Mhn56 M56 YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You may not reproduce this digitized copy ofthe book for any purpose other than for scholarship, research, educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy (or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes. THB HOMES, HAUNTS, AND FRIENDS JOHN WESLEY. JOHN WESLEY (1703—1791). 1. From the Painting by J. Williams, 1783. 2. From a Painting by Hone, 1765. 3. From the Painting ly G. Eomney, 1789. THE HOMES, HAUNTS, AND FRIENDS OF JOHN WESLEY: THE CENTENARY NUMBER Gbe fIDetbofcist IRecorbeiV REVISED AND ENLARGED. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON : CHAELES H. KELLY, 2, Castle Street, City Eoad, E.C. ; and 66, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1891. CONTENTS. " OUR VENERABLE FATHER IN THE GOSPEL" 1 the original account of john wesley's death ... ... 4 charles wesley's children ... 15 the group round wesleys death BED 24 JOHN WESLEY'S PREACHERS 26 JOHN WESLEY'S EXECUTORS ... ... 31 A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON ... 33 JOHN WESLEY AND HIS NATIVE COUNTY : I. EARLY DAYS AT EPWORTH ••• 60 II. CURATE AND EVANGELIST ... - 70 JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD ... ... 79 WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS ... 88 JOHN WESLEY IN BRISTOL 95 THE ORPHAN HOUSE, NEWCASTLE-UPON- TYNE MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF JOHN WESLEY EARLY METHODIST WOMEN ... MR. WESLEY IN OLD AGE A PEEP INTO A METHODIST MUSEUM . THE HYMNS OF WESLEY'S BOYHOOD . THE JUDGMENT OF HIS PEERS RECOLLECTIONS BY THE LATE EDWARD CORDEROY A ROBE-MAKER'S REMINISCENCE THE LAST PAGE IN WESLEY'S LAST ACCOUNT BOOK JOHN WESLEY AS A CARTHUSIAN 109113 120 124 131 133138144 146 149 149 151 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. PAGE 2 Ring with Wesley's Hair Inside View, showing Hair ... 2 Memorial in Westminster Abbey 3 Furniture used by Mr. Wesley 5 Mr. Wesley preaching his Last Sermon C Death-lied of Wesley 11 Elizabeth Ritchie 13 The House in which Wesley died 24 Plan of First-floor of Wesley's House 25 Room in which Wesley died ... 26 Joseph Bradford 29 A Corner of St. Giles, Cripple- gate, 1791 33 Dr. Annesley's Autograph ... 34 Site of Dr. Annesley's Meeting house, St. Helen's Place 34 Susanna Wesley's Birthplace 35 A Bit of Old Holborn 35 St. Andrew's, Holborn ... 36 Charterhouse 38 The Cloisters, Charterhouse ... 38 Dining Room, Charter-house 38 Fireplace, Great Hall, Charter house 39 Little Dean's Yard, West minster 40 Little Britain 43 Nettleton-court 44 The Foundry, Moorfields ... 4G West-street uhapel 49 Charles Wesley's Grave ... 52 No. 17, Beaumont-street ... 54 City-road Chapel 1880 55 Exterior of City -road Chapel 56 Interior of City-road Chapel ... 57 John Wesley's Grave 58 Epworth Church 60 Epworth Rectory 61 Interior of Epworth Church... 63 Samuel Wesley's Autograph ... 64 Old Market-cross, Epworth ... 64 Martha Wesley's Autograph... 65 Hall and Staircase at Epworth Rectory 67 The Rectory after the Fire ... 68 Stairway leading to Jeffery Chamber, Epworth ... 69 Jeffery Chamber, Epworth ... 09 Facsimile from First Page of John Wesley's Last Ac count Book 72 Grave of John Wesley's Father 75 John Wesley's Rooms at Lin coln College, Oxford ... 80 Old Prison, Oxford 83 Charles Wesley's Autograph 85 Wesley's Pulpit at Oxford ... 86 Two Pages of John Wesley's Notes on John iii. ... 87 Page from Wesley's Journal 89 Moravian Chapel, Fetter-lane 91 Peter Bohler 93 The Old Room in the Horse- fair 95 Wesley's First Chapel in the Horsefair 96 The Old Room above Chapel in the Horsefair 97 Wesley's Signature to Minutes of Conference, 1790 ... 104 Wesley's Pear Tree.Kingswood 105 Kingswood School and Chapel 106 Wesley's Study Walk, Kings- wood 107 Kingswood : — Playground 107 Window of Wesley's Study 108 Wesley's Study Table ... 108 The Boys' Wash-house ... 109 Orphan House, Newcastle- upon-Tyne... Ill A Specimen of John Wesley's Editing 116 A Preface by John Wesley ... 117 Wesley's Study, City-road ... 118 John Fletcher's Autograph ... 120 Wesley's Portrait from " Euro pean Magazine " 122 Susanna Wesley 125 Mary Fletcher 126 Cross Hall, Mary Bosanquet's Home ... 127 Parish Church, Batley ... 128 John Wesley's Breast-pin ... 135 One of the " Four Silver Spoons" 135 John Wesley's Shoes 136 Facsimile of one of John Wes ley's Latest Letters ... 137 Facsimile from the MS. Hymn Book used by Wesley 139 — 141 The Last Page in Wesley's Last Account Book ... 150 Facsimile of Letter addressed by John Wesley to the Treasurer of the Charter house 152—163 THE HOMES, HAUNTS, AND FRIENDS OF JOHN WESLEY. "OUR VENERABLE FATHER IN THE GOSPEL." EDNESDAY, March 2nd, in the year 1791, at twenty minutes to ten o'clock in the morning, John Wesley ceased at once to work and live. The old man's desire, cherished through so many years, was fulfilled. He did not " live to be useless." To the latest hour of his long life he was " employed." The verse with which he was wont to close his latest Society Meetings was his favourite evensong in the family circle at the Preachers' House in City-road : " Oh that, without a lingering groan, I may the welcome word receive, My body with my charge lay down, And cease at once to work and live ! " Perhaps the most pathetic memorial of John Wesley ever written is the brief record in the " Minutes " of the Conference held in Manchester five months after his death : " It may be expected that the Conference make some observations on the death of Mr. Wesley ; but they find themselves utterly inade quate to express their ideas and feehngs on this awful and affecting event. " Their souls do truly mourn for their great loss ; and they trust they shall give the moat substantial proofs of their veneration for the memory of their most esteemed Father and Friend, by endeavouring, with great humility and diffidence, to follow and imitate him in doctrine, discipline, and life." On Wednesday, March 10th, in the " New Chapel in City-road," as it was then called Dr. John Whitehead, his medical attendant, and at that time a local preacher, preached a funeral sermon, which he afterwards published in a pamphlet from the shorthand notes taken " by a nephew of Mr. Marsom, Bookseller, in High Holborn." The sermon is founded on 2 Samuel iii. 38, " Know ye-not, that there is a Prince, and a great man, fallen this day in Israel ? " Reprinted, it would fill many pages of this volume. It consists mainly of a review of John Wesley's experience, doctrinal 1 2 "OUR VENERABLE FATHER IN THE GOSPEL." teaching, intellectual achievements, and ministerial labours. At the close of his prolonged discourse, the doctor read a paper which is of surpassing interest. To this paper all the biographers of John Wesley are indebted for their descriptions of the closing scene. As no one else thought fit to write an independent account, and as the preachers who were in constant attendance adopted the narrative and issued it in an official form, we are entitled to assume that it was accurate. This story of the last moments of John Wesley was written by Elizabeth Ritchie (afterwards Mrs. Mortimer), one of the saintliest of the many saintly women of early Methodism. Miss Keeling, whose book on " Eminent Methodist Women ' was recently published by the Book-Room, has written a brief sketch of this remarkable woman in another part of this volume. We may here add an original letter from John Wesley to one of his preachers just come to Keighley (1780) from Ireland. The letter is in the possession of Dr. Waller : " There are many amiable and gracious souls in Cork and in Dublin. But there are few in the whole kingdom of Ireland to be named (either for depth of sense or of grace) with many, very many, persons in Yorkshire, particularly in ye West Riding. Go to Betsy Ritchie, at Otley, and then point me out such a young woman as her in Ireland." At the Conference of 1790 James Rogers and his wife, Hester Ann Rogers, were appointed to take charge of the " Preachers' House " at City-road. Mrs. Rogers, unhappily, was too frail to preside over a house so busy, and in which, during five months of the year, the aged Father of Methodism lived. Two months before his death John Wesley begged that Miss Ritchie, who was then about thirty-nine years of age, and well-known and greatly honoured throughout Methodism, would come and assist Mrs. Rogers. The wish of her " dear father," as she always called him, was law to " Betsy." She went, and never left him until she closed his eyes in death. An interesting circumstance may be added. Elizabeth Ritchie cut a lock of the beaiitiful white hair from her "father's" head. Many years after wards she gave a portion of this precious relic to Dr. Bunting's son, William RING WITH WESLEYS HAIR. INSIDE VIEW, SHOWING HAIR. ° ' Maclardie Bunting. The Rev. W. M. Bunting had the hair enclosed in a turquoise ring. This ring was given by Mrs. Bunting to the eldest daughter of the late Edward Corderoy. The following, for which we are indebted to Mrs. Bulmer's Life of Mrs. Mortimer is probably part of the original document written by Miss Ritchie : " The preacher who had usually read to Mr. Wesley being absent, he said to me 'Betsv you must be eyes to the blind.' I therefore rose about half-past five o'clock, and generally read to him from six till breakfast-time. Sometimes he would converse freely, and say ' How o-0od is the Lord to bring you to me when I want you most ; I should wish you to be with me in mv dying moments ; I would have you to close my eyes.' MEMO HAL IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 4 THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNT OF JOHN WESLEY'S DEATH. " During the two months I spent under his roof, which proved to be the last he spent on earth, I derived much pleasure from his conversation. His spirit seemed all love : he breathed the air of paradise, adverting often to the state of separate spirits. ' Can we suppose,' he would observe, ' that this active mind, which animates and moves the dull matter with which it is clogged, will be less active when set free V Surely, no ; it will be all activity. But what will be its employments ? Who can tell 1 ' I was greatly profited during this season. My hands were full ; but I felt the light of Divine approbation shining on my path, which rendered easy many painful things I met with. Indeed, I felt it quite a duty to let Mr. Wesley want no attention I could possibly pay him. I loved him with a grateful and affectionate regard, as given by God to be my guide, my spiritual father, and my dearest friend ; and was truly thankful to be assured that those attentions were made comforts to him. " With concern I saw, in February, 1701, that his strength declined much. He could not bear to continue meeting the classes, but desired me to read to hiin : for, notwithstanding his bodily weakness, his great mind could not be unemployed." We are indebted to Dr. R-igg for a copy of the original " account " written by Miss Ritchie issued from the New Chapel on March 8th, 1791, and signed by James Rogers and his colleagues. This was the document which Dr. Whitehead abridged and altered in his funeral sermon. Our readers will be glad to have it in its complete form, and exactly as published one hundred years ago. N. Cubnock. THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNT OF JOHN WESLEY'S DEATH. " Advertisement. — As many Friends have desired an immediate Account of the Circum stances relative to the Departure of the late Rev. Mr. Wesley, the following short but authentic Narrative has been drawn up in compliance with their Request. "New Chapel, City-road, March 8th, 1791." On Thursday the 17th of February, Mr. Wesley preached at Lambeth from, " Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." When he came home he seemed very unwell, but on being asked, How he did ? only Said, he believed he had taken a little cold. Friday the 18th, Mr. Wesley read and wrote as usual, dined at Mr. TJr ling's, and preached at Chelsea in the evening from, " The King's business requires haste ; " but was obliged to stop once or twice, and told the people his cold so aftected his voice as to prevent his speaking without those necessary pauses. He was prevailed on to let Mr. Rogers and Mr. Bradford meet the Classes, and had a high degree of fever all the way home. Saturday the 19th, reading and writing filled up most of his precious time, though to those that were with him his complaints (fever and weakness) seemed evidently increasing. He dined at Mrs. Griffith's, Islington, and while there, desired a friend to read to him the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Job. He was easily prevailed upon to let Mr. Brackenbury meet the penitents. But still, struggling with his weakness, some of us (with hearts full of foreboding fears) saw him ready to sink under it. He rose (according to custom) early in the morning, THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNT OF JOHN WESLEY'S DEATH. but utterly unfit for his Sabbath's exercise: at seven o'clock he was obliged to lie e C^arterl^ous A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 39 up again those memories of a hundred and eighty years ago. Thomas Sutton's famous school was keeping its centenary when the little clergyman's son came up from Lincoln shire at the age of ten. He wore a broad-cloth gown, lined with baize, and his Epworth training soon won him the favour of Dr. Walker, the schoolmaster. These were days of privation for John Wesley. "From ten to fourteen I had little but bread to eat, and not great plenty of that." Fagging was in full force, and he had to endure no little hard ship from the elder boys. But those six years at the Charterhouse were a fruitful time in the boy's life. He faithfuUy obeyed his father's in- in junction to run round the play ground three times every morning, and laid the foundations of his scholar ship by diligent application. From the Charterhouse he was elected to Christ Church in 1720. Seven years later, when Fellow of Lincoln, he was one of the stewards at the annual dinner of Old Carthusians. The Rev. Dr. Spencer, a venerable evangelical clergyman in North-west London, knew Mr. Nottage, rector of St. Clement's and St. Helen's, Ipswich, who distinctly remembered John Wesley, a very neat old man with an all-round collar, coming to the Charterhouse on his annual visit in later life. The present day visitor finds the place changed. The boys are gone to Godalming, but the pensioners still Hnger in the old genius of Thackeray has immortalised. •Charterhouse scenes which the Charles Wesley's Boyhood. We may now pass to Westminster, where Charles Wesley became a scholar in 1716 — rather more than two years after John came up to the Charterhouse. Their eldest brother Samuel, who had also become a Westminster boy in 1704, and 40 A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. had gone thence to Oxford, was now usher. He lived probably in Little Dean's- yard, in the house opposite to the entrance from Dean's-yard. Largely through his influence the first infirmary in Westminster, now St. George's Hospital, Hyde Park Corner, was formed. He had married the daughter of the Rev. John Berry, who kept a boarding-house for Westminster boys, so that he was in a position to offer home and education to his youngest brother. John Wesley probably spent his holidays here, for Samuel wrote to Epworth : " Jack is with me, and a brave boy, learning Hebrew as fast as he can." Charles Wesley in due time became head boy, or captain of the school, and won, by his skill in fighting, the lasting friendship of William Murray, afterwards famous as Chief Justice of England and Earl of Mansfield. It was at Westminster that he had what John Wesley calls " a fair escape " from becoming heir of Mr. Garret Wesley, a wealthy Irish gentle man. The estates passed to Mr. Richard Colley, whose grandson was the great Duke of Wellington. It will be interesting in this connection to read the following letter, written by Sir Henry Sidney, father of the famous Sir Philip Sidney, when he was Lord Deputy of Ireland, and addressed to the Lords of the Council in England. It will show the high esteem in which the representative of the Crown held the head of the Wesley family in Ireland : " From' Kilmaynghame, the xvth qf May, 1577. " There have been afore you, as I heare, Barnabye Scurclocke and his Companions, who repine at her Majesties prerogative for Cesse. They be bad instruments for her Majesties Service, and so your Lordships shall fynde them ; and by their lewd perswasions maney men be drawen, to resist the yieldinge of Cesse, hopinge daylye of the Comforts and good Successe theise their Agents shall fynde there. For Scurclocke, before his departure hence, threatened a gentleman called Garrot Wesley, being Sheriffe of one of the principaUest and best Counties within the pale, that if he should distreive or levye any Cesse, either for the use of the Garrison, or provision of any household, for any Speache, Commandment, processe, or any other thinge, that I should send him for that purpose, that he would endite him of treason. This being uttered by a man of that appearance and creditt, he Seameth to carrye in the countrie, both wrought such an opinion amongst the common sorte, as maney refuse to pay Cesse, which other - LITTLE DEAN'S YARD, WESTMINSTER. A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 41 wayes most wUlinglye would have donne it. The punishinge of hym for this his undecent, and unduetifull Speache, will bring maney to more Pliantnes, and due obedience. I speak it, my Lords, duetifullye, and without passion or affeccion any wayes to the man," etc. (Collins' "Sidney Papers," I., 179). Visits to London. During his college life at Oxford, Wesley paid some hurried visits to London. In August, 1727, we find him staying with his brother Samuel. He was on his way to serve as his father's curate in Lincolnshire. The following July he is in London again. In 1731, he and Charles were together in the metropolis. When they called on Mr. Rivington the bookseller, he mentioned to them the name of John Clayton, who joined the Oxford Methodists seven or eight months later. Next summer Wesley was again in London, when he was chosen a member of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, and went over to Putney to visit William Law, then tutor to young Mr. Gibbon. This was the year that Samuel Wesley , became master of the Grammar-school at Tiverton. From this time the London home of the brothers was in College-street, West minster, at the house of the Rev. Mr. Hutton. Mr. Benham, in his Life of James Hutton, says that Samuel Wesley lived next door, but he heads his letters " Dean's- yard." His son, James Hutton, who had been educated at Westminster School, came to visit some of his old schoolfellows at Oxford not long before the Wesleys sailed for Georgia. He thus met Charles Wesley, who introduced him to John. Hutton invited the brothers to visit his father's house when they came to London. Mr. Hutton, sen., had resigned his living as a clergyman because he could not take the oaths on the accession of George I. He received Westminster boys as boarders, and his wife also took in some lady boarders. One of the religious societies of the day met at his house, but the piety of its members was languishing. John Wesley preached to them from the text, " One thing is needful." His sermon led to the conversion of Mr. Hutton's son and daughter. James Hutton was then twenty-one years old. This service put new life into the Society, which now began to meet regularly every Sunday evening. James Hutton would gladly have sailed to Georgia with the brothers, but he was apprenticed to Mr. W. Innys, the bookseller, and the claims of business would not allow him to do so. He had, therefore, to content himself with taking boat with them from Westminster to Gravesend, where the Simmovds lay waiting for her passengers. On Charles Wesley's return from Georgia, young Hutton sought him out and took him to his father's house in College-street. One can still look in on the pleasant welcome : " Sly reception was such as I expected from a family that entirely loved me, but had given me over for dead, and bewailed me as their own child." This was on Sunday, December 5th, 1736. He had reached London on the previous night. 42 A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. When John Wesley returned to England in 1738 he also found a home at Mr. Hutton's. On February 7th he met Peter Bohler and his two companions just arrived from Germany. " Finding they had no acquaintance in England, I offered to procure them a lodging, and did so near Mr. Hutton's, where I then was. And from this time I did not willingly lose any opportunity of conversing with them while I stayed in London." Charles Wesley greatly offended Mrs. Hutton the following May by preferring to lodge with Mr. Bray, the brazier, rather than in College-street. She wrote to Samuel Wesley at Tiverton. " Mr. Charles went from my son's, where he lay ill for some time, and would not come to our house, where I offered the choice of my two best rooms, but chose to go to a poor brazier's in Little Britain, that that brazier might help him forward in his conversion." Wesley's First Publisher. We must not forget to look in at Mr. Rivington's shop, known as the " Bible and the Crown," in St. Paul's Churchyard. Charles Rivington was a native of Chester field. He showed such a taste for religious books that his friends there sent him to London to become a theological bookseller. He began business for himself in 1711. Dr. Byrom, still remembered by his Christmas hymn, " Christians, awake," was a frequent visitor here. He buys Law's " Serious Call " at the shop, learns that John Wesley and Dr. Heylyn are preparing an edition of Thomas a Kempis which Riving ton is to publish, drinks tea with the bookseller and Clayton, and talks about the Deism which is spreading in the parish to the visible decline of the sale of good books. It was at his shop that Byrom called for news of Charles Wesley on his return from Georgia. Rivington published Samuel Wesley's book on Job and his " Advice to a Young Clergyman," as well as John Wesley's a Kempis and his sermon on the " Trouble and Rest of Good Men." He did not sympathise with the later views of the brothers, but took Law's part in the controversy. He was the High Church book seller of the time. Shortly before his "conversion," Charles Wesley was staying with Mr. James Hutton, a second-hand bookseller, whose shop, " The Bible and Sun," stood a little to the west of Temple Bar. Hutton's shop became in the first days of the Great Revival what Rivington's had been for the Oxford Methodists — a house of call where the friends met to talk about their work. We find Dr. Byrom " dropping in there to breakfast and dinner in June, 1739, when he had come up to town from Manchester." " The so-much-talked-of Mr. Whitefield " comes in to wait for the Cirencester coach, which takes him on to Gloucestershire. " It was proposed to sing a hymn while we were there, and take me in, as Mr. Hutton said, but the coach came, and so they did not." The previous February Byrom called at Mr. Hutton's, "whose sister came to A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 43 me and asked me to drink tea, but her brother coming in, I went with him into their little room, and the sister talked away as usual, and then went to a raffle." Squire Thorold, the ancestor of the present Bishop of Winchester, used sometimes to pray and expound here. It was in Hutton's house that the little Society first met which was afterwards transferred to Fetter-lane. Mr. Bray, the Brazier of Little Britain. It was a visit from Mr. Bray as he lay sick at James Hutton's that led Charles Wesley to find a new home in London. He was just on the point of starting for Mrs. Hutton's in Westminster when Bray came to see him. As they prayed together for saving faith, Charles Wesley was so moved that he was persuaded it was God's will he should reside under this man's roof. He was too weak to walk, but was carried thither in a chair. Bray's house is said to have been at the west corner of Little Britain, near Christ's Hospital. Charles calls him : " A poor, ignorant mechanic, who knows nothing but Christ, yet, by knowing Him, knows and discerns all things." Bray was nevertheless a superior man. Dr. Byrom, who was a frequent visitor to the house, says he was " very much pleased " with his "behaviour and conversation." It was a happy choice which led Charles Wesley thither, for Bray's sister, Mrs. Turner, herself newly at rest in Christ, was the means of leading her sick friend to faith on that memorable Whit-Sunday of 1738. Here the Poet of Methodism first found a voice in the hymn of thanksgiving, " Where shall my wondering soul begin ? " Here John Wesley was brought in triumph by a company of their friends, and declared " / believe.'' The upper room that night rang with the strains of the First Methodist hymn. This house seems to have become the London home of the Wesleys up to the time when they found quarters of their own at the Foundry. Byrom visited the brothers there during the first days of field preaching in London in 1739. The Society Room in Aldersgate-street, where Wesley's heart was " strangely warmed," is one of the spots most memorable in Methodist history. He had gone " very unwillingly," but as Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans was read at about a quarter before nine, " I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation ; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin LITTLE BRITAIN. 