(iv) Indispensable Aids
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BEFORE AND AFTER WESLEY
cohesion, unity and organisation ; it freed the crusade of mere "hangers on" and of all "fearful spirits" who, faced by continuous persecution or contempt, turned backsliders to faith and conscience.
It purged and consolidated the movement all along the line.
The study of the origin and evolution of the complex organisation of Wesley's Societies is a big subject, but it will be found upon investigation that the whole marvellous system with its local and itinerant preachers, its Band and Class Meetings, its circuits and Annual Conferences, its Sunday Schools and Quarterly Tickets, its poor relief and loan societies, its medical help and Strangers' Societies, its voluntary service and systematic finance, its Love Feasts and Watch Night services, its personal supervision and strict discipline, its religious pamphlets and Society magazine, its brotherly fellowship and family visitation, its interest in civics and its citizenship in Eternity, its local intensity and its world missionary zeal, its educational stimulus and its outburst of sacred song, its salvation by Faith and its insistence on Works, its hatred of sin and its love for the sinner, its initial autocratic leadership and its ultimate democratic influence, its demand for individual religious experience, and its emphasis on corporate service—the whole complex and variegated system was affected profoundly by the atmosphere of opposition and persecution in which the movement sprang up.
Directness and intensity of purpose, coupled with efficiency of organisation, were essential to its very life.
Without them, it could never have weathered the fury and contempt which raged against it: with them, it developed a corporate genius far above and beyond the capacity of its individual members.
Persecution, therefore, proved a blessing in disguise.
In things essential the Movement achieved Unity ; in things doubtful it granted Liberty ; in all things it mediated
Charity.
(iv) Indispensable Aids The Class-meeting was a unique and peculiarly interesting aspect of the Societies' development: its origin provides a glimpse of the environment in which the Revival worked.
The rapid growth of the movement, with its continual demand for the erection of new meeting houses and its large monetary outlay on help for the poor, necessitated the inauguration of a sound scheme of finance.
To this end certain Bristol leaders, in February, 1742, met for consultation, and on the suggestion
THE SHAPING OF
A GRUSADE
of Captain Foy it was finally agreed:
'' (1) That every member of the Society, who was able, should contribute a penny a week.
(2) That the whole society should be divided into little companies or classes—about twelve in each class.
And (3) That one person in each class should receive the contribution of the rest, and bring it to the stewards, weekly."!
It is noteworthy that many members were too poor to afford even a penny a week, but the leader of each class called weekly on every member of his group, took notice of the conditions in which he lived, collected the pennies of those who could afford to pay, and himself made good the deficit of the poor and unfortunate. ?
This was the humble origin of what gradually developed into one of the world's greatest systems of voluntary finance.
Moreover, it is significant that a generation after Wesley's death, when Lord Shaftesbury, Michael Sadler, Richard Oastler, Rev. R. J. Stephens, Rev. G. S. Bull, Philip Grant and John
Wood—all ardent Evangelicals—were leading the epic struggle for the Ten Hours Bill, and thus winning the Magna Charta of the English worker's leisure and liberty, they financed the organisation of factory operatives by borrowing bodily the scheme of the Methodist Class Meeting.® But Wesley's keen, practical eye soon discovered for these
Class units a deeper and higher purpose than the raising of finance.
In this Class group he found the desire of his heart— a vehicle for the personal supervision of every member of the societies.
'' This is the very thing," he declared ; " the very thing we have wanted so long!"
Hence it was soon arranged that the members of each Class should assemble weekly ; and in these Class-Meetings—the sexes convening separately under their respective leaders, who acted in the capacity of noncommissioned officers or lay pastors—the members discussed the most pressing and intimate problems of life, and encouraged one another to fight a good fight.
Here all men were brothers; all women were sisters; and all members were ledged to secrecy regarding personal confessions.
Had not these Class Meetings been conducted in an atmosphere where all questions were "raised aloft," where meanness, pettiness, vanity, self-aggrandisement, animosity and revenge were unthinkable, where faith, hope and love reigned,
1 ¥ournal, February 15th, 1742; see also Fitchett's Wesley, pp. 221-22.
