FOOTNOTES:
1776.
Age 73
Wesley’s first act, in 1776, was to join with eighteen hundred London Methodists in renewing his covenant with God. His next was to go to Bristol, partly to bury his brother-in-law, poor Westley Hall; and partly to restrain some of the Bristol Methodists, who were in danger of turning republicans.
The health of Fletcher of Madeley being seriously affected by a violent cough, accompanied by spitting of blood, Wesley believed nothing was so likely to restore his health as a long journey. “I therefore,” says he, “proposed his taking a journey of some months with me, through various parts of England and Scotland; telling him, ‘when you are tired, or like it best, you may come into my carriage; but remember that riding on horseback is the best of all exercises for you, so far as your strength will permit.’”
Wesley proposed not only this, but more than this, as is evident from Fletcher’s answer, hitherto unpublished.
“Madeley, January 9, 1776.
“Reverend and dear Sir,—I received last night the favour of yours from Bristol. My grand desire is to be just what the Lord would have me be. I could, if you wanted a travelling assistant, accompany you, as my little strength would admit, in some of your excursions; but your recommending me to the societies, as one who might succeed you, (should the Lord call you hence before me,) is a step to which I could by no means consent. It would make me take my horse and gallop away. Besides, such a step would, at this juncture, be, I think, peculiarly improper, and would cast upon my vindication of your minutes such an odium as the Calvinists have endeavoured to cast upon your ‘Address.’ It would make people suspect, that what I have done for truth and conscience sake, I have done with a view of being, what Mr. Toplady calls, ‘the bishop of Moorfields.’ We ought to give as little hold to the evil surmising and rash judgments of our opponents as may be. If, nevertheless, Providence throws in your way a clergyman willing to assist us, it would be well to fall in with that circumstance.
“I sent to you in London, by the last post, a manuscript entitled, ‘A Second Check to Civil Antinomianism,’ being an extract from the ‘Homily against Rebellion,’ which I think might be spread at this time to shame Mr. Roquet, and to calm the people’s mind. Whether it is worth publishing you will see. I suppose it will make a threepenny tract.
“What has made me glut our friends with my books is not my love to such publications; but a desire to make an end of the controversy. It is possible, however, that my design has miscarried, and that I have disgusted, rather than convinced, the people. I agree with you, sir, that now is the time to pray,—both for ourselves and our king,—for the Church of England and that part of it which is called the Methodists. I cast my mite of supplication into the general treasure. The Lord guide, support, and strengthen you more and more unto the end!
“I am, reverend and dear sir, your affectionate son and servant in the gospel,
“John Fletcher.”
Fletcher had overtaxed nature. His day of activity was comparatively over. True, he lived nine years longer; but, for two years, he lived in retirement with his friends, Mr. Greenwood at Newington, and Mr. Ireland of Bristol, with the exception of the time he spent in travelling with Wesley in quest of health; and upwards of three years more were spent in Switzerland; when, returning to England, he was married, on November 12, 1781, to Miss Bosanquet, and died on August 14, 1785.
Wesley writes: “He looked upon my proposal as a call from Providence, and willingly accepted it. He set out, (as I am accustomed to do,) early in the spring of 1776, and travelled, by moderate journeys, suited to his strength, which gradually increased, eleven or twelve hundred miles. When we returned to London, in the latter end of the year, he was considerably better. And, I verily believe, if he had travelled with me, partly in the chaise and partly on horseback, only a few months longer, he would quite have recovered his health. But this those about him would not permit; so, being detained in London by his kind, but injudicious, friends, while I pursued my journeys, his spitting of blood, with all the other symptoms, returned, and rapidly increased, till the physician pronounced him to be far advanced in pulmonary consumption.”
No doubt, Wesley wished to have Fletcher as his coadjutor and successor; but Providence determined otherwise. Fletcher had a great work to do, and did it; but it was not ordained that Fletcher should take Wesley’s place.
It is a remarkable coincidence, that, in the very year when the health of Fletcher failed, Wesley formed an acquaintance with Thomas Coke. Born and educated at Brecon, Coke was now twenty-nine years of age. He had taken his degrees at Oxford, had received episcopal ordination, and, at present, was curate at South Petherton. Mr. Brown, a clergyman near Taunton, lent him the sermons and journals of Wesley, and the “Checks” of Fletcher. In the month of August, 1776, Wesley was Mr. Brown’s guest at Kingston, and Coke went to see him. Wesley writes: “1776, August 13—I preached at Taunton, and afterwards went with Mr. Brown to Kingston. Here I found a clergyman, Dr. Coke, late a gentleman commoner of Jesus college, Oxford, who came twenty miles on purpose to meet me. I had much conversation with him; and a union then began, which, I trust, shall never end.” The doctor expressed his doubts respecting the propriety of confining himself to one congregation. Wesley clasped his hands, and, in a manner peculiarly his own, said: “Brother, go out, go out, and preach the gospel to all the world!” Coke rode back to Petherton pensive, and yet consoled. The tone of his ministry was now more decided than ever. The parish was remodelled, so to speak, into a circuit. On Sundays, after the second lesson, he would read a paper of his appointments for the ensuing week, with the place and time of service. His innovations, in preaching in cottages and barns, took a sort of Methodistic form, by being systematically arranged. The disgust of his opponents in the parish became intense; and, to prevent his having the opportunity of preaching a farewell sermon, his rector, without any previous notice, at the close of a public service, and in the presence of a listening congregation, abruptly announced that Coke was now dismissed. The die was cast. Coke attended Wesley’s conference in Bristol, and, on August 19, 1777, Wesley writes: “I went to Taunton with Dr. Coke, who, being dismissed from his curacy, has bid adieu to his honourable name, and determined to cast in his lot with us.” Henceforth, Thomas Coke was a Methodist itinerant preacher, and became the great organiser of Methodist missions in other lands.
