[255] Wesley’s Works, vol. xi., p. 290.
[256] Manuscript letter.
[257] Wesley’s Works, vol. xi., p. 290.
[258] _Methodist Magazine_, 1824, p. 568.
[259] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., pp. 395-397.
[260] _Methodist Magazine_, 1845, p. 522.
[261] _Methodist Magazine_, 1830, p. 310.
[262] Ibid. 1803, p. 289.
[263] Ibid. 1847, p. 102.
[264] Ibid. 1816, p. 446.
[265] City Road society book.
[266] _Methodist Magazine_, 1823, p. 202.
[267] Ibid. 1827, p. 430.
[268] _Methodist Magazine_, 1832, p. 466.
[269] Ibid. 1837, p. 399.
[270] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 134.
[271] It is a disgraceful fact that Charles Wesley was
buried, not at the expense of the London circuit, but
by private subscription. Nineteen London Methodists
subscribed £10 13_s._ 6_d._, and William Marriott
made up the deficiency of £3 3_s._ The pages in the
old society book, on which this account is written,
were wafered together by four large wafers, doubtless
for the purpose of hiding the shame of the old
Methodists of 1788.
[272] The following was written to Robert Dall, one of
Wesley’s itinerants.
“BANFF, _January 1, 1777_.
“DEAR FATHER IN THE LORD,--The society has been
stationary ever since you left us. We are often
neglected. Lately we had only one visit in eight
weeks. Mr. Wesley was here on the 20th of May last,
and preached on the Parade from 2 Corinthians viii.
9. He supped at Lord Banff’s, and next night at
Admiral Gordon’s lady’s house, with a great number
of great ones; and, at their request, he preached
in the English chapel to an elegant and crowded
congregation. We are, etc., WILLIAM AND ISABEL
MCPHERSON.” (Manuscript letter.)
[273] Manuscript.
[274] Taylor’s manuscript journals.
[275] John Crook’s original copy.
[276] Manuscript letter.
[277] _Methodist Magazine_, 1808, p. 103.
[278] _Methodist Magazine_, 1842, p. 136.
[279] _Gospel Magazine_, 1776, p. 475.
[280] Jackson’s Life of C. Wesley, vol. ii., p. 283.
1777.
Age 74
Wesley was always full of work. He began the year 1777 with a course of
lectures on the book of Ecclesiastes, and says: “I never before had so
clear a sight either of the meaning or the beauties of it; neither did
I imagine, that the several parts of it were, in so exquisite a manner,
connected together; all tending to prove that grand truth, that there
is no happiness out of God.”
He also spent an hour every morning with his London preachers, Messrs.
Jaco, Hindmarsh, Murlin, Pilmoor, Atlay, Bradford, and Olivers, in
instructing them as he used to instruct his Oxford pupils, and in
promoting their piety.
He likewise begun visiting the society, many of whom he found in the
deepest poverty, and writes: “O why do not all the rich that fear God
constantly visit the poor? Can they spend part of their spare time
better? Certainly not: so they will find in that day, when ‘every man
shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.’”
To his surprise, he once more preached in a London church--Allhallows;
and says: “I found great liberty of spirit; and the congregation seemed
to be much affected. How is this? Do I yet please men? Is the offence
of the cross ceased? It seems, after being scandalous near fifty years,
I am at length growing into an honourable man.”
At the beginning of the month of February, he hurried off to Bristol,
to quiet some of the society, who were in danger of becoming
disaffected towards government; and preached from, “Put them in mind
to be subject to principalities and powers.” Finding that there had
been repeated attempts to fire the city, he preached again, taking as
his text, “Is there any evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done
it?” He also wrote and published, “A Calm Address to the Inhabitants
of England”: 12mo, 23 pages. He states, that a year and a half ago,
from fifty to a hundred thousand copies of his “Calm Address to the
American Colonies” had been dispersed, and the effect had exceeded
his most sanguine hopes. This encouraged him now to address “the
inhabitants of _Old England_.” He then gives an account of the rise and
progress of the American rebellion, tracing it back as far as the year
1737. He proceeds to state that, after bawling for liberty, no liberty
was left in the confederate provinces of America; the liberty of the
press, religious liberty, and civil liberty were nonentities. The lords
of the congress were as absolute as the emperor of Morocco; whereas, in
England, the fullest liberty was enjoyed, “both as to religion, life,
body, and goods.” He tells the Methodists that, though many, who go
under that name, hate the king and all his ministers, only less than
they hate an Arminian, he would no more continue in fellowship with
those that were connected with him, if they did this, than he would
continue in fellowship “with whoremongers, or sabbath breakers, or
thieves, or drunkards, or common swearers.”
The whole tract is written in his most pungent style; and, whatever
may be thought of the wisdom of Wesley’s politics, all must admire his
devoted loyalty. Of course, like his “Calm Address to the American
Colonies,” it stirred a nest of hornets. Almost immediately, there was
published, in the _Gospel Magazine_, a poem reviling him in unmeasured
terms. He is represented as “spitting venom, spite, and rage”; “Father
Johnny” is accused of telling “barefaced lies,” and is thus admonished
in the last two lines:
“O think of this, thou grey haired sinner,
Ere Satan pick thy bones for dinner.”
Wesley returned to London on February 8, and, a week later, fulfilled
a painful duty. For more than twenty years, Dr. Dodd had been one of
the most popular preachers in the metropolis. When at the zenith of his
fame, he, in 1774, sent an anonymous letter to Lady Apsley, offering
£3000 if she would prevail with her husband, the lord chancellor, to
appoint him to the valuable rectory of St. George’s, Hanover Square,
which was then vacant. The writer was detected, and, as a consequence,
was struck out of the list of royal chaplains, was assailed with bitter
invectives by the press, and was severely ridiculed by Foote, in a
farce, entitled “The Cozeners.” Withdrawing from England, where he
had now become an object of contempt, he, for a time, found an asylum
at Geneva, with his former pupil, Lord Chesterfield. On his return to
this country, he became editor of a newspaper, and then a bankrupt. In
1776, he visited France, and, with little regard to decency, appeared
in a phaeton at the races on the plains of Sablons, dressed in all the
foppery of the country in which he then resided. Strange to say, he
was still popular, as a preacher, at the Magdalen, in London, where
he delivered his last discourse on February 2, 1777, from the ominous
text: “And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall
the sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord shall give thee there a
trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind; and thy life
shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and
shalt have none assurance of thy life.”
