however, in the Bunhill-Fields' Burial Ground, but on a much more eligible site, in front of the City-road Chapel, and immediately adjoin- ing the house in which her most distinguished son lived and died. The inscription is as follows : — HERE LIES THE BODY OF MRS. SUSAXXAH WESLEY, Widow of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, M. A., (late kector of epworth, in lixcolxshire.) who died jult 23, 1742, aged 73 years. 8he was the youngest daughter of the rev. samuel annesley, d.d.. ejected by the act op uniformity from the rectory of st. giles's, cripplegate, aug. 24. 1662. she was the mother of nineteen children, of whom the most eminent were the REV. JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY; THE FORMER OF WHOM WAS UNDER GOD THE FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETIES OF THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS. IN SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE TO RISE, AND CLAIM HER MANSION IN THE SKIES, A CHRISTIAN HERE HER FLESH LAID DOWN, THE CHOSS EXCHANGING FOR A CROWN. A VIEW IX THE BLACK COUXTEY DUDLEY AT XIGIIT. CHAPTER IX. STORMY DAYS FOR METHODISM The Black Country. — The southern section of the county of Staffordshire, between TVolverhampton and Birmingliam, known as " The Bhick Country," is notable in Methodist history as the scene of some of the most violent jDersecutions. In 1743 Charles "Wesley made a preaching tour through these almost infernal regions, in which akeady there had been a considerable awakening. At "Wednesbury he found a society of more than three hundred members, many of whom had been reformed from the wildest and wickedest ways of life, but the to^vn was full of people who raged against the movement hke untamed beasts of the forest. He had need of courage who should venture to preach under the auspices of this Society. But Charles Wesley was a brave man. Moi-eover, the success of his brother and Mr. AYhitetield in open-air preaching, and the evndent favor of the Lord which had attended these efforts, had converted him to that idea ; and now there was no more courageous opcn-;iir preacher in England than the High-cliurcli, 208 iLLUSTIiATED HiSTORY OF MeTHODISM. poetical Charles Wesley. Having met liis brother at AV ednesburj, he determined to preach in the neighboring town of AValsaJ, and a considerable number of the brethren formed a procession with "Wesley at their head and marched thitlier, singing as they went, wliile the rabble hooted at them as they passed through the streets. Charles Wesley took his stand on the steps of the Walsal Market- house, with the faithful Wednesbury Society about him. Presently a mob was raised, which bore down upon the Httle company Hke a flood, with the intention of sweeping them away. Finding that the Methodists were inchned to stand their ground, the mob next com- menced to throw stones, many of which struck the preacher, but failed to stop his discourse. When he was near the close thereof, the surging multitude pressed so hard upon him as to push him from his platform; he, however, regained his feet in time to save himself from being trampled to death, and stretched out his hands to pro- nounce the benediction, when he was again thrown down. A third time he regained his position and proceeded to return thanks, as was his custom, after which he passed through the midst of the rioters, who were raging on every hand, but, strangely enough, no one laid a hand upon liim. From Walsal Charles Wesley proceeded to Sheffield, where, he says, " Hell from beneath was moved to oppose us." The house in which he was preaching being in danger of destruction by the mob, in order to save the house he announced that he would preach out of dooi-s; whereupon the crowd followed him to the place chosen for this purpose, and he finished his sermon under a shower of stones. After preaching he returned to the Methodist house where he had been entertained, which was also used as a preaching place, and here the mob continued their violence through the whole night. Wesley would have gone out to meet them, in order to save the home of his friend from destruction, but he was not permitted to do so, lest it should cost him his life. The rabble raged all night, and by morn- ing they had pulled down one end of the house, but no personal injury was received either by Mr. Wesley or his friends. This disgraceful tumult he ascribes to the sermons which were preached against the Methodists by the clergy of the Sheffield Churches. Stormy Days for Methodism. 209 One would suppose that after such experiences Charles Wesley- would have been ready to shake off the dust of his feet against the town of Sheffield, and depart to more peaceful scenes; but the next morning he began his preaching again at five o'clock, and later in the day held another out-door service in the very heart of the town, on returning from which he passed the ruins of the little Meth- odist chapel, whereof hardly one stone remained upon another. Again the mob surrounded his lodging-place at night, and threatened to tear A "BLACK COUNTRY" WKLCOME. (Wesley at Wediiesbury.) down the dwelling, which was already partially destroyed, but lie tells us that he was much fatigued, and dropped to sleep with th:.t word, " Scatter thou the people that delight in war." Charles "Wesley often acknowledged himself to be constitution- ally a timid man ; but there was nothing he feared so much as tu offend liis own conscience; and under the inspiration of duty this lamb became a lion, wholly insensible to fear by reason of tlie 14. 210 Illustrated History of Methodism. overmastering religions fervor which Hfted him above all sense of what the world calls danger. It was no unnsual experience for the TVesleys to find a mob waiting for them on their arrival at the various towns on their route ; indeed, a peaceable quarterly visitation in the Black Country, or Cornwall, was regarded as rather an exception to the rule. On one occasion, while preaching in the chapel at St. Ives, the place was attacked by the mob, its windows smashed in, its seats torn up, and the fragments borne away, with the shutters, poor-box, and all but the stone walls. Wesley bade the people stand still and see the salvation of God, resolving to continue with them until the end of the strife. After raging about an hour, the ruffians fell to quarrehng among themselves, broke the head of the town clerk, who was their captain, and drove one another out of the room. Having kept the field, the Society gave thanks for the victory. "The word of God nms and is glorified," writes "Wesley, " but the devil rages horribly." The converted miners were as fearless in duty as they had been in fights and brawls. Wesley says, " I cannot find one of this people who fears those that can kill the body only." Hereby some of their bitterest persecutors were conquered, or won by their meek endurance, and became standard-bearers of the cross among them. Similar assaults were made in other places. At Poole a drunken hearer attempted to drag the preacher from his stand, and a church- warden, heading the rabble, drove him and his congregation out of the parish. The Church record bears to this day an entry of the score at the village inn of drinks furnished to the mob "for driving out the Methodists." A strong man behind Wesley aimed several blows with a heavy club at his head, but they were all turned aside, Wesley says he knew not how. He was struck a powerful blow on the chest, and another on the mouth, making the blood gush forth ; but he declares he felt no more pain from cither than if he had merely been touched with a straw. The noise on every side, he says, was Hke a roaring sea. Some cried, " Knock his brains out ! " " Down with him ! " " Kill him ! " " Crucify him ! " Others shouted, " Xo, let us hour him first!" And while they were thus disputing among themselves whether to hear liim or kill him, Wesley broke out in loud supplication, which prayer was suddenly answered by Him who Stormy Days for Methodism. 211 holdeth the hearts of all men in his hand, and the ruffian that headed the mob, and who was a professional prize-fighter, was suddenly struck with awe and tenderness, and when "Wesley had reached the " Amen," this fellow turned to him and said : — " Sir, I will spend my life for you ; follow me, and not one soul here shall touch a hair of your head." Then a stout butcher cried out that he also would stand by him, and several others at once rallied for his protection, before whom the people fell back as if by common consent, and, led on through their open ranks by these heaven-sent champions, Wesley passed safely through the midst of the mob, and escaped to his lodgings unharmed. As in Sheffield, so in Wednesbury and elsewhere, the clergy and the magistrates favored the mob : the former instigated it, and the latter refused to suppress it. The Methodists of the town had already endured intolerable wrongs. "Women and children had been knocked down and dragged in the gutters of the streets ; their houses had been attacked, their windows and furniture demolished ; and so worthless was the jDohce of that day that the rioters were accustomed to assemble at the blowing of a horn, and virtually usurped the control of the town for nearly half a year. It was in view of these sufferings on the part of his people, of which his younger brother had had such a rough experience, that John Wesley presented himself in the Black Country to face the fury of his enemies. God was evidently with him, proving again the truth of the declaration that he is able to make the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder he will restrain. Doubtless it was the swift answer to Wesley's prayer that turned the hearts of the leaders of the mob, so that from desiring to kill him they were ready to die in defending him ; for on no other theory can this sudden change of feeling and purpose be explained. From Wednesbury Wesley went to ]^ottingham, where his brother Charles was preaching. " He looked," says the latter, " like a soldier of Christ : his clothes were torn to tatters." Wesley and the Methodists Denounced as Papists and Traitors. — These were, indeed, stormy days for Methodism. But the storm had not yet reached its height. On the 15th of November, 17Y4, King George sent a message to 212 Illustrated History of Methodism. the House of Parliament, saviuo^ that he had received intelligence that the oldest son of the Pretender, that is to say, the heir of the papist King James II. had arrived in France, and that preparations were there being made to invade England and place this scion of the house of Stuart upon the throne. Great excitement followed. War was declared against France, the coast was watched with the utmost care, all the mihtarj forces were ordered to the posts of duty, the Habeas Corpus act was suspended, and a proclamation was issued for a general fast. All papists and reputed papists were forbidden to remain within ten miles of the cities of Westminster and London. Loyal addresses were presented to the King by the L^ni versifies of Oxford and Cam- bridge, by the merchants of London, by the convocation of the prov- ince of Canterbury, by the Quakers, by the Protestant Dissenters, and by many others ; but there is no account of any loyal address being presented by the Methodists ; they being so small a body as yet, such an action would have seemed ridiculous. For this or some other equally foolish reason rumors began to prevail that the Methodist preachers were plotting to aid the house of Stuart, and all sorts of calumnies against them flew over the land. It was reported that Wesley had held an inter^-iew with the Pretender in France : that he had been taken up for high treason ; that he was safe in prison awaiting execution. It was also declared that he was a Jesuit, and kept a sort of head-quarters for Pomish priests in his house at London. Spain, being a papist country, was expected to aid the fortunes of the house of Stuait, and Wesley was said to have received large remittances of money from thence, in order to raise a body of twenty thousand men to aid the expected S])anish invasion. Other slanders followed, which accused him of being an Anabaptist, a Quaker, a malefactor who had been prosecuted for selling gin, and Anally, it was alleged that the genuine John Wesley had hanged himself and was dead and buried, and the •* John Wesley '' wlio was figuring in politics was merely a pretender : all of which reports found ready believers among jDcople M'ho desired a reason for hating the Methodists. The favorite accusation against Wesley was that he was a disguiset^l papist, and an agent of the Pretender; and when the proclamation was made requiring all Roman Catholics to leave London, Wesley was Stormy Days for Methodism. 