When Wesley enacted rules, he meant them to be observed. Laxity in the enforcement of discipline was to him a thing intolerable. He was a thorough disciplinarian himself, and insisted that his preachers should copy his example. Good as were the first Methodists, they were not perfect. Then, as now, some were defective in their attendance at the weekly class. In certain instances, as we have already seen, some were guilty of the crime of smuggling. Others, in moderation, were addicted to taking drams, and others opium; and it often happened that the oldest societies were the worst offenders. In 1776, both London and Newcastle were thus tainted; and Wesley was determined, with a strong hand, to purge them. Hence the following extracts from letters, addressed, at this period, to Joseph Benson, stationed at Newcastle.
“We must threaten no longer, but perform. In November last, I told the London society, ‘Our rule is, to meet a class once a week; not once in two or three. I now give you warning: I will give tickets to none in February, but those that have done this.’ I have stood to my word. Go you and do likewise, wherever you visit the classes. Begin, if need be, at Newcastle, and go on at Sunderland. Promises to meet are now out of date. Those, that have not met seven times in the quarter, exclude. Read their names in the society; and inform them all, you will the next quarter exclude all that have not met twelve times; that is, unless they were hindered by distance, sickness, or by some unavoidable business. And I pray, without fear or favour, remove the leaders, whether of classes or bands, who do not watch over the souls committed to their care ‘as those that must give account.’”
What would become of Methodist societies if these imperative directions of Methodism’s founder were enforced now?
Benson had expelled a smuggler, and Wesley wrote:
“You did right in excluding from our society so notorious an offender. You have now a providential call to stand in the gap between the living and the dead. Fear nothing. Begin in the name of God, and go through with it. If only six will promise you to sin no more, leave only six in society. But my belief is, a hundred and fifty are now clear of blame; and, if you are steady, a hundred more will amend. You must, at all events, tear up this evil by the roots. The ‘Word to a Smuggler’ should be read and dispersed. And secure your fellow labourers, that you may all speak one thing. Go on, for God is with you! Not only the assistant, but every preacher, is concerned to see all our rules observed. I desire brother Rhodes will give no tickets, either to those who have not constantly met their classes, or to any that do not solemnly promise to deal in stolen goods no more. He and you together may put a stop to this crying sin. If any leader oppose, you see your remedy; put another in his place. Nay, if he does not join heart and hand; for ‘he that gathereth not with you scattereth.’ The ‘Word to a Smuggler’ is plain and home, and has done much good in Kent. Taking opium is full as bad as taking drams. It equally hurts the understanding, and is, if possible, more pernicious to the health, than even rum or brandy. None should touch it, if they have the least regard either for their souls or bodies.”
The year 1776 was a period of great national distress; and, yet, it was now that Wesley started his scheme for the erection of Methodism’s cathedral, the chapel in City Road. Who will write a history of London Methodism? or, which would be more popular, who will give the Methodists a monograph of the memories of Wesley’s “new chapel” in City Road? Much might be said of the episcopal chapel in West Street, Seven Dials, of which Wesley obtained a lease, and which he opened on the 29th of May, 1743, as a Methodist meeting-house, and which was so occupied until 1798, when it was superseded by the purchase of another episcopal chapel, which then stood on part of the site of the present Methodist chapel in Great Queen Street. Then there was the venerable chapel in Spitalfields, erected by the French protestants, and used by Wesley long before that in City Road was built, but which, horresco referens! has given place to the brewery of Truman, Hanbury & Co.; and there is likewise its successor, also originally a French protestant church, and still used for Methodist services, a chapel which has recently had dark days of adversity, but which is rich in religious memories, and has witnessed many a marvellous revival of the work of God. There is Chelsea, whose first Methodist meeting place was an upper room in the house of an elderly woman, Mrs. Day, who resided in Royal Hospital Row; and its next, one of the dancing rooms in the celebrated Ranelagh Gardens, for which a rent was paid of ten guineas per annum; and in which Wesley preached only about two months previous to his death, taking as his text words which his long life had illustrated: “The king’s business requires haste.” There is Lambeth, where, in 1772, good old John Edwards opened his house for preaching; and then converted an adjoining building into a decent chapel; a man of vigorous mind, retentive memory, and fluent speech; for almost forty years an effective local preacher, and who, while on a preaching expedition, died at Irchester, in the county of Northampton, in 1803. In London East, there was the old chapel in Gravel Lane, which, in 1811, was required for the London Docks; and its successor in Back Road, required by the Black wall railway company. There was the schoolroom near Mill Pond Bridge, Rotherhithe, succeeded by the purchased chapel in Albion Street. There was Hoxton chapel, which originally belonged to the Dissenters; and there were the venerable meeting-houses at Wapping, Snowsfields, Peckham, and other places. All these have a history well worth writing, to say nothing of the parent of them all, the old pantile Foundery, Methodism’s honoured cradle; and of which the Methodists retained possession, at least as late as the year 1785, when they received for it, in the shape of rent, £14 per year.