2"The average wage of the agricultural labourer at this time was not over six shillings a week, that of the town labourer was about seven to eight shillings, and that of the artisan from ten to twelve shillings.
3 For the full history of the Ten Hours Bill see the Fourth and Popular edition of the author's book, Lord Shaftesbury and Social-Industrial Progress, chapters xiii to xvi, also its Introduction by Sir Josiah Stamp.
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BEFORE
AND AFTER WESLEY
they might easily have degenerated into centres of gossip, petulance and scandal.
"There was an old fellow of Crewe Who discovered a mouse in his stew.
Said the waiter:
' Don't shout and wave it about, Or the rest will be wanting one, too.' "
There certainly were "old fellows of Crewe" in those early Class Meetings.
Many a mouse, too, got into the stew, but members quickly learned never to shout and wave them about.
Confessions of failure, defeat and sin were heard in their respective Classes by some men and women who not long before would have gloated over the opportunities for '"' tonguewagging " thus afforded ; but now, with changed hearts, in a spirit of fellowship, co-operation and service, they listened to such confessions with downcast eyes and sympathetic hearts, thinking of all that God, for Christ's sake, had forgiven them.
All now were their brother's keepers ; all helped to heal the wounds of sin ; all strove together to keep running the springs of grace; and however painful were temporary defeats, the note of triumph prevailed.
Among the ten thousand or more Class leaders whom Wesley must have personally known were surely some of the most lovely characters in England!: lovely because of the breadth of their Christian sympathy and the depth of their Christian understanding ; lovely, too, because of their set aspirations toward " Perfectionism," through unbroken communion with the Spirit of Christ.
These humble Class Leaders were chiefly men and women at whom the smart, fashionable world long laughed ; but even blatant cynicism came in time to be hushed before their sincerity and their integrity.
Their wisdom, too, was more penetrating than that of the sagacious '' waiter," for it came of a regenerated heart, and expressed itself in a loving fellowship with all who " followed after what they knew they had not yet attained.""
The Class Meeting spirit and aspiration, are perfectly portrayed in a verse all Class members loved to sing :
And if our fellowship below In Jesus be so sweet, What heights of rapture shall we know When round His throne we meet ! '"2
1 There were some eight thousand class leaders at Wesley's death, and he had known throngs who had " passed on."
See Warner's Wesleyan Movement in the Industrial Revolution, p. 262.
* See J. E. Rattenbury, Wesley's Legacy to the World, p. 283.
THE SHAPING OF
A CRUSADE
The stimulus afforded by these countless Class Meetings to the moral uplift, the spiritual growth, the educational development, the self-expression and the organised social endeavour of the disinherited multitudes of England, it is impossible to calculate.
Professor Rogers assuredly had them in mind when he expressed his conviction that without the prior help of the Wesleyan Revival '"' the mass of the peasants could not have been moved at all."
In the preaching services, the converts caught their vision and turned toward their goal; in the Class Meetings,~they found their spiritual school where, under trusted leaders, they grouped together in mutual aid to work out their salvation, and to discuss reverently and prayfully their attitude to the social, ethical and religious problems of their daily life.
The Class Meeting was something wholly new to English life, and wholly beautiful ; it became a mighty civilising, as well as spiritualising, force.?
The creation, too, of local and itinerant preachers, was forced upon the Movement by the onward march of events.
Few ordained ministers, either Anglican or Nonconformist, were at first friendly to the Revival.?Almost none were willing to give assistance to the man who had " the world for his parish."
Wesley, Whitefield and " brother Charles"? were tireless in their efforts, but the harvest was far too great for their gleaning; more labourers had to be found.
It was the old story of Jesus and the Apostles:
Wesley, like his Master, had to accept the best messengers available.
In the critical case of Thomas Maxfield, who became a force in the early days, Wesley's mother wielded a decisive influence.
High Church as she had been all her life, her advice to her son was revolutionary : "Take care what you do with respect to this young man, for he is as surely called of God to preach as you are.''?
With the settlement of Maxfield's case, the lay preacher became an institution ; but henceforth these preachers were carefully chosen by Wesley himself, and cheerfully did they submit themselves to the rigorous discipline he imposed.