44 A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON.. and death." Wesley at once began to pray for all his persecutors, and openly testified to the company there of the peace he now felt in his heart. The rejoicing friends then escorted him to his brother's lodging in Little Britain. One would greatly like to know where this Society Room stood. It evidently belonged to one of the religious societies connected with the Church of England, but it is said that it was on the site afterwards used as a Moravian Meeting-house in Nettleton-court, which lay on the east side of Aldersgate-street, midway between Little Britain and Jewin-street. The name Nettleton-court, with a row of old dwelling-houses, disappeared only four years ago, and the ground is now occupied by warehouses. It is near Shaftesbury Hall. At the end of Maidenhead-court, on the right, will be found a long narrow court with another court at right angles. In the latter there are remains of an old building, but they are out of sight. If Mr. Bray lived somewhat to the west of the point where Little Britain turns sharply round to the north, it will be seen how close to gether these historic places are in the Ward of Aldersgate Without. In Little Britain Milton lodged three or four years before his death, and Dr. Franklin occupied rooms there in his early life. Fetter-lane and the Minories. The Moravian Chapel in Fetter- lane, where the little Society held its meetings at the time of Wesley's separation from the Moravians, must not be overlooked. It is the building in which Richard Baxter gave his Friday lecture from 1672 to 1682. The Society first met in a room in Fetter-lane. Here, on New Year's-day, 1739, the Wesleys, Whitefield, and their friends had a glorious love-feast, which ushered in the year of field preaching. That year the Wesleys were pushed out into the highways, that they might gather the ignorant and degraded masses into the fold. The discords at Fetter-lane were the saddest feature of this year of grace, but even these were not without a blessing, for they led the Wesleys and their friends to retire from fellowship with the company at Fetter-lane in July, 1740, and made their Society independent. Before we follow the little party to the Foundry, let us cross over to the Minories, between Aldgate and the Royal Mint. Here met one of the religious societies of the time. The Wesleys often preached here after their conversion. John Wesley tells us that three hundred people were present at a meeting in the Minories on February NETTLETON COURT. A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 45 25th, 1739. This was held in the house of Mr. Sims. There on January 21st, whilst Wesley spoke, a well-dressed, middle-aged woman suddenly cried out as in the agonies of death. She had been under strong conviction of sin, but when she called on Wesley next day the light of forgiveness was beginning to steal over her troubled spirit. That room in the Minories thus witnessed the first of those strange scenes of conviction which soon afterwards made so profound a sensation in Bristol. The Foundry. We must now turn to the Foundry in Moorfields, which for nearly forty years became Wesley's headquarters in London. In 1716 the French cannon taken by Marlborough were being recast here, when a tremendous explosion occurred, which tore off part of the roof and killed several of the workmen. This led to the removal of the Arsenal to Woolwich. The ruined building stood on the east side of what is now known as Tabernacle-street, behind City-road. In Tabernacle-street (formerly Windmill-street), on the right, and very near the Finsbury end, is a short entry. Beyond are modern buildings ; then comes Hill-street, with which Worship-street is almost parallel. As nearly as can now be ascertained, the Foundry stood inside the rough square thus enclosed. Mr. Strange, of the Book- Room, tells us that many years ago Mr. Higgins, who was employed there, told him that at the above entry was the way into the Foundry. His father, who used to worship there, was his informant. Part of an old building, used as a chapel, and afterwards in the possession of Carlile, the infidel lecturer, Mr. Strange remembers. He always understood that it was part of the old Foundry. In the same street was the house in which Sarah Ryan lived. Miss Bosanquet visited her there. Two gentlemen urged Wesley in November, 1739, to preach at the Foundry. He afterwards bought the place, and repaired and adapted it for Methodist purposes at a cost of ,£800. The first year one-fourth of this amount was raised, but the people were so poor that five years after the opening there was still a debt of £300. Fifteen hundred people could sit on the plain benches of this meeting-house. A band-room and schoolroom stood behind, with Wesley's own apartments above them. There was also a home for his preachers, with a coach-house and stable. Here Wesley used to preach at five o'clock every morning when he was in town. His charity-school, conducted by Silas Told, was held here ; here his mother found a home during her last days and successfully pleaded the cause of the lay preachers ; here she died in peace in 1742, and was laid to rest in Bunhill-fields just opposite the Foundry. It was a nappy Providence which gave Wesley such a centre for his work. His first Society had been meeting here for seven months before the breach at Fetter-lane. Those who followed him were now added to that Society. From this hour Methodism daily gained strength in London. A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 47 On August 8th, 1779, Wesley writes, "This was the last night which I spent at the Foundry. What hath God wrought there in one and forty years I " The place remained in Wesley's hands for some years. The Steward's Book at City-road has this entry in July, 1785: "Received half-year's rent, Jones, Old Foundry, £2 2s." The same year £43 was paid by the Stewards for arrears of rent, of which they received £14 4s. from Mr. Jones. It was on November 10th, 1785, that the Rev. James Creighton, Wesley's Clerical Assistant, lay sick there. The rain poured through the roof and burst down part of the ceiling of his room. In a poetical " Meditation at the Old Foundry " he described it as : "This tott'ring fabric with its mould'ring waUs, Its beams decayed, bent rafters, shattered roof." Short's Gardens. Soon after the Foundry was secured Wesley found an opening in the West-end. On October 20th, 1740, he says : " I began declaring that ' Gospel of Christ ' which ' is the power of God unto salvation,' in the midst of the publicans and sinners, at Short's Gardens, Drury-lane." Let us follow him to his new centre. The narrow street runs between Drury-lane and Neal-street. No tradition helps us to fix the site of that upper room clearly ; an account of Great Queen-street, published in 1840, says it would be matter of interest if the church then being built was on the site of this preaching place. It is easy to see that it was just the place for Methodist work. Wesley had some blessed times there, though his exposition of Romans viii. failed to satisfy his lay preacher, Joseph Humphreys, who soon after joined Mr. Whitefield. Next Friday, though scarcely able to get out of bed, he was there again. No sooner had he given out his text than voice and strength returned, so that for some weeks he enjoyed such vigour as he had not known since his "landing in America." In January, 1742, Wesley met a Society there for the first time. Eleven years later Thomas Walsh, the apostle of the Irish, preached to his countrymen in Erse with great success. On July 10th, 1741, Wesley says : "I rode to London (from Oxford), and preached at Short's Gardens on the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth." A month later, on August 7th, we have a record of the first funeral service connected with the West-end. " The body of our sister Muncy, being brought to Short's Gardens, I preached on those words : ' Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; and their works do follow them.' From thence we went with it to the grave, in St. Giles's Churchyard, where I performed the last office in the presence of such an innumerable multitude of people as I never saw gathered together before. O what a sight it will be when God saith to the grave, ' Give back,' and all the dead, small and great, shall stand before Him." Jane Muncy's brief memoir in the Magazine for 1781 shows that she was no 48 A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. common Christian. She was one of the women who met in band at Fetter-lane, and when the Moravian stillness threatened to wreck the Church proved herself a zealous champion on Wesley's side. " When the controversy concerning the Means of Grace began, she stood in the gap, and contended earnestly for the ordinances once delivered to the saints." No sophistry could induce her to be less zealous in recommending, and carefully practising, good works. She would often sit down at eight or nine o'clock at night, after " she had been employed in the labour of love " all day, and would work till twelve or one o'clock. Not that she wanted anything for herself, but that she might be able to help others. She was appointed leader of one or two bands, and was a pattern of holiness and devotion to God's work. While she lay ill of the fever from which she died, Mr. Wesley and Mr. Maxfield visited her. We have a beautiful account of the Founder of Methodism paying his pastoral visit to that mother in Israel. " When I came in she stretched out her hand and said, ' Art thou come, thou blessed of the Lord 1 Praised be the. name of my Lord for this.' I asked, ' Do you faint, now you are chastened of Him ? ' She said, ' O no, no, no ! I faint not. I murmur not. I rejoice evermore.' I said, ' But can you in everything give thanks 1 ' She replied, ' Yes ; I do. I do.' I said, ' God will make all your bed in your sickness.' She cried out, ' He does. He does. I have nothing to desire. He is ever with me, and I have nothing to do but to praise Him.' " In this spirit she lingered a few days, then died in peace. Short's Gardens has another link to the troubles of the Moravian controversy. Here, on January 29th, 1742, Mr. Wesley and the little company of worshippers pleaded for one of those who had been led astray. His graphic entry is worth quoting at length. "Hearing of one who had been drawn away by those who prophesy smooth things, I went to her house. But she was purposely gone abroad. Perceiving there was no human help, I desired the congregation at Short's Gardens to join with me in prayer to God, that He would suffer her to have no rest in her spirit till she returned into the way of truth. Two days after she came to me of her own accord, and confessed, in the bitterness of her soul, that she had no rest, day or night, while she remained with them, out of whose hands God had now delivered her." The prayer was offered on Friday, the answer came on the Sunday. West-street Chapel. A few minutes' walk will bring our Methodist pilgrim to one of the sacred places of West London. If he walks down St. Martin's-lane till he reaches the opening above Aldridge's, he will find himself standing in front of a dingy brick building, with large arched windows and a door at either end. Beyond it is a three-storey dwelling long known to London Methodists as the "chapel-house." We are standing in front of Wesley's centre in the West-end, the mother of Great Queen-street, Hinde-street, A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 49 and the whole of West-end Methodism. It was originally built for a Huguenot congregation which worshipped here for many years. The London Methodists had been accustomed to attend the Lord's Table at St. Paul's Cathedral or their own Parish Churches ; but on Sunday, September 13th, 1741, ancl four successive Sundays, Wesley availed himself of the kind offer made by Mr. Deleznot, a French clergyman in Hermitage-street, Wapping, and in his small church Wesley read prayers, preached, and administered the Sacrament to five batches of his Society, consisting of about two hundred each, which was all the church would hold, till a thousand of his members had communicated. (" Works," xifi., 255, 309.) The sacramental service passed into WEST-STREET CHAPEL. the hands of Wesley, and is still used at Great Queen-street. The inscription on the- cups is as follows : Hi duo Calices dono dati sunt ab Honesto Viro Petro FENOWILLET die octavo Julii MDCCIII. in usuru Congregationis Gallicae quae habetur in via vulgo dictsk West Street de Paroechia S. iEgidii: si vero dissolvitur Congregatio in usum Pauperum venundabuntur. " These two cups were given by that worthy man, Peter Fenowillet, on the 8th day of July, 1703, for the use of the French congregation which is held in the street commonly called West-street, in the parish of St. Giles ; if, however, the congregation should be dissolved, they shall be sold for the use of the poor." These simple silver cups, — John Wesley and his brother Charles, John Fletcher, Dr. Coke, and a host of memorable successors, have passed them to the 4 5o A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. kneeling communicants. Perhaps there was scarcely a London Methodist for forty years who did not gain strength and comfort ms the cup was placed in his hands, ami he thought of the love that stretches out its arms to us from the Cross. Methodism has never seen more hallowed communion services than those. Sometimes the morning service lasted from ten until three or even four o'clock, so that the communicants had at last to be divided into three parts, in order that there might not be above six hundred at once. John Fletcher once sat in the vestry when a timid girl ventured in for " a note." " Come, my dear young friend," he said, " come and receive the memorials of your dying Lord. If sin is your burden, behold the Crucified ; partake of His broken body and shed blood, and sink into the bottomless ocean of His love." Mary Price thus welcomed found rest three months later under a sermon by Thomas Maxfield. The chronicler of West-street may well grow enthusiastic over one of the chief centres of Methodist life in London. "Here John Wesley's coach once stood, and Charles Wesley's little horse ambled on with the absent-minded poet. John Fletcher hurried along to help Wesley in his heavy service, and George Whitefield came to charm the worshippers. The Countess of Huntingdon and her aristocratic friends drove up to these doors. But one loses sight of all distinctions of rank when the true spirit of that spot rises to meet the visitor who has turned over the biographies of ' Early Methodist Preachers ' and people. To this place came men and women seeking rest for their souls. Anxious, eager faces are around you. Their lives lie open in their own simple narratives, written for the glory of God and the guidance of pilgrims. The whole street is hallowed by the feet of penitent or of rejoicing worshippers." ("Two West-end Chapels," p. 5.) In this venerable building Wesley and his congregation gave thanks together on one anniversary of the Fire at Epworth for his wonderful deliverance ; Charles Wesley preached on ihe forty-sixth Psalm during the earthquake panic ; John Fletcher melted all hearts, and George Whitefield thrilled the congregation by his wonderful oratory. The house at the side of the chapel was for some time the home of Wesley's eldest sister, Mrs. Harper. Here she is said to have been visited by Old Jeffery, the Epworth ghost, during the earthquake panic of 1750. Hard by in Frith-street, Soho- square, another of Wesley's sisters, the gifted Mrs. Wright, unhappily married to a drunken plumber, lived and died. The steward's book at West-street is still preserved at Great Queen-street. The collections have peculiar interest during this Centenary time, for they represent the last services which John Wesley conducted at West-street. The plan for the first quarter of 1791 gives his appointments as January 9th and 20th ; February 13th was evidently the last service he took at West-street ; on Sunday, the 27th, he was dying at City-road. When the lease of West-street expired, such a high price was demanded for its renewal that the leading men thought it was high time Methodism should have a A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 5I freehold site of its own in the West-end. John Arthur, a. cabinet-maker in Great Queen-street, was one of the leaders at West-street. He mentioned that the executors of the late Dr. Franklin, minister ancl proprietor of a freehold chapel in Great Queen- street, were prepared to sell that property. It seems that in 1692 an inquiry had been set on foot by the parish authorities, to ascertain what number of pews would be taken by the gentry of Lincoln's Inn-fields and its vicinity if a new chapel should be erected in the neighbourhood. Subscriptions were asked for this purpose in 1704, and two years later arrangements were made to build. These were set aside, however, as it was found possible to purchase a building recently erected in Great Queen-street by one William Ragueley, or, as Strype calls him, Bagueley. The antiquarian adds that this man pretended to be a minister of the Church of England, and preached here without licence or authority, besides administering the Sacrament. The Bishops of London and Peterborough caused two declarations to be read therein, which eventually silenced him. Adam Clarke and Joseph Butterworth conducted the negotiations with the executors. The chapel was thus purchased at a cost of £3,500, and was vested in trustees for the benefit of the Wesleyan Connexion by deed dated July 19th, 1798. Nearly £500 had to be spent in repairs and alterations. A special appeal in London produced £1,972 Ss. lcZ. ; £2,000 was borrowed. The first year's seat rents yielded £305. By September, 1812, the debt had been reduced to £700. The present chapel at Great Queen-street was erected on the same site, much enlarged by purchase of adjacent property. We cannot refrain from quoting a resolution of its Leaders' Meeting on Wednesday, November 18th, 1817, referring to a sermon by Jabez Bunting, which shows what popularity the chapel had gained in West-Central London. " Resolved most unanimously that Mr. Bunting be requested to print the sermon delivered this evening in this chapel, as it is considered it will then be a lasting blessing to all ranks and conditions of men." Mr. Bunting's reply, begging to be excused from publishing the sermon, is fastened into the minute-book. The sermon was on the death of the Princess Charlotte. Some London Churches. We must hastily pass a host of reminiscences. Let our pilgrim look inside the church of St. Mary-le-Strand. Here Dr. Heylyn was vicar in 1738. Mr. Law had been his curate, and was described as a "gay parson"; his vicar held that "his book (the ' Serious Call ') would have been better if he had travelled that way himself." It was to this church that John Wesley went on Whit-Sunday, 1738, fresh from his brother's sick-room. He assisted the Doctor in administering the Sacrament, as his curate was taken ill in church, and listened with deep interest to the preacher's sermon from the words, " They were all filled with the Holy Ghost," " and so," said he, " may you all be, if it is not your own fault." A blessed illustration of those words awaited 52 A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. Wesley. " I received the surprising news that my brother had found rest to his soul." The Royal Chapel at Whitehall has ceased to be a place of worship, but what Methodist can forget that John Fletcher was ordained there on March 13th, 1757, and hurried on to West-street that he might assist Wesley, who had been praying that God would send him help for a day's work that involved as heavy a tax on his energies as preaching eight sermons ? Islington Old Church, where Mr. Stonehouse was vicar and Charles Wesley acted as curate, was pulled down in 1751 ; but All Hallows, Lombard-street, still reminds the Methodist visitor of our Founder's first sermon preached without manuscript. The woman's question, " Cannot you trust God for a sermon 1 " gave the trembling preacher confidence, and he and his hearers had a blessed time. Threadneedle-street, through which the Methodist preachers and lay men so often pass to the Mission- house, was the home of Mrs. Vazeille, where Wesley, lamed by falling on the ice in the middle of Old London Bridge spent a happy week prior to his disastrous marriage in February, 1751. Mrs. Wesley died in Octo ber, 1781, and was buried in the churchyard at Camberwell. The portion of this graveyard in which she lay was taken to widen the public road about fifty years ago. (Stevenson's "City-road," 79.) Charles Wesley in Marylebone. We must not forget Charles Wesley's later life in London. The Foundry and the Chapel-house at West-street were his homes in earlier years when he was doing duty in the metropohs. In 1771 he and his family left their happy home in Bristol for Chesterfield-street, Marylebone. Mrs. Gumley, of Bath, had given her friend the CHARLES WESLEY d CRAVE. A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 53 lease of her town house. It was " richly furnished," and stocked with all the family could need — "even small beer." It is amusing to rend of the poet's anxiety about his cat. " If you cannot leave him in safe hands," he tells his wife, " Prudence must bring him up in a cage ; and if I finish my course here, I may bequeath him to Miss Darby." Charles Wesley lived nearly seventeen years longer, so that no doubt he survived his cat. Marylebone was then a country suburb with green fields lying between Chesterfield- street and Whitefield's Tabernacle in Tottenham-court-road. The house was on the northern corner of the street, now called Great Chesterfield-street, just opposite to Mr. Haweis' church. It projected somewhat over the roadway. Here those two musical geniuses — little Charles and Samuel Wesley — became the centre of an admiring circle of lovers of music. Dr. Johnson came to hear them play, and General Oglethorpe listened with delight to the sons of his old secretary. The Earl of Mornington, father of the Duke of Wellington, was one of their warmest patrons. Charles Wesley visited the prisons, as he had done in his youth ; and rode along to City-road and West-street thinking out his hymns. He preached in the London chapels and became a kind of chaplain to the musical friends who gathered round his gifted sons. Here he died on Saturday, March 29th, 1788. Those touching lines written down by his wife were the expiring effort of his muse : " In age and feebleness extreme, Who shall a sinful worm redeem ? Jesus, my only hope Thou art, Strength of my failing flesh and heart ; 0 could I catch a smile from Thee, And drop into eternity ! " Charles Wesley is buried in the little graveyard of Marylebone Old Church, where the visitor who looks through the iron rails can see the obelisk on the right hand side. The poet's widow and daughter lived in Chesterfield-street till the lease ran out ; then they moved to a smaller house in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Charles Wesley died near by, at 14, Nottingham-street, in 1822, at the venerable age of ninety-six. That was the year in which some one stole from the lobby of this house the blue-coat with a large cape, which Charles Wesley had worn thirty-five years before, and which his