213 actually summoned by the Justices of Surrey to appear before their court, and required to take the oath of allegiance to the King, and to sign the declaration against popery. His brother Charles was heard on a certain occasion, in a public prayer, to beseech the Lord to " call home his banished ones," which, it was insisted, must mean the house of the Stuarts. On this account he was indicted, and brought before the magistrates in Yorkshire, where he succeeded in explaining the purely scriptural meaning of the phrase, and was allowed to go about his business. These were carnival days for the rabble : ahnost any violence was excusable if it were done under the pretense of fighting the friends of the Stuarts— a convenient pretense, and certain to be misused. In Staffordshire the Methodists were assailed on this ground, not only in their preaching places, but in the streets and at their homes. Houses were broken into, furniture destroyed and thrown into the streets, and w^omen and children were abused in a manner which, Wesley says, was too horrible to be related. Sometimes the Methodist houses were torn down, and every thing which they contained was carried away, the mob helping themselves to the things which pleased them best, no one offering the slightest resistance. Men and women fled for their lives ; in some cases leaving their children behind them. Many of the townspeople, too, were in such terror of the mob that they were actually afraid to receive these little homeless wanderers into their houses because they were Methodist children. The mob divided into several bands, and marched from village to village, and the whole region was in a state little short of civil war. Some of the " gentlemen " who had incited these outrages threat- ened to turn away the colliers and miners in their service if they showed any sympathy for the Methodists, and finally drew up a paper for the members of the Societies to sign, pledging themselves never to invite or receive a Methodist preacher again, on which condition it was promised that the mob should be checked at once ; otherwise they were given to understand that they must take their own chances. This infamous pledge w^as offered to several members of Societies, but the faithful believers declared that, having lost their goods, nothing else could follow but the loss of their lives, which they were willing to lose rather than to wrong their consciences. 214 Illusteated History of Methodism. W'esley Faces his Enemies. — AYhat was the surprise and indignation of Mr. "Wesley to find these outrages described in the London newspapers as perpetrated by the Methodists, who, " upon some pretended insults from the Church paily, had risen in insurrec- tion against the Government !" He at once hastened from London to sustain the persecuted Societies in the riotous districts, for it was his i-ule " always to face the mob." At Dudley, one of the mining towns, he learned that the lay preacher of the station had been greatly abused at the instigation of the parish minister, and would probably have been murdered had not an honest Quaker loaned him his broad- brimmed hat and plain coat, in which disguise he managed to escape. One of the magistrates refused to hear a Methodist who came to take oath that his life was in danger. Another delivered a member of the Society up to the mob, and, waving his hand over his head, shouted : " Hurrah, boys I well done I stand up for the Church ! " On this memorable tour Wesley cheered and steadied the Socie- ties, and, taking his stand in the public squares of those towns where there had been the greatest violence, he boldly preached the truth to them. These services, performed in the immediate danger of his life, he describes in his Jom-nal as " taming the mobs." " The rocks," he says, " were melted on every side, and the very ringleaders declared that they would make no more disturbance." At E^Jworth, where the old persecuting spirit still raged, he found his preacher, Thomas Westall, who had been driven away from j^ot- tingham by the mob and the Mayor. As he passed through the town of Birstal, in Yorkshire, he came upon the mob as they were tearing down the house of John Xelson, the sturdy Methodist preacher, of whom we shall see more in due time. The cowardly rabble fled on the approach of Wesley and his companions, who advanced upon them with no other weapons than some Methodist hymns, which they were singing right lustily. The storm, meanwhile, had reached Cornwall, also. The chapel at St. Ives was entirely destroyed, and on his arrival there "Wesley was saluted with shouts, and stones, and rubbish. Concerning the Meth- odists of St. Just, another Cornwall parish, he says : " They were the chief of the whole country for hurling, fighting, di'inking, and all manner of wickedness : bat many of the lions have become lambs, Stormy Days for Methodism. 215 and are continually praising God, and calling their old companions in sin to come and magnify the Lord together." Thus was illustrated, over and over again, the truth of the apostle's words, "Where sin abounded grace did much more aboimd." * These are but a few of the outrages endured by the Methodists during this British craze over the expected invasion of the papist Pretender ; but to their everlasting honor be it spoken, none of these things moved them ; and, what is more a matter of wonder, this senseless persecution, instigated by the clergy and winked at by the magistrates, did not drive them from their loyalty either to the Church or the King. If they had only been willing to become Dissenters they would have been at peace ; but they were continually urged by the "VVesleys to continue faithful to the Estabhshment, and there was no redress for them, in view of their irregularities, except under the common law, which, in those days as well as in these, was a luxury that poor people could ill afford, and which then, as now, was apt to cost a great deal more than it was worth. As a specimen of the justice administered in England in those times take the following : One Edward Greenfield, a tinner of the parish of St. Just, in Cornwall, was arrested under a warrant issued by Dr. Borlase, one of the clerical magistrates, and Mr. Wesley, hearing thereof, presented himself before the court and demanded of what offense the man had been guilty. " The man is well enough in other things," was the reply ; " but gentlemen cannot bear his impudence. Why, sir, he says he knows his sins are forgiven ! " Such " impudence " as this in a poor workingman was doubtless a sore offense in the eyes of the " gentlemen," who had good reason to know their sins were not forgiven ; but for a magistrate and a clergy- man to throw a poor man into prison on such a charge indicates a degree of bigotry and tyranny of which, in these days, it is almost impossible to conceive. The Press-gang. — Among the beauties of the British govern- ment in those times was the " press-gang," by which His Majesty's army and navy were forcibly recruited in times of war — and there used to be war almost all the time. It was lawful to seize, for service * See Stevens's " History of Methodism," voL i. 216 Illustrated History of Metiiodisaf. in the navy, any able-bodied seaman between the ages of eighteen and forty-tive : and for this purpose small detachments of trusty tars, with an officer at their head, were accustomed to prowl around the haunts of the sailors on shore, and carry ofi their prisoners to the man-of-war lying at anchor in the river or bay, A modified form of this indignity was sometimes practiced to capture recruits for the army. A vagrant might be impressed for a soldier, if he could not give a satisfactory account of himself, and under this pretext it became a favorite means of persecuting the Methodist lay preachers to arrest them as strolling vagabonds, having no visible means of support, and thrust them into the vilest dungeon to be found, to await the arrival of some regiment, into which they were impressed to serve in the rank and file. An officer, with his posse, would even break through an out-door con- gregation, seize the preacher, drag him ofl: to prison, and hold him as a pressed man, from which durance vile he could only escape by the payment of a fine, or ransom of forty pounds. The *• AVestminster Journal" for June 8, 1T45, narrates that a noted Methodist preacher named Tolly had been pressed for a soldier in Staffordshire, and had appeared before the magistrates, attended by many of his " deluded followers of both sexes, who pretended he was a learned and holy man ; and yet it appeared he was only a journey- man joiner, and had done great mischief among the colhers." The poor, luckless joiner was, therefore, coupled to a sturdy tinker, and sent off to Stafford jail. He had already been impressed once before, and the Methodists had subscribed £40 to obtain liis free- dom, and were intending to repeat the kindness ; but the editor of the "Westminster Journal" hopes that the magistrates will be proof against golden bribes ; for " such wretches are incendiaries in a nation." Caught in his Own Trap. — One of Wesley's preachers named Drew was, however, of a less placid temper than his leader. While travehng his circuit, in Devonshire, he was interrupted in one of his open-air sermons in the hamlet of Saddiport by the appear- ance of a rabble headed by a magistrate named Stevens, who ordered the parish clerk to pull the preacher down from the chair which served him for a pulpit. The clerk, more sensible than the magis- trate, was unwilHng to obey the order, and said: "Let liim alone, Stormy Days for METiioDisir. 217 sir ; let him preach it out." But Stevens's churchly blood was up, and, iinding the clerk would not serve him, he executed the order himself, and dragged the preacher to the ground. The poor man was now at the mercj of the mob, who began to push him toward the mouth of an old quarry pit near by, the magistrate all the while urging them on ; and when they came to the pit, Drew, iinding that he must inevitably be flung into it, seized the magistrate by the skirt of his coat just as he was pushed over the edge, and both were precipitated into the depths below ; from Avhich they scrambled out ccratched and bruised, the magistrate having received his full share of the punish- tnent. An attempt was even made by the Cornwall par- son. Dr. Borlase, already mentioned, to impress the leader of all the Methodists, and make him fight the battles of King George. One day, as Wesley was preaching at Gwennap, two men, raging hke maniacs, rode into the midst of the congregation, and began to lay hold upon the people. In the midst of the disturbance Wesley and his friends commenced sing- ing ; when Dr. B. lost his patience, and bawled to his attendants : " Seize him ! seize him ! I say, seize the preacher for His Majesty's service." The attendants not moving, he cursed them with the great- est bitterness, leaped off his horse, caught hold of Wesley's cassock, crying, " I take you to serve His Majesty." Wesley made no resist- ance, but walked with him for three quarters of a mile ; by which time the courage of the valorous parson failed liim, and he was glad to let the arch-Methodist 2:0. 218 Illustrated History of Methodism. John Xelsoii, the Birstal preacher whose name has already been mentioned was one of the notable men wlio in the early days of the Methodist movement were called out by Mr. Wesley as helpers ; or who, nnder the inspiration of the Holy Spirit^ otf-ered themselves JOilX XELSON. to him of their own accord to serve as " sons in the gospel." He was a stone-mason of Birstal, in Yorkshire, the son of a godly father, well instructed in the Scriptures, and master of his trade, the husband of a good wife, and blessed with outward comforts ; nevertheless, he says he lived a life of intolerable misery on account of liis intense convic- tions of sin. For years he was tormented with awful dreams by night and gloomy forebodings by day, till, in the bitterness of his spirit, he declared that he would rather be strangled than to live thirty more such years as the thirty he had just passed. He sought every- where for religious instruction, but neither the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, Independents, Roman Catholics, nor Quakers, could point him the way to pardon and peace. • Stoemy Days foe Methodism. 