JOHN WESLEY. BY Raw P.w. Fairclough

Otago Witness, Issue 2571, 24 June 1903, Page 54

JOHN WESLEY. BY Raw P.w. Fairclough

| John Wesley was born on June 17, 1703 — two hundied years ago last 'week. At i"f I lie went to Oxford, and remained there 15 years After taking his degree he entered holy oiders, "was elected fellow of Lincoln, and appointed tutor and moderator of the daily public disputations About the year 1725 bib thoughts took a very herimih turn. read the strictest books of devotion, searched his heart with lists of quotions, fasted, prayed, communicated, and ■was charitable after hih power. He had known, discipline at home, and poverty too; for his mother made her children "cry softly" 1 if they must cry, and her occasional " apple dumplings "' were the only luxuries. At sahoyl, too, tunes were hard, for the bigger boys stole his meat and left him only bread, for potatoes were not yet. By "way of recreation he had on the advice of his father, toughened his puny frame by running round the big garden thrice a day. But the hardships of boyhood were nothing to the rigours now self-inflicted by the young man, who slept ■without a mattress for the good of his soul. When lus income was, £30 he lived on £28 and gave away £2 ; when it rose to £120 he still lived on £28, and gave away £92. Throughout ' his life he preached and taught, " Get all you can, save all you can, give all you can." He sometimes complained that his people lived up to two-thirds of this advice. It was in 1728 that the " Holy Club " gathered round him. It was composed of " Bible bigots " like himself ; and as these rose at 4, mapped out the daj with ricid exact-

res?, and were always found doing the same thing at the same time, they were dubbed "Methodists." His chief associates were his brother Charles, Whitefield, and Hervey, who afterwards meditated " Among the Tombs.' It was the head and front of Wesley's offending, with many, that he afterwards declared he was no Christian at all at Oxford. A form of godliness was mine; The power I never know. Later in life, however, he modified that opinion. He refused to succeed his father, as " I could not stand out against eating, drinking, and sleeping for a month in so easy a place." So he went to the new colony of Georgia (1735) and played the ascetic High Churchman there, preaching against the dresses of the ladies and repelling some of them from communion, without taking account of their social status. Much good discipline resulted— for him, — and he was glad to get back to London. Even there no church would endure hi* high-strained preaching a second time. He had fallen in with the Moravians on the voyage out, and had been struck by their profession of peace and assurance through faith. He associated with these Germans in London, and soon concluded that he had no true faith. He was a scorched faggot, ready, at a spark, to burst into flame. The application of the spark was not the smallest event in the history of his century. He thus describes it : — " On May 24, 1738, as one read Luther's preface to the Romans, describing the action of faith in the soul, at a quarter before 9, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust in Christ for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins." This was the impulse that flung him out on the startled nation. With ths world for his parish, he now began, at 35 years of age, his 54 years of incessant travelling, preaching, writing, and organising, for 18 hours out of every 24.

The nation was intellectually stagnant, and morals were at a low ebb. The Church, after many convulsions, in some of which she had been deprived of her most conscientious servants, was suffering fiom leaction, and the temptation to repose and worldliness. The ignorance and irreligion of the masses in many places was appalling. All the mining districts appear to have been especially neglected. Cornwall was semi-heathen ; Newcastle was verydrunken and depraved. There was a large mining population at Kingswood, but no church nearer than three miles. It was ever Wesley's principle to go to those who needed him most, and his first great results were secured in the worst neighbourhoods. "By common consent," as he says, he was excluded from the churches, for his doctrine that a man might know his sins forgiven seemed a tort of blasphemy, and the high and exacting standard of life which he set up was regarded as a reflection on the Church and its clergy. Religious ideas now commonplace and threadbare seemed then new and presumptuous inventions. At least one fierce and prolonged riot arose from a working man saying that his sins were forgiven. For many years riots and persecutions were in constant progress somewhere. Wesley was often in gi eat personal d.mger, but he never flinched. His followers suffered much in body and in estate, and the magistrates usually said it served them right. Not a few leading Methodists, including a number of the preachers, were pressed for the army — too often, alas ! by the connivance of the j>;ui<on. But these poon made converts among their comrades, and held their prayer meetings in barracks, in camps, and on battlefields.

Wesley's calmness and courage never forsook him, and were often the means of quieting his foes. Once, in Cornwall, for example, his hearers were assaulted by a pelting, swearing, horn-blowing mob. When he could no longer make himself heard ho began to sing. At length, after much violence, a horseman spurred through and seized the preacher. Wesley went quietly along with him, till he began to wonder what he was going to do with his passive captive, and let him go. Wesley's friends sent him by water a mile or two toward 1 ; his evening appointment, someone riding his horse to the landing-place. Here, however, the crowd had collected again, and gave him a hostile reception. He worked his way through them, speaking kindly and being answered with curses. Securing his horse he pushed on to his appointment. Presently he is met by five mounted gentlemen, uho arrest him in the King's name as a Jacobite, or some sort of public enemy. A neighbouring parson, who had known Wesley at Oxford, gives him a certificate for loyalty, and he pursues his way to the appointment, nrnving a little late, and preaching fiom "Love your enemies." On several occasions he rode 90 miles in a day, and once he averaged 50 miles a day for a -whole week. He wou'd reach an appointed place in. the evening, preach to the crowd, and then meet his " tocjety " and his '"leaders." This often occupied four or five hours. He retired at 10, rose at 4, preached again, and pursued his way. It. was one of the accusations against him that he ma.de people get up at 4 in the morning. In this way he averaged about 12 sermons a week and 5000 miles a year. He did this on horseback till he was over 70 ; then his friends gave him a carriage, and he travelled by that means for 19 years more.

