(iii) An Apparent Failure
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BEFORE
AND AFTER WESLEY
possibilities of the downmost man, and, above all, by his reasonable, but simple, joyous Faith, retained with ever increasing power the crucial place in that world crusade.
At death, Wesley left not less than 120,000 members, closely knit together in the marvellous organisation of his "' Methodist "
Societies.
Some historians estimate the number at 150,000 ; but the all-important fact is that every member was a crusader among his neighbours for righteousness and temperance, for justice and equity, for spiritual values and popular education, for joyous fellowship on earth and holy citizenship in Heaven.
The organisation carried no "dead wood.'
Every avowed follower felt himself a missioner of God, who one day must render an account of his stewardship.
But great as was Wesley's influence in the flesh, his spiritual influence has proven even greater.
To-day the Societies he founded have become the largest Protestant Church in the world.
Their immediate following is at least four times larger than the population of England at Wesley's demise ; their annual voluntary gifts run into many millions of pounds ; their religious and social programme commands the gratuitous service of hundreds of thousands of zealous workers, and their spiritual impact has been felt on every Continent of the globe.
Nevertheless, just here lies the rub.
The very proportions of world Methodism tend to press heavily on Wesley's memory.
That he neither desired nor intended to create a new sect or Church, everyone knows.
His ruling purpose was to rekindle spiritual and Christian influences in every department of life.
His interests and efforts were truly Catholic.
Yet many historians have dismissed him curtly as the exclusive possession of the Methodist body ; whereas the truth is that, his indirect influence has been even more vital than his direct influence.
Ultimately the Evangelical Revival accomplished much of Wesley's lofty intent.
Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Baldwin are not far from the mark, when they suggest that neither modern
Britain nor modern America can ever be understood apart from the labours of this intrepid prophet, and inspired leader of men.
(iii) An Apparent Failure But let us now pause and inquire into the origin of this man
Wesley, and the remarkable movement he moulded and guided.
The zeal of many to push back their family pedigree to some war lord of the Norman Conquest is at best humorous, at worst pathetic ; sometimes it has led to fetish worship, sometimes
THE
EMERGENCE
A PROPHET
to snobbery. John Wesley was too wise to waste time or incite pride by any such fruitless pursuit. He judged men always by what they were and what they did—never by social caste or family blood.
Yet, since his death, he has had admirers so obsessed by this passion for family pedigree—" last frailty of noble mind ''—that they have produced genealogical tables purporting to prove that he was a direct descendant of honourable stock dating not only from the Norman Conquest, but generations before."
Be this as it may, it meant nothing to Wesley, and we pass no judgment upon its accuracy.
His immediate ancestry is however of peculiar interest, for he was, in a marked sense, a child of the Christian Church.
The expulsion of Puritan divines, in 1662, drove, as we have seen, a great-grandfather and both grandfathers of Wesley from their livings.
All three were Oxford graduates, men of culture and character, who dared to stand resolutely upon their convictions, and to suffer for conscience sake. ?
Thus the Puritan fibre in Wesley's ancestry was basic.
But turning to Epworth Rectory, where he was born and reared, the "old" High Church influence was completely dominant.
Samuel Wesley, John's father, was intended for the Nonconformist ministry and to that end was sent to a Dissenting college.
But in this institution—St. Martin's Academy—Samuel found so much sectarian and political controversy and so little vital religion, that finally he revolted against all Nonconformity, and setting off on foot for Oxford, with but two pounds, five shillings, in his pocket, sought Orders in the National Church.*
Becoming a servitor of Exeter College, Samuel in due course graduated from Oxford, meanwhile having inbibed rigid High
Church ideas; and in 1689 he was ordained a priest, ' thus reuniting his branch of the family with the Church which had expelled his father and grandfather and which afterwards looked with prejudice on the efforts of his sons."
Susannah Wesley, Samuel's wife, was a daughter of the scholarly Dr. Annesley, who, after ejection from the ancient parish of St. Giles, London, came to be styled, " the St. Paul of Nonconformity.""
Susannah was a woman eminently qualified to be the mother of an immortal world leader.
Her intellectual powers were acute, her courage was unflagging, her faith serene, while also her spiritual initiative and independence were truly
1 See G. J. Stevenson, Memorial of the Wesley Family.
2 See P. Cadman, Three Religious Leaders of Oxford, p. 179.
3 Camb. Mod. Hist., Vol. X, pp. 431-2.
4 Cadman, Three Religious Leaders of Oxford, p. 182.
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BEFORE AND AFTER WESLEY
phenomenal.!'