219 " I had now," he says, " tried all but the Jews, and I thought it was to no purpose to go to them." He now began to wander about from place to place, working a short time at his trade, and putting himself in the way of all the help he could hear of for his wretched state of mind ; but nowhere could he find rest for his miserable soul. When Mr. "Whitefield commenced his preaching at Moorfields he went to hear him. "He was to me," says Nelson, "as a man that could play well on an instrument, for his preaching was pleasant to me ; and I loved the man so that if any one had offered to disturb him I was ready to fight for him. I got some hope of mercy, so that I was encouraged to pray on and spend my leisure hours in read- ing the Scriptures." The first time that John "Wesley jDreached at Moorfields Nelson was present, and in his account of his conversion he says : — ■ " O, that was a blessed morning to my soul ! " As soon as he got upon the stand he stroked back his hair, and turned his face toward where I stood, and I thought he fixed his eyes upon me. His countenance struck such an awful di'ead upon me before I heard him speak that it made my heart beat like the pendu- lum of a clock, and when he did speak, I thought his whole discourse was aimed at me." * Nelson might well think this, for it was one of Wesley's peculiar characteristics to wind up his discourses and drive home the doctrine thereof with the most pointed and personal exhortations. At such times he spoke as if he were addressing himseK to an individual, so that every one whose condition he might describe felt as if he were singled out from all the rest, and the preacher's words, Hke the eyes of a portrait, seemed to look at every beholder. " Who art thou," he cried, " that now feelest both thine inward and outward ungodliness ? Thou art the man ! I want thee for my Lord ; I challenge thee for a child of God by faith ; the Lord hath need of thee. Thou who feelest that thou art just fit for hell, art just fit to advance his glory — the glory of his free grace. " Look unto Jesus ! There is the Lamb of God who taketh away thy sins ! Plead thou no works, no righteousness of thine own ; that were in very deed to deny the Lord that bought thee. No. Plead * Nklson's Journal. 220 Illtstkated Histoky of Methodism. thou singly the blood of the covenant, the ransom paid for thy proud, stubborn, sinful soul." No wonder John Xelson imagined that the preacher had him in his eye. Soon after this he found rest in Christ, and so completely did he resign himself to the Lord that he straightway began to declare it to be his '* great business in this world to get well out of it." Upon this some of his London friends became exceeding angry at the preacher who had " turned John Nelson's head ;" some of them even vowed that they would be glad to knock Wesley's brains out, for he would be the ruin of many families if he were allowed to Hve and go on converting people after this fashion. Nelson was now employed on some work for the Government, and the foreman wished him to work on Sunday, on the plea that the " King's business required haste," and that it was customary to work on Sunday for His Majesty when they were pressed for time ; but Xelson stoutly declared that he would not work on Sunday for any man in England, unless to put out a fire or some such work of neces- sity or mercy. " Your religion has made you a rebel against the King," said the foreman, " No," said Nelson, " it has made me a better subject than ever I was. The greatest enemies the King has are the Sabbath-breakers, the swearers, the drunkards, and such Hke, for these puU down judg- ments upon both King and country." Thus the sturdy Methodist won the day, and lost nothing ; for his reputation for integrity was all the more firmly established, and his employer had now a higher regard for him than ever. The straightforwardness of the man appears in the following incident, related at the time, in a letter to Mr. Wesley, in which he gives an account of liis arrest at Nottingham, and of his being brought before the alderman for examination : — " I wonder you cannot stay at home," said his honor, " You see the mob wont suffer you to preach in this town," " I did not know this town was governed by the mob ; most towns are governed by the magistrates," he replied. " What ! do you expect us to take your part, when you take the people from their work ? " said the alderman. ' Stormy Days for Methodism. 221 " Sir, you are wrongly informed," said Nelson ; " we preach at five in the morning and at seven at night, and these are the hours when most people are in their beds in the morning, and at night either at the play or at the ale-house." ' "•' I beheve you are the cause of all the evil that has fallen upon the nation," said the alderman. " What reason have you to beheve so ? Can you prove that one Methodist in England did assist the rebels with either men, money, or arms 9" "No," was the reply; "but it has been observed that there has always been such a people before any great evil fell on the land." " It hath been as you say," answered John ; " but that people was not the cause of the evil any more than we are at this time. But these mobbers, and swearers, and drunkards, and whoremongers, and extortioners, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God — these are the cause why God afflicteth both man and beast, not we. We are sent to persuade them to break o£E their sins by repentance, that the heavy judgments of God may not consume such a people. And if there be not a general reformation, God will be avenged of such a nation as this." The remainder of his remarks he does not record. But he says, "I opened my mouth, and I did not cease to set life and death before him ;" at which the poor magistrate began to shake, and the constable, seeing the jjass to which things were hkely to come, began to be uneasy, and inquired what he should do with him. " I think you must take him to your house," said the alderman, who was now intent on saving Nelson from further violence. But Avhen the constable declined the honor, the justice said, " You may go where you came from ;" whereupon he ordered the constable to take the preacher to the house from which he had taken him, and to see that the mob did him no harm ; which was a great mortification to the constable and a great delight to the preacher. This stalwart Methodist was the comrade of Wesley in one of his preaching tours through the county of Cornwall, of which he gives the following lively account : — " All this time Mr. Wesley and I lay on the floor ; he had my great-coat for his pillow, and I had Burkitt's 'Notes on the New 222 Illustrated History of Methodism. Testament' for mine. After being here nearly three weeks, one morning, about three o'clock, Mr. Wesley turned over, and Unding me awake, clapped me on the side, saying, ' Brother l^elson, let us be of good cheer ; I have one whole side yet, for the skin is off but one side.' We usually preached on the commons, going from one common to another, and it was but seldom any one asked us to eat or drink. One day we had been at St. Hilary Downs, where Mr. Wesley preached from Ezekiel's vision of dry bones, and there was a shaking among the people while he preached. As we returned Mr. Wesley AN IXHOSPITABLE COUNTRY. stopped his horse to pick the blackberries, saying, ' Brother Nelson, we ought to be thankful that there are plenty of blackberries, for this is the best country I ever saw for getting a stomach, but the worst that ever I saw for getting food.' " After this Nelson traveled about the country, working at his trade by day and preaching by night, and by his tact and spirit proving himself more than a match for his adversaries, who often became his admiring friends. Ilis adventures form a delightful little history of Stoemy Days for Methodism. 223 themselves, and liis published Journal shows him to have been a man of extraordinary power. On one occasion he preached at Grimsby, where the parish clergyman had hired a man to beat the town drum, and the drummer and the parson marched the streets, gathering the rabble together, and treating them to liquor, the better to prepare them to go and "fight for the Church," which meant, to break up the Methodist meetings; but the preaching of Nelson was so unex- pectedly pleasing to the mob that it kept them in decent behavior until the sermon was over, and then, instead of damaging the people as they came out of the chapel, the mob began to fight with one another ; thus the preacher and his hearers got safely off. The next day the clergyman, with his noisy lieutenant, repeated the experiment, but when the man of the drum came within the sound of Nelson's eloquence it had such a wonderful effect upon him that, instead of drowning the sermon with noise, the sermon was likely to drown him with tears, for the poor fellow stood listening while the tears ran down his cheeks, and forgot all about the purpose for which his reverend ally had brought him to the preaching. At a place called Pudsey, where the people were afraid to admit him to their houses, having heard that the constables were searching for him, Nelson preached sitting upon his horse in the street. From this he passed on to Leeds, where he remained for some time, hewing stone by day and preaching every night ; a double work at which his labors were so blessed that the Methodists of Leeds boast of him as their special founder and apostle. Xelson Impressed for a Soldier. — On reaching home at Birstal, after this notable preaching tour, he was warned of a plot against him. The ale-house keepers had complained of a loss of their customers in consequence of his preaching, and the parish clergyman was jealous of his eloquence ; these two, therefore, joined together to have Nelson arrested as a vagrant, on which charge, if sustained, he might be forced into the King's service. His examination before the magistrate at HaUfax, who was himself the Yicar of the parish, was the very height of absurdity considered as a process of law; and, refusing to hear any evidence in his defense, this clerical court ordered him to a vile and filthy dungeon at Bradford, in which miserable place, with no food except such as was brought him 224 Illustrated History of Methodism. in charity, and with no other bed than a heap of straw, the brave fellow was held a prisoner in the King's name for no other offense than that of being too good a preacher to suit the cupidity of the pubUcan and the jealousy of the parson. Kelson's wife came to see him in this wretched den. and throuo^h a hole in the door she exhorted him thus : — '' Fear not ; the cause is God's for which you are here, and he will plead it himself. Be not concerned about me and the children, for he that feeds the young ravens will take care of us." '" I cannot fear either man or the devil," answered the brave fellow, '• so long as I find the love of God as I now do." The next day he was sent to Leeds, where multitudes flocked to see him, and hundreds of people stood in the streets and looked at him through the iron gate of his prison, where at night a hundred persons met him and joined him in the worship of God. From Leeds he was marched off to York, a violent anti-Methodist region, and as he was brought into the town under a guard of soldiers the streets and the windows were filled with peojjle, who shouted after him as if he had been a ph-ate. But he says, in his account of the occasion, •• The Lord made my brow hke brass, so that I could look upon them as grasshoppers, and pass through the street as if there had been none in it but God and me." While waitino^ at York for a chance of active soldierino- Xelson was put on his course of training for that new profession ; but when he was ordered to parade, the corporal who was commanded to gird him with his military trappings trembled as if he had the jDalsy. Nelson said he would wear these things as a cross, but would not fight, as it was not agreeable to his conscience, and he would not harm his con- science for any man on earth. Whenever he had an opportunity he was sure to exercise his gifts as a preacher, and so great became the terror of his word among the oflicers and soldiers that they feared to continue the abusive treatment which he had at first received, and before long he was allowed the same privileges as any other soldier, which he straightway began to use by preaching in the streets and fields. He was at last released by the influence of Lady Hunt- iiiicdon, after having: been marched about the countrv with his regiment for about three months, during which time he had endured . Stormy Days for Methodism. 225 hardness as a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ, though as a soldier of His Majesty, King George, he was a most conspicuous failure. Maxfield also had a taste of soldiering the following year, but "Wesley was always on the watch, and if any harm came to his helpers he was speedily making efforts in their behalf, and thus the King's armies gained very httle from the Methodist preachers. These men would not fight, but no terror could prevent them from preaching and praying. No wonder that Wesley was proud of such helpers. They were men after his own heart ; so full of the fear of God that they had no room in them for any other kind of fear. The item of legal expense is a large one in Mr. Wesley's accounts for not only did he invoke the law for the protection of himself, his preachers, and his people, at his own cost, but he also caused large sums of money to be raised in the Societies to pay the infamous fines and ransoms which were laid on the heads of his co-laborers, thus giving the people a sense of partnership in the hardships as well as in the ministry of the itinerants, and adding not a little to their dignity and power ; since he must be a very poor preacher indeed who could not command the attention of a congregation, when, for the sake of preaching the Gospel to them, he had suffered the loss of all things, and was actually carrying his life in his hands. 