Only two days afterwards, he forged the name of Lord Chesterfield to
a bond for £4200, on the security of which he obtained a considerable
loan. Detection speedily ensued; and, before the month was ended, he
was arrested, tried at the Old Bailey, and was convicted. The crime
was forgery; the penalty was death. For four months, the unhappy
culprit was kept in prison. His friends were indefatigable, in their
endeavours, to obtain a commutation of his punishment. Even the city
of London, in its corporate capacity, earnestly solicited that his
sentence might not be carried into effect. Dr. Johnson, with his
weighty pen, tried to arouse popular feeling in his favour, alleging
that petitions for clemency had been signed by above thirty thousand
people, and that justice might reasonably be satisfied with his
imprisonment, infamy, exile, penury, and ruin. All was of no avail; and
on June 26 the great preacher died a felon’s death by the hands of the
common hangman.
In the days of his prosperity, Dodd had been in the ranks of Wesley’s
enemies; and, more than once, had reviled him, his people, and his
creed; and, yet, strange to tell, no sooner was he incarcerated for his
crime, than he sent for Wesley to visit him. The latter writes: “1777,
February 15--At the third message, I took up my cross, and went to see
Dr. Dodd, in the Compter. I was greatly surprised. He seemed, though
deeply affected, yet thoroughly resigned to the will of God. Mrs. Dodd,
likewise, behaved with the utmost propriety. I doubt not, God will
bring good out of this evil.” “February 18--I visited him again, and
found him still in a desirable state of mind; calmly giving himself up
to whatsoever God should determine concerning him.”
Both Wesley and his brother had always evinced an almost unequalled
interest in the welfare of imprisoned convicts; but, remembering past
treatment from this popular, but now incarcerated, preacher, and also
remembering the terrible scandal which he had brought upon Christ’s
religion, no wonder that Wesley felt it a _cross_ to visit him. Wesley,
however, was not the man to shun a duty because it happened to be
painful; and there can be no doubt that, if his itinerant engagements
had not taken him away from London, the gloom of the convict’s cell
would often have been relieved, during the next four months, by
Wesley’s presence.
Wesley had never even seen Dr. Dodd, either in public or in private,
until he saw him in Wood Street compter, a few days before his removal
to Newgate to take his trial. “Sir,” said the prisoner, “I have long
desired to see you; but I little thought, that our first interview
would be in such a place as this.” “We conversed,” says Wesley, “about
an hour; he spoke of nothing but his soul, and appeared to regard
nothing in comparison of it.” At the second interview, Wesley spent
half an hour with the poor wretched man. “Sir,” said he, “do not you
find it difficult to preserve your recollection, amidst all these
lawyers and witnesses?” Dodd answered: “It is difficult; but I have one
sure hold: ‘Lord, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’” The third visit
was after his sentence had been passed. Wesley writes: “He conversed
about an hour; but had not one word about any but spiritual things. I
found his mind still quiet and composed; sorrowing, but not without
hope.” Two days before the execution, Wesley went again. “Sir,” said
he, “I think you do not ask enough, or expect enough, from God your
Saviour. The _present_ blessing, you may expect from Him, is to be
filled with all joy, as well as peace in believing.” “O sir,” replied
the doctor, “it is not for such a sinner as I am to expect any joy in
this world. The utmost I can desire is peace; and, through the mercy of
God, that I have.” Wesley adds: “We then spent a little time in prayer,
and I solemnly commended him to God. He was exactly in such a temper
as I wished. He never, at any time, expressed the least murmuring or
resentment at any one; but entirely and calmly gave himself up to the
will of God. Such a prisoner I scarce ever saw before; much less, such
a condemned malefactor.”
This was Wesley’s last interview. Two days later, the once famous Dr.
Dodd was hanged, Wesley expressing the firm belief, that angels took
him from the gallows to the paradise of God.[281]
Perhaps more space has been devoted to Dr. Dodd than some may think
fitting; but, remembering the positions occupied respectively by
Dodd and Wesley,--the one the most popular and fashionable preacher
that London had, and the other an outcast clergyman, who, for
eight-and-thirty years, had been reviled in every form that malice
and ingenuity could devise,--it was no slight fact, that, as soon as
Dodd was face to face with death, the man he sent for was, not one of
his old associates, lay or clerical, but the man who had been, and
still was, the butt of national persecution, and whom he himself in
the days of his prosperity had treated disrespectfully. Dr. Dodd, when
he most needed them, had more faith in Wesley’s counsels and Wesley’s
prayers than he had in the counsels and prayers of those whom he had
been accustomed to call his friends. His confidence was not misplaced.
Wesley did his best; Wesley’s brother poured forth the feelings of his
heart in “A Prayer for Dr. Dodd under Condemnation”; and Miss Bosanquet
wrote to the poor prisoner not a few of her Christian letters. The
result was, Dodd, on the very day of Wesley’s final visit, thus
addressed his lady correspondent: “My dear Friend,--On Friday morning I
am to be made immortal! I die with a heart truly contrite, and broken
under a sense of its great and manifold offences, but comforted and
sustained by a firm faith in the pardoning love of Jesus Christ.”[282]
On the 10th of March, Wesley left London on a seventeen days’ preaching
tour to Bristol and back again. This was the year for his pastoral
visitation in the north; but, he writes, “I cannot be long absent” from
London, “while the new chapel is building.” In fact, Wesley became so
interested in his great building scheme, that he was tempted to turn
architect himself. “It seems,” says he in a letter to Miss Ball, of
Wycombe, dated March 13, 1777, “it seems, the time is come, that you
are to have a more commodious preaching house at High Wycombe. I will
give you a plan of the building myself; and employ whom you please to
build.”[283] After all, the Methodists at Wycombe might have had a
worse architect than Wesley.