Not the least of his troubles -was the preternatural suspicion that dogged him. No slander -was too gross to be believed. He -was a Jesuit, a Papist, a Jacobite. He kept priests in his house ; he was in league with the Pretender ; lie received money from jSpain, where lie was alleged to have spent much time, and when the Spaniards invaded England he was to join them with 20,000 men — hence his organisation. Further, he had been fined for smuggling, imprisoned for coining, and had even hanged himself and been cut down just in time. There were more sermons and pamphlets and episcopal letters against him than against all the seven deadly sins put together. He regularly went to church, often only to hear himself abused. In bis father's old church at Ejjworta he was

refused the Sacrament by the drunken curate.

Wesley was believed to be deriving great revenue from his societies. This belief strengthened his credit when he had to build. His first local habitation was " the old Foundery," the predecessor of Woolwich ; his next? at Bristol ; his third at Newcastle. These places were paid for by long-sustained efforts at subscriptions of a penny a week. Wesley was a prolific writer, and his sermons, hymns, and pamphlets had a great circulation. He was a pioneer in cheap literature. His reprints amounted to scores of volumes. After some years his income from these sources became considerable, and he gave away during his career from £30,000 to £40,000, and attained his ambition of dying poor. He was much more than a, mere preacher and religious organiser. He founded day schools and the first Sunday echools, orphanages, and free dispensaries. He retained physicians for the poor, and promoted clothing clubs, blanket clubs, prisoners' aid societies, and -what not. He was a'.M> a father to his preachers. He wrote innumerable short and pithy letters to them. Thus : " Scream no more, at the peril of your soul. Preach as earnestly as you can, but scream no more." Again : " Let the building be plain, and have no more tub pulpits." Again, heariiig that one of his men was in dire straits, he sent him a £5 note -with this epistle: ** Dear Sammy, — Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt bs fed. — John Wesley." Sa-mmy was equal to the occasion, and replied : " Dear Mr Wesley, — I have often read the beautiful passage you quote, but never before saw so clear an explanatory note upon it." Wesley's work grew upon him — not owing to far-sighted plans, but owing to constantly doing the thing needed. New problems arose, and sometimes accident suggested the solution, or he applied to greater matters principles he had iound to work well in small matters. He was a great organiser simply because he continued even in old age to be receptive and plastic. Events bent him to their curve, and he took it as Providential guidance. His relation to the Church of England involved curious inconsistency. He constantly declared he would die in the Church unless thrust out. The voice was the voice of Jacob, but the hands were the hands of Esau. He invaded every diocese, he appointed lay preachers, lie licensed his preachers and chapels under the hated Conventicle Act, he even proceeded to ordain preachers for America and Scotland. Seeing that separation would be inevitable after his death, he executed the necessary deeds, and finally he revised and abridged the Prayer Book, omitting all those parts since most emphasised. Of the Thirty -nine Articles, he struck out 14 and altered 14 others. What more could a separatist do? Wesley was no bigot. He loved the Church that used him ill, but he loved his Methodism more. He visited the Moravians in Germany and corresponded with them. He was on good terms with Watts and Doddridge, the great Independents. He made it up with Calvinistic Whitefield. He was at home with Quakers. He even entertained a Catholic priest for a week, and afterwards visited him and preached for him. He read all kinds of books, and, in his magazine, wrote on all manner of subjects. His sermon on " The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes " has been laughed at ; but then the '' cure " — namely, a general return to righteousness — has never been tried. Among his reprints was a novel. When asked why he published it, he simply said, "Because it was profitable to read." We«ley was no mere " gospeller,' either. He hoped his people would not use the cant term " Gospel sermon." It was applied, he said, "to any ignorant, selfsufficient animal who got tip and bawled something about Christ and His blood." Methodists ought to find profit in sermons on good "works and good tempers. He was trenchantly dliect in his style. When Beau Nash tried to stop his preaching at Bath, the following dialogue took place: — "'Your preaching frightens people out of their wits." — "Sir, did you ever hear me preach?" — "No; but common report is enough." — "Give me leave, sir, to ask, Is not your name Nash?" — "It is.'" — "Sir, I daie not, judge of you by common report : I think it not enough to judge byWhen soliciting aid to a charity Wesley bent up his name to U lich man much ' beholden to him. The gentleman told his ' footman to say, " I do not know Mr John Wesley." Wesley took off his hhoes and gave each of them a knock on the stairs. Then he put th«m on and departed. The astonished footman told his master, who promptly sent Wesley £100. There was humour in many of h'S reproofs. He once travelled by coach with an intelligent officer who swore like " our army in Flanders." When they changed horses, Wesley paid : " Your company gives me much pleasuie. May I ask a favour? " " Certainly, sir. It will give me great X^eaaure to oblige you." — "Then," said We«ley, "as we have to travel together some distance, I beg, if I should so far forget myself as to swear, you will kindly reprove me." From his High Church days he had entertained a strong objection to showy dress. Dining one day at a bouse where the young ladies were in the height of fashion and the maid very simply arrayed, he said : " I cannot but admire the dress of your servant. It is long since I have seen a young woman more neatly and becomingly clad." Wesley lived long enough to compel a great deal of honour and respect outside his own circle. Hogarth paid him a great compliment. In his picture "The. Execution of Tom Idle" he represents Wesley in the cart with the condemned man^ exhorting him in a passion of earnestness, while th« official chaplain lolls out of his coach in the distance, laughing at the turbulence of the mob. The greatest compliment of all is, however, the initiation of millions of Christians outside Us own people. Doctrines and practices once , peculiar to Methodists have, in varying degreeSj become the heritage of I all Protestants-