15 "parson" butler's ATTACIC ox the METHODIST CHAPEL AT CORK. CHAPTER X. "FIGHTINGS WITHOUT AND FEARS WITHIN." The First ^lethodist Conference. — It was in the midst of these stormy times, perhaps because of tliem, that "Wesley convened his first Conference at tlie Old Foundry, in London, on the 25th of June, 17-1:4. It M'as simply a meeting of the two Wesleys with four of their friends from among the English clergy, and four lay preachers, who came together at Mr. AYesley's in\^tation to give liim their advice " respecting the best method of carrying on the work.'^ The following is the conference roll : — Rev. John Wesley, A.M. Rev. Charles "Wesley. Rev. Jonx Hodges, Rector of Wenvo. Rev. IIexry Piers, Vicar of Rcxley. Rev. Samckl Taylor, Vicar of Quinton. FiEST Methodist Conference. 227 Hev. John Meriton, a clergyman from the Isle of Man. Thomas Maxfield, Lay Preacher. Thomas Eichakds, " " John Benneti^, " " John Downes, " " Of the four clerical members of this small but memorable council \vho ventured to accept Mr. Wesley's invitation, Hodges was a Welsh minister who had often accompanied the Wesleys in their preaching tour through that principahty. Piers was a convert and fellow-laborer of Charles Wesley. Taylor, the Yicar of Quinton, in Gloucestershire, was himself a notable evangehst, with some of the old English mar- tyr blood in him, who, hke Wesley, was accustomed to go out into the highways and hedges in the name of the Lord, and who also bore his share of persecution. Meriton had been educated in one of the Universities, and was now a clergyman in the Isle of Man. The last years of his life seem to have been chiefly spent in accompanying the Wesleys on their preaching excursions, and in assisting them in the chapels they had built. Of the four lay members of this first Conference three afterward left Mr. Wesley and became ministers of other Churches ; John Downes being the only one who lived and died a Methodist. The day before the Conference commenced was a memorable one. Besides the ordinary preaching service, a love-feast was held at the Old Foundry, and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered t-o tlie whole of the London Society, now numbering between two and three thoitsand members ; at which sacramental service five clergymen assisted. On the day following the Conference was opened witli prayer, a sermon by Charles Wesley, and the baptism of an adult, who then and there found peace with God. Xo mere dogmatic qtiestions were raised, but the Conference confined its attention to these three points, namely : 1. What to teach. 2. How to teach. 3. How to regulate doctrine, discipline, and practice. "It is desired," said these good men, "that every thing be considered as in the immediate presence of God ; that Ave may meet with a single eye, and as little children who have every thing to learn ; that every point may be examined from the founda- tion ; that every person may speak freely what is in his heart, and 228 Illustrated Histoey of Methodism. that every question proposed may be freely debated, and ' bolted to the bran.' " The form of question, wliich has ever since been retained in the ^nutes of the British Conference, because of its manifest simpKcity and directness, was here first used. Some of these questions and answers are worthy of frequent repetition, as, for instance : — Q. " How far does each agree to submit to the unanimous judg- ment of the rest ? A. " In speculative things each can only submit so far as his judg- ment shall be convinced ; in every practical point, so far as we can without wounding our several consciences." Q. " Should we be fearful of thoroughly debating every question which may arise ? A. " What are we afraid of ? Of overturning our first principles ? If they are false, the sooner they are overturned the better. If they are true, they will bear the strictest examination. Let us all pray for a willingness to receive hght to know every doctrine whether it be of God." Q. " How far is it our duty to obey the Bishops ? A. "In all things indifferent, and on this ground of obeying them we should observe the canons as far as we can with a safe conscience." The general answer to the question of " How to preach ? " was : — " 1. To invite. 2. To convince. 3. To offer Christ. Lastly, to build up. And to do this in some measure in every sermon." It was also agreed that lay assistants, of which there were now about forty, were allowable only in cases of necessity. They were to expound every morning and evening ; to meet the united bands, or private societies within Societies, and the penitents once a week ; to visit the classes once a quarter ; to hear and decide all controversies ; to put the disorderly back on trial, and to receive on trial for tlie bands of Society ; to see that the stewards, the leaders, school-masters, and house-keepers, faithfully discharged their several offices ; and to meet the leaders and stewards weekly, and to examine their accounts. They were to be serious ; to converse sparingly and cautiously with women, taking no step toward marriage without first acquainting Mr. AVesley or his brother clergymen, and to do nothing " as a gentleman," First Methodist Conference. 229 for tliey had " no more to do with this character than with that of a dancing-master." They were to be ashamed of nothing but sin. They were to take no money of any one, and were to contract no debts without Wesley's knowledge ; they were not to mend the rules, but to keep them ; they were to employ their time as Wesley directed, and to keep journals, as well for Wesley's satisfaction as for their own profit. It was agreed, also, that it was lawful for Methodists to bear arms, and they might use the law as defendants, and perhaps in some cases as plaintiffs. They were to meet the children in every place, and give them suitable exhortations ; they were to preach expressly and strongly against Sabbath-breaking, dram-drinking, evil sj)eaking, un- profitable conversation, lightness, expensiveness or gayety of apparel, and against contracting debts without sufficient care to discharge them. They were to recommend to every Society, frequently and earnestly, the books of Wesley as being preferable to any other ; they were also to use their best endeavors to extirpate smuggling, and by all means to prove themselves loyal subjects both of the Church and of the King. As often as possible they were to rise at four o'clock ; to spend two or three minutes every hour in earnest prayer ; to observe strictly the morning and evening hour of retirement ; to rarely employ above an hour at a time in conversation ; to use all the means of grace ; to keep watch-nights once a month ; to take a regular catalogue of the Societies once a year ; to speak freely to each other, and never to part without prayer. They were never to preach more than twice a day unless on Sundays or extraordinary occasions ; to begin and end the service precisely at the time aj)pointed ; to always suit their subject to their congregations ; to choose the plainest texts possible, and to beware of allegorizing and rambling from their texts. They were to avoid every thing awkward or affected, either in phrase, gesture, or pronun- ciation ; to sing no hymns of their own composing ; to choose hymns proper for the congregation ; not to sing more than five or six verses at a time, to suit the tune to the nature of the hymns. After preach- ing, they were recommended to take lemonade, candied orange peel, or a little soft warm ale ; and to avoid late suppers, and egg and wine, as downright poison. Some of these directions are sufficiently familiar to those who have 230 Illustrated History of METHODisii. had the good fortune to be present at a conference during the recep- tion of ministers into the travehng connection. The " warm ale " and " orange peel " have, indeed, disappeared, but the weightier matters of advice in doctrine and practice still stand in the Discipline which governs, or is supposed to govern, nearly twentv-five thousand Methodist clergy. The body of lay Methodist preachers for whose benefit these reg- ulations were laid down were good and tnie men, soundly converted, who believed with all their hearts in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in their individual call to his ministry. In those days there was enough hardship in the life of a Methodist preacher to keep all common men away; nevertheless there were streaks of human nature, rather bi'oad ones sometimes, in the character of these heroes, on account of which many of them fell out of the ranks after a short period of service. A few of them, from time to time, succeeded in attaining their darling ambition, an ordination and a parish in the Established Church ; others were silenced by the pressure of prosperity, others by insufferable trials and privations ; some drifted away into the Moravian Church ; some found a snug situation in Lady Huntingdon's Connec- tion along with their old friend "Whitefield ; and others still, chafing under the severity of the rules, and of the almost military strictness with which Mr. Wesley enforced them, quarreled with their great leader, and set up preaching for themselves. But their places were more than filled by new recruits, and the great revival movement progressed with wonderful rapidity. Wesley's Clinreliiiiansliip. — The number of friends and helpers among the English clergy was always very small, nor did it increase in the ratio of the increase of the popular success of the Methodist movement. This was a source of great anxiety to Mr. Wesley, who had not yet been delivered from the bondage of ecclesiastical traditions, and who, by the peculiarity of his position, was sometimes led to look narrowly at the bars of liis churchly prison to see if some of them were not loose in their sockets, and so might be removed to give him egress when he would go out, and ingress when he desired to be found within ; for on no account would he make use of the door of dissent, which would have opened widely enough to let him out, but which would be barred and bolted , Wesley on Episcopacy. 231 against his return. The state of his mind at this time is indicated in one of his letters, in which he says, " We will obey all the laws of that Chm-ch (such as we allow the rubrics to be, but not the customs of the ecclesiastical courts) so far as we can with a safe conscience ; and with the same restriction we will obey the Bishops, as executors of those laws ; but their bare will, distinct from those laws, we do not profess to obey at all. Field preaching is contrary to no law which we profess to obey ; nor are we clear that the allowing lay preachers is contrary to any such law. But if it is, this is one of the exempt cases : one wherein we cannot obey with a safe conscience." The question, " Shall we leave the Established Church ? " contin- ually occurs in the Minutes of his Annual Conferences, as if to indicate that it was constantly pressed upon his attention as a means of reliev- ing himself and his friends from the difficulties of their situation. But the oft-repeated answer is, ISTo, No, NO ! given with more or less of argument and explanation, and sometimes with a leaning toward a larger liberty. Thus at the third day's session of the Conference of 1745 the question was asked : " Is Episcopahan, Presbyterian, or Independent Church govern- ment most agreeable to reason ? " The answer was, " A preacher preaches and forms an independent congregation ; he then forms another and another in the immediate vicinity of the first ; this obliges him to appoint deacons, who look on the first pastor as theii* common father ; and as these congregations increase, and as their deacons grow in years and grace, they need other subordinate deacons, or helpers ; in respect of whom they are called presbyters, or elders ; as their father in the Lord may be called the bishop, or overseer of them all." The next year the famous work of Lord King, afterward Lord High Chancellor of England, fell into his hands, entitled, " An Inquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity, and Worship of the Primitive Church, that flourished Three Hundred Years after Christ ; Faithfully Collected out of the extant Writings of those Ages." King was a Dissenter ; and the chief object of his learned work was to prepare the way for that comprehension of the Dissenters within the pale of the Established Church which