Ten days were spent in London, and, it being Easter time, Wesley
writes: “During the octave, I administered the Lord’s supper every
morning, after the example of the primitive church.” On Sunday, April
6, he set out on his northern journey, making collections, as he went,
for his London chapel. When he had got only as far as Lancashire, he
was obliged to return to London to lay the foundation stone on April
21. A week later, he took coach for Newcastle upon Tyne. Here he spent
four days, and then again turned his face southward; and, preaching all
the way, reached the metropolis on the 17th of May.
Having met the building committee, which was his chief business in
London, and having, with his brother, visited Dr. Dodd, he, a third
time, started north on Sunday, May 25. He now hurried on to Whitehaven,
and paid his first visit to the Isle of Man, where he spent the first
three days in the month of June, and says: “A more loving, simple
hearted people than this I never saw; and no wonder; for they have but
six papists, and no Dissenters, in the island.”
Here he met with the Rev. E. and Mrs. Smyth, the former a clergyman
from Ireland, and the latter a young wife of twenty-two. Mr. Smyth
had been ejected from his curacy for preaching the doctrines of the
Methodists, and especially for daring to reprove “the great man of
the parish” for living the life of an adulterer. Expelled from the
Established Church, he began to preach wherever he had a chance, and
became more extensively useful than ever. Though the nephew of an
archbishop, his home was a thatched cabin, and his trials not a few.
Hearing that Wesley was about to visit the Isle of Man, Mr. Smyth and
his wife came to meet him. Wesley received them with his customary
kindness, and, during their stay, met with a misadventure, which is
worth relating. He writes: “I set out for Douglas in the one-horse
chaise, Mrs. Smyth riding with me. In about an hour, in spite of all I
could do, the headstrong horse ran the wheel against a large stone: the
chaise overset in a moment; but we fell so gently on the smooth grass,
that neither of us was hurt at all.”
Such is Wesley’s account; Mrs. Smyth’s reflects on Wesley’s
charioteering capabilities. “He told me,” she writes, “when we got into
the carriage, that he could drive a chaise forty years ago; but, poor
dear man! his hand seemed out of practice, as I thought we should be
overturned several times. At last, one of the wheels being mounted on
one side of a ditch, we were both pitched out on a green plain, as the
Lord in mercy ordered it; for had we been overset in some parts of the
road, it is more than probable we should have been killed on the spot. I
found no bad effects from the fall at the time; but the next morning I
was scarce able to stir, and felt so sore and bruised that I thought it
likely I should lay my bones in the churchyard at Douglas.”[284]
We shall meet with Mr. and Mrs. Smyth again; suffice it to add, that,
immediately after preaching at Douglas, Wesley set sail for England;
and, a few days after, his newly acquired friends went back to Ireland,
while he himself went on his way to London. In his progress, he, for
the first time, preached at Settle, where Methodism had recently been
introduced by John Read, a poor clogger, and where one of the first
members was Edward Slater, who became Wesley’s coachman.[285]
Wesley proceeded to Otley, where Miss Ritchie, apparently, was dying;
to Bradford, where William Brammah, one of Wesley’s weakest preachers,
had been amazingly useful; to Birstal and Huddersfield, where thousands
upon thousands assembled to hear him; and to Colne, where, as soon as
he entered the pulpit, the left hand gallery of the chapel fell, with
nearly two hundred persons in it.
William Sagar, a young man not then in business for himself, had
been the principal promoter of this erection, and had made himself
responsible for the payment of the cost. When the walls were half
way up, the workmen became clamorous for their wages; and Mr. Sagar
unfortunately was without funds; but, two or three days afterwards,
a gentleman, unsolicited, offered to lend him the money needed. One
trouble was got over, but another was yet to come. When the ill fated
chapel was ready for the roof, a gale of wind blew down the western
gable, and shook the entire edifice to its foundations. And now,
to crown the whole, through the malevolence of a carpenter who had
purposely cut the timbers too short, down fell the left hand gallery;
and, though no lives were lost, yet not a few of the people had their
limbs broken, and were otherwise severely injured.[286]
It was at this period that Colne was made the head of what Thomas
Taylor called “a snug circuit”; though the circuit embraced the entire
region constituting the Todmorden, Bacup, Haslingden, Blackburn,
Burnley, Preston, Garstang, Lancaster, Clitheroe, and Padiham circuits
of the present day. Taylor was the assistant of the circuit before it
was made so _snug_, and was Wesley’s companion at the time of the Colne
catastrophe. In his voluminous unpublished diary, he tells us, that at
Otley, Wesley not only preached, but made a collection for his London
chapel; at Bingley, he preached in the parish church; at Keighley,
after preaching, Wesley stood on one side of the path and Taylor on the
other, and, with their hats in their hands, collected upwards of £7 for
the new chapel in City Road; at Colne, Taylor was with Wesley in the
pulpit when the gallery fell. He writes: “Oh, what a scene ensued. The
dismal shrieks of those whose limbs were broken, or who were otherwise
injured, and the cries of the women for their children, were terrible.
Happily no lives were lost, and much less damage done than might have
been expected. As soon as the confusion was abated, Mr. Wesley preached
out of doors; but the catastrophe prevented many from hearing.”[287]
Wesley proceeded to Derby, where, strangely enough, another accident
occurred, which might have been as serious as that at Colne. An hour
before the congregation assembled in the chapel, part of the roof fell
in; the people, however, rushed to hear, despite the doubtful state of
the flimsy edifice; and, among others permanently benefited by Wesley’s
ministry, was Catherine Spencer, who, for sixty-four years, adorned her
religious profession by “a meek and quiet spirit,” and who died at the
age of eighty-six, in 1843.[288]
Wesley got back to London on June 21, and, a week later, wrote: “June
28--I have now completed my seventy-fourth year, and, by the peculiar
favour of God, I find my health and strength, and all my faculties of
body and mind, just the same as they were at four-and-twenty.”
A man, on his birthday, frequently reviews the past, sifts the present,
and reflects upon the future. At this period Wesley wrote as follows to
his legal friend, Walter Churchey, of Brecon, the birthplace of Thomas
Coke.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,--At present, I am very safe; for I am a good
many pounds, if not scores of pounds, worse than nothing. In my
will, I bequeath no money but what may happen to be in my
pocket when I die.