son still had in constant use. Charles Wesley, the musician, was living at 20, Edgware-road, in 1832. Both he and his sister were members of Society at Old Hinde-street Chapel. A West London Parsonage. Visitors to Charles Wesley's London home in Chesterfield-street, Marylebone, and to his grave in the little churchyard in High-street, should not forget to look at 54 A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. No. 17, Beaumont-street, where the Hinde-street superintendents have lived for the last sixty-one years. It is only a stone's throw from the parish chapel by the side of which the " Poet of Methodism " is buried. But for the row of houses on the west side of Beaumont-street, Charles Wesley's tombstone might almost be seen from the windows of the preacher's residence. It was taken by the circuit in December, 1829, at a rent of sixty-five pounds. William Vipond, who was the first resident Methodist preacher in the locality, had lived in Northumberland-street, Marylebone-road, in 1807. Hinde-street was not yet built, but the vigorous cause in Chandler-street needed a pastor. This house was given up in 1811, but a few months later, when the new Hinde-street Chapel was in great prosperity, No. 21, Thayer-street, was taken as a preacher's house. It has now disappeared, — incorporated in the present Hinde-street Chapel, — but it was the first London home of Eobert Newton, who established his reputation as a platform speaker during his residence here, and had many a happy round of missionary collecting with the inde fatigable Dr. Coke. This house was rented at seventy guineas ; its furniture cost £103 3s. 2d. ; lease, fixtures, and conveyance, £127 2s. ; repairs, £41 6s. M. Just before the Battle of Waterloo the house, which proved too expensive, was sub let, and the preacher moved to No. 22, Riding- House-lane. This was held only a short time, for in 1817 we find Richard Watson living at Margaret-street, Oxford-street. This was the Hinde-street minister's house for two years after the division of the Great Queen-street Circuit in 1827. It was rented at fifty guineas. At the close of 1829 the superintendent moved to Beaumont-street, which was a larger house than that in Margaret-street. Its rent was £65. From that time this house has been held on three leases of twenty-one years each by the Hinde-street Circuit. It was here, in what proved to be his last superintendency, that Thomas Stanley won " the hearts of a kind people." He had been asked at the Book Committee on October 8th, 1832, to procure a portrait of Charles Wesley from the poet's son, who was then living at 20, Edgware-road. As he was returning along Marylebone-road with this portrait, he sank down in a fainting condition and died in the street. NO. 17, BEAUMONT-STREET. A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 55 Unfortunately a boy recognised him and rushed off to Beaumont-street with the painful news, which he delivered without warning of any kind. John Gaulter — the personification of " pure and undefiled vanity '' — lived here, and here had the stroke of paralysis which closed his life-work ; here died Abraham Eccles Farrar in 1849. He said to his colleague, Dr. Beaumont, who visited him half-an-hour before his death, " There is no commandment in the law which I have not broken, but there is the atonement, and I have confidence in it. I can rest on it. ' In my hands no price I bring, Simply to Thy Cross I cling.' " City-road Chapel and House. We must now turn our feet towards City-road. The Foundry had been the headquarters of Methodism since 1739, but it was a ruin to begin with, and though CITY-ROAD CHAPEL. it had been repaired, it was now hopelessly dilapidated. As the lease ran out Wesley began to think about providing a more suitable centre for his work. It is a significant fact that he had not yet built a chapel in London. The Foundry had been adapted for purposes of worship, a Huguenot church had been leased in West-street, two other French Protestant churches had successively become the home of Methodism in Spitalfields. Snowsfields was built by a Mrs. Ginns, at her own expense, for Sayer IH f v/y 5§ A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. Rudd, a London physician and preacher, who had to leave the famous meeting-house in Devonshire-square because of his Sabellianism. An influential part of the congregation went with him. On Mrs. Ginns' death Rudd conformed to the Church in 1742, and took the living of Walmer. The place was thus ready for John Wesley. In 1777 Wesley laid the foundations of his cathedral in City-road, thankful for the drenching rain, which kept away many, though there were " still such multitudes, that it was with great difficulty I got through them to lay the first stone." His ser mon was a grateful review of the way by which God had made Methodism a source of blessing to the nation. The country so cieties rendered generous help in this great undertaking. At Keigh- ley Wesley and Thomas Taylor, hat in hand, collected £7 towards the cost. The chapel answered Wes ley's warmest hopes. It was neat, and so commodious that all his London members could meet there for the Covenant Service. The Wesleys had some glorious times in its pulpit. John Wesley preached there for the last time on Tuesday evening, February 22nd, eight days before his death. He and his congregation sang together as their closing hymn, " I'll praise my Maker while I've breath." JOHN WESLEY S GRAVE. The new home in City-road was a happy change for Wesley and his preachers from the ruinous quarters at the Foundry. Wesley says on October 8th, 1779 : " This night I lodged in the new house at London. How many more nights have I to spend here ? " Charles Wesley often left his grey pony outside, and called, " Pen and ink ! pen and ink ! " When he had written his hymn he would look round on those present, ask after their health, and give out a verse or two, such as : A TOUR IN METHODIST LONDON. 59 " There all the ship's company meet, Who sailed with the Saviour beneath ; With shouting each other they greet, And triumph o'er sorrow and death." John Wesley lived three years after his brother's visits had ceased. He generally closed the evening devotions in the Preachers' House with the lines : " Oh that, without a lingering groan, I may the welcome word receive, My body with my charge lay down, And cease at once to work and live ! " Thus the old man waited for the end. He was now the most popular man in England. Even those who had least sympathy with his work could not but admire his steadfastness, his unselfishness, his notable services as an evangelist and philan thropist. He went down to the grave beloved and revered by multitudes who owed to him their very souls. On Friday morning, February 25th, he came back from Balham to 47, City-road. Never again did his feet touch the threshold. He lingered till the following Wednesday, in full assurance of faith. His death-bed reminds us of his father's last hours in Epworth. Glorious had been the fulfilment of old Samuel Wesley's prophecies, — " The Christian faith " had revived in these kingdoms ; his sons had seen it ; God had indeed gloriously manifested Himself to the rector's children. John Wesley's death-bed is one of the grandest triumphs of Methodist history. He was buried in the graveyard behind the chapel on the following Wednesday. Isaac Taylor says of the Great Revival : " No such harvest of souls is recorded to have been gathered by any company of contemporary men since the first century." But what progress has been made during the last hundred years ! John Wesley left one hundred and twenty thousand members in his Societies ; our Centenary rejoicings find nearly thirty millions under the care of his successors in all parts of the world. John Telford. EPWORTH CHURCH. JOHN WESLEY AND HIS NATIVE COUNTY. I.— EARLY DAYS AT EPWORTH. Lincolnshire Worthies. The county of Lincoln, which Henry VIII. pronounced " the most brute and beastly of all the shires," can boast of having given to England many illustrious sons. Stephen Langton, William of Waynfleet, Archbishop Whitgift, Lord Burleigh, Dr. Busby, Sir John Franklin, and Sir Isaac Newton, all sprang from "the county of fen, marsh, and wold." Lord Tennyson — first of living poets — also hails from Lincolnshire ; in fact, Somersby, the Laureate's birthplace, is within two miles of South Ormsby. But, of all the illustrious names which Lincolnshire includes in its roll of worthies, there is none that is more widely known, or more worthily reverenced, than the name of John Wesley. Within a hundred years of his death the adherents of Methodism throughout the world are counted by millions, whilst Wesley's power of organisation, his spiritual force, and his evangelistic zeal are felt to this day as a living energy in every quarter of the globe. Wesley's Father at South Ormsby. That branch of the Wesley family to which the Founder of Methodism belonged was associated for several generations with Dorsetshire. His grandfather and great- EARLY DAYS AT EPWORTH. 61 grandfather both lost their livings in that county by the Act of Uniformity of 1662. Lincolnshire knew nothing of the Wesleys until the Rev. Samuel Wesley came into the county at the age of twenty-eight, and took up his residence in the parsonage EPWORTH RECT0K1". of South Ormsby, midway between Spilsby and Louth. He owed his preferment to the influence of the Marquis of Normanby, a nobleman of literary instincts, who saw in the London curate a man of parts and likelihood. Samuel Wesley and his wife, Susanna, settled at South Ormsby in 1690 (or 1691), bringing with them one child, 62 EARLY DAYS AT EPWORTH. Samuel by name, an infant not yet twelve months old. The population of the parish numbered scarcely three hundred souls, the rectory-house was " a mean cot composed of reeds and clay," the living was then worth only £50 a year. Here, however, " the father of the Wesleys " spent five of the happiest years of his life. At South Ormsby five Wesley children were born, of whom three — Susanna, Jedidiah and Annesley (twins) — were laid in tiny graves in the pleasant churchyard that sloped upwards from the garden of the humble parsonage. During these South Ormsby days Samuel Wesley achieved renown amongst men of letters of the period. The Atlienian Gazette, of which he was one of the original promoters, may be regarded as among the earliest contributions to English periodical literature. In addition to his work for the Gazette, he contributed largely to the " Young Students' Library," and wrote a considerable portion of his " Life of Christ." He also composed elegiac poems on Archbishop Tillotson and Queen Mary, which are by no means free from the fulsome eulogy that too frequently characterises compositions of that class. The rectory-house which he occupied has disappeared ; its garden now forms part of the park ; a flourishing acacia, and a profusion of snowdrops that mingle with the fresh grass of early spring, are all that remain as mementos of the parsonage and its surroundings. But Samuel Wesley's labours and godliness are still spoken of amongst such of the villagers as treasure the traditions of a bygone age. Removal to Epworth. Queen Mary had, it appears, expressed a desire that when the Crown living of Epworth next fell vacant the benefice should be granted to Samuel Wesley. Accord ingly, Wesley left the wold- village early in 1697 for Epworth — the place with which his name, and that of his famous son, was to be hereafter inseparably associated. The living was nominally worth £200 a year ; the parsonage and the grounds attached to it covered a space of about three acres. The house, like all Epworth houses of two hundred years since, was meanly built, but the words " a miserable hovel " hardly describe the house in which John Wesley first saw the light on the 17th of June (old style), in the year 1703. Mr. H. P. Parker's painting of John Wesley's deliverance from the fire conveys but an imperfect impression of both the house and its surround ings. Other and more accurate pictures of Wesley's birthplace, whilst suggesting neither elegance nor large dimensions, present a view of what was probably a typical country parsonage of the seventeenth century. An ancient terrier thus describes the dwelling : "It consists of five bayes, built all of mud and plaster, the whole building being contrived into three stories, and disposed in seven chief rooms, kitchen, hall, parlour, butterie, and three large upper rooms, and some others of common use ; a little garden empailed between the stone wall and the south, a barn, a dove coate, and a hemp kiln." EARLY DAYS AT EPWORTH. &sO Jtfsc nM tfvt^t y-c^rp J& //U //^ rfJeSru loftA, /GtWvy {f-L-r*. fj-cJ^ftsWd a, £*+*? h~c^ ¦ Qd>f/'cn- FACSIJIILE FROM FIRST PAGE OF JOHN WESLEY'S LAST ACCOUNT BOOK. The Curate at Work. The records of this period of Wesley's life are few and meagre. We must form our conception of him in parochial work mainly from our general knowledge of his character, pursuits, and habits prior to his conversion to evangelical doctrine and experience. His methods, it would appear, were not of the extreme High Church order which characterized his ministry in Georgia. That he was somewhat under the spell of " The Imitation of Christ," and of such divines as Jeremy Taylor and William Law, is certain ; that he was not wholly so was due to his own spiritual lucidity, and to advice so eminently sensible as that contained in the following words written by one who never failed to influence him for good — his pious and gifted mother : " Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure ; of the innocence or malignity of actions % Take this rule : whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of JOHN WESLEY: CURATE AND EVANGELIST. 73 your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things ; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, tliat thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself." That he was diligent, methodical, painstaking, and conscientious is scarcely open to doubt. The warmly expressed desire of the parishioners that he should be selected as his father's successor, when the occasion for such selection arose, testifies to the winsoineness of his methods and his spirit ; his father speaks of " the dear love they bore him." So far removed was he from all suspicion as to his simple-mindedness and self-denial, that, twelve years later, when it became necessary to rebut the charge that " gain was the spring of all his actions " in the Methodist movement, he thus calls upon those who had known his manner of life in Lincolnshire : " Ye of Epworth and Wroot, among whom I ministered for nearly the space of three years, what gain did I seek among you ? Or of whom did I take or covet anything ? " (" An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion.") A Precious Suggestion. One incident belonging to this period is specially deserving of notice, as related to his subsequent provision for Christian fellowship in the Society which he established in 1739. He tells us that he travelled many miles to converse with a serious man, who said to him, " Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Him alone ; you must therefore find companions or make them ; the Bible knows nothing of sohtary religion." To what extent that saying influenced Wesley in the formation of the " Holy Club " at Oxford, and subsequently in the organisation of the " Society of the People called Methodists," it is not given us to know ; but it is the Scriptural propriety of that sentiment which furnishes the raison d'etre of the United Societies of Methodism at this very day. " Two are better far than one For counsel or for fight ; How can one be warm alone, Or serve his God aright ? Join we, then, our hearts and hands ; Each to love provoke his friend ; Eun the way of His commands, Ancl keep it to the end." The church in which the Wesleys preached at Wroot was taken down a century ago, and the stones used for paving the streets of Epworth. Farewell to Parochial Duty. When John Wesley had spent two years and a quarter in Lincolnshire, he was recalled to Oxford by the Rector of his College, in pursuance of a regulation which provided that the junior Fellows who might be chosen Moderators should attend in 74 JOHN WESLEY: CURATE AND EVANGELIST. person to the duties of their office. "Your father," wrote Dr. Morley, "may certainly have another curate, though not so much to his satisfaction ; yet we are persuaded that this will not move him to hinder your return to college, since the interest of the college and obligation to statute requires it." He preached his farewell sermon in Epworth Church in the autumn of 1729, and thus terminated his only experience of parochial work, in which, as Canon Overton remarks, "he was not in his element." When next he came into his native count}' (except as an occasional visitor to Epworth so long as his father lived) it was in another capacity, and with a fuller message. The Methodist Revival began in Oxford, but how important was the relation in which the then Rector of Epworth stood to the movement in its initial stages the following extracts from his letters to his sons will show. Writing to them as to then- designs and employments, he says : " What can I say less of them than valde probo^ and that I have the highest reason to bless God that He has given me two sons together in Oxford, to whom He has given grace and courage to turn the war against the world and the devil, which is the best way to conquer them." Concerning the title which the scoffers had given to John Weslej', he said : " I hear mj- son John has the honour of being styled ' The Father of the Holy Club ; ' if it be so, I must be the grandfather of it ; and I need not say that I had rather any of my sons should be so dignified and distinguished, than to have the title of His Holiness." He gave them the full benefit of his counsel, visited them at Oxford, and thought himself well repaid for his expense and labour by witnessing their " shining piety." Death of Wesley's Parents. Samuel Wesley died in 1735, and was laid in a grave near to the south wall of the church in which he had ministered for thirty-nine years. It is said that no Wesley preached in that church after, until the Rev. Louis H. Wellesley Wesley, of Hatchford, Surrey, officiated there at the dedication of the new organ. This clergy man, it may be noted, is not of the Epworth Wesleys, but is of the original stock, descended through the brother of John Wesley's great-grandfather. Lpon the death of her husband, Mrs. Susanna Wesley left Epworth, and spent the seven years of her widowhood with one or other of her children. When John Wesley provided apartments at the Foundry in Moorfields, his mother took up her abode there; there she breathed her last on July 23rd, 1742, and was carried thence to her resting place in Bunhill-fields. Wesley Returns to Epworth as an Evangelist. It was four months before his mother's death that John Wesley first made his appearance as an evangelist in his native county, being at the time within a few days of his thirty-ninth birthday. JOHN WESLEY: CURATE AND EVANGELIST. 75 Epworth was reached on Saturday, June 5th, and the itinerant took up; his lodgings at an inn in the centre of the town. Next day his offer to assist the curate (Mr. Romley), either by reading prayers or by preaching, was unceremoniously life 1 ¦ ff hwML -¦^fW^iSSI GRAVE OF JOHN WESLEY S FATHER. declined, and Wesley took his seat in the church, where thirteen years before he had preached his farewell sermon, to hear a florid and oratorical discourse against enthu siasm 0f which he was judged to be a conspicuous example. This Mr. Romley had been the schoolmaster at Wroot, had been assisted by Wesley's father in preparing 76 JOHN WESLEY: CURATE AND EVANGELIST. for Oxford, and had acted both as his amanuensis and his curate. 1 le had been in love with one of the rector's daughters, and would probably have become her husband, but for the objections to such a step which were raised by her father and other members of the family. It seems probable that Mr. Romley 's behaviour towards Wesley was quite as much a matter of personal dislike to him as a question of theological dissension. Wesley's remark upon Romley 's message that he would " not give him the Sacrament, because he was not fit," is written in pain mingled with irony : " There could not," he writes, " be so fit a place under heaven where this should befall me — first, as my father's house, the place of my nativity, and the very place where, according to the straitest sect of our religion, I had so long lived as a Pharisee. It was also fit, in the highest degree, that he who repelled me from that very table where I had myself so often distributed the bread of life should be one who owed his all in this world to the tender love which my father had shown to his family, as well as personally to himself." Wesley Preaches on his Father's Grave. At six o'clock in the evening of this memorable Sabbath John Wesley took his stand upon his father's tombstone, and preached to " such a congregation as Epworth never saw before." To that service Methodism in Lincolnshire owes its beginning. During the forty-eight years that followed, Mr. Wesley made numerous visits to his native county, preaching in nearly all its towns, and in many of its villages. He lived to witness the quickening of its spiritual life, the formation and growth of Methodist Societies within its borders, the erection of chapels (or, as he preferred to call them, " preaching houses "), and the establishment of circuits. Much need was there in the county of Lincoln, as elsewhere, for the work of evangelism. There was a general deadness to religion ; rudeness, drunkenness, ancl Sabbath desecration prevailed. Bull-baiting had ceased to be a pastime, but other sports, scarcely less brutal and demoralising, were followed with avidity. Traditions touching certain of these recall scenes which would be amusing, but that they indicate the deplorable condition of the people, morally. The Journals and Lincolnshire. Wesley's Journals, together with the records of his early preachers, show that the features of the Great Revival common to the country at large were not wanting in Lincolnshire. Instances of opposition and disgraceful assault were often followed by a great spiritual awakening and by triumphs of grace. At Grimsby, for example, where " certain lewd fellows of the baser sort," instigated by the vicar, had wrecked the house in which John Nelson preached, and pelted Charles Wesley with rotten eggs, JOHN WESLEY: CURATE AND EVANGELIST. 