the Revolution of 1688 was supposed likely to accomplish. The effect upon Wesley's 232 Illustrated History of Methodism. mind of this learned attack on the ecclesiastical pretensions of the clersrv of the Church of Rome and of Enorland Tvas to demoHsh the fiction of an unbroken succession of bishops as a third order of the ministry ordained by Christ and descended from the apostles. After reading it he savs : " In spite of the vehement prejudice of my educa- tion, I was ready to believe that this was a fair and impartial draught ; but if so, it would follow that bishops and presbyters are (essentially) of one order, and that originally every Christian congregation was a Church independent of all others." He further expresses his modified views in the Minutes of the Con- ference of ITiT, in which the following questions and answers occur : — Q. Does a Cliurch in the New Testament always mean a single congregation? A. We believe it does. We do not recollect any instance to the contrary. Q. What instance or ground is there, then, in the Xew Testament, for a national Church ? A. We know none at all. We apprehend it to be a merely political insti- tution. Q. Are the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons plainly described in the New Testament ? A. We think they are; and believe they generally obtained in the Ciiurches of the apostolic age. Q. But are you assured that God designed the same plan should oijtain in all Churches, throughout all ages ? A. We are not assured of this ; because we do not know that it is asserted in Holy Writ. Q. If this plan were essential to a Christian Church, what must become of all the foreign Reformed Churches? A. It would follow, that they are no parts of the Church of Christ — a con- sequence full of shocking absurdity. Q. In what age was the divine right of episcopacy first asserted in England ? A. About the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Till then all the bishops and clersy in England continually allowed, and joined in. the ministrations of those who were not specially ordained. Q. Must there not be numberless accidental varieties in the government of various Churches ? A. There must, in the nature of things. For, as God variously dispenses his gifts of nature, providence, and grace, both the offices themselves and the officers in each, ought to be varied from time to time. Q. Wiiy is it that there is no determinate plan of Ciiurch goverament appointed in Scripture ? . Early Methodist Preaching Places. 233 A.- Without doubt, because the wisdom of God had a regard to this neces- sary variety. Q. Was there any thought of uniformity in the government of all Churches until the time of Constantine ? A. It is certain tliat tliere was not; and would not have been then had men consulted the word of God only. Early Methodist Preachiu^-Houses. — The original Methodists were not fastidious in their architectural tastes. A large barn was, in their judgment, preferable to a small parlor or chapel ; and rather than measure their labors by the capacity of a fine church, they preferred to address the multitude in the market-place or in the fields. On the 7th of May, 174Y, Mr. Wesley paid his first visit to Man- chester, where a few young men had formed themselves into a Society, rented a room, and written a letter desiring to be admitted to the Methodist fraternity. This preaching-room was in the garret of a three-story house which overhung the river, and whose ground floor was a joiner's shop. The middle story was occu23ied as a residence, and a part of the garret was also the home of a poor woman who plied her spinning-wheel in one corner while her husband worked his loom in another. A third corner was occu]3ied as a bunker for coals, and in the fourth the young men held their services. The l^ottingham Society for many years held its meetings in the residence of one of its members named Matthew Bagshaw, which place was ingeniously fitted up to serve this double purpose. The largest room on the first floor being too small for the congregation, the bed-room overhead was made to connect with it by means of a large trap-door in the ceiKng, and the preacher, mounted on a chair which was perched on a table, could command his hearers above as well as below. But this was elegant compared with some of the regular churches in Wales, one of which Mr. Wesley mentions as not having a glass window belonging to it, but only boards with holes bored here and there, through which the dim light glimmered ; while some of the Irish sanctuaries were even more simple, being wholly built of mud and straw, with the exception of a few rough beams required to suj)port the thatch. Methodisiii Carried into Ireland. — In the summer of 174G Thomas Williams, one of Wesley's itinerant preachers, made 234 Illustrated Histop.y of Methodis^m. liis appearance in the city of Dublin, where, by his pleasing manners and good address, as well as by his sound doctrine and zeal for God, he gathered a httle Society, and then sent for his chief to come and A DOUIiLK-DECKKI) MKKTIAG-IIOUSE. visit it. Wesley complied at his earliest convenience, and landed in Dublin on Sunday morning, August 0th, of the same year. Methodism in Ireland. 235 The welcome he received from all sorts and conditions of men, including even His Grace the Archbishop, led Mr. "Wesley to write : — " For natural sweetness of temper, for courtesy and hospitality, I have ne^^er seen any people Kke the Irish. Indeed, all I conversed with were only English trans]3lanted into another soil, and they are much mended by the removal, having left all their roughness and surliness behind them. " At least ninety-nine in a hundred of the native Irish remain in the religion of their forefathers. The Protestants, whether in Dublin or elsewhere, are almost all transplanted from England. 'Nor is it any wonder that those who are born Papists generally live and die such, when the Protestants can find no better ways to convert them than penal laws and acts of Parliament," It is proverbially dangerous to form a judgment from first appear- ances. To the end of his life Mr. Wesley exceedingly dehghted in Ireland and the Irish, among whom he was always received on his numerous visits with the greatest cordiality and honor ; but many of his preachers had a very difEerent story to tell concerning their experi- ences in preaching the Gospel to these " transplanted English," who, as they discovered, had not left all their " roughness and surliness " behind them. On W^esley's return to England his brother Charles, with Charles Perronet, one of AVesley's clerical helpers, took charge of the Dublin Society, for whose use their chief had secured a chapel in Marlborough- street ; but in an evil day the uncomfortable John Cennick, who had now become as weary of Whitefield as he formerly was of Wesley, and had gone over to the Moravians, made his appearance in the Irish capital, and by his wild attacks on the doctrine of the Papists brought all the Methodists into disrepute. " The courtesy and natural sweet- ness " of the Irish temj)er had been overborne by their zeal for the Papist religion, and Charles Wesley found that the chapel had been destroyed by the mob, whose shillalahs had not spared the heads of the congregation, and for a time there was no one to be found in Dublin who dared to sell or rent the Methodists a place of M'orship. But the Irish temper is like Irish weather, stormy and sunny within the same hour. For awhile Charles Wesley preached at the risk of his life on Oxmanton Green ; but the wrath of the mob 236 Illustkated History of JMethodism. quickly cooled down, and in a few weeks he was able to buy a house and lit it up for a preaching place, whose location, with almost Hiber- nian aptness, he describes in* a letter to his brother as " a house near Dolphin's bam." The results of this were vastly important. Forty-two times "Wesley crossed the Irish Channel, and spent, in his different visits, at least half a dozen years of his laborious life in the Emerald Isle. Ire- IIKALEY ON THK ATHLONE CIRCUl land yielded him some of the most eminent of his coadjutors : Thomas "Walsh, Adam Clarke, Henry Moore, and others ; and Irish men and women were ordained by Providence to carry Methodism into almost every quarter of the globe. For six months Charles "Wesley, Perronet, Healey, and other itinerants, kept the Gospel trumpet sounding, not only in the streets and lanes, but also among the bogs and mountains. They made an excursion to Tyrrell's Pass, and from among Methodism in Ireland. 237 proverbial swearers, drunkards, thieves, and Sabbath-breakers, formed a Society of nearly one hundred persons. At Athlone a gang of ruffians knocked Jonathan Healey off his horse, beat him with a club, and were about to murder him with a knife, when a poor woman from a hut came to his assistance, and for her interference was half killed with a blow from a heavy whip. The hedges were all lined with Papists, but the dragoons came out, the mob fled, Healey was rescued, and taken into the woman's cabin, where Charles Wesley found him in his blood, and attended to his wounds. A crowd of above two thousand having assembled in the market, Charles Wesley preached to them from the window of a ruined house with good effect, and then the knot of brave-hearted Methodists marched to the field of battle, stained with Healey's blood, and sang a song of triumph and of praise to God. On the return of the elder Wesley to Ireland in the spring of 1748 he found a Society in Dublin of nearly four hundred members. A wide circuit had been organized, including Athlone, Tullamore, Birr, Aughrim, Ballymote, Castlebar, Sligo, and Cooleylough ; the last- named being the cathedral town, only there was no cathedral there, the quarterly meetings being held under the hospitable roof of Mr. Handy, an Irish Methodist gentleman of the olden time, while preach- ing might be done in any convenient place under the shelter of the sky. For four or five years the Dublin Methodists worshiped in " the house near Dolphin's barn," till an elegant chapel was erected for them in Whitefriar-street, in the year 1752. Methodism in Cork. — The city of Cork, especially at that day, was not a very safe place for a Methodist preacher ; but when John Wesley was planned the element of fear was left out of his composition, and therefore he was not afraid to invade that wild Irish city. As he rode through the town he found that his fame had preceded him, for the people crowded to the doors and windows of their houses to catch a glimpse of the arch-Methodist as he passed. Their evident temper was such that he judged it best not to call such a crowd together until he had further studied the situation ; so he rode straight through the city, and preached first at the Protestant town of Bandon, and afterward at Blarney, where the ridiculous report was spread abroad that the Methodists believed that religion consisted in 238 Illustrated History of Methodism. wearing long whiskers ! What the Methodist women did to be saved they did not undertake to explain. A small Society had already been formed in Cork, which went on peaceably enough till the clergy and the town corporation started a persecution against them. A strolling ballad-singer, named Butler, was engaged to lead the anti-Methodist mob, and this despicable fellow, dressed in a parson's gown and bands, with a Bible in one hand, and a collection of lampooning rhymes in the other, paraded the streets, singing and peddling the most outrageous and ridiculous slanders against Wesley and liis followers. The next step was to attack the Society as they were coming out of their place of meeting. Mud, stones, and clubs were used against them with genuine Irish freedom and vigor, and when some of the wounded ones fled back into the preaching-house for shelter, two sheriffs of the city came upon the scene, turned them out again into the midst of their assailants, and locked the doors of their own chapel against them. Butler and his gang amused themselves daily and nightly by mal- treating the Methodists, breaking their windows, and spoiling their goods, the Mayor of the city himself being sometimes a silent spec- tator, and refusing to interfere to preserve the peace. Every day for a fortnight the mob gathered in front of the house of David Sulh- van, and threatened to pull it down, and he at length applied to the Mayor for protection. " It is your own fault for entertaining those preachers," answered the Mayor ; whereupon the mob set up a loud huzza, and threw stones faster than ever. " This is fine usage under a Protestant government," said Sulli- van. "If I had a priest saying mass in my house it would not be touched." The Mayor rephed, " The priests are tolerated, but you are not ; " and the crowd, thus encouraged, continued throwing stones till mid- night. On May 31, 1749, the day that Wesley passed through Cork, Butler and his friends assembled at the chapel, and beat and bruised and cut the congregation most fearfully. The rioters burst open the chapel doors ; tore up the pews, the benches, and the floor, and burned them in the open street. Having demolished the chapel, Butler and his Methodism in Ieeland. 