“Dr. Coke promises fair, and gives us reason to hope, that he
will, bring forth, not only blossoms, but fruit. He has
hitherto behaved exceeding well, and seems to be aware of his
grand enemy--applause. He will likewise be in danger from
offence. If you are acquainted with him, a friendly letter
might be of use, and would be taken kindly. He now stands on
slippery ground, and is in need of every help.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[289]
Having spent nine days in London, Wesley set out, on June 30, on
a preaching tour which occupied the whole of the ensuing month.
Proceeding by way of Buckingham, he visited Oxford, Witney, Stroud,
Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Worcester, Malvern; and then passed through
Wales to Bristol, which he reached on July 28.
Here, on August 5, he opened his annual conference, and writes:
“As the report had been spread far and wide, I now particularly
inquired of every assistant, ‘Have you reason to believe, from
your own observation, that the Methodists are a fallen people?
Is there a decay or an increase in the work of God where you
have been? Are the societies in general more dead, or more
alive to God, than they were some years ago?’ The almost
universal answer was: ‘If we must know them by their fruits,
there is no decay in the work of God among the people in
general. The societies are not dead to God: they are as much
alive as they have been for many years. And we look on this
report as a mere device of Satan, to make our hands hang down.’
“‘But how can this question be decided?’ You can judge no
further than you see. You cannot judge of one part by another;
and none but myself has an opportunity of seeing the Methodists
throughout the three kingdoms.
“But to come to a short issue. In most places, the Methodists
are still a poor, despised people, labouring under reproach,
and many inconveniences; therefore, wherever the power of God
is not, they decrease. By this then, you may form a sure
judgment. Do the Methodists in general decrease in number? Then
they decrease in grace; they are a fallen, or, at least, a
falling people. But they do not decrease in number; they
continually increase; therefore, they are not a fallen people.”
These are weighty words. They show Wesley’s deep anxiety to maintain
the genuine character of the work in which he was engaged; and the test
which he instituted was, unquestionably, under existing circumstances,
logical and conclusive.
The principal propagator of the report, that the Methodists were a
fallen people, was John Hilton, who, for thirteen years, had been an
itinerant preacher. Dr. Stevens calls him “an honest but weak headed
man.” This is scarcely correct. Leaving his honesty an open question,
John Hilton, judged by his publications, was far from being “weak
headed.” Wesley says: “He told us he must withdraw from our connexion.
Some would have reasoned with him, but it was lost labour; so we let
him go in peace.” Hilton was no sooner gone, than he turned author,
and, in 1778, besides an octavo pamphlet of 32 pages, entitled, “The
Deplorable State of Man,” he issued “Reasons for Quitting the Methodist
Society; being a Defence of Barclay’s Apology;” 8vo, 66 pages. Dated,
“Melksham, 3rd month, 28th day, 1778.” He tells his readers, that, “a
year ago, Barclay’s Apology converted him to the principles of the
quakers;” and a broadbrimmed quaker John Hilton henceforwards was. Both
his pamphlets are written in a plain, good, nervous style, and show,
that, in point of education and mental power, he was much superior
to the mass of Wesley’s itinerants.[290] Hilton was not without
talent; but like most who think themselves more religious than their
neighbours, he was sour and censorious. “What I have lamented in him,
for some years,” wrote Wesley, in a letter, dated October 22, 1777, “is
an aptness to condemn and despise his brethren. There is no failing
more infectious than this; and it is much if you did not catch a little
of it from him; otherwise you would hardly say, ‘the body of Methodists
are degenerated.’ You cannot possibly judge whether they are or not.
Perhaps you converse with one or two hundred of them. Now allowing two
thirds of these to be degenerated, can you infer the same concerning
thirty or forty thousand? Yet this I will allow, two thirds of those
who are grown rich are greatly degenerated. They do not, will not,
save all they can, in order to give all they can; and, without doing
this, they _cannot grow in grace_, nay, they constantly grieve the Holy
Spirit of God.”[291]
Thomas Taylor was at the conference of 1777, and tells us that, on the
conference Sunday, the morning service, in the Broadmead chapel, lasted
from half-past nine till nearly one o’clock; that, at five in the
afternoon, Wesley preached to a large and serious crowd out of doors,
and afterwards, in a full society meeting, “expatiated upon the rules,
and said many useful things.” He preached again in the evening of the
first day of conference, but not longer than twenty minutes. On August
7, Taylor writes: “that great and good man Mr. Fletcher came into
conference. My eyes flowed with tears at the sight of him. He spoke to
us in a very respectful manner, and took a solemn farewell. Dear, good
man! I never saw so many tears shed in all my life.”[292]
Fletcher had sought health at Stoke Newington; but was now the guest of
Mr. Ireland, of Bristol. Benson, his fellow sufferer in the Trevecca
troubles, writes: “We have had an edifying conference. Mr. Fletcher’s
visits have been attended with a blessing. His appearance, his
exhortations, and his prayers, broke most of our hearts, and filled us
with shame and self abasement for our little improvement.”[293]
This was a memorable scene. Fletcher, emaciated, feeble, and ghostlike,
entered the conference leaning on the arm of his host, Mr. Ireland. In
an instant, the whole assembly stood up, and Wesley advanced to meet
his almost seraphic friend. The apparently dying man began to address
the brave itinerants, and, before he had uttered a dozen sentences,
one and all were bathed in tears. Wesley, fearing that Fletcher was
speaking too much, abruptly knelt at his side and began to pray. Down
fell the whole of Wesley’s preachers, and joined in the devotion of
their great leader. The burden of Wesley’s supplication was, that his
friend might be spared to labour a little longer; and this petition
was urged with such fervency and faith, that, at last, Wesley closed
by exclaiming with a confidence and an emphasis which seemed to thrill
every heart: “He shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the
Lord.”[294]
The event verified Wesley’s words; for though the pilgrim was already
walking on the margin of the river of death, and had heaven’s own
sunshine shining on him, it was not until eight years after that he
passed the gates of the celestial city.