77 a vigorous Society was established, amongst whom were certain whose consistency and godly zeal furthered the cause of early Methodism iu those parts. Here Wesley preached in the parish church when he was eighty-five years of age, — the vicar reading the prayers, — and " many received the word with joy.'' At Wrangle, where good Thomas Mitchell was thrown into the village pond, besmeared with paint, then carried out of the place to the shout of " God save the King, and the devil take the preacher ! " — the clergj'inan being prime abettor of the assault, — quietness was restored by an appeal to the King's Bench, and Wesley could report that he preached " expecting some disturbance, but found none.'' He speaks of Louth as " formerly another den of lions," yet here the people " gathered closer and closer together, till there was not one inattentive hearer, and hardly one unaffected." At Boston, where Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Mather had had to encounter " wild beasts," Weslej' preached to a congregation " all of whom behaved in the most decent manner," and again " to most of the chief persons in the town." Preaching at Lincoln, " in Mrs. Fisher's j'ard, below the hill," such was his congregation that he saj's : " From the quietness of the people one might have imagined that we were in London or Bristol." Action of Local Magistrates. The local magistracy sometimes condoned the offence of the molesters, and some times showed fairness and good sense by quelling riotous proceedings, and by dismissing frivolous charges brought against the Methodists. One Justice of the Peace (probably Mr. George Stovin, of Crowle) appears to have been gifted with great good sense. On a certain occasion a whole waggon-load of Methodists were taken before him. " What have they done ? " asked the magistrate ; but the charge was not forthcoming. At length somebody made answer : " Why, they pretend to be better than other people, and besides, they pray from morning to night." " But," demanded the justice, " have they done nothing besides1?" "Yes, Sir," replied an old man, " an't please your worship, they have convarted my wife; till she went among them, she had such a tongue ! and now she's as quiet as a lamb." Said the magistrate, " Carry them back, carry them back, and let them convert all the scolds in the town." Self-denying Methodists. A village Society in the Lincolnshire marsh furnished so conspicuous an example of the self-denying generosity of the early Methodists that Mr. Wesley recorded it in his Journal, and instanced it in his " Short History of the People called Methodists," as one of the signs that this work was of God. Under date February 24th, 1747, he writes thus : " At noon I examined the little society at Tetney. I have not seen such another in England. In the class paper (which gives an account of the contribution for the poor) I observed one gave eiwht pence, often 10d., a week ; another 13, 15, or 18rf. ; another, sometimes one, sometimes 78 JOHN WESLEY: CURATE AND EVANGELIST. two shillings. I asked Micah Elmoor, the leader (an Israelite indeed, who now rests from his labours), ' How is this ? are you the richest society in all England l ' He answered, ' I suppose not ; but all of us who are single persons have agreed together, to give both ourselves, and all we have to God : and we do it gladly ; whereby we are able from time to time to entertain all the strangers that come to Tetney, who often have no food to eat, nor any friend to give them a lodging.' " Friends in Lincolnshire. At Barrow, in 1782, he was "well pleased to meet with his old fellow-traveller, Charles Delamotte," who had accompanied him to Georgia, and found him " to be just the same as when they lodged together five-and-forty years" before. At Raithby- hall he was the guest of Mr. Robert Carr Brackenbury, and as he preached in the newly-built chapel adjoining Raithby-hall — much comforted among his deeply serious hearers—" could not but observe, while the landlord and his tenants were standing together, how 'Love, like death, makes all distinctions void.'" On the occasion of a subsequent visit to this excellent friend, he writes : " An earthly paradise ! How gladly would I rest here for a few days : But it is not my place ! I am to be a wanderer upon earth. Only let me find rest in a better world ! " Many of Wesley's correspondents were in Lincolnshire. To one of them (Mr. Thomas Capiter, of Grimsby) he sent a characteristic letter, which, being little known and eminently valuable, may be read even now to advantage. " London, Feb. 6, 1753. " My Dear Brother,— It is a constant rule with us that no preacher should preach above twice a day, unless on Sunday or on some extraordinary time, and then he may preach three times. We know nature cannot long bear the preaching oftener than this ; and, therefore, to do it is a degree of self-murder. Those of our preachers who would not follow this advice have all repented when it was too late. " I likewise advise all our preachers not to preach above an hour at a time, prayer and all ; and not to speak louder either in preaching or prayer than the number of hearers requires. "You will show this to all our preachers, and any that desires it may take a copy of it. — I am, your affectionate Brother, " J. Wesley." Suggestive Records. His ever-observant eye and raciness of pleasant humour have caused the Journals to teem with piquant record. The entries touching " the county of his nativity " form no exception. With what a nice observation does he describe a certain mausoleum then in course of erection, " the like of which, I suppose, is not to be found in England. It is exactly round, 52 ft. in diameter, and will be 65 ft. high. . . It is computed the whole building will cost £60,000." And how trenchant is his sarcasm as he adds : " 0 what a comfort to the departed spirits, that their carcases shall rot above ground ! " JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD. 79 Here and there Wesley's descriptions of Lincolnshire towns are suggestive of the migration of population, by which what were insignificant towns or mere villages in his day have now become large and thriving centres of commerce. Thus, speaking of Boston as he saw it in 1761, he says, " I think it is not much smaller than Leeds, but in general, it is far better built ; " and concerning Grimsby in 1766, he says, " It was one of the largest towns in the county : it is no bigger than a middling village, containing a small number of half-starved inhabitants, without any trade, either foreign or domestic." At the Census of 1881 Boston returned a population of 14,941, and Leeds reported 321,611, whilst the "middling village" on the Humber boasts (with the recent extension of the borough boundaries) a population of not less than 57,000, and can show " the biggest fish-market in the world." Last Visit to Epworth. Mr. Wesley paid his last visit to Epworth just eight months before his death. This is the record of the venerable evangelist touching the occasion: "As soon as the afternoon service (at the church) ended, I began in the market place to press that awful question, ' How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ? ' on such a congregation as was never seen at Epworth before." The growth of Methodism in his native county gave Wesley great satisfaction. Under date of March 23rd, 1761, he writes : "I find the work of God increases on every side, but particularly in Lincolnshire, where there has been no work like this since the time I preached at Epworth on my father's tomb." At the centenary of our Founder's death the Wesleyan Methodist Societies of Lincolnshire report a membership of twenty thousand, or one-twentieth of the entire membership of our Societies in England and Wales, and this in a county the total population of which is considerably under half-a-million. George Lester. JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD. From the Charterhouse to Oxford was both a pleasant and profitable transition for John Wesley, then a youth of seventeen. He was fortunate in the opportunity of entering Christ Church, one of the most important of the collegiate institutions of that venerable University. Cardinal Wolsey was its original founder, whose splendid design was not carried out previous to his fall. Henry VILL, who refounded it in 1532, limited the revenues entirely to Cathedral purposes, and in 1545 took them back into his own hands. The king died before statutes could be given, so that, in the language of the Oxford University Commission, " it still stands alone among the Colleges as being governed without statutes, by order of the Dean and Chapter." So JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD. As the young student dined in hall, or worshipped in the cathedral, or moved about the quadrangles, he would be influenced by the memory of many a cultured and successful student who had risen to the highest positions in Church and State. Oxford largely influenced this remarkable man. Hitherto he had been under personal control. At home, his mother, by force of character and example, had Lercised a loving but mastering preponderance over the boy's hfe and he was under somewhat similar control at the Charterhouse; but on entering Christ Church he was free within certain limits. He was no longer the schoolboy but the man, and \^y JOHN WESLEY'S ROOMS AT LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD. he duly acknowledged this freedom in his appHcation to all the courses of study open to him, as well as in the independent position he took in his correspondence with others. Not that he had less love for his august and loving mother, or less deep respect for his father's counsel. No ! he cherished them the more, but he had removed from his moorings, no longer to be dependent, or to return to the pupilage of the past, but to carve out a course for himself in the time to come. Dr. Wigan, his tutor, soon found that he was a young fellow of the finest classical taste, and of the most liberal and manly sentiments. No special religious or spiritual charac teristics seem to have marked the first three years, but he was aroused from a state JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD. 81 of carelessness about his soul by the call to take deacon's orders, and commenced reading Divinity. His mother counselled him to look seriously at religion. His attention was now devoted to Thomas a Kempis' " Christian Pattern " and Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying." Dr. Potter, Bishop of Oxford, ordained him deacon on September 19th, 1725. He had already taken his B.A. degree, and was now a candidate for a Fellowship at Lincoln College, to which he was elected in the spring of the following year, not without opposition. Lincoln College was founded by Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln (in which diocese Oxford was then situate), in 1427, but he died without having drawn up a complete code of statutes. It was not till 1475 that Thomas Rotheram, Bishop of Lincoln, — afterwards Archbishop of York, — finished the building of the College, and imposed upon it the statutes by which it was governed when John Wesley became Fellow. The design of the founders was to extirpate the Wycliffe heresy by training sound theologians. It was specially provided that any Fellow tainted with the;e opinions was to be cast out like a diseased sheep from the fold of the College, and each Fellow on admittance had to take the following oath : " I will never conditionally or contumaciously favour knowingly heresies or error, nor will I appear secretly or openly to adhere to that pestiferous sect, which, renewing ancient heresies, attacks the Sacraments, estates, and possessions of the Church, but will to the utmost of my strength by every means in my power denounce them for ever ; so help me God in the day of Judgment." Eight of the Fellowships were restricted to the County of Lincoln, and this may have induced Wesley to become a candidate. The statutes provided that disputations in theology and logic were to take place weekly, and they were to be followed by prayers for the dead. The disputations were most beneficial to Wesley. He was chosen Moderator, and of the effect produced he says, " I could not avoid hereby acquiring some expertness in arguing, and especially in discerning and pointing out well covered and plausible fallacies. I have since found abundant reason to praise God for giving me this honest art." His College duties and the pupils under his care now engrossed the greater part of his time. He had been ordained a priest and had taken his M.A. degree, but withal he found time to study Law's "Serious Call" and "Christian Perfection," and in 1729 he began to study his Bible as well as to read it. He left Oxford for a visit to Epworth as his father's curate, and, on returning in November, 1729, Mr. Morgan, Charles Wesley, John Wesley, and another agreed to spend three or four evenings a week together to assist each other in their studies. " The design was to read over the classics which we had before read in private on common nights, and on Sunday some book on Divinity." This modest beginning was fruitful. Mr. Morgan seems to have carried his religion into practical Hfe, — Wesley's religion had been introspective, dealing 6 82 JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD. with feelings, states of mind, order, sacraments, — so that when in the summer of 1730 Morgan told his companions that he had called at the gaol to see a man who was con demned for killing his wife, they were startled, and the more as he requested them to go and see the prisoner. For some time they carefully considered the propriety of such conduct ; but at last, on the 24th of August, the brothers ventured to walk with Mr. Morgan to the Castle. The visit was so satisfactory that they determined to go once or twice a week to the gaol, and also to see the poor sick folk of the town. This work was a new departure in the life of Wesley. It appeared to him a step so serious as to impel him to place the whole matter before his father, who was filled with such gladness that he at once sent him his full approbation. The habitual cautiousness and love of order which was so strongly marked in Wesley's character was shown in this, that before he was fully satisfied he consulted the Bishop's Chaplain, who was also the Chaplain of the Prison, in order to obtain the consent of the Bishop to what he seemed to consider an irregular way of prosecuting religious work. The next five years were spent chiefly in giving full attention to his College, living in its enclosure, dining in its hall, worshipping in its chapel — all much the same to-day as then. The dining-hall has a few portraits of the alumni of the College hanging on its walls. The newest addition is that of John Wesley, placed there a few months ago by the College authorities, and not yet framed to match — a tardy recognition of the fact that John Wesley was " sometime Fellow of Lincoln." The chapel is handsomelv furnished with cedar wainscoting and screen. The windows are filled with rudely- coloured glass from Flanders, on the sides representing the Apostles ancl Prophets, and over the chancel the " Types and Anti-Types." The quiet restfulness of this College is so notable that visitors are at once struck with it. Many hundreds of visitors come here yearly, the majority from America. They wander into every part, walk into the rooms Wesley occupied, cut a twig of the vine that spreads itself upon the wall without, and endeavour to realize the presence of the man whose heart throbbed with loving sympathy for poor lost humanity, whose parish was the world, the current of whose spiritual insight has, as if by some spiritual electricity, lighted up their life and brought them as pilgrims to the place. During this period an attempt was made to obtain for him the living of Epworth in succession to his father, who was declining in years ancl in health, but he steadily refused to leave Oxford, where he maintained that he had a much more influential sphere of usefulness. His father died on October 21st, 1735. While, however, none of his family could persuade him to leave Oxford for the Epworth Rectory, Mrs. Gambold, General Oglethorpe, and Dr. Burton succeeded in obtaining his services for the Georgia Mission. In this mission he was not successful, and on his return to England, and after his conversion, he revisited Oxford on October 9th, 1738. At once he began his JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD. 33 work, on Sunday preached twice at the Castle and expounded at three Societies. On the 11th November he spent the evening with a little company at Oxford, on tho two following Sundays at the Castle, and on the next Sunday at Bocardo, the city prison. He also read prayers and preached in two of the parish workhouses. A Fellow of Lincoln College, and a clergyman, non-resident for three years, and now returned to preach to felons and paupers, in the place where religious enthusiasm was intolerable ! OLD PRISON, OXFORD. On December 6th, 1739, he says, " I came to my old room at Oxford ; '' and in less than a month, on January 3rd, 1740, " I spent the two following days in looking over the letters I had received for the sixteen or eighteen years last past. I found but one among all my correspondents who declared that God had shed abroad His love in his heart, and given him the peace which passeth all understanding." There is every probability that pressure was now put upon him to resign his Fellowship, for, according to the statutes of the College, " All Fellows were to proceed after the usual exercises in the schools to the higher degrees in theology, except one 84 JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD. Fellow who was to proceed to the degree of Doctor in Laws." Wesley had now been fifteen years a Fellow of his College, and he had not taken any degree in Divinity. There is little doubt that the Governing Body of the College was much pained at the fanatical evangelism which he displayed, bringing such serious disgrace upon the College and University — for was it not proclaimed upon all his publications that the author was Fellow of Lincoln College ? So they determined to enforce the Statute in his case, and compel him to proceed to the higher degree or resign. On June 17th, 1741, we read : " I reached Oxford and enquired concerning the exercises for the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. After a visit to the College Library, went to the Bodleian and read Calvin's account of Michael Servetus." On the 25th of July, 1741, it came to his turn to preach before the University at St. Mary's. The day previous many of his friends came from London and some from Kingswood. It was a great occasion, and shows the powerful influence he already exerted upon a great number of persons in various parts of the country. Wesley had been converted a little over two years, and now, in daj's of bad roads, with no stage coaches, and no railways, many of his friends gathered together to let the University see that God had blessed them through him, and to encourage their leader in the day of battle. " So numerous a congregation, from whatever motives they came, I have seldom seen at Oxford. My text was the confession of poor Agrippa, ' Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' I have cast my bread upon the waters ; let me find it again after many days." Three years after, on July 21st, 1744, Mr. Wesley says : "I set out with a few friends for Oxford on Wednesday. My brother met us from Bristol. Friday, 24th, St. Bartholomew's-day, I preached, I suppose, for the last time at St. Mary's. Be it so. I am now clear of the blood of these men. I have fully delivered my own soul. The Beadle came to me afterwards, and told me the Vice-Chancellor had sent him for my notes. I sent them without delay, not without admiring the wise Providence of God. Perhaps few men of note would have given a sermon of mine the reading, if I had put it in their hands ; but by this means it came to be read probably more than once by every man of eminence in the University." So ended the public preaching of Wesley to tbe University he loved so well. " Wednesday, May 8th, 1745.— Rode to Oxford. I cannot spend a day here without heaviness of heart for my brethren's sake. 0 God, when wilt Thou show these who say they are rich that they are poor and miserable and blind and naked ? " The next item respecting Oxford in the Journal is of a political character. An election for member of Parliament for the University was about to take place at Oxford, and as is the custom when there is a contest, each college rallied its own members^ and pressed them to the side with which its sympathies went. JOHN WESLEY AT OXFORD. 85 " Wednesday, January 30. fcffcr^sfc/ivT^S-**, ££f.y /fjzJ'~£rX^*-**^6yl fl—XcZA-ia.S,- yr^x^ylXril^tjryn^yj^^ 02**ffff). y&>. J^fD ^s£^~-^y^£y*7^*,£— &y*Lf*-*y*.*? sw&-*a~ ^ov-^^AcJou., s$s~£-. yia^e. jZJJ y^.Xi^j-^^aj^, frjLyy&/f£jJJ&1 ^iyfJt^Jrx^yi*i^y5/-^XfJf^.^ ,-fa.fc. /tX_&£ zX~ZAj->e*i~Xy±o,? SfZU f^bB^r^-X^^A fi y:r*?.SS2:. a. ¦Jjy jt^^fbJfZ^^oytz/s^ /UfJZfffZrv-. ay s^rz-j^zJZ. Jr>^+^^XJ&>jV&*z*yysGp ^*yp- 7r^&/fj&> ^f^-r- f&^s^. ^^^L^^^-y^-^ypf,. ' Let every member of the Society give a penny a week until the debt is paid. Another answered, ' Many of them are poor, and cannot afford to do it.' I hen, said the former, put eleven of the poorest with me, and if they can give nothing I will give for them as well as for myself. And each of you caU on eleven of your neighbours weekly, receive what they give, and make up what is wanting.' ' It was done,' writes Wesley, ' and in a while 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.' " JOHN WESLEY IN BRISTOL. I03 The Conference. Let us return in thought to the Httle room near the pulpit described above. I open the volume of the " Minutes," which Dr. Osborn told me the other day cost him so much labour. It is one of the most interesting books on my shelves, and ought to be studied by every man who desires to be a true Methodist. The following is the record : "Conversation the Second. — Bristol, Thursday, Aug. 1, 1745. " The following persons being met together at the New Room, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, John Hodges, Thomas Richards, Samuel Larwood, Thomas Meyrick, James Wheatley, Richard Moss, John Slocomb, Herbert Jenkins, and Marmaduke Gwynne : " It was proposed to review the Minutes of the last Conference." Of these persons the first three were ordained clergymen. The last was the only man who was not a preacher. His daughter Sarah afterwards became Mrs. Charles Wesley. The rest were itinerant preachers. Those who are curious to know the after history of these early Conference men will find the information in Tyerman's volumes. It is interesting to note that the first business of the Conference was to extricate the doctrine of justification from the obscurity in which it had been involved, partly by " the devil," who " pecuHarly labours to perplex a subject of the greatest importance, and partly from the extreme warmth of most writers who have treated of it." From this they pass to faith in Christ as the sole condition of justification ; and to " repentance " which goes " before faith," and to " fruits or works (supposing there be opportunity for them) meet for repentance." The rest of the Minute shows the spirit in which these memorable " Conversations " were conducted, and also the way in which the preachers were taught sound doctrine. "Q. 3. 11. How then can we deny them to be conditions of justification? Is not this a mere strife of words ? But is it worth while to continue a dispute on the term condition 1 "A. It seems not, though it has been grievously abused. But so the abuse cease, let the use remain. " Q. 4. Shall we read over together Mr. Baxter's aphorisms concerning justification ? "A By all means: which were accordingly read. And it was desired that each person present would in the afternoon consult the Scriptures cited therein, and bring what objections might occur the next morning." One would Hke to know where they lodged that night and how they fared. John Wesley had his little garret upstairs, where he slept in peace whilst the country was astir with plot and riot, and the Government was sending forth its proclamation offering a reward of .£30,000 for the capture of Prince Charlie. At four o'clock the next morning the busy evangelist was preparing by prayer and reading for the early service, and, how soon we are not told, but probably before the 104 JOHN WESLEY IN BRISTOL. dew on the grass in College Green was gone, the preachers were deep in the mysteries of assurance, of the relation between faith and love, of prevenient grace, of going on to perfection, of visions and dreams, and of Antinomianism. It must have been a long session, for we read, " About ten we began to speak of sanctification." And meanwhile the Society in Bristol was giving itself to prayer and fasting. On the next day, which was Saturday, " were considered points of discipline." It is in the " Minutes " of this day that we find " the plain origin of Church government," and the following : " Q. 13. Have we borne a sufficient witness to the truth ? Particularly when attacked by the clergy 1 "A. Perhaps not. We have generally been content with standing on the defensive. " Q. 14. May not this cowardice have hindered the work of God ? And have caused us to feel less of His power 1 " A. Yery probably it may. " Q. 15. How shall we act in such cases for the time to come ? "A. Not only refute, but retort the charge. Their mouths must be stopped (only in meekness and love), and the eyes of others opened." Here, also, is the famous new Rule which was added to the Twelve : " You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go y&r-K&K wesley's signature to minutes of conference, Bristol, 1790. " The Conference business over, its venerable head — who for seventy years had directed its deliberations— attached his signature. The autograph — preserved now as a precious relic— too clearly indicates that his eyes were dim, and that his hand had forgot its cunning." always, not only to those who want you, but to those who want you most." Then follow the names of the fourteen " Assistants," with an instruction for Holy Living : " They may spend the mornings (from six to twelve) in reading, writing, and prayer ; from twelve to five visit the sick and weU ; and from five to six use private prayer." When the dear men were to dine, or how, does not appear. Rules also are laid down for John and Charles, and a page-long list of books is given to be kept at London, Bristol, and Newcastle. The list includes Divinity, Physic, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, History, Poetry, Latin and Greek Prose, Greek Verse, and Hebrew. In later " Minutes " of the same Conference the question is asked, " Should we JOHN WESLEY IN BRISTOL. 