Though the daughter of an ejected Puritan divine, Susannah, when but thirteen years old,? and before meeting Samuel Wesley, had become discontented with the ** stern Calvinism '' then dominant in Nonconformity ; so with characteristic decisiveness, after due consideration and in the face of all consequences, she too left Dissent and joined the State
Church.
Hence in the blood of the renowned missioner, to a unique degree, Anglican and Puritan coalesced—' the order and dignity of the one,.the fearless initiative and asceticism of the other7* On June 28th, 1703, at Epworth Rectory, John Wesley was born; and the teaching and example he there received, especially from his mother, remained to him throughout life a sacred heritage.
But on the tables of memory the date, February 9th, 1709, was literally branded.
For then, shortly before midnight, Epworth rectory was burned to the ground ; and as the family excitedly were assembling outside the blazing house, thanking God that at least all lives were spared, a child's piercing screams burst from the topmost chamber.
'' Jackie " was within the fiery cauldron!
Awakened by the raging of flames in the thatched roof just over his head, the five year old lad, seeing the staircase ablaze, had tugged a chest to the window, and on it he stood, smashing the glass and shouting for help.
An heroic rescue was speedily effected, and he who later was to move the world for righteousness was plucked, "a brand out of the burning," only a few second before the roof fell in.4°
Always to Wesley this rescue was a direct intervention of Providence.
The hand of Destiny, he felt, was upon him.
At the famous Charterhouse School, Wesley—from 1713 to 1719—laid the foundations of his excellent classical education.
But the memory of the place was not happy.
Repeatedly has he recalled the brutal bullying of the larger boys, and also the fact that for days together he there had "little to eat save bread, and no plenty of that."® His undergraduate years at Christchurch, Oxford, we pass over; not till he became a Fellow of Lincoln College, were certain Oxford influences woven inextricably into his habits of life.
These influences centred in 1 See Wesley's Fournal, August 1st, 1742 (after Susannah's death).
> See Dr. W. H. Fitchett's Wesley and His Century, p. 16.
3 Cadman, op. cit., p..178.
*C.E. Vulliamy, John Wesley, p. 4.
See Robt. Southey's Life of Wesley, pp. 22-3.
This and other quotations from Southey, are from the 1820 abridged edition.
It contains all that is vital in Southey's two volumes.
Knox's essay on Wesley, published as an Appendix to Southey's Life, shows more real insight than Southey's whole ponderous work.
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A PROPHET
"the Holy Club" of which he»was the leading member.
Of the organisation and purpose of this club, Wesley, in a letter to Mr. Morgan (October 18th, 1732), has left a faithful picture.*
It was a small gathering of serious, religious Oxford men who met regularly in a " Lincoln "' room to cultivate and co-ordinate their intellectual and spiritual life, and to devise means of increasing their services to their fellowmen.?
A practical programme was soon adopted, and the members so divided their time that every moment was accounted for.
They resolved to receive the Holy Communion as frequently as possible, to help in the religious instruction and education of poor, neglected children, to visit and befriend prisoners in Oxford jails, and to give freely, according to their means, to relieve necessity among the poor.
Their rigorous piety and methodical exertion was soon manifest both to fellow-students and dons;
" the Holy Club " became the butt of many an Oxford jest ; and some young wag, in contempt of their methodised discipline, scoffingly dubbed them " Methodists.'"?
How little did he dream of the destined significance of the name he had coined !
Again, it is noteworthy that during Wesley's protracted associations with Oxford, which continued more than a dozen years, he erected an extensive framework of solid scholarship.
As a resident Fellow of Lincoln College, he was moderator of daily "exercises and disputations' held in the college hall ;
,and beyond doubt his experience in this office tempered and sharpened that keen, logical acumen which makes the poet
Southey, in his Life of Wesley, say:
No man, indeed, was ever more dexterous in the art of reasoning.''* Certainly this training stood him in good stead during critical periods of his career, when forced to defend both himself and his followers against the onslaughts of bitter and formidable foes.'
But Wesley's intrepid spirit was never intended for the seclusion of college halls; so when there came a plea for volunteers as pioneer missionaries to Georgia, to work partly among the Colonists and partly among the Indians, Wesley proffered his services, on condition that his mother, now a widow, consent.
When approached, Susannah Wesley, knowing that Charles, her youngest son, was also contemplating departure on the same venture, replied : oy Had I twenty sons, I 1 This long letter is prefaced to the first edition of Wesley's fournal.
2 See N. Curnock's valuable notes on the Holy Club in the Standard edition of Wesley's fournal.
2 Op. cit:, P. 24.
4See, for instance, his Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion (1743) ; Further Appeal, etc. (1745); The Principles of a Methodist (1742) ; and First Letter to Bishop Lavington (1750).