Then how rich the mine of London Methodist biography! Confining ourselves to Wesley’s days, there is—Mary Cheesebrook, originally a kept mistress, converted in West Street chapel, never absent from the Foundery preaching, though, to be in time, she often had to run the distance, and who, every Saturday, after paying her little debts, gave away all the money she had left, leaving the morrow to take thought for the things of itself:—Mrs. Witham, a mother in Israel, an eminent pattern of calm boldness for the truth, of simplicity and godly sincerity, of unwearied constancy in attending all the ordinances of God, of zeal for God and for all good works, and of self denial in every kind:—Elizabeth Langdon, whose trials were severe, and her death tranquil:—Hannah Lee, a model of industry, meekness, and patience:—Mary Naylor, distinguished for her Christian courage, and plainness of speech and of apparel:—Thomas Salmon, a good and useful man:—Joseph Norbury, a faithful witness of Jesus Christ:—William Hurd, a son of affliction, whose end was peace:—John Matthews, who, for some months before his death, was wont to say, “I have no more doubt of being in heaven, than if I was there already”; and of whom Wesley writes: “A man of so faultless a behaviour I have hardly ever been acquainted with. During twenty years, I do not remember his doing or saying anything which I would wish to have been unsaid or undone”:—Ann Wheeler, who, twenty-five years before her death, while attending preaching in Moorfields, was struck in the forehead with a stone, the mark of which her unborn daughter bore to her dying day:—Rebecca Mills, always firm and unmoved, resting on the Rock of ages, and in life and death uniformly praising the God of her salvation:—Elizabeth Duchesne, for near forty years zealous of good works, and who shortened her days by labouring for the poor beyond her strength:—William Osgood, a good man, who began life in poverty, but increased more and more till he was worth several thousand pounds:—Michael Hayes, who lived above a hundred and four years, mostly in vigorous health, and as he lived, so died, praising God:—Mrs. Kiteley, a perfect pattern of true womanhood, a good wife, a good parent, a good mistress, who, after many years of active benevolence, redeemed a poor friendless youth from prison, took the jail distemper, and died:—Heller Tanner, diligent, patient, loving to every man, and zealous of good works:—Bilhah Aspernell, who, for six-and-thirty years, without intermission, walked in the light of God’s countenance, was always in pain, yet always rejoicing, and going about doing good; who on Sunday evening met her class as usual, and the next day sent for her old fellow traveller, Sarah Clay, and said to her, “Sally, I am going.” “Where are you going?” She cheerfully answered, “To my Jesus, to be sure!” and spoke no more:—Thomas Vokins, a man of a sorrowful spirit, who always hung down his head like a bulrush, but who died triumphing over pain and death, and rejoicing with joy full of glory:—Mr. Bespham, many years master of a man of war, whose faith was full of mercy and good fruits:—George Parsons, a flame of fire wherever he went, losing no occasion of speaking or working for God; so zealously, so humbly, so unreservedly devoted to God, that few like him were left behind him:—Eleanor Lee, who lived in the enjoyment of perfect love for sixteen years, and of whom Wesley testified, “I never saw her do any action, little or great, nor heard her speak any word, which I could reprove”:—Ann Thwayte, a woman of faith and prayer, for whom Wesley preached a funeral sermon:—Merchant West, a pattern of diligence in all things, spiritual and temporal:—Charles Greenwood, a melancholy man, full of doubts and fears, but who, two days before he died, was made so unspeakably happy that he exclaimed, “God has revealed to me things which it is impossible for man to utter”:—George Hufflet, for many years a burning and shining light:—Ann Sharland, whose cancer in her breast caused her continual pain, but who triumphed gloriously through Christ;—and Robert Windsor, prudent, serious, diligent, full of mercy and good fruits.
All these died during Wesley’s lifetime. The temptation to add to them is great. We should like to tell of William Palmer, Wesley’s first classleader in London; and of his son, who was blind from infancy, was one of the first to form the Community, or body of workhouse visitors, often made preaching excursions into different parts of the country, with Wesley’s sanction, and died in 1822, after being sixty-two years a Methodist. Old Thomas Gibbs of Lambeth, also, deserves a place in Methodism’s gallery,—a patriarch, who lived to the age of one hundred and four years, eighty-three of which he had been a member of Wesley’s society; and who, at his death, in 1827, was probably the oldest Methodist in the world. There is Isaac Andrews, one of the original subscribers to City Road chapel, a man of unimpeachable Christian character, a Methodist of sixty years’ standing, who died at the age of eighty-two, in 1832. There is Mrs. Maddan, whose mother, Mrs. Varin, was the eighth person whom Wesley received into church fellowship, when forming his infant society in Fetter Lane. There are Mrs. Mortimer and Mrs. Bruce, of whom the Rev. Richard Watson used to say, “they were the two finest specimens of primitive Methodism that he knew;” the latter being the daughter of parents who were among the eighteen persons who first joined Wesley in Christian fellowship, in 1739. We cannot find room for more.
For five-and-thirty years, Wesley and his friends had worshipped in “the old Foundery.” Here hundreds, perhaps thousands, had been converted; but, as the building was only held on lease, they were now in danger of losing it. On October 19, 1775, Wesley, writing to his brother, says: “on Friday I hope to be in London, and to talk with the committee about building a new Foundery.” A few months later, he wrote again: “1776, March 1—As we cannot depend on having the Foundery long, we met to consult about building a new chapel. Our petition to the city for a piece of ground lies before their committee; but when we shall get any further, I know not: so I determined to begin my circuit as usual; but promised to return whenever I should receive notice that our petition was granted.” Exactly five months after this, Wesley started the first subscription, and, at three meetings, raised upwards of £1000. In November following, building plans were agreed upon; in April 1777, Wesley laid the foundation stone; and on Sunday, November 1, 1778, he opened his new sanctuary, by preaching, in the morning, on part of Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple; and in the afternoon, on the hundred, forty and four thousand standing with the Lamb on mount Zion. He writes: “It is perfectly neat, but not fine; and contains far more people than the Foundery: I believe, together with the morning chapel, as many as the Tabernacle.”
The chapel in City Road will always stand as a thanksgiving monument, raised, not by the London Methodists merely, but by Methodists throughout the three kingdoms. No sooner was it resolved to build, than Wesley issued the following circular, an original copy of which now lies before us.
“October 18, 1776.
“My dear Brother,—The society at London have given assistance to their brethren in various parts of England. They have done this for upwards of thirty years: they have done it cheerfully and liberally. The first year of the subscription for the general debt, they subscribed above nine hundred pounds; the next, above three hundred; and not much less every one of the ensuing years.