105 still consider ourselves as little children, who have everything to learn 1 " and provision is made " that everyone may speak freely whatever is in his heart." No one is to be checked, " either by word or look, even though he should say what is quite wrong." In Bristol, as elsewhere, Wesley had trouble and persecution. With his usual generosity he had assisted a man of the name of Ramsey, who brought a young surgeon to hear his benefactor preach. The two hypocritical scoundrels stole £30, which had been collected for Kingswood-school. Snowde, the surgeon, fled to London, committed a highway robbery, and from the condemned ceU in Newgate wrote to Wesley imploring his help. That was a plea Wesley could not resist. He travelled from Bristol to London that he might bring the sacrilegious felon to his Saviour. And then he rode back to his work in Bristol. Strange manifestations began to appear both at Kingswood and Bristol. There were outcries of despair, or of desire, joy, love, and then a laughing spirit. " One woman, who was known to be no dissembler, sometimes laughed till she was almost strangled ; then she broke out into curs ing and blaspheming, then stamped and struggled with incredible strength, so that four or five could scarce hold her ; then cried out, ' O, eternity, eternity ! O, that I had no soul ! O, that I had never been born ! ' At last she faintly called on Christ to help her, and her excitement ceased." Two members of Society doubted the good faith of the laughers until they themselves were suddenly seized, laughing for two days, until in a moment by prayer they were de livered. Even the two brothers, walking on Sunday in the meadows singing their Psalms, as they were wont to do, were seized, Charles first and then John himself. "We were forced to go home," he writes, " with out singing another Hne." There were troubles both from within and from without. On the anniversary of Wesley's first Sunday in Bristol the mob filled the street, and court, and alleys round the place where he was expounding, and shouted, cursed, and swore most fearfully. " A number of the rioters were arrested ; and, within a fortnight, one of them had hanged wesley's pear-tree, kingswood. lo6 JOHN WESLEY IN BRISTOL. himself a second was seized with serious illness, and sent to desire Wesley's prayers, and a third came to him confessing that he had been hired and made drunk to create disturbance, but, on coming to the place, found himself deprived of speech and power." Coincidently with this, whisperers, tale-bearers, backbiters, evil-speakers did what lay in their power to prejudice his friends and the people against Wesley. A curate gave out that he knew him to be a Papist, whilst a Popish priest railed on him whilst he was preaching: "Thou art a hypocrite, a devil, an enemy to the Church." At Temple Church John and his brother, with their converted colliers, were driven from the sacramental table, and at Upton the church bells were rung to drown his voice. In the garden at Kingswood Mr. Petter showed me a pear-tree kingswood school and chapel. said to have been planted by Wesley, which in its growth followed the history of the relations between Methodism and the English Church. I photographed it, and now present a pen-and-ink sketch for those who are curious in such matters. In the summer of 1742, Wesley heard in Bristol that his mother was dying. He hastened to London to see her. On Friday, July 23rd, early in the, morning, on awaking out of sleep, she cried, " My dear Saviour ! art Thou come to help me at my last extremity ? " In the afternoon, as soon as the intercession meeting in the Foundry was ended, Wesley and his five sisters commended the dying saint to God, and " sang a requiem to her parting soul." " Children," she had said, " as soon as I am released, sing a Psalm of praise to God." What a hymn-singing that must have been ! Susanna Wesley, her son, and her five daughters — seven in all : " They sing the Lamb in hymns below, And she in hymns above." JOHN WESLEi IN BRISTOL. ioy Within a month he was again in Bristol. For the City of the West was one of the principal centres of the evangeHcal revival, so much so that to attempt to tell fully all that was there done would be to tell a large section of the history of early Methodism. The story of Methodism in Bris tol, as elsewhere, is not a story of continuous triumph. There was suc cess and failure. The numbers were not always " up," nor were all the " Helpers," or all the members, so perfect as to require no admonition. John Wesley, however, had this fine quaHty among others. He was per- KINGSWOOD PLAYGROUND, WITH SCHOOLHOUSE ON RIGHT. ioS JOHN WESLEY IN BRISTOL. fectly honest, and never strove to strengthen his cause by exaggerating, or by concealing the truth. Moreover, he was a strict disciplinarian. Again and again we read of fluctua tions, depressions, searching examination into the condition of the Society, and reduction in the number of members. But allowing for this, the work in Bristol and in the country around grew wonderfully — no doubt in part because of the resolute discipline which was maintained. One of Wesley's gravest causes of anxiety was lest his people should drift into worldliness. He saw that the habits of early rising and self-restraint, which resulted from conversion and society membership, tended towards the betterment of the business and social position of the Methodists. This was notably the case in Bristol. Wesley continually warned the people against the peril which this involved. " This will be their great danger ; as they are industrious and frugal, they must needs increase in goods. This appears already ; in London, Bristol, and most other trading towns those who are in business have increased in business sevenfold, some of them twenty — yea, an hundredfold. What need, then, have these of strongest warnings, lest they be entangled therein, and perish ! " Kingswood. If one had time and space, it would not be difficult to write reams of history and philosophy on the development of doctrine, Church government, social Christianity, lay- THE BAY-WINDOW OF WESLEY'S STUDY, KINGSWOOD. WESLEYS STUDY TABLE AS IT IS, KINGSWOOD. preaching, women's rights, and child-training — taking those portions of the Journals as texts which relate to what may be called Wesley's Bristol and Kingswood diocese. I forbear, and hasten to indicate only the interest of the Kingswood pictures. In a little while no vestige of the school which cost Wesley so much will remain. From a little knoll a general view of the buildings may be obtained. On the right is the lodge gate and the chapel (still used as such by the Reformatory boys). On the left is the main block of dormitories. The garden, with the quiet, shaded walk which Wesley is said to have often paced, thinking out his sermons, is in the foreground ; the play- THE BOYS WASH-HOUSE, KINGSWOOD. THE ORPHAN HOUSE, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. 109 ground, on which the bay-window of Wesley's study looks, the schoolhouse, and the wash-house are behind. To write even a condensed account of Kingswood in Wesley's day alone would be impossible in this article. In the very first year of Bristol and Kingswood Methodism both Whitefield and Wesley turned their attention to the momentous question of Christian education. The New Room was partly a school. At Kingswood Whitefield's aim was to educate the colliers' children. But ~~s=XJ -~i -~y ^~ in 1748 a new school was opened by the Wesleys, which was intended to provide a Christian education for children of the wealthier class. The management of this school cost John Wesley much anxiety and trouble. This cannot be wondered at when it is remembered that children were admitted to the school at six years of age ; that they were required to rise the year round at the hour of four ; to fast, if in good health, every Friday till three o'clock in the afternoon ; and never to play, for the reason that " he who plays when he is a child will play when he becomes a man." Gradually the institution changed its character, till it finally became a school for ministers' sons only. As such it has won a great name, not only in Methodism, but also in the Universities and wherever sound scholarship and high principle are in repute. N. Curnock. THE ORPHAN HOUSE, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. Among the preaching-houses erected by John Wesley, one of the most celebrated is the Orphan House at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, of which the foundation stone was laid on the 20th of December, 1742. Originally intended as a preaching-house and children's home, it speedily became a centre of civilisation and evangelistic work in the North of England, as well as a place of rest for workers, and a school where Wesley himself taught rhetoric, moral philosophy, and logic to his young preachers; and though now replaced by a more recent and stately edifice, the place still remains among the most hallowed spots of the " people called Methodists.'' Wesley's first visit to Newcastle was in May, 1742, and he speaks of the moral degradation and open profanity of the place as surpassing all his previous experience, even among the Kingswood colliers. With true Christian optimism, he adds, however, " Surely this place is ripe for Him who ' came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to 110 THE ORPHAN HOUSE, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. repentance.'" Two or three days were all that the evangelist could then spare to proclaim the good tidings in the God-forsaken town, but his work was soon afterwards followed up by his brother Charles, who for some weeks laboured in Newcastle and its vicinity with marvellous success. Hundreds were united in religious fellowship as the first Methodist Society in the North, and on John Wesley's second visit in November of the same year such numbers were added unto the Church that the erection of a meeting-place and a preacher's home became an evident necessity. The greater part of the required land was purchased from Mr. Stephenson, a merchant of the town, who, on being applied to, said, " I do not want money, but if Mr. Wesley wants ground he may have a piece of my garden, adjoining the place you mention. I am at a word. For £40 he shall have sixteen yards in breadth and thirty in length." It may be interesting to add that the merchant in question was an ancestor of the writer, and that the land then sold at something under 2s. is now worth about £60 a yard. Mr. Wesley commenced his building scheme with the magnificent sum of £1 9s. 6<2. in hand, and he says in his diary : " It being computed that such a house as we proposed could not be finished under £700, many were positive it would never be finished at all ; others, that I should not live to see it covered. I was of another mind — nothing doubting but, as it was begun for God's sake, He would provide what was needful for the finishing it." Wesley's confidence was not misplaced, though possibly the case would scarcely have passed a Chapel Committee, had such an institution then been in existence. In addition to £50 collected after " a rough charity sermon," preached by Mr. Wesley at the Foundry, a pious Quaker, whilst the building was in progress, forwarded £100, accompanied by the foUowing letter:' " Friend Wesley, — I have had a dream concerning thee. I thought I saw thee surrounded by a large flock of sheep, which thou didst not know what to do with. The first thought after I awoke was that it was thy flock at Newcastle, and that thou hadst no house for them. I have enclosed a note for £100, which may help thee to build thee a new house." Dr. Stamp, in his book, "The Orphan House of Wesley," says : "This munificent donation was most opportune ; Mr. Wesley, in the exuberant kindness of his spirit, having just advanced to a member in distress the money he had brought with him to Newcastle to pay the workmen, trusting in Providence for a further supply." On the unexpected arrival of the £100, Mr. Wesley turned to one of his preachers, Mr. Thomas Dixon, who had remonstrated with him on what appeared his reckless generosity, and reminded him of the awkward results that might ensue, and said, " O ! Tommy, where was your faith?" Dreams appear to have had almost as much to do with the history of the Orphan House as with the history of Joseph, and others beside the good Quaker THE ORPHAN HOUSE, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. m seem in " the visions of their head upon their bed " to have enjoyed a revelation of the good work to be done in the still-rising building. The Vicar of Newcastle, the Rev. Mr. Turner, riding by the site while the workmen were busy digging the foundation, and learning that a preaching-house for Mr. Wesley was then in course of erection, the good old man dropped the reins on his horse's neck, and, lifting up his hands in thanksgiving, related how for three successive nights he had dreamed that on that very spot he saw the foot of a ladder on which men were climbing to heaven. Regard ing the dream as thus fulfilled, he gave utterance to an earnest wish and hope that the services there held might issue in the awakening and salvation of many. On March 25th, 1743, the building was so far advanced that Wesley preached a kind of opening sermon " in the shell of the New House on the subject of ' the Rich Man and Lazarus,' and afterwards held a watch-night. A great multitude assembled on the occasion." Wesley had considerable trouble and annoyance in the settlement of the property, chiefly owing to the delay of the former owner to make the necessary deed of transfer. He seems to have been disposed to regret his previous prompt offer, and Wesley found it necessary to write him the following characteristic letter : " Sir, — I am surprised. You give it under your hand that you will put me in possession of a piece of ground, specified in an article between us, in fifteen days' time. Three months are passed, and that article is not fulfilled. And now you say yon can't conceive what I mean by troubling you. I mean to have that article fulfilled. I think my meaning is very plain. — I am, Sir, your humble servant, " John Wesley." ORPHAN HOUSE, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. This plain dealing was not without its effect. In his Journal for April 6th, 1745, 112 THE ORPHAN HOUSE, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. Mr. Wesley writes : " Mr. Stephenson, of whom I bought the ground on which our house is built, came at length, after delaying it more than two years, and executed the writing. So I am freed from one more care. May I in everything make known my request to God." The Orphan House property was vested by Mr. Wesley in seven trustees, of whom two were Newcastle merchants, four preachers or " helpers,"— among them John Nelson, — and one a London solicitor. So in troublous times and in imminent fear of civil war— for this was the year of the Young Pretender's march into England— the work was finished, and Newcastle became the third great centre of Methodist influence, though the second in order of erection. Dr. Stamp thus describes the original building : " The lower part of the ' House ' was the chapel, fitted up with pulpit and forms ; the men and women sitting apart. Galleries were subsequently erected. Above the chapel was the band-room, opening from which were several class-rooms for the use of the Society. On the highest storey were suites of apartments used as residences for the preachers and their families, while on the roof was a wooden erection, about eleven feet square, with tiled covering, generally known as 'Mr. Wesley's Study.' This latter room was of the homeliest description, and furnished with the most Spartan simplicity, yet here Wesley loved to be, and here probably some of his happiest days were spent." He writes thus when in Newcastle in June of 1779 : " I rested here. Lovely place and lovely company ! But I believe there is another world. Therefore, I must arise and go hence." And in 1790 (only eight months before his entrance into the " house not made with hands ") he writes : " We reached Newcastle. In this and Kingswood House, were I to do my own will, I should choose to spend the short remainder of my days. But it cannot be : this is not my rest." Several interesting incidents are connected with the Orphan House. It was here that Wesley first drew up the " Rules of the United Societies," and the members at Newcastle were the first to hear them read by the Founder himself, and to promise their adhesion to them. Here, too, in 1748 he formed the purpose of publishing, "in threescore or fourscore volumes, all that is most valuable in the English tongue, in order to provide a complete Library to all that fear God." But, perhaps, the most attractive to many readers of the varied traditions that gather round the old meeting house is the touching story of Wesley's love and long courtship of the beautiful and saintly Grace Murray, who held the position of matron from 1743 till her marriage with Mr. Bennett in 1749. The terrible disappointment of Wesley, and his life-long regret, are too well known to need repetition. It was here that the first Northern Sunday-school was formed in 1790, six years after the establishment of the original institution by Robert Raikes in Gloucester ; and here, also, a sort of Bible Society was in existence prior to the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society ; poor boys who could not afford to purchase a copy of the Scriptures were MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS. 113 here suppHed. But the time would fail to tell of the honours of the Orphan House. We can only add that it was the birthplace of the Rev. Dr. Rigg, his father having been the last minister to reside in the building. We well remember hearing the Doctor mention the fact, and also that he was the first child baptized in Brunswick Chape], the grand old place of worship opened in 1821. From that period the Orphan House was employed only for scholastic purposes, until in 1856, after a farewell service, it was pulled down and replaced by the hand some modern day-schools familiar to all Newcastle visitors. The famous " Study " was, however, preserved, and is now, we believe, set up as far as possible in its original form in the grounds of a gentleman at North Shields. There were not wanting some who " took pleasure in her stones, and favoured the dust thereof," and, though the original " Orphan House of Wesley " is no more, the memorial of it will not perish while Methodism exists. W. H. Stephenson. MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS. We have reached the close of the first century following the death of John Wesley. Sentiments of quiet thankfulness and joy are stirred in our minds, when thinking of him and the great work he was permitted to do, during his active life ; and at the end of this long period, as we look over the face of the earth, and see the great expansion of Methodism, since its Founder passed awaiy, and think of the beneficent influence it has exerted on the Churches around, and, through them, on the moral character of this and other nations, we cannot help offering a psalm of praise to the Great Head of the Church, by whom this work has been so graciously preserved and so widely expanded. It is much to be hoped that the Commemoration now being held will lead to an increased study of Wesley's life and work, both on the part of the general pubHc, and especially on the part of members of the Methodist Society, and of hearers in Methodist chapels. The object of the present paper is to draw attention to one part only of the work of this surprisingly active and laborious man. It has always been a cause for astonishment to readers of Wesley's life that he should have been able, amidst his many and great labours, to find time for so much writing, and for the preparation of the many works of various kinds that were issued from the Press in his name. He has given some explanation of this in a letter to a friend, in which he says : " 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. 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 II4 MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS. secluded from all company." At these times he read and wrote almost continuously. This letter was written in his later life. In his earlier days he read when walking or riding. He snatched moments which might easily have been lost, as when one morning he set out at five o'clock from Dannabull to go to Holyhead ; and when he came to the sands he found the tide in : he therefore could not proceed, so he " sat down in a cottage for three or four hours and translated Aldrich's Logic." Still, it is very surprising that he should have done so much. He did not begin to pubUsh until he was thirty years of age. Of his first publication he says : " In the same year [1733] I printed (the first time I ventured to print anything), for the use of my pupils, ' A Collection of Forms of Prayer.' " Fifty- seven years afterwards, in the year 1790, he revised his translation of the New Testament, the last work of the kind he was able to do ; and published it in a neat pocket volume, without the notes, but having " an analysis of the several books and chapters." In the following year was published the last " Extract " from his remark able Journals. It is, perhaps, not possible to tell the precise number of pubfications issued by bim during this long period. Between three and four hundred books and pamphlets, greater or smaller, bearing his name, or known to have been pubhshed by him, have been catalogued. His second publication (1734) seems to have been an "abridg ment " of Norris's " Treatise on Christian Prudence." It was the first of a long series of " abridgments," some of which were not a little curious ; as, for example, the " Pilgrim's Progress," which was reduced to a small pamphlet of fifty-two pages. Even Milton's " Paradise Lost " and Young's " Night Thoughts " did not escape the prunings of his knife. His third publication was a beautiful 8vo edition of " The Christian's Pattern ; " it was " compared with the original, and corrected throughout." This was immediately followed by a charming little pocket volume of the same. Then came " Advice to a Young Clergyman," written by his father. These, with a sermon or two, were issued before he went to Georgia. There he published his first hymn-book, the very rare " Collection oi Psalms and Hymns," of which only one or two copies are known to exist. It was reprinted by the Book-Room in 1880. These early publications date prior to the " conversion ; " the first that followed that event was, as was most meet, " A Sermon on Salvation by Faith." From this time a new era commences, and every following year witnesses the product of his pen, or editorship. Rather more than twenty years ago the Rev. Dr. Osborn rendered a great service to subsequent students of Wesley's life by publishing a carefuUy prepared list of all Wesley's publications. This list is nearly correct and complete. A few have since come to hght, which even the diligence of so earnest a seeker failed to discover. Two descriptive lists had before been pubhshed — one hy the Rev. Thomas Jackson, in his edition of Wesley's Works (1829-31); and one by Mr. Alexander Heylin, in an appendix to his edition of Stevens' " History of Methodism," the first portion of which MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS. 115 was pubhshed by Heylin in 1861, and the second by Tegg in 1864. Of this list the late Mr. George J. Stevenson wrote, " Mr. Heylin told me he had seen every tract and book he described in that appendix." It is, on some accounts, an exceedingly interesting Ust. Several catalogues of works published by the Wesleys appear in both early and later issues from the " Foundry " and elsewhere. The first I have met with is appended to the sermon on "The Almost Christian" (1741). It is not a complete list of all that had been published up to that date, but it contains twenty-two separate pieces, most of them being pamphlets ; the first four Hymn-books are included. One interesting feature of this part of Wesley's work was the way in which he abridged books for the press. Saving his own time carefully, he sought also to save the time of others, and to bring the stores of useful literature within the reach of those who could afford neither the money to procure, nor the time to read, the large tomes in which some of the best writing was to be found. With this view he extracted from any available writer whatever he judged likely to serve his benevolent purpose. Huge foHos were searched and reduced to the moderate dimensions of handy duodecimos — his favourite size. In the preface to the fifty volumes which form his " Christian Library " he refers to the great variety of books in the EngHsh language " on every branch of reUgion " — as great as is " to be found in any language under Heaven. ... So that were a man to spend fourscore years, with the most indefatigable application, he could go but a little way toward reading over what has been published in our own tongue within these last hundred and fifty years. But this very plenty," he adds, " creates a difficulty. One who desires to make the best of a short life is lost among five hundred folios, and knows not where to begin. He cannot read all and would wilHngly read those only that will best reward his labour. But who wiU point out these ? Who will give him a clue whereby he may guide himself through this labyrinth ? " He also refers to the inconvenience arising, not only from the variety, but also from the disagreement in the writers. " They do not all speak the same things in the same manner. Even in points of practical religion, yea and those of the highest concern, writers of no small eminence speak not only in a manner different from, but contradictory to each other." He then asks, " Now, who will be at the pains to extract the gold out of these baser mixtures ? Who will separate the pure, genuine Divinity out of this huge, mingled mass 1 " He makes his attempt, and he tells us that in order to do this he has been obliged " not only to omit the far greater part of several eminent authors, but also to add what was needful, either to clear their sense or to correct their mistakes." To this work he set himself with his usual diligence. The volumes were issued at intervals during the years 1749-55. The entire work was reprinted in thirty volumes, 8vo, in 1810-27. It was a noble effort to put within the reach of the people at large the best portions of scarce and valuable works of voluminous and learned writers, but it has never had the sale it deserves. 