239 gang of ruffians went from street to street, and from house to house, abusing, threatening, and maltreating the Methodists at their pleasure, some of the women narrowly escaping with their lives. [See heading of Chapter X.] For two months these horrible outrages were con- tinued; and at the end of that period "Wesley writes: "It was not for those who had any regard either to their persons or goods to oppose Mr. Butler after this. So the poor people patiently suffered whatever he and his mob were pleased to inflict upon them." Twenty-eight presentments were made against Butler and his crew before the Grand Jury of the Cork Assizes, but they were all thrown out, while the same jury made a presentment declaring that Charles Wesley, and seven other Methodist preachers therein named, together with Daniel Sullivan, were all persons of ill fame, vagabonds, and common disturbers of His Majesty's peace, and ought to be trans- ported. This, of course, gave Butler greater hcense than ever. His fiendish jDcrsecutions had now received a semi-official sanction, and were carried on with the greatest gusto. The farce of a trial of six Irish Methodist itinerants for vagabondage, and disturbing the peace, was afterward attempted at Cork, with the infamous Butler as chief witness against them, but the judge declared that it was an insult to the court to brino- such a case and such a witness before him. One of the rabble died shortly afterward, and was buried in a coffin made of two of the benches which he had stolen from the Methodist meeting-house ; while the notorious Butler went first to Waterford, where, in another riot, he lost an arm, and then fled to Dublin, where he dragged out the remainder of his life in misery, and was actually saved from starving by the charity of the Dublin Methodists. The next year Wesley again risked life and limb among these semi-savages of Cork, who burned him in effigy, and broke the windows, as well as the heads, of quite a number of his congregation. On this occasion one of the leaders of the mob was a drunken clergyman, who, when Wesley was preaching at Bandon, got up beside him, flourished his shiUalah, and gave the signal for an attack ; but his reverence was too drunk to be an effective leader, and three women of the congrega- tion pulled him down and carried him off, leaving the preacher to go on with his discourse in peace. 240 Illustrated History of Methodism. In spite of the dangers which he and his friends encountered among them, Wesley still loved the Irish people, and visited their Societies almost every year. In his Journal he relates some of his most striking experiences among them. For instance : — At Aymo, where he wished to sleep, the woman who kept the inn refused him admittance, and, moreover, let loose four dogs to M'orry him. At Portarlington he had the unthankful task of reconciling the differences of two termagant women, who talked for three hours, and grew waiTaer and warmer, till they were almost distracted. Wesley says : " I perceived there was no remedy but prayer ; so a few of us wrestled with God for above two hours." The result was, after three hours of scolding and two hours of praying, anger gave place to love, and the quarrelsome ladies fell upon each other's neck and wept. At Tullamore many of his congregation were drunk ; but the bulk paid great attention. He rebuked the Society for their lukewarmness and covetousness ; and had the pleasure of seeing them evince signs of penitence. At Tyrrell's Pass he found a great part of the Society " walking in the light, and praising God all the day long." At Cooleylough he preached to backsliders. In the midst of the service at Athlone a man passed by on a fine prancing horse, which drew off a large part of the congregation. Wesley paused, and then, raising his voice, said, " If there are any more of you who think it is of more concern to see a dancing horse than to hear the Gospel of Christ, pray go after them." The renegades heard the rebuke, and the majority at once returned. It so happened that at the time of Wesley's visit to Rathcorrauck there was an Irish funeral. An immense crowd of people had assem- bled to do honor to the dead ; a part of the burial service was read in the church, after which Wesley preached ; and, as soon as his dis- course was ended, the customary Irish howl was given. Wesley writes : " It was not a song, but a dismal, inarticulate yell, set up at the grave by four shrill-voiced women, who were hired for that purpose. But I saw not one that shed a tear; for that, it seems, was not in their bargain." In 1752 Wesley paid another visit to the Green Isle, accompa- First Irish Conference. 241 nied by Tliomas Walsh, who was possessed of the rare accomplish- ment of being able to jDreach in the Irish language. At this time steps were taken to erect a Methodist house in Cork, and four years later "Wesley, after preaching in it, says it was in every way the equal of the Dublin house, and built for two hundred pounds less money. The first Irish Conference was held at Limerick, on the 14:th and 15th of August, 1Y52, at which there were ten preachers in attend- ance, and where six others were admitted ; among whom was Philip Guier, one of a company of German refugees called Palatines,* which had settled in the neighborhood of Ballingran about forty years before. He was the master of the German school at Ballingran ; and it was in his school that Philip Embury (subsequently the founder of Methodism in the United States, now a young man thirty-two years of age) had been taught to read and write. By means of Guier, also, the devoted Thomas Walsh, of the same age as Embury, had been enlight- ened and prepared to receive the truth as it is in Jesus. PhilijD Guier was made the leader of the infant Society at Limerick, and now, in 1752, was appointed to act as a local preacher among the Palatines. He still kept his school, but devoted his spare hours to preaching. The people loved the man, and sent him flour, oatmeal, bacon, and potatoes, so that Philip, if not rich, was not in want. The Irish itinerants were to be allowed £8 at least, and if possible £10 a year for clothing ; and £10 a year were to be allowed for the support of each preacher's wife. The preachers were to j)reacli fre- quently and strongly on fasting ; and were to practice it every Friday, health permitting. J^ext to luxury they were to avoid idleness, and to spend one hour every day in private prayer. It is a remarkable fact that after the lapse of a hundred years the name of Philip Guier is as fresh in Ballingran as it ever was ; and still the Pajjists, as well as Protestants, are accustomed to salute the Methodist minister as he jogs along on his circuit horse, and say, " There goes Philip Guier, who drove the devil out of Ballingran ! " * The Palatinate, now included in Bavaria, was a small section of country governed by a " Count Palatine," a title signifying " officer of the palace." These petty princes date back to the fifteenth century, when the first of their hereditary line, who was an officer in the pal- ace of one of the German Emperors, received the gift of this little duchy from his imperial master. Tiie Irish Palatines were exiles for the sake of their Reformed faith, having fled from their native country to escape from Papal pe'secution. 242 Illustrated History of METnoDis^r. \%^esley as a Disciplinarian. — Perliaps no single utterance of John AVesley so well serves to set fortli his idea of his power over the itinerant preachers, as the following extract from one of his letters to Edward Perronet, in 1T50. He was evidently in a disturbed frame of mind over the action of the Society at Cork, to which he refers ; for one of the things he especially hated was the idea of separation from the Established Church. Edward Perronet had a brother, Charles. The italics are Wesley's own : — " I have abundance of complaints to make, as well as to hear. I have scarce any one on whom I can dej^end when I am a hundred miles off. 'Tis well if I do not run away soon, and leave them to cut and slmtfle for themselves. Here [in Ireland] is a glorious people ; but O ! where are the shepherds ? The Society at Cork have fairly sent me word that they will take care of themselves, and erect them- selves into a Dissenting congregation. I am weary of these sons of Zeruiah : they are too hard for me. Charles and you hehave as I want you to do ; but you cannot, or will not, preach where I desire. Others can and will preach where I desire, but they do not hehave as I want them to do. I have a tine time between the one and tlie other. I think both Charles and you have, in the general, a right sense of what it is to serve as sons in the gospel ; and if all our helpers had had the same the work of God would have prospered better, both in England ^and Ireland. I have not one preacher with me, and not six in England, whose wills are broken to serve me thus." " Whose wills are broken to serve me." Surely no ecclesiastical superior ever expressed himself with more clearness and force. Though not claiming now to be a bishop, John AVesley was an apt •scholar in the use of the crosier, and it was not long before he also learned how to handle the ecclesiastical sword. Wesley's Income. 243 Wesley's Money Matters. — An account of Mr. Wesley's labors and productions as Editor, Autlior, and Publisher will be given elsewhere, but it is well to notice here his defense of himself against the charge that he was carrying on his great work with a view to making money. This defense was published in 17-i3, in reply to a report which had been circulated that he enjoyed an income from the Foundry Society alone of thirteen hundred pounds a year over and above what he received from the Societies at Bristol, Kingswood, l^ewcastle, and other places. He declares that the money given by the Methodists never comes into his hands at all, but is received and expended by the stewards in the relief of the poor, the purchase, erection, and repair of chapels ; and that so far from there being any overplus left for himseK, he had borrowed and contributed on his own account some six hundred and fifty pounds for the preaching houses in London, Bristol, and IS'ewcastle. Then, addressing himself to his clerical brethren, he asks : — " For what price will you preach eighteen or nineteen times every week ; and this throughout the year ? "What shall I give you to travel seven or eight hundred miles, in all weathers, every two or three months ? For what salary will you abstain from all other diversions than the doing good and the praising God ? I am mistaken if you would not prefer strangling to such a life, even with thousands of gold and silver. As to gold and silver, I count it dung and dross ; I trample it under my feet ; I esteem it just as the mire of the streets. I desire it not ; I seek it not ; I only fear lest any of it should cleave to me, and I should not be able to shake it off before my sj^irit returns to God. I will take care (God being my helper) that none of the accursed thing shall be found in my tents when the Lord calleth me hence. Hear ye this, all you who have discovered the treasures which I am to leave behind me ; if I leave behind me ten pounds — above my debts and my books, or what may happen to be due on account of them — you and all mankind bear witness against me, tliat I lived and died a thief and a robber." Many years afterward Wesley "became rich unawares," by the immense circulation of his books and tracts among the ever-increasing multitudes of his followers and friends ; but he treated himself as a servant of his own establishment, and only allowed himself "thirty 244 Illustrated History of MEnioDisir. pounds a year, and an occasional suit of clothes '" out of the income of his London Pubh slang House ; the rest, above his traveling expenses, he gave away — some to the support of his brother Charles, in addition to his proper share of the income from the sale of the hymn books ; some to relieve the necessities of his widowed or unhappily married sisters; some to help his lay preachers, who without his aid could have hardly kept soul and body together; a large amount to build the London school and preaching-houses ; and the rest he poured out in a ceaseless stream of alms and benefactions to the poor and unfortunate whom he met day by day. The Foundry Bank. — In 1747 ^ir. "Wesley established a kind of bank at the Foundry, which he called a '• Lending Society." This institution commenced business on a capital of fifty pounds, which Mr, AYesley had begged among his friends in London, and lodged in the hands of the stewards, who held a meeting every Tuesday morning for the purpose of loaning to approved persons small amounts not to exceed twenty shillings, on condition that the loan should be repaid within three months. This charitable loan fund soon became popular : the capital was increased to one hundred and twenty pounds, and the maximum loan to five pounds; and by its means hundreds of honest poor people were aided in times of special distress, and some who were on the verge of ruin were by this small assistance saved from bankruptcy, and placed again on the road to fortune. Wesley as a ^WEedical ]^an. — In the year 1746 Mr. Wesley opened his nota])le Medical Dispensary in London. Having already provided a loan fund for the relief of the poor, his attention was now called to the fact that medicines were expensive, and doctors still more expensive, and having himseK some considerable knowledge of the healing art, he offered his services, without money or price, as a curer of the bodies as well as of the souls of people who were too poor to be killed or cured in the regular professional way. "For six or seven and twenty years," says he, "I had made anatomy and physic the diversion of my leisure hours, though I never properly studied them, unless for a few months when I was going to America."