At the conference of 1776, it was reported, that there were 3148
Methodists in America; in the minutes of 1777, America is not
mentioned. Still, American Methodism was not dead. “I have just
received two letters from New York,” writes Wesley on January 11,
1777. “They inform me, that all the Methodists there are firm for the
government, and, on that account, persecuted by the rebels, only not to
the death; that the preachers are still threatened, but not stopped;
and, that the work of God increases much in Maryland and Virginia.”[295]
The war was raging with terrific violence; and some of the preachers,
as Mr. Rodda, were not so wise, politically speaking, as seemed
desirable: but, despite all this, Methodism actually spread and
prospered. Thomas Rankin, George Shadford, and others thought of
fleeing from the field of conflict; and it was only by Asbury’s
solicitation, that they were induced to stay awhile longer. The
baptists too became a hindrance. “Like ghosts,” says Asbury, “they
haunt us from place to place.” Wesley’s political tracts also were a
serious stumbling block.[296] A Methodist backslider enlisted three
hundred men for the British army, was arrested, and hanged as a rebel
against the government of his country.[297] Even peaceful, prudent, and
loyal Francis Asbury was fined £5 for preaching at Nathan Perrig’s;
and, in October 1777, Rankin and Rodda returned to England, and
Shadford soon after, leaving poor, persecuted, but faithful Asbury the
only one of Wesley’s itinerants that now remained at the post of duty,
and preaching peace to the people by Jesus Christ.
And here let us pause to say, that a grander specimen of a Christian
apostle than Francis Asbury the world has never had. Much as we
revere the memory of Wesley, we regard Asbury with an almost equal
veneration. Among the self denying, laborious, Christian ministers of
the past eighteen hundred years, we believe, that Francis Asbury has
no superiors, and but few that can be considered equals. And yet, how
little does the church catholic, indeed, how little does the Methodist
section of it, know concerning this great and grand, because good, old
man!
The son of peasant parents, Asbury began to preach in Staffordshire,
while yet a boy seventeen years of age; and, in 1771, came to Bristol
to embark for America, without a single penny in his pocket. His first
text in America was in perfect harmony with the forty-five years he
spent in wandering through its woods and prairies: “I determined not
to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” As
early as 1776, he made it a rule, besides travelling and preaching,
to read a hundred pages daily, and to spend three hours out of every
twenty-four in private prayer. Cabins of the most miserable description
were, in thousands of instances, his happy homes; and often, when
his horse cast a shoe in the wide wilderness, in the absence of a
blacksmith’s shop, this grand old bishop of the American Methodists
would make a piece of a bull’s hide, bound about his horse’s foot,
serve in the place of iron. His daily rides were often from thirty to
fifty miles, over mountains and swamps, through bridgeless rivers and
pathless woods, his horse frequently weary and lame, and he himself
wet, cold, and hungry. For forty-five years, when steamboats, stage
coaches, railways, and almost roads, were utterly unknown, Asbury
made a tour of the American states, travelling never less than five
thousand, and often more than six thousand, miles a year, and this
generally on horseback; climbing mountains; creeping down declivities;
winding along valleys, whose only inhabitants were birds, wild beasts,
and Indians; crossing extended prairies without a companion and without
a guide; fording foaming rivers; and wading through the most dangerous
swamps, where one false step might have engulfed him in a boggy grave.
Usually, he preached at least once every week day, and thrice every
Sunday; delivering, during his ministry in America, more than twenty
thousand sermons. His custom was to pray with every family on whom
he called in his wide journeyings; and if, as sometimes happened, he
spent more days than one in some hospitable dwelling, he was wont to
have household prayer as often as there were household meals, and to
allow no visitor to come or go, without asking, on his knees, that
God would bless him. Besides an unknown number of camp meetings and
quarterly meetings, this venerable man attended and presided over
seven conferences, widely separate, every year; and, during the
same space of time, wrote to his preachers and his friends, upon an
average, about a thousand letters. For this enormous service, his
episcopal salary was sixty-four dollars yearly and his travelling
expenses. Early educational advantages he had none. Most of his life
was spent on horseback, in extemporised pulpits, or in log cabins
crowded with talking men and noisy women, bawling children, and barking
dogs,--cabins which he was obliged to make his offices and studies,
and where, with benumbed fingers, frozen ink, impracticable pens, and
rumpled paper, he had to write his sermons, his journals, and his
letters. Not unfrequently did he, like others, suffer from the malaria
of a new, uncultivated country; and had headaches, toothaches, chills,
fevers, and sore throats, for his travelling companions. And yet,
despite all this, Francis Asbury was by no means an unlettered man. He
became proficient in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; read the Scriptures in
the tongues in which they were originally written; was acquainted with
several branches of polite literature; kept abreast with the history
of his times; and, although not an orator, was a dignified, eloquent,
and impressive preacher. Thin, tall, and remarkably clean and neat,--in
a plain drab frock coat, waistcoat, and breeches, a neat stock, and
a broad brimmed, low crowned hat,--this first and greatest Methodist
American bishop rode on horseback till he could ride no longer; and
then might be seen often hopping on crutches, and helped in and out
of his light spring wagon as he still pursued his wide episcopal
wanderings. Thus lived Francis Asbury, until, in 1816, at the age of
threescore years and ten, he died, and was followed to his grave in
Baltimore by about twenty-five thousand of his friends. Before his
death, he solemnly enjoined that no life of him should be published;
and that injunction, to the present, has been substantially observed;
but, if the reader wishes to see his monument, we invite him to step
within the living walls of the present Methodist Episcopal Church of
America, and there, while surveying the grand edifice of spiritual
order and beauty, we ask him, as the inquirer in St. Paul’s cathedral
is asked, to “Look around!”