“They now stand in need of assistance themselves. They are under a necessity of building; as the Foundery, with all the adjoining houses, is shortly to be pulled down. And the city of London has granted ground to build on; but on condition of covering it, and with large houses in front, which, together with the new chapel, will, at a very moderate computation, cost upwards of six thousand pounds. I must, therefore, beg the assistance of all our brethren. Now help the parent society, which has helped others, for so many years, so willingly and so largely. Now help me, who account this as a kindness done to myself; perhaps, the last of this sort which I shall ask of you. Subscribe what you conveniently can, to be paid either now, or at Christmas, or at Ladyday next.
“I am, your affectionate brother,
“John Wesley.
“The Trustees are
⎧
John Duplex
⎪
Charles Greenwood
⎪
Richard Kemp
⎨
Samuel Chancellor
⎪
Charles Wheeler
⎪
William Cowland
⎩
John Folgham
We are afraid to enter into details, respecting the New Chapel, in City Road. John Pawson, who was appointed to the office of assistant in the London circuit, within two years after the chapel was opened, tells us, in an unpublished manuscript, that the plan proposed was to build an elegant chapel, such as even the lord mayor might attend, without any diminishing of his official dignity; and that it should be wholly supplied by ordained clergymen of the Established Church on Sundays, when the liturgy should be constantly read at both morning and evening service; and this, for a considerable time after the chapel was opened, was regularly done. No layman, so called,—that is, no itinerant preacher not episcopally ordained, was allowed to officiate within its walls, except on week days. Charles Wesley, Thomas Coke, and John Richardson were City Road’s only sabbatic priests: Pawson, Jaco, Rankin, Tennent, Olivers, and others, though better preachers than any of the trio, were not admitted; because their heads had not been touched by a bishop’s fingers. Pawson says, that Richardson and Coke disapproved of this arrangement; but Charles Wesley persisted, until the congregations so fell off, and the society was thrown into such confusion, that the trustees of the chapel met, and waited on Charles Wesley with a request, that he would not preach so often at City Road, but would go sometimes to West Street on Sundays, and allow the itinerants to take his place on the hitherto forbidden ground. Charles reluctantly submitted; but wrote to his brother, casting all the blame upon the poor, tabooed itinerants, and stating that it was wholly owing to their deep rooted prejudices against the clergy of the Established Church, that these events had happened.
For many years, the men sat on one side the chapel, and the women on the other; and, besides this, there was another usage, which would not be popular at the present day: all the pews and seats were open. Large numbers paid for seats; but no one was allowed to call a seat, or a pew, his own. In 1788, the trustees endeavoured to make an alteration in both the respects just mentioned; “thus overthrowing,” says Wesley, “at one blow, the discipline which I have been establishing for fifty years!” He continues, however: “we had another meeting of the committee; who, after a calm and loving consultation, judged it best—(1) that the men and women should sit separate still; and (2) that none should claim any pew as his own, either in the new chapel, or in West Street.”
The days of the old Foundery have long been ended; the “New Chapel” in City Road still stands, and we trust will ever stand, by far the most sacred and attractive edifice in the Methodistic world. Not for a hundred pretentious gothic structures would Methodists of the olden type give up this. Though its ceiling may be somewhat low, yet, taken as a whole, its architecture, for neatness, and commodiousness, and solidity, has been but rarely equalled, by the more pretentious Methodist buildings of the present day. We are weary of gothic gaudiness, sacrificing the interests of the church of God to the pride of showy architects, and the mediæval whims of Methodists in danger of relapsing into mediæval darkness. Let the present race of Methodists have wisdom and modesty enough to build their chapels according to the plan adopted by a man, in all respects, their superior—Methodism’s founder. Hail to old City Road! When we think of the ministers who have occupied its pulpit, of the families who have filled its pews, of the dead resting in graves round about its walls, and of the interesting events which make up its story,—we feel that of all the Methodist meeting-houses in existence, gothic or otherwise, marble or mudden, there is not one to equal this.
For many a long year, the chapel in City Road was the head of London Methodism; and, though there are now more than twenty heads, all owe a respectful obeisance to this. Its circuit plan, from June 17 to September 23, 1792, eighteen inches broad and fifteen deep, is simply headed, “A Plan for the Preachers in London;” the word Methodist, or Methodism, not being printed in any part of it. The preaching places, and hours of preaching, are as follows:—New Chapel, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.; West Street, 9, 3 and 7; Spitalfields, 10 and 3; Wapping, 10 and 5; Snowsfields, 10 and 5; Lambeth, 6; Westminster, 5; Peckham, 3; Rotherhithe, 10 and 5; Deptford, 7, 10, and 5; Chelsea, 6; Brentford, 10, 2, and 6; Dorking, 11, 2, and 5; Raynham, 10 and 5; Purfleet, 9 and 5; Woolwich, 2 and 6; Wandsworth, 6; Mitcham, 2 and 6; Croydon, 2 and 6; Bromley, 3; Barnet, 2 and 5; Poplar, 11 and 5; Bow, 5; Stratford, 11 and 5; Barking, 5; Leyton, 5; Grosvenor Market, 6; Ratcliff Cross, 2; Christ Church, 5; Clerkenwell, 6; Kentish Town, 6; and Seven Dials without an hour. Such was London circuit at the time when Wesley died.
Interesting citations might be made from the old City Road society book, extending from August 23, 1784, to July 9, 1800. We learn, that sacramental collections were, upon an average, a little more than £3 each; and monthly collections, for “the furtherance of the gospel,” about £6 10s. The sacrament was administered once a week; and what is now known among the Methodists as a quarterly collection was then made once a month as just referred to. The entire circuit income, for 1786, was £862 16s. 5d., which included sacramental collections and payments for graves, all of which were then appropriated to circuit purposes. Strangely enough, there is no entry of class moneys till 1788, from which time such entries were regularly made. Had the practice of collecting pence weekly in the classes been superseded by collections made at the weekly sacraments? This is not improbable; for, from the time when class moneys are entered as a part of the circuit income, the entries of sacramental collections, and collections for the furtherance of the gospel, cease. For the year 1787, including all sources of income, the average contribution per member per year was in this great London circuit 3s. 10½d., or less than a shilling per member per quarter. How far was this from the requirement of Wesley’s rules? Who will say that the former days were better than these? Besides, all that was contributed was not current coin; for in the same year there is a charge deducted of not less than £10 14s. 9½d. for bad money given at collections.
