Fox's Book of Martyrs
Chapter XX
Young
Wesley was a gay and manly youth, fond of games and particularly of dancing. At
Oxford he was a leader, and during the latter part of his course there, was one of the founders of the "Holy Club,"
an organization of serious-minded students. His religious nature deepened
through study and experience, but it was not until several years after he left
the university and came under the influence of Luther's writings that he felt
that he had entered into the full riches of the
Gospel.
He
and his brother Charles were sent by the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel to Georgia, where both of them developed their
powers as preachers.
Upon
their passage they fell into the company of several Moravian brethren, members
of the association recently renewed by the labors of Count Zinzendorf. It was
noted by John Wesley in his diary that, in a great tempest, when the English
people on board lost all self-possession, these Germans impressed him by their
composure and entire resignation to God. He also marked their humility under
shameful treatment.
It
was on his return to England that he entered into
those deeper experiences and developed those marvelous powers as a popular
preacher which made him a national leader. He was associated at this time also
with George Whitefield, the tradition of whose marvelous eloquence has never
died.
What
he accomplished borders upon the incredible. Upon entering his eighty-fifth
year he thanked God that he was still almost as vigorous as ever. He ascribed
it, under God, to the fact that he had always slept soundly, had risen for
sixty years at four o'clock in the morning, and for fifty years had preached
every morning at five. Seldom in all his life did he feel any pain, care, or
anxiety. He preached twice each day, and often thrice or four times. It has
been estimated that he traveled every year forty-five hundred English miles,
mostly upon horseback.
The
successes won by Methodist preaching had to be gained through a long series of
years, and amid the most bitter persecutions. In nearly every part of England
it was met at the first by the mob with stonings and peltings, with
attempts at wounding and slaying. Only at times was there any interference on
the part of the civil power. The two Wesleys faced all these dangers with amazing courage, and
with a calmness equally astonishing. What was more
irritating was the heaping up of slander and abuse by the writers of the day.
These books are now all forgotten.
Wesley
had been in his youth a high churchman and was always deeply devoted to the
Established Communion. When he found it necessary to ordain preachers, the
separation of his followers from the established body became inevitable. The
name "Methodist" soon attached to them, because of the particular organizing power of their leader and the
ingenious methods that he applied.
The
Wesley fellowship, which after his death grew into the great Methodist Church,
was characterized by an almost military perfection of organizaton.
The
entire management of his ever-growing denomination rested upon Wesley himself.
The annual conference, established in 1744, acquired a governing power only
after the death of Wesley. Charles Wesley rendered the society a service
incalculably great by his hymns. They introduced a new era in the hymnology of
the English Church. John Wesley apportioned his days to his work in leading the
Church, to studying (for he was an incessant reader), to traveling, and to
preaching.
Wesley
was untiring in his efforts to disseminate useful knowledge throughout his
denomination. He planned for the mental culture of his traveling preachers and
local exhorters, and for schools of instruction for the future teachers of the
Church. He himself prepared books for popular use upon universal history,
church history, and natural history. In this Wesley was an apostle of the
modern union of mental culture with Christian living. He published also the
best matured of his sermons and various theological works. These, both by their
depth and their penetration of thought, and by their purity and precision of
style, excite our admiration.
John
Wesley was of but ordinary stature, and yet of noble
presence. His features were very handsome even in old age. He had an open brow,
an eagle nose, a clear eye, and a fresh complexion. His manners were fine, and
in choice company with Christian people he enjoyed relaxation. Persistent,
laborious love for men's souls, steadfastness, and tranquillity
of spirit were his most prominent traits of character. Even in doctrinal
controversies he exhibited the greatest calmness. He was kind and very liberal.
His industry has been named already. In the last fifty-two years of his life,
it is estimated that he preached more than forty thousand sermons.
Wesley
brought sinners to repentance throughout three kingdoms and over two
hemispheres. He was the bishop of such a diocese as neither the Eastern nor the
Western Church ever witnessed before. What is there in the circle of Christian
effort--foreign missions, home missions, Christian tracts and literature, field
preaching, circuit preaching, Bible readings, or aught else--which was not
attempted by John Wesley, which was not grasped by his mighty mind through the
aid of his Divine Leader?
To
him it was granted to arouse the English Church, when it had lost sight of
Christ the Redeemer to a renewed Christian life. By preaching the justifying
and renewing of the soul through belief upon Christ, he lifted many thousands
of the humbler classes of the English people from their exceeding ignorance and
evil habits, and made them earnest, faithful Christians. His untiring effort
made itself felt not in England alone, but in America and in continental
Europe. Not only the germs of almost all the existing zeal in England on behalf
of Christian truth and life are due to Methodism, but the activity stirred up
in other portions of Protestant Europe we must trace indirectly, at least, to
Wesley.
He
died in 1791 after a long life of tireless labor and unselfish service. His
fervent spirit and hearty brotherhood still survives
in the body that cherishes his name.
Chapter 21 - Persecutions of the French Protestants,
1814 and 1820