This was the only one of Wesley’s English itinerants left in America
in 1777; but, though forsaken by his English colleagues, he was not
alone. At this very time, there were fifteen widely spread circuits;
thirty-four itinerant preachers, who had been raised up by Providence
on the spot; and not fewer than 6968 full and accredited members of
society. In other words, though it was only eight years since Wesley’s
conference had sent out Boardman and Pilmoor, there were already more
than one sixth as many Methodists in America as there were, at the
end of thirty-eight years, throughout the whole of England, Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales.[298]
To return to Wesley. After the Bristol conference, he spent a week in
London, during which he drew up proposals for the _Arminian Magazine_,
and met the committee appointed to superintend the building of the new
chapel, which was now ready for the roof.
He then, on August 18, hurried off to Cornwall; and then to Ireland,
where, at Dublin, John Hampson and Samuel Bradburn had expelled
thirty-four members of society, who were so dissatisfied with this
act of imprudent zeal, that Wesley was obliged to go and give the
contending parties a two days’ hearing. On Saturday, October 18, he got
back to London.
The week after, he spent in Oxfordshire. At High Wycombe he meant to
preach, “but good Mr. James had procured a drummer to beat his drum at
the window of the chapel,” and thus, instead of preaching, Wesley could
only pray and sing by turns, during the time allotted for the service.
The next week was occupied in a preaching tour in Northamptonshire; and
the fortnight afterwards in meeting the classes in and around London.
On November 17, he went on a flying visit to Norfolk; and, on the 23rd,
preached in Lewisham church for the benefit of the Humane Society,
which had been established only three years before, by Dr. Cogan and
Dr. Hawes. Here, of course, he was the welcome guest of his old friend,
Mr. Blackwell; and, during his visit, he dined with the celebrated
Dr. Lowth, bishop of London, whose brother had married into Mr.
Blackwell’s family. “His whole behaviour,” writes Wesley, “was worthy
of a Christian bishop; easy, affable, and courteous; and, yet, all his
conversation spoke the dignity which was suitable to his character.”
There is one incident, however, which Wesley, in his modesty, has not
related. On proceeding to dinner, the bishop refused to sit above
Wesley at the table, saying with considerable emotion, “Mr. Wesley, may
I be found at your feet in another world!” Wesley objected to take the
seat of precedence, when the learned prelate obviated the difficulty,
by requesting, as a favour, that Wesley would sit above him, because
his hearing was defective, and he desired not to lose a sentence of
Wesley’s conversation.[299]
The remaining five weeks of the year 1777 were spent, partly in the
three counties of Bedford, Huntingdon, and Hertford; partly at Bath,
where he laid the foundation stone of a new chapel; and partly in
London, where he parted with Fletcher on his way to Switzerland. He
says: “We concluded the old year, and began the new, with prayer and
thanksgiving. Four or five of the local preachers assisted me. I was
agreeably surprised; their manner of praying being so artless and
unlaboured, and yet rational and scriptural, both as to sense and
expression.”
Such was Wesley’s watchnight service at the expiration of 1777;
no preaching, no exhortatory platitudes, but simply prayer and
thanksgiving, offered by himself and a selection of his London local
preachers. Wesley’s successors have not improved on this.
It was during this memorable year, that a society was instituted, which
was ultimately superseded by benevolent societies that yet exist.
Six friends in London met, at each other’s house in rotation, every
Sunday afternoon, for the purpose of singing and prayer only. They
were soon entreated to visit the surrounding sick, and, finding many
of them in deep poverty, began to relieve their wants. To do this,
they found it desirable to provide a fund, by contributing themselves,
and asking contributions of their friends; and shortly a society was
formed, sometimes called “The Willow Walk Society, near Moorfields”;
but more generally and properly, “The united Society for Visiting
and Relieving the Sick.” A few years later, the “Strangers’ Friend
Society” was started. John Gardner, a retired soldier, in his London
visits, met a man in a miserable garret, dying of fistula. He lay on
the floor, covered only with a sack, without shirt, cap, or sheet. The
old soldier felt, as every one must feel, that to visit such cases,
without relieving them, was not worthy of a Christian; and, returning
home, he got fifteen of his Methodist friends to join in a penny a
week subscription for such a purpose. His classleader, jealous of his
class-pence moneys, instead of helping, opposed the scheme. Gardner,
with a soldier’s pluck, was not to be silenced by a subordinate, but
wrote at once to Wesley.
“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--A few of us are subscribing a penny a
week each, which is to be carried on the sabbath by one of
ourselves, who read and pray with the afflicted, who, according
to the rules enclosed, must be poor strangers, having no
parish, or friend at hand to help them. Our benevolent plan is
opposed by my classleader; therefore, we are constrained to
seek your approbation before we proceed. We are very poor, and
our whole stock is not yet twenty shillings: will thank you,
therefore, for any assistance you may please to afford your
very humble servant,
“JOHN GARDNER.”
Wesley was the last man to stifle a project like this; and, hence, his
answer “to Mr. John Gardner, No. 14, in Long Lane, Smithfield,” was as
follows.
“HIGHBURY PLACE, _December 21, 1785_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,--I like the design and rules of your society,
and hope you will do good to many. I will subscribe threepence
a week, and will give a guinea in advance, if any one will call
on me on Saturday morning.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
The scheme was now fairly launched; “Strangers’ Friend societies”
sprung up in Bristol and other places; Wesley drew up their rules in
1790; and wrote thus in his journal: “Sunday, March 14--In the
morning, I met the strangers’ society, instituted wholly for the
relief, not of our society, but for poor, sick, friendless strangers.
I do not know, that I ever heard or read of such an institution till
within a few years ago. So this also is one of the fruits of
Methodism.”[300]
Such then was the origin of the present “Strangers’ Friend Society,”
which, until lately, was patronised by royalty, and which employed, in
1868, three hundred and fifty-two voluntary, unpaid agents in its work
of Christian benevolence; these good Samaritans, during the same year,
paying 32,460 visits, relieving 6577 cases of distress, and, besides
blankets, flannels, and cast off garments, distributing £1926 14_s._ in
ameliorating the miseries of “the destitute sick poor, without
distinction of sect or country, at their own habitations.”
Considering Wesley’s wide wanderings, his daily preaching, his
supervision of societies, and his multifarious correspondence, to say
nothing of his publication of tracts and books, the reader wonders how
an old man managed to keep the thousand wheels of his vast machinery
in motion; and, yet, in the midst of what to others would have been an
unceasing and worrying bustle, he was almost as tranquil as a hermit.