Many are the curious items in the list of circuit payments and allowances. The yearly salary paid to Wesley was £30; to his brother £60; to Creighton, £61; to Dickenson, £50; to Coke, £30; while the quarterage to the itinerants, and to their wives respectively, was £3 each. With a few more extracts we conclude this lengthened notice of London Methodism, during the last seven years of Wesley’s life. “1784: November 7, a new pail, half a crown; December 6, chain for dog, two shillings. 1785: January 4, shaving the preachers, £2 10s. 6d.; February 18, “news pappers,” 13s.; May 18, lamplighter, four weeks, 6s.; August 8, Mr. Tennant, to pay his debts, and to send him to Leeds, £9 9s.; August 13, letters, four weeks, £2 15s. 8½d. August 19, for shaving the preachers at conference, £7 5s. 3d. 1787: February 2, two trees for front of dwelling house, 3s. 6d.; December 17, for curtain over the altar, £5 1s. 9d. 1789: March 28, paid expenses of a hogshead of cider, from Guernsey, a present to Mr. Wesley, £1 9s.; July 7, paid the man servant a quarter’s wages, £1 1s.; December 29, paid Mr. Moore for cold bath, £1 1s. 1790: July 1, the hairdresser’s bill, £1 1s., for one quarter. 1791: February 22, paid the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s salary (the last he received) £15; April 20, paid for Rev. Mr. Wesley’s horses standing at livery after his decease, £1 11s. 9d.; December 3, paid Mr. Judd’s bill for hanging the New Chapel with black superfine cloth, £41 16s.”
These may seem little things to introduce into a work like this; but little things often indicate greater, and, sometimes, it is only by knowing minute matters that men can form a correct opinion of a great general system.
After this long, but we hope not uninteresting digression, we must return to Wesley in 1776.
On Sunday evening, March 3, he set out from London to Bristol, and thence to his societies in the north. The tour was not completed until the 19th of July following, when he got back to London. Its incidents were much the same as previous ones, except that he was permitted to preach in a larger number of churches than usual,—namely, at Pebworth, Chowbent, Heptonstall, Bingley, Haworth, Colne, and at Banff in Scotland, a proof that clerical prejudice was subsiding, and that the poor branded outcast was beginning to be regarded with a more favourable eye. The churches that he occupied in Yorkshire were crowded. Thomas Taylor, at that time in the Haworth circuit, writes, in his unpublished diary: “Saturday, April 27—Mr. Wesley preached at Bradford, at 5 a.m. At 10½, to the surprise of many, he preached in Bingley church, from Acts xxiv. 25. I never saw him weep while preaching before now. He spoke awfully, and the congregation heard attentively. The next day (Sunday) I heard him at Keighley in the morning, and then at Haworth church. Afterwards, the sacrament was administered, but in too great a hurry. Several hundreds communicated in less than an hour. We then dined, in haste and confusion, and drove off to Colne. I rode fast, and got thither before Mr. Wesley. The street was filled with people waiting to welcome him; but, when about two miles from Colne, his chaise broke down, which somewhat delayed his coming. He mounted a horse, however, and so arrived in safety. The crowd was so great that it was with difficulty we got into the church. The sexton led us to the reading desk, and thereby I got a seat. Mr. Wesley’s text was Revelation xx. 12. At the beginning he was rather flat; but, at the end, he spake many awful things.”
Wesley’s journey to the north was always one continued panorama of toil and travel, preaching and praying, conferring with his preachers and visiting the sick. Hardly one in a thousand could have borne the burden of its labours without bending; and yet Wesley, an old man, was always, in the midst of gigantic toils, blithe and happy; and never went northwards without making his large circuit larger. Besides other places, he now, for the first, time, preached at Chesterfield. Three years before, Jeremiah Cocker had gone from Sheffield, and stood on a table, in the midst of the market place, and begun to preach. A man, hired for the purpose, pulled him down. Jerry again mounted his rostrum, and was again pulled down. A third time he ascended, and a third time his assailant brought him to the ground. The old Adam now began to stir in the athletic preacher, and, seizing the man, he gave him a shake hardly gentle. “That is not the spirit of Christ,” shouted the mob, which, all at once, had become pious. “I acknowledge it,” said Jerry; and again he jumped upon his table, and finished his discourse.
Wesley opened the conference of 1776, in London, on August 6, and concluded it three days afterwards. He writes: “In several conferences we have had great love and unity; but in this there was, over and above, such a general seriousness and solemnity of spirit as we scarcely ever had before.” “Everything,” says Thomas Taylor, “was conducted in great order. A very strict scrutiny was made into every one’s character; and I am glad so few were found culpable.”
The truth is, objections to the preachers had become so rife, that Wesley felt it to be his duty to interfere. He writes: “It is objected, that some of our preachers are utterly unqualified for the work, and that others do it negligently, as if they imagined they had nothing to do but to preach once or twice a day. In order to silence this objection for ever, which has been repeated ten times over, the preachers were examined at large, especially those concerning whom there was the least doubt. The result was, that one was excluded for inefficiency, and two for misbehaviour. And we were thoroughly satisfied, that all the rest had both grace and gifts for the work wherein they are engaged. I hope, therefore, we shall hear of this objection no more.”