^ He now took up tlie study again, and having hired him an apothecar^' to take charge of his store of drugs, and an experienced Wesley in a New Ciiakacter, 245 surgeon to attend to the mechanical part of the business, he gave notice thereof to the Society at the Foundry, and in a short time he had a medical " practice " of over a hundred patients a month. Of course he was branded as a quack by the regular medical profession, but he defended himself by his success, declaring that during the first four months he had cured seventy-one persons of diseases which liad long been thought to be incurable, and that out of all his five hundred patients not one had died on his hands. In a letter to Archbishop Seeker in 1T4T Mr. Wesley thus defends his irregular medical enterprise ; an extract which medical readers will do well to omit, as they will be sure to disagree with its views : — " For more than twenty years I have had numberless proofs that regular physicians do exceeding little good. From a deep conviction of this, I have believed it my duty, within these four months last past, to prescribe such medicines to six or seven hundred of the poor as I knew were projjer for their several disorders. Within six weeks nine in ten of them who had taken these medicines were remarkably altered for the better ; and many were cured of disorders under which they had labored for ten, twenty, forty yeai's. Now, ought I to have let one of these poor wretches perish, because I was not a regular physician ? to have said, ' I know what will cure you ; but I am not of the college ; you must send for Dr. ? ' Before Dr. had come in his chariot, the man might have been in his coffin. And when the doctor was come, where was his fee ? What ! he cannot hve upon nothing ! So, instead of an orderly cure, the patient dies, and God requires his blood at my hands." The success of the London dispensary was so great that another was opened at Bristol, with like favorable results. ' Wesley then ti'ied his hand at medical authorship, and published his book entitled "Primitive Physic," a work which was received with a storm of abuse and ridicule by the medical profession, but which was of no small service in its day. Aia®tlaer <•' Escape from MatriBfii©aiy." — It was during this period that Mr. Wesley passed through another stormy expe- rience similar to that in Savannah, which is set down in his biography as " an escape from matrimony." The woman in question — we may as well dismiss this bit of gossip at once — was Grace Murray, a sailor's 240 Illusteated History of Methodism. widow, wlio, after a striking conversion, Lad devoted liei-self to a relimous life in connection with Mr. "NVeslev's Orphan House at ]S^ew- castle, where she occupied herself with teaching, visiting the sick, leading classes of women, and maldng occasional excursions for a similar pui-pose among the Societies in the country round. The Orphan House was also a hospital for sick preachers, several of whom she nursed, and who were greatly charmed with her ; espe- cially was this true of one, John Bennett, whom she took care of through a fever of twenty-six weeks' duration. "What could be more natm-al than that these two pious people should become exceedingly fond of one another ? But Wesley was known to be opposed to the marriage of his preachers — ^married preachers were more expensive, besides being much less manageable, than single ones; and when that great man liimself began to pay her some attentions the widow was too good a Methodist, and too worldly-wise, withal, to say any thing to him about her other clerical suitor. It is the fashion with chroniclers of this dehcate affair to look at the matter in the interest of the great Methodist man, but this record sliall stand in the interest of that charming and talented Methodist woman, who must have been possessed of remarkable "gifts and graces," otherwise the Eev. Jolm Wesley, A.M., Fellow of Lincoln College, the acknowledged head of a great and growing religious body, the personal friend of Lady Huntingdon and other aristocratic persons, would not have been willing to match himseK with a person of such humble extraction and condition. John Bennett was of a very respectable family in Derbyshire, and one of the ablest and best educated men in the Methodist Connection, and a marriage between him and Grace Mun*ay would have been eminently proper if poverty and Jolm Wesley had not stood in the way. But two such stubborn obstacles as these were not to be easily rercome. Bennett was so devoted to the charming widow that she de- clared if she were to refuse him she believed he would go mad. ^Madame Grace, being somewhat experienced in such things, was, like any other sensible widow of a matrimonial turn, intent on seeming for herself the best husband she could; and when the General, Bishop — Bennett called him " Pope " — of all the Methodists began to Wesley and Grace Murray. 247 make love to her, the situation was an exceedingly interesting one, and withal very difficult to manage. If to refuse Bennett would drive him mad, the same treatment might make the other suitor " mad " also. Already the two men had come to hard words about her, and she, like a careful woman, favored the addresses of each in turn. At length, when the matter had become public, and was likely to do no small damage among the Societies, Charles "Wesley, wlio was also "mad" at the idea of his distinguished brother marrying a woman of such humble antecedents, took the matter in hand, arranged a meeting between the widow and John Bennett, at Bristol, and would not leave town until with his own eyes he had seen this dangerously lovely woman bound hard and fast to Bennett in the holy bonds of matrimony. This marriage occurred October 3, 1T49. It is painfully amusing to read the solemn accounts of this unsuc- cessful courtship of John Wesley which appear in his various biogra- phies, Mr. Tyerman in his admirable book takes up the rod and lays it heavily upon Bennett and Mrs. Murray, at the same time proffering a handkerchief with which to dry Mr. Wesley's tears. Under the heading of " Who was blamable ? " he says : — "This episode in Wesley's history has been a puzzle to all his biographers. It has never been explained. Mystery has enwrapped it. Eeaders have been left in doubt who were the parties to be blamed. IN'ow there can be no great difficulty in pronouncing judg- ment. John Wesley was a dupe. Grace Murray was a flirt. John Bennett was a cheat. Charles Wesley was a sincere, but irritated, impetuous, and officious friend." Now all this may be very kind to the memory of John Wesley, but it is by no means an exhaustive summing up of the facts. It is also true that John Wesley was a half-way lover, halting between two opinions, wanting the widow very nmch, but either afraid or ashamed to marry her. He was an avowed old bachelor, forty-six years of age, who had already loved and lost one woman, whom he might have married if he would ; or, rather, given her up on the advice of his Moravian friends at Savannah, though when he afterward found how strong a hold this love had taken of his heart he appears to have dis- carded his officious friends : but then it was too late. Ilis condition now was greatly changed. He was no longer a poor 248 Illustrated History of Mlthodis^l missionary to the Indians, among whom he thought to sj>end his life, that by helping to save their souls he might at length succeed in sav- ing his own, but the head of a large and growing religious fraternity, whose management often required all his patience and sagacity, though he never for one instant lessened his hold of the authority which his providential position gave him. It is evident that in this matter, also, he thought to hold the affections of the lady subject to his own con- venience and will ; a claim which no man has a right to set up, and which any woman has a right to deny. Grace Murray was a woman who was seeking to make the best possible disposal of her hand and heart, and who very much desired to mai'ry John Bennett if she could not have John Wesley. She had Bennett's ardent love and Wesley's promise of marriage. After the loss of much valuable time, having now jeopardized her chances of a union with Bennett, she began to grow anxious at Wesley's hesita- tion, and urged immediate marriage. To this he objected, because he wished — " (1) To satisfy John Bennett ; (2) to procure liis brother's consent ; (3) to send an account of his reasons for marrying to all his preachers and Societies, and to desire their prayers." When, there- fore, it became evident that his " brothers consent " could never be obtained, and when all the Methodist Societies were in an uproar about the marriage of their leader with " that woman I " she did the best thing possible under the circumstances, and became Mrs. Bennett without delay. And now to call Grace Murray " a flirt " is to blame her for not trusting a man who was willing to sacrifice her to his convenience ; to say that John Bennett was " a cheat " because he married the woman that Wesley wanted but dared not take, is hardly the cool, his- toric judgment which might be looked for in such an eminent au- thority as Tyerman ; and to call this " a dishonorable marriage " is to arraign a large proportion of the matrimony of this imperfect world, and thereby discourage that means of grace, of which already there is very much too little. Marriage and Separation. — The writer of this volume gives place to no man in ailniiration for the admirable qualities of the arch-Methodist ; but it is painfully evident that courtship and mar- riage ai*e among the few subjects which John AVesley did not under- Wesley's Maeeiage. 249 stand, and it must ever remain one of the regrets of the lovers of Methodist history tliat its chiefest character makes so poor a figure as a lover and husband. If he had not published to the world his oj^in- ions in favor of clerical celibacy the world would have been far more likely to allow his unhappy loves and his disastrous marriage to pass into the realm of things forgotten ; but now, like other good men, having in a single instance set up his own oj^inion against the divine appointment, his folly as well as his wisdom has become immortal. To the words, " It is not good for man to be alone," he ventured to add — " except for itinerant preachers." He forbade his preachers to marry without his consent — a stretch of spiritual authority which even his own celibate life could hardly excuse ; when, therefore, he became the acknowledged suitor for the hand of Grace Murray he actually jeoparded the existence of the Methodist Connection. His preachers noticed the grave inconsistency of his course, and the Methodist sister- hood were in an agony of jealous wrath at the possible elevation of one of their common selves to a seat on the Wesleyan throne. They might have welcomed " a lady " whose rank and excellence could have given her a just pre-eminence ; but Wesley's singular ecclesiastical position no doubt prevented his gaining the hand of any well-born and well-bred daughter of the Establishment : he would not marry a Dissenter on any terms : and among the Wesleyan Methodists, now that Lady Huntingdon and her set had separated from them, there were few women to be found who were personally and socially fitted to be his wife. By his own rule he had made the question of the marriage of a preacher a fit subject to be discussed by his brethren, therefore he could not complain if his own private love affairs were the gossip of the whole Connection. 