'1 Something close akin to these classes was established in the seventeenth century by the pious Frenchman and Catholic, Marquis de Renty.
Even before Wesley's conversion, de Renty's Life had greatly appealed to him, for on January 6th, 1738 (see Journal) he prepared an abridgement of it, which later ran into six editions.
See article, "' Sharing in Former Days," by F. L. Barber (New Outlook, January 14th, 1932).
2 See Dr. R. W. Dale, History of Congregationalism, pp.
583-4, for Nonconformist attitude.
3 Southey's Wesley, p. 197ff; Telford's Wesley, p. 215.
Note, too, Wesley's high tributes to his mother at the time of her death ( fournal,
July 18th and 23rd, and August 1st, 1742).
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BEFORE AND AFTER WESLEY
Apart altogether from Whitefield's preaching disciples, Wesley finally was directing a band of some seven hundred local and itinerant preachers.
And the superb heroism of those rustic missionaries forms one of the romances of history— a romance whose full significance has never yet been penned, for it is indeed an epic of adventure and achievement.
If ever men were baptized in the purging fires of privation and persecution, these veterans were.
A study of some of their portraits, assembled in the Standard Edition of Wesley's Journal, challenges acutely the imagination, and points the fact that they were men of no common mettle : by their arduous labours of love, the dross of sloth and selfishness was burned away, and the gold of the spirit was burnished bright.
Of these preachers, Southey says: "'St. Francis and his followers did not commit themselves with more confidence to the care of Providence, nor with more entire disregard of all human means"! ; and who will question this conclusion?
For these virile messengers of the Cross, no weather was too inclement, no road too boggy, no ford too swollen, no community too degraded, no mob too violent, no privation too severe—to interfere with their constant round of duty.
Christ, their Master, pointed the way ; and Wesley, their captain, set them a living example.
But as Wesley grew old, he became a revered, even a national, character:
Mr. Vulliamy pronounces him finally the '' best loved man in England."
Certainly many a former enemy chose ultimately to regard him as a late Fellow of Oxford, a '' fine old English gentleman," and a true benefactor of the poor.
With the humble veterans, the case was different.
'The fires of persecution, fanned by the winds of bigotry, still raged along their thorny trail: yet cheerful and unafraid, they laboured on.
After the imprisonment of one of his preachers, Wesley wrote:
"I pray you for what pay could we procure men to do this service?
'To be always ready to go to prison or to death?"
Nelson, Maxfield and other itinerant preachers were carried off by army press gangs.
"Thomas Mitchell was thrown repeatedly into a deep pond till he was insensible ; then his clothes were covered with paint."?
William Seward, who had accompanied Whitefield on his second voyage to America, was blinded in 1741 by one Welsh rabble and killed by another.
Several preachers went to premature graves through the effects, direct or indirect, of injuries inflicted by mobs: others were maimed or scarred for life.
Some in their excessive labours 1 Southey, op. cit., p. 223.
2 J. Telford, Life of Wesley, p. 212.
THE SHAPING OF
A GQRUSADE
burned themselves out : some died in harness leaving behind them from six pence to six shillings of worldly wealth.
But always the gaps were filled, and always the ranks increased.
Like a company of sturdy, seasoned veterans, on and on they marched.
John Prichard's horse one winter became incapacitated and meanwhile, in his itinerant work, he journeyed some
"twelve hundred miles'? on foot.
Thomas Olivers travelled "not less than one hundred thousand miles '' on one horse— no mean tribute to his care of the beast that shared his labours.
These trail-breakers, like Wesley, rose every morning at four, and preached most mornings at five.
They refrained from the use of all intoxicants, lived lives of marked abstemiousness, and commonly divided each day into three equal parts—eight hours for sleeping and eating, eight for study and meditation, eight for preaching, visitation and social labours.
Dr. Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh, once complained to Charles Wesley concerning the employment of laymen as preachers.
Charles replied:
'' The fault is yours and your brethren's."
'' How so?" inquired the astonished prelate.
Because you hold your peace, and the stones cry out!" he rejoined.2
" But I am told," retorted his Grace, '' that they are unlearned men."