116 MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS. In order to illustrate the carefulness with which Wesley made his corrections and alterations a specimen page is here given. This is not taken from J any piece 4c Of the Death of Chrijt. feivition whereof God required of them, -in order to their happinefsj -twxi-trp^R-ithe performance whereofjt was by him pre- tttt£tq tmte— 4khti. This is the fenfe and Do&rine of our Brcthien themfelves (gc- sefally^j So that iu ca£ it be fuppofed, that j/y^fL^. the Urriverfality (in a manner^ arid a fmall remnant only excepted^ of mankind, not withftanding any grae^-©i benefit received by the fecond Adam; in, or thfetrgb-Hs ideafb,is in aft ablolute a» xbe great S.ub)e£f or Artument of their delighr, and in the exaliatipn-. whereof from place tn place they triumphs do abundantly tclli- fic. Doubt lefs, the Tabernacle of ' Ad.im be ing fallen, and raifed up again by Jeftis ^^ Chrij}, is in fo much the better c6ndition ky- ~/~&-^-' trxxrfroi this railing \ip<»bove H*^c -aad_ coadkion -vva$ before they died; - ' This Argument iaHb is fiirther cleartd, and vindicated againft Objedtions, 111 the fore- ' named A SPECIMEN OF JOHN WESLEYS EDITING. inserted in the " Christian Library," but from an interesting Httle book which has recently been added to the Didsbury College Library. A word or two about this MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS. 117 unique work may not be out of place. It is a small 12mo volume, containing two separate pamphlets bound together. The first is entitled " The Pagan's Debt and Dowry," by John Goodwin. London: 1671. Pp.80. It is signed " From my Study, Colman-str., Lond., Dec. 11, 1651." And is "Returned by way of answer to a Dis course, lately sent without name, unto Mr. John Goodwin ; " it contains '' a brief Discussion of these Questions, whether, How far, and in what Sence, such persons of mankinde amongst whom the Letter of the Gospel never came, are notwithstanding bound to beHeve on Jesus Christ." It is evident that Mr. Wesley intended to prepare this for publication, for the title-page has several of his erasures and corrections. But t>*v- —1 /~ /U~s>y\ A > 'S/Xf_ y-A-^>^> jfy~J*<. t^e^ -j ffjf/Z~s^,, a /2«^^'iO A. PREFACE BT JOHN WESLEY, he seems to have abandoned this purpose, as no other page is touched. The second piece is entitled " The Agreement and Distance of Brethren ; or, a Brief Survey of the Judgement of Mr. John Goodwin and the Church of God Walking with him Touching these Important Heads of Doctrine. 1. Election and Reprobation. 2. The Death of Christ. 3. The Grace of God, in and About Conversion. 4. The Liberty or the Power of the Will, or of the Creature Man. 5. The Perseverance of the Saints." London : 1761. Pp. 139. To this Mr. Wesley wrote the characteristic preface, or address to the Reader, which is given in facsimile above. The entire book was carefully prepared for publication ; but why it was not printed cannot now be told ; and it is all the more remarkable, considering the high n8 MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS. testimony which he bears to its value. A single page is here reproduced ; it affords a very good illustration of his method of condensing and preparing pamphlets and books for the press. A few only of the folios now remain on which he expended his time and care. They are surprising evidences of his great patience and labour in preparing useful literature for the common people. One of these huge volumes now lies before me. It is 14 inches long, 9 inches wide, and 2| thick, and contains 850 pages. It is entitled " Several Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God. By that late Eminent Minister of Christ, Mr. Stephen Char- nocke, B.D." Every page has been carefully read. The corrections and abridgments show the most minute attention to the value of paragraphs, sentences, or lines. And even single words are erased, and, where needful, others substituted for them. But though so much labour was bestowed upon the book, the abridgment was not printed. How much some of us would have welcomed a reduced edition of this ponderous tome ! Mr. Thomas Jackson has well said of Wesley, "He regarded 'a great book as a great evil,' and in all his publications, whether original or adopted, aimed at brevity. By this means he saved his own time and that of his reader, and secured the sale of his works among the poor." A classification of the writings and publications issued by Wesley will give some idea of the wide range of subjects embraced by him. Besides a score of separate " Sermons '' preached on special occasions, eight volumes were issued, the first four of which form part of our doctrinal standards. Of " Extracts," " Short Accounts," and Abridgments " of " Lives " of various persons and original memoirs, there are upwards of forty, including that of Mr. Thomas Haliburton (evidently a great favourite), M. de Renty, David Brainerd, Madame Guyon, Thomas Walsh, John Fletcher, and John Nelson. More than seventy Theological Treatises and practical pieces of Divinity and devotion, or " abridgments " of the same, appeared, including Law's " Serious Call," Baxter's " Aphorisms of Justification," Bishop Hopkins' " Exposition of the Ten Com- CITY-ROAI>. MR. WESLEY'S PUBLICATIONS. 119 mandments," John Goodwin's " Treatise of Justification," and the " Plain Account of Christian Perfection," together with many " Thoughts " on many subjects. Larger works embraced " The Christian's Pattern," the " Earnest Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion " — amongst his very best and most useful writings ; " Notes on the New Testament " in one vol., and on " The Old Testament " in three vols., quarto ; " A Concise History of England," in four vols. ; " A Concise Ecclesiastical History from the Birth of Christ to the Beginning of the Present Century," also in four vols. Of smaller issues were a dozen stirring " Words ," in the form of handbHl tracts. For children he prepared " A Token," " Instructions," " Lessons," and " Prayers ; " together with school-books, which included English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew Grammars ; nine books of Latin prose, and a Roman and an EngHsh history. Nor did he omit science, as " The Desideratum ; or, Electricity made Plain and Useful," and " A Survey of the Wisdom of God in Creation; or, a Compendium of Natural Philosophy," published in two, three, and afterwards five vols., show. He issued extracts from medical works in three different volumes ; and another volume entitled " Primitive Physic," — primitive enough some think, — giving as much amusement to modern readers as it gave bodily relief to sufferers in times when medical science did not shine so brightly through the land as now. In addition to aU these were the annual " penny " " Minutes of the Conference," from the year 1763, which he prepared, for he was both President and Secretary of the Conference ; the twenty-one " Extracts " from his Journal, which now form four 'volumes of, perhaps, the most entertaining and instructive account of English life of the last century to be found in the language ; to which must be added a long list of defences and explanations, and other pieces on " Methodism ; " " Accounts of the Work of God," with many papers on the controversies of the hour ; a number of " Letters " on a variety of subjects, some of them of considerable size ; also several poHtical pamphlets. Nor must I omit his "Complete English Dictionary," a great curiosity in its way, the " Compendium of Logic," the tract " On Pronunciation and Gesture," nor his " Collected Works," in thirty-two vols., published in 1771-4, nor the Arminian Magazine, begun in 1778, in which were scores of original pieces by him. Who will not say that these indicate a very wide range of reading ; and, in their publication, a very wide range of usefulness? But to all these must be added the nearly sixty " poetical publications," large and small, mostly written by his brother, but all subject to his revision, and almost every one published in his name, and the five " musical works " to help in singing the same. This amount of work is truly wonderful, and excites alike our surprise and our admiration, and all was done from what Dr. Osborn describes as his "intense determination to popularise literature, and by means of cheap extracts and abridgments to bring good books within reach of his Societies, most of whom had neither time to read nor money to buy 120 CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF JOHN WESLEY. much more than he supplied to them." Well may we commemorate the close of this active, useful life, a pattern of unwearied industry, of charitable service, and of world wide usefulness. Richard Green. J&*A x* /y-^'7ff. JOHN FLETCHER S AUTOGRAPH. CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF JOHN WESLEY. A categorical record of the contemporary portraits of John Wesley which are still extant should be of service. Any such list must of necessity have for its foundation that published by Henry Bromley in 1793 in his "Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits." Of the seventeen engravings therein indexed, copies of eleven, possibly of thirteen (together with others not mentioned by Bromley), are in the possession of the Allan Library. The earhest dated portrait of which I have any knowledge is an oval, a small line engraving, which may have been a book frontispiece, and was published in 1741. It is not without an element of caricature (though, perhaps, not of set purpose) ; was, possibly, drawn from the Hfe without the knowledge of Mr. Wesley, and serves to remind us that the first two years of the United Societies brought for the founder of them some general notoriety. The earliest painting is that of which the original is claimed to be at the Mission- house. It was done by J. Williams, and many engravers worked from it, and from two replicas painted by the same artist. Of these, one is in the possession of Mr. George Stampe, of Grimsby. Faber 's copy was published early in 1743 ; it was photo graphed for Tyerman's " Life." George Yertue's, which was partly a line engraving, had a rough sketch of the burning rectory below it, and for that reason was a favourite with its subject. A second copy, which Bromley says (I think erroneously) was drawn ad vivum, as well as a third, differ mainly in the facial contour. A fourth copy, made five years after, and modified by actual sittings, was produced by John Downes for the " Notes on the New Testament." It is, perhaps, some confused knowledge of this half- original portrait which led Bromley into the mistake just cited. Houston's is also good, but by far the best engraving is a mezzotint oval in the Allan Library, undated and unnamed, consisting of the bust only. The painting done by Hone about the year 1765 is in the National Portrait Gallery. At least two copies of it were engraved, the earlier by Bland, which I have CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF JOHN WESLEY. 121 not seen, except in Tyerman, though a version of it appeared in the first edition of the " Notes on the Old Testament." Another, four years later, was made by Greenwood, and is in a sense uniform with his magnificent work on George Whitefield. I have heard of several copies. In the same year, also, a good stipple copy was published by Carington Bowles, and of this fair impressions are still extant. The original of the engraving which appears on the title-page of the " Beauties of Methodism," pubHshed in 1770, is said to be at Tinstone. In the year 1773 a portrait was painted by J. Russell. Bland, the engraver of Hone's, also reproduced this, and it was pubHshed in July of that year. Another copy of this work appears to have been made in the same year, and a proof of it, presum ably unique, is to be met with in the Allan Library. The name of the painter is written in, as well as the names of the engravers, Jefferyes and another ( ? Faber). There is also the remark, " Published May 20, 1773." I am inclined to suspect that this copy, if ever published, was suppressed, or, at any rate, ignored, on account of the superiority of Bland's work, which appeared a few weeks after. It is an interesting production, with a good deal of artistic strength, but unfinished (as if struck off the plate hurriedly), and with a less pleasing face than the better-known engraving. Both are mezzotints. In S. Harding's portrait Mr. Wesley is in a sitting posture. It was issued in 1788, and has Httle antiquarian merit, the face being far too effeminate. Bromley says it was engraved by W. Gardner. I have no means of verifying this, but have seen an indifferent reproduction of it by F. Bartolozzi. There is some mystery attaching to the engraving which appeared in the first volume of the Arminian Magazine in 1778. It was prepared the year before from the life, apparently by BodHdge, but is not attractive. It may have been a sense of this which led to its partial suppression, as it would seem that an unnamed substitute, certainly a more prepossessing face, was bound up with some copies of the volume. This remark, however, is purely speculative. The portrait which appeared in the sixth volume is a nice piece of work, a miniature, with a good deal of character in it. A powerful mezzotint oval, unnamed, was pubHshed in 1779, but its history is uncertain. A very fine and suggestive portrait was painted by Robert Hunter when Mr. Wesley was in Dublin, under circumstances which are thus referred to in the Journals for 1765 : " Wed., 31. — At the earnest desire of a friend, I suffered Mr. Hunter to take my picture. I sat only once, from about ten o'clock to half-an-hour after one, and in that time he began and ended the face ; and with a most striking likeness." This, which is now missing, was well reproduced by J. Watson in an oval engraving, a good piece of mezzotint, of which the copy, which was in the death-room, is now in the vestry at City-road. 122 CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF JOHN WESLEY. James Barry painted a miniature from the life, of which he made two copies, all of them, according to the late Mr. Stevenson, having been seen by him. I believe one is in the possession of Canon Girdlestone. From this material the painter pre pared the excellent portrait which adorns the ceiling of the hall of the Society of Arts. Four or five years after, Fittler produced a good mezzotint work from the original, and this was reproduced for Dr. Whitehead's "Life" in 1791. Fittler was also the engraver, in 1788, of a work painted by W. Hamilton, from the material acquired at a sitting of an hour and a half (recorded in the Journals), the original being now in the National Portrait Gal lery. Mr. Wesley thought this his best. The copy is a large folio line engraving, and a reduction of it appears in Whitehead, its excellence perhaps explaining the selection of this engraver for the reproduction of Barry's also. Thomas Holloway, whose father's name was on one of the earliest of the Foundry class-books, engraved a small oval profile from the life, which was pubHshed in 1791, and issued in the Literary Magazine the year after. Many copies are extant. It may have suggested the bad imitation engraved for Hampson's " Life," and published six weeks after the death. Of the paintings made by the two rival portrait-painters of that age, that by Sir Joshua Reynolds is lost. It has been conjectured to be the large oil in the Sheffield college library of the New Connexion, but of this there is no acceptable evidence. George Romney's portrait, of which the Rev. G. Stringer Rowe is the fortunate possessor, was taken early in 1789, and has been engraved on various occasions, notably by Ward, the well-known Academician. The engraving has been finely redrawn in line work by Mr. J. H. Finchen for the Centenary Number- of the Methodist Recorder. Spilsbury's contemporary mezzotint, issued in 1789, differs from these in some of its details, and the painting was also photographed for Tyerman's " Life." FACSIMILE OF WESLEY'S PORTHAIT FROM THE " EUROPEAN MACAZINE." CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF JOHN WESLEY. 123 In the following year a miniature was painted which still exists. It is the portrait reproduced in the well-known Conference groups. The profile portrait for which Mr. Wesley sat to Edridge shortly before his death was engraved by Ridley for Coke and Moore's " Life." The original is claimed to be that in the Wesley-house. The painting prepared by this artist three days after the death was engraved cheaply, and is the truest portrait of the old age. The engraving is scarce. The only portrait mentioned by Bromley which cannot be identified (unless it be one now in the States) is that painted by Miller. Mention should be made of the central figure in the quaint group sketched in 1790 by an Edinburgh genius, which, though no portrait, is useful as recalling Mr. Wesley's habit of dress. In the year of Mr. Wesley's death a crowd of engravers hurried into the market with works of more or less indifferent merit. Their eagerness was as keen as that of the unauthorised biographers who, as I have shown elsewhere, were wittily reprimanded by the Morning Chronicle before the funeral had actually taken place. For instance, the engraving of W. Bromley's (not the cataloguer) which "was hurried into the European Magazine, and is produced in facsimile elsewhere, was not unpleasing — a remark which cannot be made of the scarecrow face which was drawn by the " Engraver Extraordinary to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales," and pubHshed on June 20th, at Bath. This was from Yaslet's picture (now at the Mission- house), which was so far recognised as to be redrawn in a most excellent manner later on for Adam Clarke's " Wesley Family." In addition to these a very bad little line engraving was brought out by J. Tookey a month after the decease. One of the most important posthumous prints is that issued by W. T. Fry in 1824 (I do not mean the one in Southey's " Life ") on the basis of Renton's picture. There is no information about the original, and the work has no particular value. The portrait which appears as the frontispiece to Isaac Taylor's " Wesley and Methodism " is very dreadful, and has a disreputable history. There is an enamel by W. Grimaldi in the possession of tho Baroness Burdett-Coutts, now on view at the Guelph Exhibition ; and another, presented by the miniaturist himself to the Methodist Society in 1829, is at the Mission-house. There are in the hands of private collectors many other portraits of Mr. Wesley, but I do not know that any which are not mentioned herein claim to be genuine in the sense of being drawings from the life with the consent of their subject. No detailed refer ence can be permitted to the sculptural portraits, such as Coade's and Enoch Wood s. Some notes on this subject were published in the Metlwdist Recorder by the late Mr. Stevenson. Where my own remarks are at variance with his, I have been careful to verify them, out of deference to the memory of so industrious an antiquary. E. G. Harmer. 124 EARLY METHODIST WOMEN. EARLY METHODIST WOMEN. Since the days when believing women followed our Lord from Galilee to Jerusalem, ministering to Him of their substance, and when the majesty of Divine Love incarnated in Him deigned to approve and accept their service, there has been no really great and beneficent movement in the Christian Church that has not enlisted the best energies of the womanly heart and soul, and has not owed to them a large share of its success. The great eighteenth century revival is no exception to this rule: it is a conspicuous illustration of it. Cradled in the mother-arms of Susanna Wesley, Methodism never lacked womanly ministry about its later progress. In the band of woman-workers who gathered round John Wesley, and who were either actively toiling or being trained for future efforts, under his leadership, at the time when he was summoned from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant, almost every form of Christian service possible to woman seems exemphfied. Perhaps no one of this band united more varied gifts with fuller consecration than did Mary Fletcher, whose brief married bliss began and ended within the last ten years of Wesley's life ; her saintly husband, the " seraphic Fletcher," to whom Wesley had fondly hoped to transmit his own unique authority, dying six years before the venerable friend whom he might reasonably have been expected to survive. It is high praise, but it is just praise, to say that Mrs. Fletcher was altogether worthy of this husband. Born to affluence and ease, and endowed with every advantage that could make a mere worldly Hfe delightful and desirable ; of a warmly affectionate nature, and a spirit sensitive and imaginative beyond the average, — she had yet found the courage to forsake every tempting prospect, to cast in her lot with despised and suffering saints, and to bear exile from a dear home and beloved friends, if so she might win Christ. Nor did she rest content with seeking her own salvation, but gladly devoted her means and her whole energy to a course of active benevolence which in many ways prefigured the larger philanthropic enterprises of our own time. Aided by the experience and wisdom of Sarah Ryan — a humble, suffering saint, a faithful disciple of Wesley's — she succeeded in establishing, first at Leytonstone in Essex, then at Cross Hall in Yorkshire, such an Orphanage as both Whitefield and Wesley had vainly desired to set on foot. She gathered in poor little orphaned creatures, sickly, filthy, ignorant, needing cleansing and healing in body and soul ; rejecting no lost lamb as too deeply tainted, she taught, civilised, purified, and made them worthy members of Christian society. With these tender ministerings she, and the Christian women whom she gathered EARLY METHODIST WOMEN. 