Even in 1776, as now, there were crabbed, cantankerous Methodists, to whom discipline was a blessing. Those in Ireland refused to contribute to the yearly collection, saying, it “was nothing to them; they would only bear their own expenses.” This was worse than foolish; it was disloyal and unjust. In their own fashion, they were willing to feed and clothe the preachers sent to them; but they expected some one else to pay their expenses for travelling, and for the sickness of themselves and their families; or, perhaps, these Irish Methodists had dreamt that itinerants travelled without expense, and, so far as sickness was concerned and the need of medicine, were entirely exempted from the dire effects of Adam’s curse. Wesley says, with honest indignation: “These are properly their expenses; nor will we pay any part of them for the time to come, unless their yearly contribution enable us so to do.” If the Irish stopped supplies on one side of the channel, Wesley could stop supplies on the other side as well. This probably was a dilemma which the simple Hibernians had not studied.
There was another unpleasantness at the conference of 1776. Circuit stewards complained, that some of the preachers’ wives were sluts, and spoiled their houses; and the preachers, on the other hand, complained that their houses were hardly homes, for the people, without ceremony, crowded into them as into coffee houses. Wesley dealt with both complaints in his own laconic way; directing that no “known slut” should have a house to spoil; and that no person, either on Sundays or week days, should go into the preacher’s house except to ask a question.
The conference pronounced the opinion, that Calvinism had been the grand hindrance of the work of God; and, hence, to stop its progress, all the preachers were requested—(1) To read, with carefulness, the tracts published by Wesley, Fletcher, and Sellon. (2) To preach universal redemption frequently, explicitly, and lovingly. (3) Not to imitate the Calvinist preachers in screaming, allegorising, and boasting; but to visit as diligently as they did, to answer all their objections, to advise the Methodists not to hear them, to pray constantly and earnestly that God would stop the plague.
Was it wise to publish this? We doubt it; and so did Toplady, for he immediately, without note or comment, republished it in his Gospel Magazine, with the heading “Authentic Extract of what passed at a certain Confabulation, held at London, August 6, 1776.”
The Isle of Man now began to attract attention. John Crook was the son of a Lancashire physician, who squandered his own and his wife’s fortunes, and then died a miserable and untimely death at sea. John was put apprentice to learn a laborious trade, and then enlisted to be a soldier; when he was sent to Limerick, where, at the age of twenty-eight, he was converted, in the Methodist chapel, in the year 1770. Having purchased his discharge from the army, he returned to Liverpool, where he became a classleader, and a local preacher. At the beginning of 1775, he went, uncommissioned except by God Himself, to the Isle of Man, and began to preach, and had the lieutenant governor, and his lady, and all the family, and the chief people in Castletown, to hear him. Numbers had been converted; and persecution had begun to rage. On July 16, 1776, the following episcopal bull was issued.
“To the several Rectors, Vicars, Chaplains, Curates, within the Isle and Diocese of Man.
“Reverend Brethren,—Whereas, we have been informed, that several unordained, unauthorised, and unqualified persons from other countries have presumed, for some time past, to preach and teach publicly, and hold and maintain conventicles, and have caused several weak persons to combine themselves together in a new society, and have private meetings, assemblies, and congregations, contrary to the doctrine, government, rites and ceremonies of the Established Church, and the civil and ecclesiastical laws of this island—
“We do, therefore, for the prevention of schism, and the establishment of uniformity of religious worship, which so long hitherto has subsisted among us, hereby desire and require each and every one of you, to be vigilant and use your utmost endeavours to dissuade your respective flocks from following, or being led and misguided by, such incompetent teachers, and to exhort, incite, and invite them devoutly to read the holy Scripture, to attend reverently the blessed sacraments of their parish church, and the ghostly advice of their own ministers, by which they will be better and more comfortably instructed in the meaning of grace and salvation, than by the crude and pragmatical and inconsistent, if not profane and blasphemous, extempore effusions of these pretenders to the true religion; and, if afterwards they regard not the truth, but obstinately persist in error, then to know and find out the names of such persons, within your respective parishes and chapelries, as attend the public instructions of the said disorderly and unqualified teachers, or frequent the said conventicles, meetings, assemblies, and congregations; and if, upon due inquiry and certain information, you discover, or, consistently with your own knowledge, know any licensed schoolmaster, mistress, parish clerk, or any other person, who holds any office or employment by licence from us or our predecessors, that you signify and make known to us in writing the names, within one month after the receipt hereof, as also unto our reverend vicars general or any one of them, of the persons who attend the instructions of the said teachers, or frequent the said conventicles.
“And we, likewise, further desire and require each and every one of you, in case any of the above mentioned unordained, unauthorised, and unqualified teachers shall, at any time hereafter, offer to partake of the holy communion in any of your respective churches or chapels, that you repel him or them so offering, and the minister so repelling them or any of them to give an account of the same unto us within fourteen days, at the farthest, as is directed in the rubric in that behalf.
“Given at Peeltown, July 16, 1776.
“R. Sodor and Man.
“P.S.—Let these be forwarded, in the usual manner, and the time of receiving and forwarding be noted by each of you. You will also take a copy thereof, and publish it, in English and Manx, at the usual time, in your respective churches and chapels the Sunday next after the receipt thereof.”
Such was the fulmen brutum discharged at the poor Methodists from the episcopal battery of the Isle of Man. Twelve days later, John Crook wrote as follows to a friend at Liverpool.
“Castletown, Isle of Man, July 28, 1776.