'No doubt he felt wounded at the loss of the woman he had intended to marry, but he had no claim to the senti- mental condolence of his friends and flatterers ; and he proved that his affections were not dangerously damaged by rushing into matri- mony some fourteen months afterward with the widow of a London merchant named Vazel, or Yazeille, a person of no education, and who, before her marriage to the merchant, had been a domestic servant. 250 Illustrated Histoky of JMethodis^l On Feb. 2, 1751, Mr. Wesley makes tliis entry in his Journal : — " For many years I remained single because I believed I could be more useful in a single than in a married state. And I praise God, who enabled me so to do. I now as fully believe that, in my present circumstances, I might be more useful in a married state." On the same day he vrrote to his brother Charles that he was "resolved to marry ; " yet four days after, he held a meeting of the single men of the London Society, and showed them on how many accounts it was good for those who had received that gift from God to remain " single for the kingdom of heaven's sake ; unless where a particular case might be an exception to the general rule." Four days after this remarkable service, just before he was about to start on his annual preaching tour to j^ewcastle and vicinity, he slipped on the ice while crossing London Bridge, and sprained his ankle quite severely. A surgeon bound up the leg ; and with great difficulty he proceeded to Seven Dials, where he preached. lie attempted to preach again, at the Foundiy at night ; but his sprain became so painful that he was obliged to relinquish his intention, and he at once removed to Threadneedle-street, where Mrs. Yazeille resided ; and here he spent the next seven days, " partly," he says, " in prayer, reading, and conversation, and partly in writing a Hebrew grammar and Lessons for Childi-en," The accident occurred on Sunday, Febraary 10. On the Sunday following he was " carried to the Foundry, and preached kneeling," not being yet able to stand ; and on the next day, or the day after, cripple though he was, he succeeded in leading Mrs. Yazeille, a widow, seven years younger than himseK, to the hymeneal altar. On Mon- day (February 18) he was still unable to set his foot to the ground. On the Tuesday evening and on the AVednesday morning he preached kneeling, and a fortnight after liis marriage, being, as he says, " tolera- bly able to ride, though not to walk," he set out for Bristol, leaving his newly married wife behind him. It was not long before this hasty marriage was followed by lei- surely repentance. The husband possessed in a high degree almost every other excellent qualification except such as are essential to happiness in the married state ; while the wife, of whom nobody seems to have heard any ill report till she became Mrs. Wesley, Wesley's Maeriage. 251 was accused of having " an angry and bitter spirit." Mr. Jackson, one of Wesley's biographers, says : " Neither in understanding nor in education was she worthy of the eminent man to whom she was united, and her temper was intolerably bad. During the lifetime of her first husband she appears to have enjoyed every indulgence ; and, judging from some of his letters to her, which have been pre- served, he paid an entire deference to her will." John Hamj^son, who was one of Wesley's confidential friends, and sometimes his traveling companion, calls it a " preposterous union." The wretched wife was made almost insane with jealousy on account of her husband's official relations with the women who pre- sided over his orphanages at Bristol and Newcastle, and who led his classes of women in the various Societies throughout the king- dom ; some of whom had been exceedingly bad characters previous to their conversion. For about two years she traveled with him on his preaching tours, but, not being received with all the honors which she thought due to the wife of John Wesley, she retired from the traveling connection, and stayed at home in London, nursing her wrath by brooding over her imaginary wrongs. Sometimes she would make long secret journeys for the purpose of watching her husband's behavior; and becoming, at length, utterly reckless, she publicly attacked his character by publishing certain of his papers and letters, which were " doctored," and others which were forged, to suit this infamous purpose. She even laid violent hands on her husband, who, as will be remembered, was physically a small, light man, and whose gentleness and patience under what he accepted as his providential chastisement is a feeble and pitiful brightening in this dark matrimonial picture. The following is an extract from one of his letters to this virago : — " It might be an unspeakable blessing that you have a husband who knows your temper and can bear with it ; who, after you have tried him numberless ways, laid to his charge things that he knew not, robbed him, betrayed his confidence, revealed his secrets, given him a thousand treacherous wounds, purposely aspersed and murdered his character, and made it your tiisiness so to do, under the poor pretense of vindicating your own character — who, I say, after all these provo- 252 Illustrated History of Methodism. cations is still -willing to forgive you all, to overlook what is past, as if it liad not been, and to receive you witli open arms ; only not while you have a sword in your hand, with which you are continually strik- ing at me, though you cannot hurt me. If, notwithstanding, you con- tinue striking, what can I, what can all reasonable men, think, but that either you are utterly out of your senses, or your eye is not single ; that you married me only for my money ; that, being disappointed, you were almost always out of humor ; and that this laid you open to a thousand suspicions, which, once awakened, could sleep* no more? " My dear Holly, let the time past suffice. As yet the breach may be repaired. You have wronged me much, but not beyond forgive- ness. I love you still, and am as clear from all other women as the day I was born. At length know me and know yourself. Your enemy I cannot be ; but let me be your friend. Suspect me no more, asperse me no more, provoke me no more. Do not any longer contend for mastery, for power, money, or praise. Be content to be a private in- significant person, known and loved by God and me. Attempt no more to abridge me of my liberty, which I claim by the laws of God and man. Leave me to be governed by God and my own conscience. Then shall I govern you with gentle sway, and show that I do indeed love you, even as Christ the Church." But it was not Madame Wesley's idea to be governed, even with a " gentle sway," and at length, in ITYl, she separated from him, purpos- ing never to return. The next year a peace was patched up between them, but it was only of brief duration, and thereafter they dwelt apart till her death, which occurred in ITSl. In most respects the great leader of "the people called Meth- odists " was an excellent model, but in all things relative to love and marriage even his greatest admirers can find in liis history little else to praise except a forgiving spirit and patience under torture. Great men are sure to have some weakness which in humbler lives miglit pass unnoticed, but which the very brightness of their virtues throws out into dark and prominent relief, and in this want of manliness in his relations with women appeal's the one inevitable failing which mars the life and career of John AVesley. In this connection the inquiry will naturally arise : What became of Bennett and Grace Murray ? CiiAKLEs Wesley's Maeeiage. 253 So far as is known tlieir nnion was a liappy one. Bennett broke ofE all connection with Weslej soon after that event ; drew away some of the Bolton Society, and set up a chaj^el for himself at Warburton, where, after four or five years of ministry, during which he preached the Calvinistic doctrine, he died in great peace May 24, 1759. His wife survived him over forty years. Having seen her children settled in life, she rejoined the Methodists at Chapel-en-le-Frith, had a class- meeting in her house, kept a journal of her life after the fashion of Wesley and some of his loving imitators, and on the 23d of February, 1803, departed in triumph, in the eighty-seventh year of her age. More MatrflBiiosiy.— The Wesleyan matrimonial chapter may as well be finished here. The wife of Charles "Wesley was Miss Sarah Gwynne, daughter of a Welsh magistrate, whose house, at Garth, was one of the hospitable halting places of the early itinerant preachers, and where, in 1743, the younger Wesley formed an acquaintance which in six years after- ward resulted in marriage. Under date of April 8, 1749, Mr. Wesley made the following entry in his Journal : — ^^ Saturday, 8. I man-ied my brother and Sarah Gwynne. It was a solemn day, such as became the dignity of a Christian marriage." This union was in all respects a happy one, though there was a considerable disparity in age, Charles being forty, and his bride only twenty-three. The change from her father's mansion to a small house in Bristol was gi-eat ; but she loved her husband, and was never known to regret the comforts she had left behind. Of her eight chil- dren, most of whom were bom after the family removed to London, five died in infancy, three survived their parents, and by their distin- guished talent in music added luster to the name of Wesley. Mrs. Charles Wesley died on December 28, 1822, at the age of ninety-six. Her long life was an unbroken scene of devoted piety in its loveliest forms, and her death was calm and beautiful. Marmage of George Whitefield. — While the theme is before us, it may be w^ell to refer to the marriage of the other great Methodist leader, George Whitefield. When the great preacher visited Northampton, in Massachusetts,. 254 Illustrated History of METHODisir. the wife of liis reverend friend Dr. Jonathan Edwards, impressed him deeply bv her solid excellence and intelligent piety, and he straightway felt impressed that marriage was at once his privilege and duty. He had, no doubt, left behind him in England the lady with whom he was as nearly in love as he ever was with any, and some time afterward he sent her a letter, written on shipboard, addressed to " My dear Miss E.," in which he gravely plunges at once into the ques- tion of whether she thinks herself lit to be his wife and the mistress of his Orphan House in Georgia. He advises that she consult the Lord and her other friends about the matter; says he much likes " the manner of Isaac's marrying Tiebekah ; " calls on the God of Abra- ham, Isaac, and Jacob to witness that he desires to marry her up- rightly ; says he thinks it his duty to avoid " the passionate expres- sions which carnal courtiers use ; " and then remarks — " If you think marriage will be in any way prejudicial to your better part, be so kind as to send me a denial. I would not be a snare to you for the world." To the parents of the lady he also wrote a letter in the same relig- ious strain, in which, among other pious things, he says : " You need not to be afraid of sending me a refusal, for, I bless God, if I know any thing of my own heart I am free from that foolish passion which the world calls loveP It is not surprising that such wooing by a young man of twenty- five failed of its half-hearted j)urpose. The next year he was more successful, if success it might be called, in liis addi'esses to a widow about ten years older than himself, whom the enthusiastic young bridegroom describes as " neither rich in fortune nor beautiful as to her person," but one " who has been a housekeeper for many years," who is " a true child of God, and one who would not attempt to hinder me in his work for the world. In that respect I am just the same as be- fore marriage. I hope God will never suffer me to say, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' " Southey asserts that Whitefield's marriage was not a happy one, and another of his biographers coolly remarks : " He did not inten- tionally make his wife unhappy. He always preserved great decency and decorum in his conduct toward her. Her death set his mind much at liberty." Such particulars as these in the biographies of great men are some- George Whitefield's Marriage. 255 times set forth witli apologies, as if their memories were too sacrod to be handled with the least approach to familiarity ; but it is just such touches as these that make their portraits true to life. Without some- thing of this kind the latent hero-worship in human nature, which is only a more subtle form of idolatry, would take these men from out the realm of history and set them up in the arcana of the gods, where they would as effectually rob Jehovah of his rightful glory as do the ancestral shades of China, the classic heroes of Greece, or the patron saints whose statues grace the cathedrals of papal Rome. JOUN TAYLOR'S TENAKCE. ^^yi-'<:Le<^^^^i^ 'i^^i:x^