THE GREATER WESLEY OF THE OPENING CENTURY.
WHEN on March 2, 1791, John Wesley closed his eyes to earth and opened
them in heaven the visible results of his life were already great. At
the opening of this new century they are greater. Only a few rods from
where he his "body with his charge laid down, and ceased at once to work
and live," is Wesley's Chapel, City Road, the head center of universal
Methodism. Standing on the walls of this Zion in 1791 and looking
around, what would we see?
Confining our vision within the bounds of Great Britain and Ireland, we
would see this chapel surrounded by 644 others, "wholly appropriate to
the worship of God." These chapels are ministered unto by 294 itinerant
preachers, and have an enrollment of 71,668 members of the societies.
Extending our vision to the regions beyond, in the Wesleyan Methodist
missions in France, the West Indies, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, we
would see in 1791 an enrolled membership of 5,300, looked after by 19
ministers; giving as the total of Wesleyan Methodists at that time
76,968, and 313 ministers.
In addition to the home and foreign work of which John Wesley was the
head, and City Road Chapel the center, was the Methodism of the United
States, which in 1790 reported 43,265 members and 198 ministers, and
which was known as "The Methodist Episcopal Church of America." So that
we would see as the total of Methodists in the world at Wesley's last
Conference, in 1790, 120,233 members, and 511 ministers. Besides these,
a great number who, from 1739 to 1790, saved by Methodist agency, had
been transferred to the Church above.
Let us now in this year 1901 stand again on the walls of this old
Methodist cathedral and look around us for the living monument of the
greater Wesley. With the March quarterly meetings' returns in our hands
we see that in great Britain alone "the total number of persons meeting
in class, seniors and juniors, is 573,140, an increase for the year of
12,937." To these must be added the 46,262 full members and 11,619 "on
trial" in the Wesleyan foreign missions reported in 1899. All these are
under the government of the mother Conference. Then there are the Irish,
French, South African, and West Indian Conferences, which are affiliated
to it; and to these must be added the detached bodies, such as the
Australian Methodist Church, the Methodist New Connection, Wesleyan
Reform Union, Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, United Methodist
Free Churches, and Independent Methodist Churches, all included in "Old
World Methodism," and rolling up the grand totals of 25,675 churches,
1,201,663 members and probationers, and 64,550 traveling and local
preachers.
Thus the great Methodism of the Old World in 1791, with its 313
ministers and 76,968 members, in 1901 has become the greater Methodism,
with 64,550 preachers and 1,201,663 members.
Let the point of view now be changed from City Road Chapel, London, to
John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, in New York city, for a survey
of the New World Methodism. To the north is the Methodist Church of
Canada, with 11 Conferences and a mission in China, with a ministry,
traveling and local, of 4,322, and a membership of 284,901. The missions
in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, in 1791, have thus developed and become
the greater Canadian Methodism.
After this telescopic view let the vision be confined to American
Methodism. We are still at old John Street Church in New York city. The
Methodist tree, planted on this spot in 1766, has spread itself out into
16 branches, which with the parent trunk includes 9 white and 8 colored
growths. The 43,265 American Methodists of 1790 have grown into
5,916,349 in 1901, and the 198 ministers have increased to 37,907, who
preach in 54,351 Methodist churches. The Methodists lead the
ecclesiastical hosts in America in the matter of members, and stand
second only to the Roman Catholics, who count all adherents as
communicants. The latter claim 8,766,083 by including all born into
their families. Roman Catholicism in America has for its sharpest
competitor American Methodism. If the Methodists counted their adherents
as the Catholics do they would claim about 18,000,000 over against the
Catholics less than 9,000,000.
The names of the branches of the American Methodist family are: 1. The
Methodist Episcopal; 2. Union American Methodist Episcopal; 3. African
Methodist Episcopal; 4. African Union Methodist Protestant; 5. African
Methodist Episcopal Zion; 6. Methodist Protestant; 7. Wesleyan
Methodist; 8. Methodist Episcopal, South; 9. Congregational Methodist;
10. Congregational Methodist (colored); 11. New Congregational
Methodist; 12. Zion Union Apostolic; 13. Colored Methodist Episcopal;
14. Primitive Methodist; 15. Free Methodist; 16. Independent Methodist;
17. Evangelical Missionary. These all claim to be one in doctrine, one
in spirit and aim, and should be one in piety. Would that they were all
one in Church union!
Epworth Leaguers will be more especially interested in the progress of
their own Methodist Episcopal Church, which is the oldest daughter, as
well as the largest branch, of Wesleyan Methodism. From _The Methodist
Year Book_, 1901, we learn that our "lay membership--total of full
members and probationers (on partial returns only)--is 2,907,877." Dr.
H. K. Carroll in _The Christian Advocate_, January 3, 1901, tells the
story of progress so well that we insert the entire article:
Only living things grow. The abundant life of American
Methodism, beginning under favorable conditions, made
growth natural, luxuriant, and easy. The soil and the
sun, the air and the rains, were all that the fresh,
vigorous plant needed for a development which has been
truly amazing.