“My dear Brother,—I am now in hot war. The devil has stirred up the Rev. Mr. Moor, of Douglas, and made a firebrand of him, to set all the island on fire. This gentleman has set his schoolboys to work, to write chosen texts of Scripture against false prophets, dreamers of dreams, running and not being sent, etc. He has also picked up a ballad, written, I fancy, by the late Dr. Bowden, and has dispersed manuscript copies of it, and of the texts, among the populace, and put them into a most violent flame. The effect on us, as a society, is, we are hooted at, slutched, and stoned, whenever we go to worship God. Mr. Moor’s scholars, in particular, and the rabble of the town in general, gather round our place of meeting, and first sing the blasphemous ballad, and then proceed to throw dirt and stones at the windows and door. As for myself, when I come out they plentifully salute me with channel dirt, with which they have often plastered me pretty well. When the scholars meet me at mid day, they curse me most horribly, and throw at me chips, hard pieces of mortar, potatoes, stones, or whatever comes to hand. But if this were all, we might do well enough; but this brand has communicated the infectious blaze to the bishop, who has issued a bull, dated, not Rome, but Peeltown, which was published in the churches last sabbath. I have petitioned the governor for liberty of conscience, but he and the bishop are so unanimous, that, he says, he will not interfere in the case, but wishes me to write a memorial setting forth my suit. I am not willing to do this, but have given Mr. Wesley an account of the matter, and hope he will direct me how to act.
“I am, your willing servant in the gospel,
“John Crook.”
Wesley replied to Mr. Crook as follows.
“London, August 10, 1776.
“My dear Brother,—By all means, stay in the island till the storm be ended: in your patience possess your soul. Beware of despising your opponents! Beware of anger and resentment! Return not evil for evil, or railing for railing. I advise you to keep, with a few serious people, a day of fasting and prayer. God has the hearts of all men in His hands. Neither Dr. Moor, nor the bishop himself, is out of His reach. Be fervent in prayer, that God would arise and maintain His own cause. Assuredly, He will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able to bear. Violent methods of redress are not to be used, till all other methods fail. I know pretty well the mind of Lord Mansfield, and of one that is greater than he; but, if I appealed to them, it would bring much expense and inconvenience on Dr. Moor and others. I would not willingly do this; I love my neighbour as myself. Possibly, they may think better, and allow that liberty of conscience which belongs to every partaker of human nature, and more especially to every one of his majesty’s subjects in his British dominions. To live peaceably with all men is the earnest desire of your affectionate brother,
“John Wesley.”
Three years after this, the Isle of Man was a flourishing Methodist circuit, with 1051 members of society.
No sooner was the conference in London ended, than Wesley set out, on Sunday afternoon, August 11, for Cornwall. On his return, he spent, as usual, about a month at Bristol and in its vicinity. He began what, he says, he had long intended, visiting the Bristol society from house to house, setting apart at least two hours a day for that purpose. He preached in the church at Midsomer Norton, the rector making one of his congregation. Here an incident occurred which was characteristic of the man, and is worth relating. Wesley was entertained at the house of Mr. Bush, a local preacher, who kept a boarding school. While there, two of the boys quarrelled, and cuffed and kicked each other most vigorously. Mrs. Bush brought the pugilists to Wesley. He talked to them, and repeated the lines:
“You must be reconciled,” said he; “go and shake hands with each other.” They did so. “Now,” he continued, “put your arms round each other’s neck, and kiss each other.” This was also done. “Now,” said he, “come to me”; and, taking two pieces of bread and butter, he folded them together, and desired each to take a part. “Now,” he added, “you have broken bread together.” He then put his hands upon their heads, and blessed them. The two tigers were turned into loving lambs; they never forgot the old man’s blessing; and one of them became a magistrate in Berks, and related the occurrence with intense interest in after days.
Having returned to London, Wesley set out, on November 13, accompanied by his invalid friend, Fletcher, to Norwich. He says: “I took coach at twelve, slept till six, and then spent the time very agreeably in conversation, singing, and reading. I read Mr. Bolt’s account of the affairs in the East Indies. What a scene is here opened! What consummate villains, what devils incarnate, were the managers there! What utter strangers to justice, mercy, and truth; to every sentiment of humanity! I believe no heathen history contains a parallel. I remember none in all the annals of antiquity; not even the divine Cato, or the virtuous Brutus, plundered the provinces committed to their charge with such merciless cruelty as the English have plundered the desolated provinces of Hindostan.”
The two friends returned to London on November 21; and, a few days later, Wesley started on his accustomed visitation to Bedfordshire, etc.; and, on the way, read the poetical works of Gray, whom he pencils as “sharp, sensible, and ingenious; but proud, morose, envious, passionate, and resentful.”
After this, he made a tour through Kent; and then writes: “December 31—We concluded the year with solemn praise to God, for continuing His great work in our land. It has never been intermitted one year, or one month, since the year 1738; in which my brother and I began to preach that strange doctrine of salvation by faith.”
The Calvinistic controversy was now in its last agonies; but, on the part of the elect, was as acrimonious as ever. Some one published a twopenny pamphlet, entitled, “A necessary Alarm and most earnest Caveto against Tabernacle Principles and Tabernacle Connections; containing the substance of an extraordinary Harangue and Exhortation, delivered at Penzance, in August, 1774; on an extraordinary occasion. By J. W., Master of very extraordinary Arts.” In this infamous burlesque, Wesley is treated with as much ridicule as the anonymous author could command; and Toplady, in reviewing it, in his Gospel Magazine, of course commends it, as “a delicate satire on Wesley,” and hopes that “the cream of tartar, so ably administered by the anonymous physician, will prove a sweetener of the patient’s crudities, and conduce to carry off some portion of his self sufficiency.” Wesley, however, had been so “severely peppered and salted of late years,” that the considerate editor of the Gospel Magazine benevolently intimates that he shall, on that account, refrain from adding to the pepper and salt seasonings, which “must often have made Wesley smart and wince like an eel dispossessed of its skin.”