The following extract from a letter, dated December 10, 1777, is racy
and unique.
“You do not understand my manner of life. Though I am always in
haste, I am never in a hurry; because I never undertake any
more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of
spirit. It is true, I travel four or five thousand miles in a
year; but I generally travel alone in my carriage, and,
consequently, am as retired ten hours in a day as if I was in a
wilderness. On other days, I never spend less than three hours,
frequently ten or twelve in the day, alone. So there are few
persons in the kingdom who spend so many hours secluded from
all company. Yet I find time to visit the sick and the poor;
and I must do it, if I believe the Bible, if I believe these
are the marks whereby the Shepherd of Israel will know and
judge His sheep at the great day. Therefore, when there are
time and opportunity for it, who can doubt, but this is a
matter of absolute duty? When I was at Oxford, and lived almost
like a hermit, I saw not how any busy man could be saved. I
scarce thought it possible for a man to retain the Christian
spirit, amidst the noise and bustle of the world. God taught me
better by my own experience. I had ten times more business in
America (that is, at intervals) than ever I had in my life; but
it was no hindrance to silence of spirit.”[301]
Wesley’s incessant labours were not the only thing likely to perturb
a human spirit. As usual, he was still the subject of acrimonious
persecution. In his sermon at the laying of the foundation stone of
the chapel in City Road, he gave a history of the rise and progress
of Methodism, in which he stated, that Whitefield, by conversing with
Dissenters, contracted strong prejudices against the Church, and that
this led him to separate himself from Wesley and his brother. He also
noticed the secession of Ingham from the Church; and the setting up
of the college at Trevecca, which was really a school for training
Dissenting ministers. His object, in all this, was to show that, though
large numbers of reputed Methodists had left the Church, he and his
societies still remained faithful, and were not deserving of the taunt
of having formed a distinct party. “We do not,” says he, “we will not,
form any separate sect, but, from principle, remain, what we always
have been, true members of the Church of England.”
Whether Wesley was strictly correct in this will admit of doubt;
but, unquestionably, he believed it to be the truth; and, as might
be expected, it aroused the anger of his quondam friends. Rowland
Hill worked himself into a rage, and published, in 1777, an octavo
pamphlet of 40 pages, with the title, “Imposture Detected, and the
Dead Vindicated; in a Letter to a Friend: containing some gentle
Strictures on the false and libellous Harangue, lately delivered
by Mr. John Wesley, upon his laying the first stone of his new
Dissenting meeting-house, near the City Road.” Wesley’s sermon is
designated “a wretched harangue, from which the blessed name of Jesus
is almost totally excluded.” Mr. Hill remarks: “by only erasing about
half-a-dozen lines from the whole, I might defy the shrewdest of his
readers to discover whether the _lying apostle_ of the Foundery be
a Jew, a papist, a pagan, or a Turk.” He speaks of “the late ever
memorable Mr. Whitefield being scratched out of his grave, by the claws
of a designing wolf,” meaning, of course, Wesley. He brands Wesley as
“a libeller,” “a dealer in stolen wares,” and “as being as unprincipled
as a rook, and as silly as a jackdaw, first pilfering his neighbour’s
plumage, and then going proudly forth, displaying his borrowed tail
to the eyes of a laughing world.” Hill continues: “persons that are
toad eaters to Mr. John Wesley stand in need of very wide throats, and
that which he wishes them to swallow is enough to choke an elephant.”
“He is for ever going about, raising Dissenting congregations, and
building Dissenting meeting-houses the kingdom over.” “Venom distils
from his graceless pen.” “Mr. Whitefield is blackened by the venomous
quill of this grey headed enemy to all righteousness.” “Wesley is a
crafty slanderer, an unfeeling reviler, a liar of the most gigantic
magnitude, a Solomon in a cassock, a wretch, a disappointed Orlando
Furioso, a miscreant apostate, whose perfection consists in his perfect
hatred of all goodness and good men.” “You cannot love the Church,”
continues this meek and elegant evangelist, “unless you go to Wesley’s
meeting-house; nor be a friend to the established bishops, priests, and
deacons, unless you admire Wesley’s ragged legion of preaching barbers,
cobblers, tinkers, scavengers, draymen, and chimney sweepers.”
Has the reader had enough from the “gentle strictures” of this young
divine, not yet thirty-two years of age? Let him turn to the _Gospel
Magazine_. In reviewing Wesley’s sermon at City Road, the _Gospel_
editor describes Wesley’s Methodism as a “jumble of heresies, truly
and properly called Wesleyism”; and nothing “uttered by Satan himself
can be more _impudent_ and more glaringly untrue” than when Wesley
calls it “the old religion of the Bible, of the primitive church,
and of the Church of England.” For him to say, that Lady Huntingdon
“labours to form independent congregations, is as gross a falsehood
as was ever coined at the Foundery itself. Mr. Wesley’s apostasy from
the Church is a chief reason why her ladyship has justly discarded
him; and her disavowal of him, of his Dissenting principles, and of
his sectarian conduct, is the true reason, why he has the insolence
to spit his venom against one of the most respectable characters that
ever existed.” “With a baseness hardly to be paralleled, Mr. Wesley
rakes into the ashes of a man, whose name will descend with lustre to
the latest posterity; while that of the Foundery wolf will moulder
with his pilfered writings, or only be remembered with contempt and
execration. O Wesley, Wesley, hide thy diminutive head! nor let the
most pestilent _Dissenter_ in the kingdom arraign the spotless memory
of a _Churchman_, whose fervour and steadiness of attachment to his
ecclesiastical mother have scarcely been equalled in the present
age, and never exceeded in any. The truth is, Mr. Whitefield was _too
much_ a Churchman for Mr. Wesley’s fanaticism to digest. O ye deluded
followers of this horrid man, God open your eyes, and pluck your feet
out of the net! lest ye sink into the threefold ditch of antichristian
error, of foul antinomianism, and of eternal misery at last.”[302]
This was tolerably strong; but it was not enough. The same periodical,
in its review of Rowland Hill’s polite pamphlet, begins thus: “Hob in
the well again; or pope John once more in the suds! Seldom has literary
punishment been administered with greater keenness and spirit, than
in this pamphlet; and, surely, never was a punishment administered on
a juster occasion, nor to a more deserving delinquent. When you take
Old Nick by the nose, it must be with a pair of red hot tongs.” The
red hot reviewer reiterates the slander, that Charles Wesley offered
the Greek bishop, Erasmus, forty guineas, upon condition that he would
give his brother episcopal ordination; and continues: “Mr. Wesley’s
vile ingratitude to the name and memory of Mr. Whitefield deserves the
abhorrence and execration of all good men.” Wesley is “an unfeeling and
unprincipled slanderer, a vile traducer,” and, in fact, guilty of “an
extreme of malignity and baseness, for which language has no name.”[303]
Such scurrility as this, heaped upon an old man, seventy-four years
of age, who had spent his long life in unparalleled labours to honour
God, and to benefit his fellow men, is almost incredible. But even
this was not the worst that the immaculate _Gospel Magazine_ provided
for its readers. In the same number, from which the above abuse is
extracted, there is a long poem, entitled, “The Serpent and the Fox;
or, an interview between old Nick and old John”; which strongly reminds
us of a series of most infamous rhymed effusions which will have to be
noticed in the ensuing year, and in which Wesley is always represented
as a fox. The poem now published was not only foul, but, in the highest
degree, profane. It would be a crime to reproduce it. Suffice it to
say, that, as if to aggravate its infernal features, it immediately
follows a really beautiful hymn of six stanzas “To God the Holy Ghost.”
