WESLEY'S CONVERSION

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 67, 21 March 1938, Page 10

WESLEY'S CONVERSION

WIDESPREAD EFFECTS. CHANGED SOCIAL FABRIC. "The Methodist Church is the least result of the change that took place in the life of John Wesley on May 24, 1738. It has registered itself on the very fabric of the British Empire, affecting not only our political and moral life, but also our physical environment." So said the Rev. C. Irving Benson, noted Methodist minister from Melbourne, in the course of hie.address at the rally held at the Town Hall yesterday afternoon as a preliminary to the celebration of the bi-centenary of the birth of John Wesley, which will take place in May. As an ordained preacher of the Church of England, Wesley had gone across to Georgia, in America, where he had ministered to the Indians, conducting services in five languages. He came back to Englapd feeling that there was yet something lacking in his life—something that,he had tragically missed. He did not; possess, he knew, the glory of the lighted, mind and the glory of the glowing heart. . It was in a little meeting house in Aldersgate Street that, during a reading of the Scriptures, he saw in a moment what he had missed in a lifetime. "He saw that God wae willing and able to do for man and woman what they cannot do for themselves. He surrendered himself to' God, and then and there he was given the assurance that his sins were blotted out." What he had failed to get by fasting and discipline was given to him freelv from God, and "a great salvation flowed into his life," so that he needs muet tell the world ; about it. "That was the dawn of hope for the world," said the speaker, who stressed the great effect Wesley's conversion had had in changing the characters of the people of that period and ultimately the social fabric of the time.