This was bad enough; but there were other things even worse. Wesley’s wife, (originally a not too respectable servant girl,) stole a number of Wesley’s letters, and interpolated words, and misinterpreted spiritual expressions, so as to make the letters bear a bad construction. She read them to an elect party of Calvinists, and agreed to send them to the Morning Post for publication. Two masked assassins, who assumed the not inappropriate names of Scorpion and Snapdragon, furiously assailed him, in the London newspaper, professing to ground their charges against him upon his own private papers, which the woman, who was legally his wife, had put into their hands. A more infamous episode does not occur in Wesley’s history. The charges were cruel insinuations, founded upon interpolated letters, stolen by a faithless woman, who, in order to defame a husband of whom she was utterly unworthy, not only committed theft but forgery, and then put herself into the hands of a set of holy Calvinists, who employed her perfidy and meanness in injuring the man whom, at the altar of the Most High God, she had sworn to love, honour, and obey. This is strong language; but the writer, knowing more than he chooses to make public, uses it with deliberate design. Charles Wesley, finding the use that was being made of his brother’s papers, was in the utmost consternation, and went off in haste, wishing him to postpone a journey, and to stay in town to defend himself against his enemies. Wesley was as calm as his loving and faithful brother was excited. “I shall never forget,” said Miss Wesley, “the manner in which my father accosted my mother on his return home. ‘My brother,’ said he, ‘is indeed an extraordinary man. I placed before him the importance of the character of a minister; and the evil consequences which might result from his indifference to it; and urged him, by every relative and public motive, to answer for himself, and stop the publication. His reply was, ‘Brother, when I devoted to God my ease, my time, my life, did I except my reputation? No, Tell Sally I will take her to Canterbury to-morrow.’”
On the Arminian side of the controversy, the chief, if not the only, publication issued in 1776, was Fletcher’s masterly “Answer to the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s ‘Vindication of the Decrees,’ etc.” 12mo, 128 pages. Never was a bravo shaved with so sharp a razor, and by so adept a hand.
Except “An Extract of the Life of Madame Guion,” 12mo, 230 pages, Wesley’s only publications, in 1776, were the two political tracts following. 1. “Some Observations on Liberty, occasioned by a late Tract”: 12mo, 36 pages. And, 2. “A Seasonable Address to the more Serious Part of the Inhabitants of Great Britain, respecting the Unhappy Contest between us and our American Brethren; with an occasional Word interspersed to those of a different complexion”: 12mo, 18 pages.
The former was an answer to Dr. Price, a Unitarian minister far more famed for politics than for preaching, who had recently published his “Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America.” This was considered the ablest work, in exposition of the injurious policy pursued by England toward America, that had yet been issued. Within less than two years, eight editions were printed; and, in testimony of their approbation of it, the common council of London presented to the author the freedom of the city in a golden box. Thus, in fighting with Dr. Price, Wesley was far from fighting with a shadow.
Both of Wesley’s tracts display, not only his wonted ability, but his profound loyalty to the government of King George, his benevolence of heart, and his intense interest in the fratricidal war which was then raging. A more loyal subject than Wesley, England never had; perhaps, indeed, his loving loyalty sometimes made him somewhat blind to the faultiness of ruling powers. No man was more obedient to law; and no man more cheerfully paid his taxes. The last mentioned might not amount to much; but they were never tendered with a niggard’s hand. Some imagined that he, the bishop of 40,000 Methodists, was sure to have an enormous income, and a silver chest well stocked with plate; and that, therefore, his assessments ought to be higher than they were. So, for instance, thought the commissioners of his majesty’s excise, in 1776. Hence the following circular:
“Reverend Sir,—As the commissioners cannot doubt but you have plate for which you have hitherto neglected to make entry, they have directed me to inform you, that they expect you forthwith to make due entry of all your plate, such entry to bear date from the commencement of the plate duty, or from such time as you have owned, used, had, or kept any quantity of silver plate, chargeable by the act of parliament; as, in default hereof, the board will be obliged to signify your refusal to their lordships. An immediate answer is desired.”
Think of John Wesley, always on the wing, having a hoard of silver plate to adorn his sumptuous table when feasting his Epicurean coadjutors and his dinner loving friends. The idea was almost too silly to be ridiculous. Wesley seems to have thought it so; and his answer (with which we close the present year) was as follows.
“Sir,—I have two silver teaspoons at London, and two at Bristol. This is all the plate which I have at present; and I shall not buy any more, while so many round me want bread.
“I am, sir, your most humble servant,
“John Wesley.”
FOOTNOTES:
Wesley’s Works, vol. xi., p. 290.
Manuscript letter.
Wesley’s Works, vol. xi., p. 290.
Methodist Magazine, 1824, p. 568.
Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., pp. 395–397.
Methodist Magazine, 1845, p. 522.
Methodist Magazine, 1830, p. 310.
Ibid. 1803, p. 289.
Ibid. 1847, p. 102.
Ibid. 1816, p. 446.
City Road society book.
Methodist Magazine, 1823, p. 202.
Ibid. 1827, p. 430.
Methodist Magazine, 1832, p. 466.
Ibid. 1837, p. 399.
Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 134.
It is a disgraceful fact that Charles Wesley was buried, not at the expense of the London circuit, but by private subscription. Nineteen London Methodists subscribed £10 13s. 6d., and William Marriott made up the deficiency of £3 3s. The pages in the old society book, on which this account is written, were wafered together by four large wafers, doubtless for the purpose of hiding the shame of the old Methodists of 1788.
The following was written to Robert Dall, one of Wesley’s itinerants.
“Banff, January 1, 1777.
“Dear Father in the Lord,—The society has been stationary ever since you left us. We are often neglected. Lately we had only one visit in eight weeks. Mr. Wesley was here on the 20th of May last, and preached on the Parade from 2 Corinthians viii. 9. He supped at Lord Banff’s, and next night at Admiral Gordon’s lady’s house, with a great number of great ones; and, at their request, he preached in the English chapel to an elegant and crowded congregation. We are, etc., William and Isabel McPherson.” (Manuscript letter.)
Manuscript.
Taylor’s manuscript journals.
John Crook’s original copy.
Manuscript letter.
Methodist Magazine, 1808, p. 103.
Methodist Magazine, 1842, p. 136.
Gospel Magazine, 1776, p. 475.
Jackson’s Life of C. Wesley, vol. ii., p. 283.