'' Some are,' Charles confessed, "' and so the dumb ass rebukes the prophet."* Yet, bearing in mind the voluntary discipline to which these preachers cheerfully submitted themselves, and the courses of reading which Wesley, the one-time Oxford don, regularly prescribed and supervised, they could not long, in their peculiar field, remain ' unlearned men."
Wesley's defence of them was fully justified.
'"' In the one thing which they profess to know," he protested, " they are not ignorant men. I trust there is not one of them who is not able to go through such an examination in substantial, practical, experimental divinity as few of our graduates for Holy Orders even in the University (I speak it with sorrow and shame and in tender love) are able to do.''4
Michael Sadler, the eminent social reformer and instigator of the classic Parliamentary Report on Factory Children's Labour
(1831-2)," in his early treatise, An Apology for the Methodists, published in 1797, maintained that the "ignorance " and '' wncouthness "' of the Revival's preachers was studiously and 1 Early Methodist Preachers, Vol. VI, p. 267; see, too, Fitchett, op. cit., chapter vii.
2 John Wesley, too, said:
'"' Out of the stones ('these unlearned and ignorant men ') God raised up those who should beget children to Abraham."
See Southey's Wesley (unabridged), Vol. I, p. 307.
3 L, Tyerman, Life and Times of fohn Wesley, Vol. I, p. 277.
4P. Cadman, Three Religious Leaders of Oxford, p. 329.
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BEFORE AND AFTER WESLEY
maliciously exaggerated.
Not a few of these preachers, he contended, became men of higher mental attainment than their vindictive assailants ; and certainly if Sadler himself were a fair example, they included men of rare talents.
Wesley not only supervised the personal education of his preachers, but insisted also that they in turn become mediums for the spread of education among the people.
'' Preach expressly on education,' he repeatedly insisted ; and to any who objected : "' But T have no gift for this," his reply was peremptory.
'' Gift or no gift, you are to do it, else you are not called to be a Methodist preacher.
Do it as you can, till you can do it as you would.
Pray earnestly for the gift, and use the means for it."'1
Wesley enjoined upon all his preachers the necessity of spending ""at least five hours in twenty-four in reading the most useful books."
He warned them, too, that one could '' never be a deep preacher "? without extensive reading,
'"' any more than a thorough Christian."?
The fifty volumes of his famous Christian Library, were edited specifically for the general education of his preachers, helpers and followers.
Scores of his own treatises, as well as the Arminian Magazine, were designed for the same end.
Every preacher was made a distributor and seller of books, and all were expected to have mastered the contents of the publications they spread abroad.
Wesley himself often was harshly censured for " pushing "' his own books from pulpit and platform ;* but the criticism never perturbed him.
He considered his ministry of writing as important as his ministry of preaching ; he knew that books, to be of value, had to be read ; and he knew, too, that people would read books for which they paid—however small the price.
Hence, heedless of waspish criticism, he "pushed" and sold his books wherever he went, believing them to be an educational as well as an inspirational force : and his preachers he literally '' prodded " to like efforts.
" Exert yourselves in this," he insisted.
'' Be not ashamed.
Be not weary.
Leave no stone unturned.''> Every itinerant, in fact, was a 'Book Steward," and even Conference Minutes urged the preachers to '' be more active in dispersing books."
Subscriptions were taken among many societies to establish local libraries for general use, and preachers were instructed to " beg money
Note the similarity of this advice to that of Béhler to Wesley regarding vital faith.
2 'Tyerman's Wesley, Vol. II, p. 581.
3 Wesley's Works, Vol. XII, p. 254.
See " Wesley," Historical Society's Proceedings, Vol. VII, p. 167, and York Courant, June 6th, 1780.
5 [bid., Vol. II, p. 477.
THE SHAPING OF
A CRUSADE
of the rich to buy books for the poor.'!
''No man in the eighteenth century," says the Encyclopedia Britannica of Wesley,
"did so much to create a taste for good reading, and to supply it with books at the lowest prices."?
The itinerant and local preachers, however, were themselves the chief recipients, as well as the chief mediators, of that mighty educational influence ; and greatly did they profit by it.