Time, 1766; place, New York; a godly woman calling a
few backslidden Methodists to their duty; a local
preacher; meetings in a sail loft; a new church
costing $3,000. Such was the beginning.
The soil was fallow. It produced rank weeds. There
were few husbandmen. Other churches insisted on
well-trained men from European schools. Methodism,
having no such resources, organized training classes
on the field and taught its men at the plow. Such were
the conditions.
Time, 1784; place, Baltimore; a plain meetinghouse
with stiff benches; 60 preachers in Conference; an
independent Church, with a name, an episcopacy, a
ministry, the sacraments, a practical system, a
doctrinal standard, a ritual. Such was the
organization. What has been the growth?
A growth of 2,900,000 in 134 years and of 2,835,000 in
the past century. The 65,000 has added to itself
nearly 44 times. The average annual gain has been
28,350.
The percentage of increase is 4,362. If the population
of the country had increased in this period at the
same rate, it would now be 232,000,000 instead of
76,300,000.
But the gains of the Methodist Episcopal Church have
been only a part of the gains of Methodism. Include
all branches since 1834, and we have:
The 65,000 has repeated itself about 91 times, or once
every 13 months during the last century. The
percentage of gain is 8,977. If the population had
increased at the same rate it would now be 476,000,000
instead of 76,300,000. The average annual gain has
been 58,350.
The gain in preachers in the Methodist Episcopal
Church is indicated as follows:
The gain for the century is 17,413. The 287 have been
multiplied by 62; average annual gain, 174.
The beginning in a sail loft in 1766, the erection
shortly afterward of a church costing $3,000, gave no
more promise of ecclesiastical wealth than it did of
growth in membership. Our 27,000 churches, worth
$116,000,000, show a development of resources as
wonderful as a miracle. It takes now between
$23,000,000 and $24,000,000 a year to carry on the
work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to say nothing
about its universities, colleges, and hospitals. The
consecration of wealth is truly stupendous. Methodists
have not been stingy.
Methodism was ninth among Protestant denominations in
number of churches in 1775, and third in number of
communicants in 1800. It soon advanced to first place
in numbers, and easily holds this place at the end of
the century. It was only a handful of corn on the top
of the mountains at the beginning. How wonderfully has
God multiplied it!
It is pertinent to ask, How did it win its success?
Not by immigration, as many other Churches did. Roman
Catholics came here from Europe by hundreds of
thousands. The Lutheran, Reformed German, and
Presbyterian Churches gained immensely by the streams
of immigration. But Methodists and Baptists have
grown out of American soil and drawn their chief
strength from the surrounding elements.
Not by proselytism. We have lost hundreds of thousands
of converts; we have gained comparatively few in
return from the denominations we have fed. We would
like to hold all who are converted at our altars, but
we do not feel that our losses have impoverished us,
though they have enriched our neighbors.
Not because of wealth, social prestige, ecclesiastical
antiquity, or what an historian calls "the aristocracy
of education and position." Other Churches had these;
we began with nothing but a needy field and earnest
men, full of the Holy Ghost and flaming with zeal for
the Gospel.
Not by our machinery and methods. These were powerful,
even providential, aids; but if we ever come to depend
on these alone Methodism will be a great system of
enginery, with wheels, pulleys, cogs, and joints, all
silent and inert, because the boilers are cold. It was
not our itinerancy, our class meetings, our
Conferences, or our methods which gave us success.
Our hosts have been won, by the power of the Gospel
manifested in a real, religious experience, from the
vast classes of unconverted persons. We have regarded
these, wherever we found them, as legitimate prey. We
count it a special honor that our millions are
trophies won for Christ from the masses of godless,
indifferent, unconverted persons. The late Dr. John
Hall once said that he specially honored the Methodist
Church for the importance it attaches to conversion.
The power of Methodism is spiritual in its nature.
I do not believe a greater boon could be asked for our
Church in the twentieth century than that it might
continue to regard it as its special task to call men
and women to repentance and insist upon an experience
such as our fathers enjoyed and we profess.
When John Wesley lay dying in 1791 there were only four Methodist
schools in England--three small ones at London, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and
Bristol, and the Kingswood School, near Bristol. The latter is still
doing most excellent work at Bath. English Methodism has no university
or college empowered to grant degrees. It sadly lacks secondary schools.