As a contrast, and to furnish a specimen of the medley often found in
this Calvinistic periodical, we furnish the reader with the last verse
of the thoroughly good hymn, and the first verse of the thoroughly bad
poem. Addressing the Divine Spirit, John Stocker writes:
“Thou my dross and sin consume;
Let Thy inward kingdom come;
All my prayer and praise suggest;
Dwell and reign within my breast.”
We shrink from the task of so closely annexing to such a stanza, the
first, and by far the least objectionable, lines of the ribald poem of
“The Serpent and the Fox”; but historical fidelity compels us.
“There’s a Fox who resideth hard by,
The most perfect, and holy, and sly,
That e’er turned a coat, or could pilfer and lie;
As this reverend Reynard, one day,
Sat thinking what game next to play,
Old Nick came a seasonable visit to pay.”
Then follows a conversation, in which Wesley proposes to burn the
Calvinists in Smithfield, as Bonner once burnt the protestants, and the
devil promises, that, while Wesley shall be exalted “with state” to
heaven’s “third storey,” all the Whitefields and Hills shall be “turned
back from the gate.”
_Quantum sufficit!_ of Rowland Hill, both in prose and verse. What
had Wesley to say to all this? In his journal he writes: “1777, June
26--I read the truly wonderful performance of Mr. Rowland Hill. I stood
amazed! Compared to him, Mr. Toplady himself is a very civil, fair
spoken gentleman! June 27--I wrote an answer to it; ‘not rendering
railing for railing’ (I have not so learned Christ); but ‘speaking the
truth in love.’”
Wesley’s reply was a penny tract of 12 pages, 12mo, with the title, “An
Answer to Mr. Rowland Hill’s Tract, entitled, ‘Imposture Detected.’” He
begins as follows: “In the tract just published by Mr. Rowland Hill,
there are several _assertions_ which are _not true_. And the whole
pamphlet is wrote in an _unchristian_ and _ungentlemanly manner_. I
shall first set down the _assertions_ in order, and then proceed to
the _manner_.” This is the strongest language Wesley uses. Indeed, he
writes as though Hill’s pamphlet amused him rather than otherwise. Some
of his friends, however, were not so lenient. Thomas Olivers rushed to
the rescue, with his characteristic fire, and unmercifully put into
the hands of the public a sixpenny “Rod for the Reviler”; and Matthew
Goodenough, a mechanic, of Bishopsgate Street, published “A Letter to
Mr. Rowland Hill,” 12mo, 21 pages, in which he tells “the reviler” that
he had used a vindictive style of which a chimney sweep might properly
be ashamed; and, from his malign spirit and rude manner of attacking
Mr. Wesley, he might be mistaken for the chief of Billingsgate. Hill,
as a preacher, is taunted with ranting, and roaring, and squealing, and
bawling, and twisting, and twirling himself about like a merryandrew;
and is told that, though “a Pelagian Methodist stinks,” it was a
comfort that the name of Rowland Hill was “an odoriferous perfume, a
charming nosegay, diffusing its fragrance wherever it appears, and
sweetly and effectually extinguishing the fœtid exhalations of Pelagian
ordure!”
Not only in the Welsh cobbler, but in the Bishopsgate mechanic, Rowland
met with an Oliver; but, like a beaten bull dog, was not satisfied.
He at once issued another octavo pamphlet of 45 pages, entitled, “A
Full Answer to the Rev. J. Wesley’s Remarks,” etc., in which he humbly
apologises for using too strong language in his former pamphlet; and
yet, with a strange inconsistency, commits the same fault in this.
Wesley is again accused of “pompous falsehood,” “barefaced untruth,”
“ungodly craft,” “of calumniating the living, and traducing the
dead.” “For full thirty years, Wesley had been travelling towards
_Trent_, and was now got to his journey’s end”; while Fletcher--poor
Fletcher, apparently dying of consumption--had “published, at the end
of his third volume, a most horrible manifesto, in language almost
blasphemous, and had forged my brother’s name” (Sir Richard Hill), “and
mine, at the conclusion of it.”
But here we must leave this doughty warrior, to whom the very name
of Wesley was what a scarlet cloak is to an infuriated bull. Some
will object to the reviving of these disgraceful reminiscences. Our
reiterated answer is, that, without them, it is impossible for the
reader rightly to estimate the character of Wesley. If they reflect
dishonour on Rowland Hill, we cannot help it. Rowland Hill was a public
man, and, like all other public men, he must be content to pay a public
penalty for his public crimes. Unfortunately, this is not the last we
shall hear of him.