125 into her home to help her, united dauntless efforts to spread Christ's Gospel among the half-heathen " Christian savages " of rural England. They dared, though with much misgiving at first, even to preach Christ to mixed congregations. Memories of these exhortations still cling about Cross Hall, a substantial old dwelling, itself as yet not SUSANNA WESLEY. greatly altered, though a rapid increase of population around it has changed the whole character of its surroundings; and the visitor may still stand in the lofty ancient kitchen where Miss Bosanquet preached Christ to her assembled neighbours, and may look through the windows of rooms built by her to the neat modern Wesleyan Chapel that now stands just beyond her garden wall. 126 EARLY METH0DIS2 WOMEN. These unusual efforts of hers were approved and sanctioned by Wesley himself, extraordinary circumstances and extraordinary gifts justifying, in his opinion, her departure from the general rule that forbade such pubhc ministerings by women. Her powers were indeed unusual : she possessed not only the rich, full, clear voice easily heard by large crowds ; the excellent choice of language that made her well 'understood by the humblest ; the manner, " smooth, easy, and natural," that attracted attention, — but a delicate tact that never let her transgress the fine line between the fit and the unfit; and her success was apparently great and un varying. When in the lowly old parish church of Batley Mary Bosanquet married " Fletcher of Madeley," it was with no intention on her part or his that the evangelist should be sunk in the wife; but by his request she "married his parish," shared all his noble toil, and in all her long widowhood carried on his work at Madeley in his very spirit, until, full twenty-four years after Wesley, she also passed away. It had been hers to show that the truest womanliness may consist with such publicity and inde pendence of action as some would deem unwomanly. She did not stand alone in this at her own day ; and two devoted women, privileged to minister to the dying Wesley, were engaged in not very dissimilar Christian work. Hester Ann Rogers, who with her husband, one of Wesley's devoted preachers, was residing in 1791 at the " Chapel-house, City-road," was made widely known after her death by her published Letters and Memoirs, which, unfolding a touching story of early conflict and suffering, and disclosing the religious experiences of a singularly pure and fervent spirit, obtained for her a larger influence than with all her incessant and exhausting efforts she could have exercised in Hfe. It had been hers to resist much that was tempting, and bear much that was hard, because of her reHgious con victions ; her early death added great pathos to the recital of these trials. In mind, education, and position she might not rank above the average ; in resolute, impas sioned self-devotion she can have been exceeded by few. The evangelistic labours, MARY FLETCHER. EARLY METHODIST WOMEN. 127 which her husband too much encouraged her to multiply, doubtless worked together with the excessive austerities she had practised in the zeal of her first conversion to shorten her life ; she had not only emulated Mrs. Fletcher in sometimes addressing public meetings, she had toiled too incessantly in forming and leading successive classes in every new appointment to which she removed with her husband. Though she had come to City-road with the single aim of cheering and soothing the declining days of Mr. Wesley, her health was so far broken down that it had become necessary for a stronger friend to come and aid her in that task. CROSS HALL, MARY BOSANQUET S HOME. This friend, Elizabeth Ritchie, was one justly high in Wesley's esteem, and her presence was very grateful to him. The dignity, strength, and sweetness of her character, the firm, well-considered decision with which, when only eighteen, she had renounced nattering earthly prospects to give herself to Christ, the energy of goodness she had displayed in acting as visitor to Wesley's various societies, and in sharing his own missionary journeys and toils, all constituted her a Christian after his own heart. Over her spiritual education, as his long correspondence with her shows, he had watched with a father's care ; and the high serene excellence of her Hfe, not only in these her maiden days, hut in her later married years as Mrs. Mortimer, and in the mild bright evening of her widowed old age, showed that his paternal interest and anxiety were not wasted. 128 EARLY METHODIST WOMEN. No part of her long life of eighty-one years has so much interest for us now as the few weeks she spent at the Chapel-house, with " sufficient business on her hands, ' business of which the pleasantest part was the tender, filial care she could bestow on her father in Christ. " You must be eyes to the blind," he said to her ; and accord ingly every morning found her, at six o'clock, up and ready to read to him who could no longer see clearly, or to converse with him till breakfast-time. His talk was much on death, and the life beyond death, but without a touch of gloom ; " he breathed the air of paradise," and pictured the future state as one of blissful activity. " I should wish you to be with me in my dying moments ; I would have you to close my eyes," he had said ; and the wish was not denied him. PARISH CHURCH, BATLEY. Her care was about him in that brief dying illness, so like a translation, which endured only from February 23rd to the 2nd of March, 1791 ; and it was while she, with Miss Wesley, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, and several other tried and true disciples, knelt around his bed, that his triumphant spirit was released from the worn-out body. The account of that surprising death-scene, in which the bHss and peace of the immortal soul so transcended and overpowered the weakness of the perishing flesh, that mortality was indeed swallowed up of Hfe, is from Miss Ritchie's pen, and was written while every detail stood clear and vivid in recent memory. Lovingly she records the repeated command, " Pray and praise," uttered when he found that the hand of death was on him ; fondly she dwells on the calm, placid " Farewell " to dear earthly friends, the thankfulness for every little service, the fervent energy of his EARLY METHODIST WOMEN. 129 " Amen " to every petition for God's continued blessing on His glorious work — showing the same absorption in the one object of his life-long toils as shone out when he gathered up all his failing strength to exclaim, " The best of all is, God is with us ! — God is with us ! " while he raised and waved his dying arm, and lifted his feeble voice, to " comfort the hearts of his weeping friends " with that final assurance. He passed away, " according to his often expressed desire, without one lingering groan, in the presence of his brethren," to employ his " nobler powers " in that praise- ful service of his God, to which with his parting breath he had aspired. Those who remained to mourn his departure from their midst were upborne awhile by the memory of the " victory and glory " of his last moments ; but a deep sense of orphaned desola tion inevitably followed, and was especially heavy on Miss Ritchie. Two friends, who in their different ways tried to lighten her bereavement with loving sympathy, them selves deserve a high place among Wesley's female fellow-workers. In Darcy, Lady Maxwell, and in Lady Mary Fitzgerald, though they were highly-born and opulent, he could find not less simplicity, humility, and self-forgetting devotion than if they had possessed neither rank nor riches, but had moved in the lowly station which experience had taught him to think most helpful to piety. Of an old and good Scottish family, and married most suitably, in the first bloom of her lovely girlhood, to Sir Walter Maxwell of Pollok, Lady Maxwell was deprived within a few weeks of both child and husband, after only two years of married life ; and, in the first anguish of bereavement, vowed to consecrate " her whole heart " to God. She kept the vow, through long years of unfaltering devotion ; but she owed it to the fatherly care and counsels of Wesley that her self-consecration escaped the reproach of mere asceticism, and was healthful, happy, and exceedingly beneficent. Her interest was particularly strong in educational work ; she was among the first to appreciate the value of Sunday-schools and to promote their establishment ; she founded and maintained at her own cost a school in Edinburgh, " to afford education and Christian instruction to poor children," and she contributed nobly and freely towards the school which Wesley established at Kingswood. Her income as a widow, ample for her private needs, could not have sufficed for her incessant charities without the exactest management ; but by steady self-denial, and simplicity in dress and style of Hving, she was able to " relieve many a suffering creature, and give education to many an orphan child." In the steady attachment to Wesley and his teaching which ruled all her opinions, and which appeared very plainly at the time when the Calvinist controversy divided the young Methodist societies, Lady Maxwell was equalled, though not sur passed, by Lady Mary Fitzgerald, the intimate friend of Mrs. Fletcher and Miss Ritchie. This lady was daughter of the famous John Lord Hervey, whom Pope's spleen stigmatised as " Lord Fanny," but whose keen, cruel wit and dark misanthropy 9 130 EARLY METHODIST WOMEN. deserved to be very differently described. Lady Mary's youth was spent in that heartless, godless, corrupt, and brilliant high society which her father's " Memoirs " have laid bare in all its deformity to our gaze to-day ; her prime of womanhood was tortured by the wild ways and furious quarrels of the great Irish family into which she married, by the excesses of the husband from whom she was driven to separate, and the guilty folly of the son over whom at last she had to weep as having too well earned his felon's grave. From all these miseries and dangers she found a refuge and a solace in the doctrines preached by the contemned Methodists; she joined herself early to one of Mr. Wesley's societies, and maintained her connection with it to the close of the long life which she filled with works of mercy and of love. There seems to have been a singular sweetness, purity, and tenderness in her piety, a sort of atmo sphere of light surrounding her, which, contrasting strongly with the dark and stormy scenes of her early Hfe, recalls the tender Scripture phrase, " a lily among thorns." Even the record of her death, by injury from fire, in her ninetieth year, has the same soft, placid charm about it. " He gave His beloved sleep," though the messenger was winged with flame. By her express wish, her body was laid in the City-road burying-ground, where she had seen Wesley himself interred. A memorial tablet to her was soon afterwards erected by her grandson in the adjoining chapel. For the preservation of many particulars relating to Lady Mary, and for an appreciative memoir of her friend Mrs. Mortimer, Methodist readers are indebted to the graceful pen of a young Christian lady, baptized by Wesley himself, and admitted by his own hand into Society only two years before his death. Agnes Bulmer, daughter of excellent London Methodists named Collinson, enjoyed from her childhood the tender friendship of the admirable lady whom Wesley had known and valued as Elizabeth Ritchie. She did not prize that friendship less when years had ripened her own remarkable intellectual powers, and when, in a happy married home of her own, she was able to emulate the noble womanly and Christian virtues of her " dear, aged, venerable, early and beloved friend and counsellor," whose influence had much contributed to mould her own character and opinions. Gifted with poetic power far beyond the average, thirsty for knowledge, hungry for ideas, and with manners that had a singular attractiveness for people of her own mental rank, — for men like Adam Clarke, Richard Watson, and W. M. Bunting, — Mrs. Bulmer, through a sort of shy sensitiveness and natural reserve, did not exercise such widespread influence as has been wielded by women far less richly endowed. Her work was quiet and unobtrusive as that of the plenteous summer dew, her power appearing chiefly in the growing grace of all within her sphere. But this Christian poetess, this holy, intellectual woman, has her claim to a special place in our record, not only as forming a valuable link between the first and the second period of Methodism, but as showing that in that second period, very high cultivation, sensitive MR. WESLEY IN OLD AGE. 131 refinement, and retiring modesty could all be combined in one who filled successfully the office of a Methodist class-leader, and deemed herself honoured by the post. One more contemporary of Wesley, one more co-worker of his, claims a word of grateful remembrance — Barbara Heck, the humble, steadfast matron of German-Irish birth, transplanted in 1760 from Ireland to America. There, in the first decade of her residence, her single-hearted zeal had laid the foundation of Methodism in the United States. She had stirred up her fellow-believer Embury to gather the first Wesleyan congregation in New York ; she had aided with heart and hand in building the first Methodist chapel there ; and, after doing similar pioneer work further inland, she now, in 1791, amid the pine-woods of Upper Canada, was again engaged in building up the first Methodist Church on Canadian soil, where she, her husband, and several friends, all loyal British subjects, had sought a refuge from the storm of the American Revolution; WiUiam Losee, "the first regular Methodist preacher in Canada," being in the spring of 1791 empowered by the New York Conference to take charge of the promising young Societies raised up by the zeal of the Hecks, the Ruckles, their relatives, and several other " Irish Palatines " and Methodist pioneers. Barbara Heck, modest originator of a mighty movement, who never suspected her own importance, outlived Wesley by thirteen years ; Lady Mary Fitzgerald and Mrs. Fletcher by twenty-four; Mrs. Mortimer by forty-four, and Mrs. Bulmer by forty-five ; Hester Ann Rogers by only three. All, however, either honoured by Wesley's personal notice or actively co-operating with him in his lifetime, may justly be quoted as noble specimens of Early Methodist Women. Annie E. Keeling. MR. WESLEY IN OLD AGE : METHODISTS PLAYING AT CARDS. " Dost thou look back on what hath been 1 " la Memoriam. The last entries in John Wesley's Journal relate to his farewell tour in the Eastern counties. During that tour Crabbe, who had been saved by the kindness of Edmund Burke from want and obscurity, and who was now universally recognised as a great and original poet, heard Wesley preach in Lowestoft. The young poet records that the great and venerable evangelist quoted the passage on the advance of old age attributed to the celebrated lyric poet Anacreon, who died at the age of eighty-five, nearly five hundred years before the Christian era. The last line of the quotation is " 'Tis time to live, if I grow old." I32 MR. WESLEY IN OLD AGE. Twenty years ago the present writer visited in Brighton a military officer who had already reached extreme old age. He was a man of gigantic stature and robust appearance, Major Yoland by name. He said, in the course of conversation, that, although not himself a Wesleyan, he took a peculiar and undying interest in the work of our Church. He had greatly enjoyed friendly intercourse with Wesleyan missionaries in countries where he had travelled with his regiment, and esteemed them very highly for then- work's sake. " But," said the venerable major, " my interest in the Church founded by John Wesley is almost life-long, for when I was a child I heard him preach in Yarmouth, my native town. The nurse took me into one of the front pews in the side gallery. I looked down into the pulpit, and was filled with childish wonder when I saw a man in black clothes stand behind the tottering form of the great little preacher, and support him with his arms while he preached a sermon which I was too young to understand. I have never lost," he added, " the deep impression made upon me by my first and last sight of John Wesley." The date of that visit to Yarmouth was Thursday, October 14th, 1790. The very next day, in Lowestoft, Crabbe heard Wesley exclaim, in the fervour of a splendid zeal, which the rush of numerous years could not quench, nor even abate : " 'Tis time to live, if I grow old ! " No wonder if the followers of such a leader sought, even in their recreations, refreshment for the spirit, as well as for the soul and the body. A few years ago I knocked one afternoon at a cottage door in a West Riding village. " Come in, thou blessed of the Lord ! " cried a cheery voice from the old arm-chair by the fire. It was the voice of my dear old friend Jabez. He still lingers amongst us, a happy and saintly octogenarian, a link between two generations of Methodists. Some of us always feel when we greet him as if, in some sense, " we join our hands with those that went before." During our conversation that afternoon he gave me the small, black, worn leather card-case which now lies before me. He told me that he had received it from an old lady who lived and died in the neighbourhood, and that she had received it many years before from a very aged local preacher. The case contains sixty-three cards. Each card has a fragment of Scripture printed on one side, and an original poetical paraphrase on the other. A facsimile of one of the cards is given on the opposite page. Last February I wrote to the late Dr. Osborn asking him if he could throw light on their origin. In the very interesting and beautifully written reply which lies before me the Doctor says : " Their origin is a mystery. I doubt if any Hving man can solve it." I pointed out the resemblance between many of the verses and the poetry of Charles Wesley. The Doctor was equally doubtful on the point of authorship. He said : " Charles Wesley had many imitators, and some successful ones." He then A PEEP INTO A METHODIST MUSEUM. 133 added : " I have heard that some of the old Methodists ' played cards ' frequently. With a packet like yours in their pocket, they went to tea with their neighbours, and afterwards dealt out the cards, read, conversed about them, sang, and sometimes prayed over the verses, and so filled up a profitable hour or two, and excluded gossip. Perhaps we might copy them to advantage occasionally." 1 Cor. i. 10. I beseech you, brethren, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you. [24] My brethren belov'd By Jesus approv'd, In sweet unanimity join ; Let divisions give place, And, cemented by grace, Let us sing of the mercy divine. Our Jesus's name, We'll rejoice to proclaim, Our centre of union below ; And, with harmony sweet, His praises repeat, 'Till his uttermost goodness we know. FACSIMILE OF A METHODIST PLAYING CARD. I shall be glad to present the packet, together with Dr. Osborn's letter, to the Wesley Museum. Links, however slight, which unite us more consciously to the departed good and true are precious to us. But what are all such compared to the living link of the great Name ! " Thrice blest the Name which makes us one, And happy they who, hastening on, Have reached the rest to pilgrims given ! Dear Lord ! on us, who thither tend, Let heaven, whene'er we sing, descend, Till we in turn are raised to heaven.'' W. H. Moseley. A PEEP INTO A METHODIST MUSEUM. Next to the privilege of having known John Wesley, and heard him speak, is, probably, to handle and read the letters that his own hand traced, and his own big heart dictated. For some people such an exercise is, alas ! a vain and thankless one ; for many more it will be a boon not easily to be estimated, and for these so gifted and blessed with reverence for his memory, I open the treasures of my museum, the formation of which has, through many busy years, been more and higher than a hobby. From the over one hundred and thirty pictures, presentments of his face, on my walls and in portfolios, we turn to one occupying the place of honour, and which my old friend, Mr. Stelfox, of Southport, regarded as the original picture. It is the face of Wesley in his thirty-ninth or fortieth year, from the brush of Williams, and a 34 A PEEP INTO A METHODIST MUSEUM. -of which two other copies, also in oils, are known. Probably the painter executed two replicas, from which George Vertue, a fastidious artist, engraved the three folio portraits, all slightly different, that hang as pendants to the painting. The features in the latter are ruddy, and the expression somewhat stern, but full of latent energy and power, and the eyes are those of a born leader of men. The same earnest soul shines out of the engraving by Ward from Romney's picture, painted in 1789, but softened into an almost saintly sweetness and grace. Greenwood's splendid proof etching, large sized, of Wesley, after Hone's painting, must be seen to understand what the subject was in his prime. Hunter's caricature (known as the " Irish " portrait), Tinney's rare but ludicrous representation, Haid's, Faber's, and Downes's rendering of Williams's picture, are, with many others, all here ; some laughably unlike, others truthful and correct up to the light and skill of the artist, but all suggestive of the marvellous popularity and fame to which he, even in his lifetime, had attained. Excepting, perhaps, the great Duke of Wellington, no living man had ever his portrait so often engraved. Here is the true likeness of Wesley, from Ridley's able pencil, as I Hke best to think of him, taken from the cast of his face as he lay coffined at City-road, in the serene sleep of death. The Wellesley nose, the mobile, tender mouth, the firm, strong jaw, the intellectual brow, are all outlined to the life, and show us what Wesley's face at eighty-eight really was. Standing on a ledge, just beneath the proof engraving of the "Death-bed," — a somewhat fanciful rendering of that solemn scene, — is a very early impression (probably a " proof "), and bearing marks of the modeller's chisel, of Enoch Wood's bust of the great man, the finest known to me, and for which he sat. The face is deeply lined, but benignant and strong — Wesley as he was at seventy- seven. Opening a pair of closet doors, rows of so-called Wesley busts and statuettes, in every imaginable style and ware, stand ranged before us. Common Staffordshire, Crown Derby, plaster, china, basalt, from two to fifteen inches high, are all repre sented, and all, more or less,— often less /—likenesses of the great evangelist, looking at us with very varying expressions. Portraits on basins, cups, pitchers, plates, and plaques show how " his people " loved to remember him in their homes, and speak eloquently of the hero-worship of the early half of the century. What a lovely likeness this is of him, standing in the quaint Staffordshire-ware pulpit, his hand on an open Bible, and rare as it is beautiful ! Carefully opening this strong oak cabinet, let me ask you to glance at these precious Wedgwood Wesley plaques, the one with the ornamental border in white biscuit-ware, surmounted by an angel-held crown bemg specially lovely. How finely lined and deftly "touched" are these profiled features of creamy white on the soft, delicate blue-a lost art so far as we are con cerned ! How the wrinkled face speaks to us of work and thought, and passion for the souls and bodies of men, and the uplifting of the race ! Nothing in art is finer A PEEP INTO A METHODIST MUSEUM. 