The Leys School at Cambridge is its nearest approach to a reputable
American college. But it has a good share in the elementary education of
the people. Colonial Methodism excels in respect to secondary and higher
education. Of American Methodism in general, and of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in particular, it may be said, in this respect, "Many
daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." Whilst
some of our colleges are somewhat prophetic, yet the long list of our
institutions and the honorable records they have made place us in the
front rank of American educators. It has been well said that "The
Methodist Episcopal Church began the century with the ashes of one
college." In 1900 it had 56 colleges and universities, 60 academies and
seminaries, 8 institutions exclusively for women, 4 missionary
institutions and training schools, 25 schools of theology, and 99
foreign mission schools--228 in all. These schools have more than 3,000
instructors, and about 50,000 students. The total value of property and
endowment is about $30,000,000. "The Board of Education" in 1873 began
its noble work of placing the first steps to these institutions very
near to the feet of any young man or woman who has the ability to climb
them, whether a Methodist or not. President Warren, of Boston
University, puts our educational work in the strongest possible light,
and in the briefest space, thus: "The Banner Church in Education."
That the Methodist Episcopal Church is indeed "the banner Church in
education" the following facts bear witness:
From 1784, the year of its organization, to 1884, the Methodist
Episcopal Church established 225 classical seminaries and colleges; in
other words, established a classical seminary or college every fifth
month through a hundred toilsome years. No other organization in human
history ever made so honorable a record in the higher education, or was
entitled to celebrate so jubilant a centennial. If we go back through
the stormy period of the Revolution to the first feeble beginnings of
American Methodism in 1766, we must add to the above-mentioned 225
institutions belonging to the Church the 58 known schools of more
private ownership, to get the true aggregate of Methodist institutions
for the higher education, namely, 283, a little more than one for every
fifth month through the first 118 years of our existence as a Church,
infancy included.
Is it not time to bury the ancient allegation that the early Methodists
were indifferent or hostile to learning? If the long-standing slander
must live on to the end of time, let us once in a hundred years lift it
gently into the pillory of ecumenical publicity and placard it as an
instructive example of immortal mendacity.
CONCLUSION.
What shall we now say of universal Methodism?
Of the millions reached by her ministry we have heard. The sun never
sets on her domain, for it is "from the rivers to the ends of the
earth." Her people are found in every land and are at home in every
zone. "All climates embrace them--the winters of Hudson's Bay, and the
sun-scorched plains of India. The Pacific waves break upon their shores,
and peaks crowned with eternal snow shadow their dwellings." As she
enters upon the twentieth century there should be no "wrinkle upon her
brow, no haze in her vision, no stoop to her form, no halt to her step,
giving signs of wasted energy or declining vigor;" and this will be her
history if the anointing of her founder abides upon her. Her sanctuaries
will be Bethesdas, and her prayer meetings Bethels. "She will gather in
the street Arab, and send missionaries to Orient fields of toil and
death." Her doctrines will be as when Wesley died; her philanthropy as
broad, her relations to other churches as catholic, as when he said,
"The world is my parish."
Methodism is to be the friend of all and the enemy of none. So long as
she maintains her power the world needs her, and she will not perish. So
long as she believes in conversion, and effectually preaches it, she
will not perish. So long as she believes in holiness of heart, and
proclaims it "clearly, strongly, and explicitly," she will not perish.
So long as she believes in the Holy Ghost and the baptism of fire, and
possesses it in its fullness, she will not perish, but will go forth all
aglow with the "dew of her youth bright as the sun, fair as the moon,
and terrible as an army with banners." She has the true doctrine and a
flexible economy; now let her cultivate the spirit and maintain the
tireless energy of her founders, and doctrines and Church shall be the
doctrines and Church of the future, even till Christ comes.
"When he first the work begun,
Small and feeble was his day:
Now the word doth swiftly run;
Now it wins its widening way:
More and more it spreads and grows,
Ever mighty to prevail;
Sin's strongholds it now o'erthrows,
Shakes the trembling gates of hell."
FOOTNOTES:
[A] _Some Heretics of Yesterday_, pp. 294, 295.
[B] _Wesley Family_, vol. i, p. 65.
[C] _Life of Wesley_, pp. 24, 25.
[D] _The Christian Advocate._
[E] _Works_, vol. ii, p. 24.
[F] _Works_, vol. vi, p. 718.
[G] _Ibid._, p. 525.
[H] _Sermons_, vol. ii, p. 50.
[I] Wesley's _Notes_ on 1 Cor. 15.
[J] _Works_, vol. i, p. 454.
[K] _Notes_ on Matt. 25. 41.
[L] _Some Heretics of Yesterday_, p. 300.
[M] Wesley's _Works_, vol. 1, p. 344.
[N] _Works_, vol. vi, p. 746.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Page 63, "Oglethrope" changed to "Oglethorpe" (reprove General
Oglethorp)
Page 66, "rickerty" changed to "rickety" (rickety old vessel)
Page 77, "pheaching" changed to "preaching" (foolishness of preaching)
Page 78, "aione" changed "alone" (Christ--Christ alone)
Page 136, "that" changed to "than" (sermon than he could)
Page 155, "evanglist" changed to "evangelist" (flaming Methodist
evangelist)
Page 182-183, James Burrill or Burrell both found in text, once each. A
search by the transcriber could not find which spelling was accurate so
this was retained.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Young People's Wesley, by W. McDonald