Even the maxims drawn up by Wesley for his preachers and helpers, suggest the sane, cultural influences he spread around them.
'"' Endeavour to speak in public," he insisted, "just as you do in common conversation.
. To drawl is worse than to hurry.
. The good and honourable actions of men, should be described with a full and lofty accent ; wicked and infamous actions, with a strong and earnest voice, and such a tone as expresses horror and detestation.
. The mouth must never be turned awry ; neither must you bite or lick your lips...
Never clap your hands, nor thump the pulpit.
Your hands are not to be in perpetual motion: this the ancients called the ' babbling of hands.'"'* Wesley's Rules of a Helper, issued by the Leeds Conference in 1753, are equally illuminating :
"* Be diligent,'' he admonishes.
'"' Never be unemployed for a moment. ... Believe evil of no one.
Speak evil of no one.
Do not affect the gentleman.
You have no more to do with this character, than with that of a dancing-master....A preacher of the Gospel is the servant of all.
Be ashamed of nothing but sin: not of fetching wood (if time permit), or drawing water ; nor of cleaning your own shoes, or your neighbours'.
. Be punctual.
Do everything exactly at the time."
And finally he advises his preachers that, for such a high calling, ** You will need all the sense you have, and to have your wits about you."
'' Enthusiasm," therefore, was far removed from hysteria or wild emotion: it was both tutored and disciplined ; and therein lay its power.
True, a very occasional Judas found his way into the ranks of the preachers, but the proportion of such was probably closer to one in a hundred than one in twelve.
John Telford is completely justified in saying: 'No leader of a great religious movement was ever more happy in his helpers than Wesley.''®
1 See George Jackson, Wesleyan Methodism in the Darlington Circutt, p.10; Dr. W. J. Warner, Wesleyan Movement in the Industrial Revolution,
E23 i ar Bleventh edition (Yohn Wesley).
3 See Vulliamy's Wesley, p. 152.
4 Tbid., p. 265.
5 See Telford's Life of Wesley (chapter on Wesley's preachers).
ENGLAND:
BEFORE AND AFTER WESLEY
In a vital sense, these rustic Apostles of the Cross were men of the people ; yet they were men new-born to a life high above the people, and their ruling passion was to lift the fallen and depraved to the heights of that new-born life.
They had an abiding vision of the Kingdom of Christ, and their " enthusiasm " expressed itself in a holy crusade to establish righteousness in the hearts of men: their consuming desire was to see the will of God done " on earth, as it is done in heaven."
Admittedly, their primary approach was the now oft-lampooned conversion of individual souls; but converted souls, be it remembered, were " called' to be "' co-labourers together with God "' for the building of a society that hath foundations: a society based squarely on the rock of Christian principles, not on the shifting sands of political manceuvre, economic cupidity or class hatred ; a society wherein truth, equity, righteousness, brotherhood, purity, peace, temperance and love, should possess the souls of men and express themselves in all social institutions.
To a phenomenal degree, these despised itinerant preachers were the forerunners and heralds of the principles of a true Christian democracy ; for, more than history has yet realised, did they create and release influences, which have affected profoundly the sanest movements for social emancipation throughout the English-speaking world.
The Evangelical Revival, despite Sir Leslie Stephen's verdict, assimilated all that was most vital and most heroic in Puritanism ; but it jettisoned the legalism and the quarrelsomeness of Puritanism ; it was essentially a New Testament, rather than an Old Testament, movement.
Its primary appeal, moreover, was not to the trading, commercial and professional classes, nor yet to the old aristocracy, but rather to the forlorn multitudes, who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow.
More than any other creative spiritual movement in modern history, it mediated a religion of the people, for the people, and by the people ; but its power lay in the fact that it made the people vitally conscious of God.
CHAPTER XII
THE PREACHING OF SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS
" Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is to every child of man, to every partaker of human nature.
Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his own voluntary choice.
Away with all whips, all chains, all compulsion.
Be gentle toward all men."
Joun WESLEY, Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774).
I HAVE two silver spoons at London and two at Bristol.
This is all the plate I have at present, and I shall not buy any more while so many round me want bread."
Joun WESLEY, Letter to Commissioners of Excise (September gth, 1776).