135 than these Wedgwood medallions, but we look beyond the art to as faithful and true an outline of Wesley's expressive face as a reverent past has happily bequeathed to us. Here is nearly the sole bit of jewellery the Founder probably possessed, its genuineness amply attested in the fine handwriting of the late T. Percival Bunting. It is a breast-pin, containing a bit of his mother's soft white hair, and having J. W. engraved on the gold back. Alongside of it is one of his four silver tea-spoons, referred to in his well-known letter to the Commissioners of Excise, with J. C. W. (John and Charles Wesley) inscribed in letters of the period, the gift to me of the Rev. H. W. Jackson at a well-remembered District Meeting. His father had it direct from the old chapel-keeper to whom Mr. Wesley himself presented it. Please handle carefully the chief treasure of my collection, this precious and unique relic of Wesley, worth more than its weight in gold, and which gold could not buy. It is his MS. Journal, cash book, commonplace book, diary, all in one, kept while a student at Oxford from 1725 to 1730, all in his own minute and beautiful handwriting : a history, for the time being, of his life and doings. Many of the entries JOHN "WESLEY'S BREAST-PIN. ONE OF THE " FOUR SILVER SPOONS." are amusing, and only to be understood in the light of his not having then undergone " conversion." His method, generosity, ceaseless toil, and great success are here presaged. It is the Journals in embryo, minus the motive-power of his Divine call and mission. Here, by its side, bound up with the 1749 edition of the " Small Minutes," is the identical MS. of the missing " Minutes " for the Conferences of 1749, 1755, and 1758, all in Wesley's neat handwriting — a priceless historical memento ; and here an example of his industry in the shape of an autograph list, on forty-nine quarto pages, of the names and professions of all the members in the Dublin Society for several years, with very curious information about some of them. Wonderingly one asks how any single hand and brain got through so much varied work, and did it all so well ! From over seventy of Wesley's original letters the exigencies of our space can admit but few extracts. This, the earliest, written to his mother from Oxford, June 18th, 1725, bears the rare distinction of an interlined MS. "note" by the "mother of the Wesleys," as she read her gifted son's epistle, and runs thus : " Weakness, deformity, or imperfection of body are not evils in tliemselves, but accidentally become good or evil, accordingly as they affect us and make us good or bad." (He was just 136 A PEEP INTO A METHODIST MUSEUM. then reading Thomas a Kempis, and was deeply tinged with the mystic and somewhat austere teachings of that divine, as the whole letter shows.) These long letters to his wife ("My dear Molly") are, in their honeymoon warmth, very entertaining, and contrast painfully with these others addressed to this same "Dear Molly," after her own jealous madness, and the foolish promptings of injudicious friends, had for ever separated the ill-assorted pair. This long and strangely calm epistle (from Grimsby !) is full of the most terrible accusations, and another ends with the following splendid vindication of himself: "Perhaps you may now take the greater liberty, because having stript me of all my papers, you imagine it is now absolutely impossible for me to justify myself. But you are under a mistake. To all that know me my word is a sufficient justification. And if anything more is needful, I know One that is able to say to the grave, ' Give back;' yea, and if He. say it to jealousy, cruel as the grave, it shall hear and obey His voice." The E; , ' following is one of the last letters he penned, and is addressed to the Rev. Henry Moore, with a quaint P.S. by the Rev. James Rogers at the back. It reads thus : " My dear Henry, — So good Mr. Easter- brook has got the start of us. Let us follow him as he followed Christ. Let the service begin at seven if the leaders think it best. I hope to be at Bath the first Monday in March (to-morrow three weeks), and am, with love to my dear Mary, your affectionate friend and brother, John Wesley." The Mr. Easterbrook whose death is so touchingly referred to was for many years Vicar of Temple Church, Bristol, and an old friend of Mr. Wesley's. This tiny bit of his silvery hair was fastened to the card on which you see it by the hands of Mary Fletcher, of Madeley, herself, and is undoubtedly genuine ; and this pair of small, well-made shoes, and the long silk gown, both often worn by Wesley, have an equally trustworthy history. The latter were both left in the care of one of his preachers, Thomas Tattershall, on Wesley's last visit to Norwich, and have never been out of the keeping of the family until they were given to me. A curious relic of the burnt Rectory-house at Epworth (February, 1709) is found in this bit of charred wood, given me by the present learned Rector, the Rev. Canon Overton, being part of a beam taken out by him when making some alterations to the structure a year or two ago. Samuel Wesley is known to have been his own architect, and to have utilised to the utmost the material saved from the old house in rebuilding JOHN WESLEY'S SHOES. FACSIMILE OF ONE OF JOHN WESLEY 'S LATEST LETTERS (WITH P0STCR1PT BY MR. ROGERS). ,38 THE HYMNS OF WESLEY'S BOYHOOD. the rectory. Perhaps this may have been a portion of the beam supporting the window of the burning house from which, as by a miracle, " little Johnny " was rescued in his nightdress. If this description of a small portion of my treasures shall have brought good John Wesley nearer to my readers, and all of us into a fuller and deeper sympathy with his great work, I shall not, as I trust I have not, written wholly in vain. George Stampe. THE HYMNS OF WESLEY'S BOYHOOD. On that wild March morning, a century ago, on which John Wesley heard the call, the long memories of his later life seemed suddenly to dim, and his thoughts swept back to the days of boyhood. In that hour the hymn which rose ever to his lips was the one beginning " I'll praise my Maker while I've breath." He sang it first in youth, and through all the seventy years that passed thereafter, the hymn was a part of his very life. There are many of us to whom the material of hymnal praise has been a spiritual nutriment. In the hour of distress or loneliness, it is a scrap of Hebrew psalmody or of Christian song which springs up in our memories to comfort us. And it is the hymn, not the catechism, which enshrines our common estimates of Christian doctrine. No man ever perceived with clearer vision the supreme importance of song as an aid to personal devotion than the Founder of Methodism. He was the hymnal editor of the evangelical movement ; there never existed a Methodist society which was without its collection of hymns. On this account one may fitly at this season recall the hymns and psalms which made up the public and private praise of the church of Wesley's boyhood. What were the hymns which Susanna Wesley had, or might have had, at her side, in the village rectory, as she lulled her boys to sleep in the early years of the century % Certainly Daye's Psalter, which would be bound up with her Prayer-book, the New Version being still regarded with suspicion by the country clergy. Certainly George Wither's " Hymns and Songs of the Church ; " ancl if Henry Vaughan and George Herbert, then also William Barton, John Mason, and Thomas Shepherd, for was she not an Annesley, and therefore steeped in the literature of Puritanism % Her George Herbert she knew well, and frequently quoted. I am inclined to think there may also have been a copy of Samuel Bury's " Collection of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs," which was issued a couple of years before John was born, and which contained selections from the best of the Stuart hymnists. This little book of one hundred and forty-four hymns, mainly for private devotion, which ran through two or three editions before JoliD 173 iy/f cx9 S?*-f~ «_> ^, £/J~ j^zfs*. fl *—<-^ ^ijy-x. £r^~^^j *~-^ /k ^A - t^l^ & /¦» Sf*AJ~~sn_ ,«.¦>,. ._, j-x^m*. fAsfr— Xy sn_ £ZX j SA~£± ju a»w —y^c J cr a *^*. >£_ XX. •>. *¦".£ :*=-/».«>-*— «-, « 1— x^> ^ y-p-^-^ //o >V»- /f<; /»^ c ^f ~ s~tr Xjf t~ ,. . si^^f- ^. «^<_ .?" .A> J^»- S"*—y/ S£~o K-a. Acs***,.^ «%r» *yXc~ do. *-r^- /fc*-*~~f~*£SA. a y ty _y- I^ym. *fj>-*y A-> «5-JK> t.u o ^ST /Z ^~. flfxrx*'- »._¦_, ' fa rfZ^- ~^*~^XWD, %~ j~ fsA.*. %~ £ ~~y K- £ ffy- - «" ^>— «fv/4- /"Aik 0/f-?^L J?/Z~^fZ3 L,±~ /~ ~Ot ^y^y^j FACSIMILE FROM THE JIS. HYMN BOOK USED BY JOHN WESLEY. SEE DR. OSBORN'S LEfTER NEXT PAfiE. jtcmf g£*&ts- Pz^-fiYctsiftf

ff6J7&' ^^y^^ fc t?&fa ^ t/^f^' Jj \yr*-. *^--t^i- /LJ^^/j / 2 - ¦x -- i^*vfZfJhf^'^'*fy ^ztf* ^-^7 Av>c^ «*V-v*^ uffff^SjM*' THE LAST PAGE IN WESLEY'S LAST ACCOUNT BOOK. words which have become historic. In the extract from the Public Advertiser, which Mr. Hanner has obtained from the British Museum, it is said ithat Wesley's income was £10,000 a year. Probably a cipher has been added in error. Occasionally it may have been £1,000. For his friends said that in some years he gave away as much as £1,000. JOHN WESLEY AS A CARTHUSIAN. ,5, JOHN WESLEY AS A CARTHUSIAN. By the courtesy of the Editor of the Greyfriar, the Charterhouse School Magazine, we are able to extract a few details relating to John Wesley's old school from an interesting article which appears in the April Number. " John Benjamin Wesley (the name was also written Wellsley and Westley, and Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, belonged to the family) was born June 17th, 1703, and was one of the nineteen children of the Rector of Epworth, in Lincolnshire, and of his wife Susanna (who had in her time been one of twenty-four). So they doubtless made merry in Epworth Rectory one day in January, 1714, when the news came there that the Duke of Buckingham had given John his nomination to Charterhouse. Ten years old was quite an usual age for a boy to go to a public school in those days, and when this very small boy of his years took his place in Gownboys he probably found not a few of his own age. Gownboys no longer stands, haying been pulled down after the school changed quarters in 1872 ; but somehow it is, after all, in chapel that one naturally thinks of the little Gownboy in his black cloth gown and knee breeches, sitting in the rows of seats which may still be seen just in front of the Founder's Tomb. And close on his left, in a sort of glorified pepper-box of strange construction, sat the great Head Master, Dr. Thomas Walker. ... He had already been Head Master for thirty- five years, and had had Addison and Steele, Benson and Law, for his pupils, and before the forty-nine years of his Head Mastership were to end he was to add John Wesley to his list. * A little farther away, in the corner near the pulpit, sat, in a similar pepper-box, Andrew Tooke, Usher or Second Master. In the Master's seat opposite sat Dr. King. The organist of the day was T. Love, of whom no account is to be had, but the Charterhouse organists of that time were men of such celebrity (to wit, Pepusch, Jones, Stevens) that one may suppose Love to have been also a man of capacity. The musical talent which belonged to the Wesley family probably received no check while he was at Charterhouse. "The chapel at that time consisted of the two parallel oblongs divided by the row of columns, on either side of which we see now (and should have seen then) the pensioners' seats. But the additional wing on the north side, which contains the gallery and the ' boarders' ' seats, was not then in existence. With this latter exception, and a few minor alterations, the chapel as little John Wesley first saw it probably does not differ greatly in appearance from what we now see. I have no knowledge of the number of boys at Charterhouse in 1714. In his house, Gownboys, there were forty-four, and things were evidently very rough, as indeed we suspect they were at all other public schools in those days. Wesley, however, had the true Carthusian's fondness for the place, and to the last years of his life never failed to go back to it and walk through it once a year when he was in London. But he says that not only was food a bit scarce, but that it was the custom of the big fellows to levy black-mail on the provisions of the small boys. For all which things John Wesley, in his cheery, happy way, duly records his gratitude, and says that he has no manner of doubt that it was mainly owing to this that he grew up as ' hard as nails ' (the expression is our own, not J. W.'s). He likewise records that he never failed to run every morning before breakfast three times round the Green, and this — as we know to our cost, having repeatedly done it ourselves in exceeding bad time — would amount to one mile. He was a bright, active, little fellow apparently at school, as he was all the rest of his life, but in speaking of his own schooldays afterwards he reproaches himself that he was thoughtless and indifferent about religious matters, and grew careless after the strictness of home. But he adds that he kept himself straight by reading the Bible morning and evening. There is not much amiss, says one of his biographers, with a lad who will do this. " When he left Charterhouse in 1720, he took up to Christ Church with him a School Exhibition of forty pounds a year, and was reckoned a very promising classic, with a great turn for Latin verse. It is quaint to read in one of his letters to his brother Samuel, soon * He is buried in the chapel, and his tablet is on the north wall, having been moved back when the north wing was added. t3&=-v -... ..¦;¦ , ; &-.s , . ,¦_./:-¦- : .,.-¦-. . -.r-".' y ~ / ¦¦ ¦'_,¦- ;.\-;,yZJ- - .?* ~'ix>p<:\ ¦> ' ''¦ J?, ptn, muc£crdi%tf'$;;& tfszfnc-yt ¦ ¦ rir fevzu-ra Uty fart j try chfrn on -it. S/iape Zfffj nfut \fct-HJ/Cf • ,>v a> ' — " ' " ' ' '"•' * f ~>_ ' 5 'ff^fJxfX'^y *^ JJxJ . *'j,x>ff"-i ! &- (^&MBf*03**5 /zi£aj&pi>£'fb inj?rrn fffm offuj ?faz.i.f-s , fry.--- •-•.-¦¦ *— - -«. • t.t',i-;«"-';.?::--:i*!,'-;:- ^^I^^CJA^-J- ^- ¦ '¦- >"'*^...-.,'' 'J'..': 'f)jr- "-,.>.•*. "X.ff J '*ff ~~f. -v .-''¦¦.'¦'¦ "-"' "¦¦''. » .-V. -.".'¦¦'¦.-... >.v"" '"" *&X^ ' yZf- ' , -"" ' " > ^--^&,?J..- js... ..:%,-£•£-,-... ---.-.;,. ,-.-.,...7. yyfy^,-._. ^ .j^-vr^a-"-:;- ^-L-^as:.'?^*,^.^^. .-^'^.v;..- -yyy. Xsyyyf «aa^tv--.^- ^^_^ i£^__„ - - * FACSIMILE OF LETTER ADDRESSED BY JOHN WESLEY TO THE y,. y^yyX-:j0%^fJ^yyJ-'- ¦-. . ; - ;¦-• -•'.n.^!v^j.<-i-,v-'' ":'----:-:'-"r- '¦X-0^. w$ifr% .X ;:&** ¦:<&:*'" :l?i%fj, gr j^^^tda^y^otjtt^ 'j?-:s'-. ' XX^\y -r-y.^-sr :yf%X£^Jy'' f%fJJJX\, -V-^Ji 'V^/Jy .. en, j j<$fayC^fp^,$.ff& ffW^fxyXs *t ^yx.-'-y.^ sfiyi ::?-y '¦-¦.! •¦¦.:'•'¦-¦ ...' ''•-¦: ,.;.;; .;¦.• ¦ X^a-ty^W^f^f^i^Jx^- y-y-** x:yss-. '- ¦- ^l yyy^xryrxy^M^^m^^^^- - -yy ¦ ¦'¦ ->.-¦'.-.:¦'.- ,; ¦-- „ .ry t ^' _- f , ; X • jx > - >~s ~<~x. ----^r^;>-v. '-.-" -"',;> y MSt ^'g^g^f^"?*?^*^^ 3S ¦yXXXXX XJ-aM^mX^Si.. ~-XX i£'. .'.^'jC'" " - * : , ¦ .,-.-'iy-seK''¥:r!§l :-a> -:-J y * . - ?£4n •*> \ v . 'ffh ¦y . '¦'¦' '¦-¦:' ..^v?---''^"--'" ¦--^-W^W*^ - m*:- .^X"f* *5iHa. :;•¦ .7" . > :- ¦ ',""'" '-t"-'"' **M_ 'i-'-.rt^^iV TREASl-RER OF THE CHARTERHOUSE. PROBABLE DATE, 1721. 1 54 JOHN WESLEY AS A CARTHUSIAN. after he gets to Oxford, that he has just done an Ode to Chloe's Flea, on the model, we presume, of ' Lesbia's Sparrow,' which pleased him not a little. We would give something to be able to reprint that Ode in Wesley's handwriting, but since that cannot be, we give a reprint of a more prosaic sort, a letter written by John Wesley to the treasurer of Charterhouse, concerning a mistake in the payment of his Exhibition. Curiously enough the last figure has faded from the paper, but there are indications of its having been the figure 1, making the date 1721. " Very interesting too is an autograph letter by another celebrated Carthusian, Sir Wilham Blackstone, which the present writer recently purchased. Its date is August 28th, 1744. By that time Wesley's great work was in full swing, and he had visited and preached in every corner of England. In 1744 it came to Wesley's turn to preach at Oxford before the University. Blackstone was then an undergraduate at All Souls', and seems to have been unaware that Wesley was an old Carthusian like himself ; at any rate the passage in his letter merely runs thus : " ' We were yesterday entertained at Oxford by a Curious Sermon from Wesley ye Methodist. Among other equally modest particulars, He informed us : 1st, That there was not one Christian among all ye heads of Houses. 2ndly, that Pride, Gluttony, Avarice, Luxury, Sensuality, and Drunkenness were ye General Characteristics of all Fellows of Colleges, who were useless to a proverbial uselessness. Lastly, that ye younger part of ye University were a generation of triflers, all of them perjured and not one of them of any Religion at all. His notes were demanded by ye Vice Chancellor, but on mature deliberation it has been thought proper to punish him by a mortifying neglect.' " The sermon made a great sensation, and was, as Wesley expected, the last he was allowed to preach at St. Mary's. We have a description of it from several sources, and one of those who heard it (Dr. Kennicott) mentions Wesley's appearance while delivering it. He describes Wesley as having ' black hair quite smooth and parted very exactly, with a peculiar composure in his countenance,' etc. ; and he says the sermon would have been very pleasing to him self as well as others if the ' strictures had been omitted and the censures moderated.' We fancy that this is by no means an unusual view of sermons. " The dauntless little man, who never lost his temper nor his courage, and who was equally ready to tackle Beau Nash at Bath or a Lancashire mob at Boulton, and had interviewed and despised the great Dr. Sacheverell while he was a boy at Charterhouse, was not likely to have been greatly overawed by the appearance of that imposing University functionary the ' Esquire Bedell ' (we wonder by the way if he called on Wesley in his lappeted gown and silver gilt poker) : and it is pretty evident that the ' mortifying silence ' was less a matter of previous diplomacy than of that discretion which, even in Vice-Chancellors, is the better part of valour. " Thirty years afterwards it is pleasant to find the two men, Wesley and Blackstone, fighting side by side in the same cause, the Abolition of Slavery. Wesley speaks of him in his paper on Slavery as that great ornament to his profession, Judge Blackstone. "Another link with Charterhouse is found in Wesley's friendship for Dr. Pepusch, the celebrated musician and writer on music, who, after the death of his wife, retired from his sumptuous home, took the place of organist at Charterhouse, and lived in rooms there. The introduction probably came through Wesley's brother Charles, and notices in Wesley's diary describe several visits to, and conversations with, Pepusch. The Organist's or Musician's Room is near the Governor's Room, and opening on to the Music Gallery of Codd's Hall. It is a httle panelled room with a large window at one end looking into Master's Court, and a good fire place at the other, over which hangs at the present day a little print of Pepusch himself. It was here no doubt that the two Wesleys sat and listened to the theories of the great doctor, who knew, says Wesley, more about the music of the ancients than any man in Europe." The Greyfriar contains also several illustrations : Ward's mezzotint engraving after Romney, facsimiles (1) of the bill of fare for Founder's Day, 1727, when John Wesley was one of the stewards, and (2) of a letter now in the possession of Canon Elwyn, Master of Charterhouse, to whom, and to the Editor of the Greyfriar, we are indebted for permission to reproduce it. WESLEY: THE MAN, HIS TEACHING, AND HIS WORK. BEING SERMONS AND ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN CITY-ROAD CHAPEL AT THE CENTENARY COMMEMORATION OF JOHN WESLEY'S DEATH. Revised by the Authors. Crown 8vo, 431 pp., with Portrait of John Wesley, price 3s. 6d. "This volume forms unquestionably the most comprehensive review that has yet appeared of the character and work of Wesley, as well as of the history and institutions of the world-wide organisation which has done more perhaps than any other to establish in a practical form the universal priesthood of believers. "—Christian Leader. CONTENTS.-Part The Man : His Teaching and His Work. Rev. CHARLES HENRY KELLY. Sermon to the Young People. Rev. CHARLES GARRETT. The Chosen Vessel. Rev. DAVID J. WALLER, D.D. The Centenary Service. Rev. W. F. MOULTON, M.A., D.D. The Theology of John Wesley. Rev. R. W. DALE, LL.D. Part Second : Thanksgiving and Prayer. Rev. RICHARD ROBERTS. Rev. CHARLES GARRETT Unveiling of the "Wesley Statue. Rev. W. F. MOULTON, M.A., D.D. Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR. Rt. Hon. H. H. FOWLER, M.P. ALEXANDER McARTHUR, Esq., M.P. Meeting : Representing the Methodist Connexions. Rev. W. F. MOULTON, M.A., D.D. Rev. O. M'CUTCHEON. Rev. JAMES LE HURAY. Rev. ). HALLAM. Rev. W. HIGMAN. Rev. GEORGE GREEN. Rev. M. T. MYERS. Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Rev. JAMES H. RIGG, D.D. A Review of Methodist "Work. Methodism and the Masses. Rev. PETER THOMPSON. Methodism and Education. Mr. T. G. OSBORN, M.A. Methodism and Literature. Rev. W. L. WATKINSON. Methodism and Missions. Rev. G. W. OLVER, B.A. Opening of the Allan Library. ALEXANDER McARTHUR, Esq., M.P. Rev. TAMES H. RIGG, D.D. Rev. W. F. MOULTON, M.A., D.D. First: SERMONS. Characteristics of Wesley and his Teaching. Rev. PRINCIPAL RAINY, D.D. The Prophet of the Eighteenth Century. Rev. JOHN CLIFFORD, M.A., D.D. Divine Service, Rev. PROFESSOR F. W. MACDONALD. John Wesley and the Children. Rev. FREDERICK J. MURRELL. The Charter of the Church in the Centuries to Come. SAMUEL D. WADDY, Q.C, M.P. ADDRESSES. j Methodism and Social "Work. Methodism and the Working Man. Rev. H. T. SMART. Pressing Social Questions. Mr. W. P. BUNTING. Methods of Rescue Work. Mr. LEWIS WILLIAMS. Methodism and Temperance. Mr. T. MORGAN HARVEY. The Privileges, Duties, Responsibilities, and Opportunities of the Young People of Methodism. The Lessons of the Early Time. Rev. THOMAS ALLEN. Methodism a Church of Jesus Christ. Rev. J. SCOTT-LIDGETT, M.A. The Past and the Future. Rev. T. E. WESTERDALE. An Appeal to Young Methodism. Mr. GEORGE J. SMITH, J.P. i Ten Characteristics of Young Methodism. Rev. H. P. HUGHES, M.A. Methodism and the Sister Churches. Rev. W. TAYLOR. Rev. J. STOUGHTON, D.D. Rev. J. B. FIGGIS. Rev. J. B. BRAITHWAITE. A Centenary Diary. Centenary Statement. Allan Library: Statement Unitarian Address. Part Third: VARIOUS. Letter from Rev. T. Champness. An Address from Italy, Letter from Rev. Dr. Cairns, Address by Rev. Dr. Cairns. C. H. KELLY, 2, Castle Street, City Road, E.C. ; and 66, Paternoster Row, E.C. In One Volume, containing One Hundred and Fifteen Portraits, Views, etc. Cloth extra, gilt edges, price 30^. Presentation Copy, Crushed Morocco, solid gilt edges, price 50$. AND WE SLEY HIS SUCCESSORS H Centenary .Memorial OF THE DEATH OF JOHN WESLEY. CONTENTS : The Rev. John Westley, M.A. The Rev. Samuel Wesley, M.A. Mrs. Susanna Wesley. The Rev. Samuel Wesley, M.A., Jun. The Rev. John Wesley, M.A. Monument over Mr. Wesley's Grave. Mural Tablet to Mr. Wesley's Memory in City Road Chapel. The Centenary Statue of John Wesley in City Road Chapel Yard. The Rev. Charles Wesley, M.A. Tablet in Memory of John and Charles Wesley in Westminster Abbey. Facsimile of Agreement signed by Mr. Wes ley and his Preachers. Facsimile of the Writing of the Wesleys and others. Mr. Wesley's Bible and the Seal of the Conference. Portraits and Sketches of the Presidents of the Conference since Wesley's Death. THE CENTENARY LIFE OF WESLEY : THE LIVING WESLEY. BY THE REV. JAMES H. RIGG, D.D. Second Edition. Revised and greatly Enlarged ; with a Chapter on the Progress of Universal Metho dism since the Death of Wesley. Crown 8vo, with Portrait of John Wesley, 3s. 6d. "Admirably written. ... A graphic and vivid portrait ofthe great revivalist." — The Guardian. CENTENARY EDITION FOR SUNDAY-SCHOLARS : THE FATHER OF METHODISM A LIFE OF THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, A.M. WRITTEN FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS. BY THE REV. NEHEMIAH CURNOCK, Senr. New and Enlarged Edition. Fifty Illustrations. Crown 4to. Paper Covers, 6d. ; or, £\ 15 0 per 100, net. Limp Cloth, 9d. ; or, 2 10 0 „ „ Cloth Boards, Is. ; or, 3 10 o ,, „ Cloth Boards, Gilt edges, Gilt-lettered, Is. 6d. ; or, ^5 5s. per ioo, net. WESLEY HIS OWN BIOGRAPHER: Being Selections from the JOURNALS of THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, A.M. Crown 4to, with about 300 Illustrations. Cloth, plain edges, 7s. 6d. ; Extra Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt edges, 8s. 6d. C. H. KELLY, 2, Castle Street, City Road, E.C. ; and 66, Paternoster Row, E.C. This preservation photocopy was made by the Preservation Department , Yale University Library and complies with the copyright laws . The paper is Xerox Image Elite Paper 25% Cotton- Watermarked . It is alkaline and has a Ufe expectancy of at least 300 years . 1991 YALE UNIVERSITY a39002 002276351b ssisssiisssssss