The Methodist Quarterly Review
January, 1861

ART. 1. -METHODISM AFTER WESLEY'S DEATH.
METHODISTS have always been trustful believers in divine providence. Their founder taught them to be such both by his example and doctrine. He left them a notable sermon on the subject, in which he denied the common distinction between a "general" and a "particular" providence, and included the latter in the former. Much of the "morale" of Methodism has been owing to the prevalent belief of its people that it has been signalized by providence, and that, therefore, extraordinary providential designs are to be accomplished by it.

Thus far there have been three well-defined stages in its progress.

The first is comprised in the period of Wesley's personal ministry, in which it began, extended in both hemispheres, and was at last more or less consolidated into an organic system. The second was its testing period, its great seven veers' war of "fiery trial," from the death of Wesley to near the beginning of the nineteenth century. At the conclusion of this probation its fidelity was rewarded by remarkable prosperity, and by the sudden appearance in its ranks of men of extraordinary capacity, who quickly elevated its intellectual character, confirmed its system, and developed its energy in plans for universal missionary conquest. This missionary development may be considered its third and, it is to be hoped, its permanent stage; permanent at least till the evangelization of the world. It was a system of propagandism from the beginning; Coke had especially promoted its spread in the West Indies, and it had ventured furtively into France from the Channel Islands, but it had conceived no very distinct missionary scheme till the death of Coke threw it upon that necessity, and the important men who were providentially raised up about the conclusion of its great testing trials, after the death of Wesley, seemed to be designated to this particular development of its power. It was found worthy, by its protracted trial, of them, and of the sublime destiny to which they could lead it.

With the period of Wesley's personal ministry we arc all familiar, but not with the ensuing season of had probation. The latter is a rich study for the historical student, rich in lessons. We can here only glance at it, hoping it will be presented in another and more complete form hereafter.

JOHN WESLEY died in the spring of 1791, and now was to be determined the question, whether or not the great work of his life had coherence enough to survive his personal superintendence. It is a law of history, or rather of providence, that great public bodies, states, or Churches, must, like great individual men, be disciplined by adversity, and derive thence much of their best strength. While Wesley was serenely passing through his last days, both his friends and his foes were anticipating, with anxious or curious speculation, the approaching crisis of Methodism. All supposed that it would be perilous; many that it would be fatal. "Pray! pray! pray!" wrote his traveling companion, Joseph Bradford, from the side of his dying bed, to the preachers, and the alarming word sped over the kingdom, calling the societies to their altars with supplications for the future. The pious throng that gathered around his corpse, as it lay in state in City-road chapel, mourned, not so much his departure to his rest, as the privation and probable peril of the " connection;" and when, in the early morning of the 9th of March, he was interred by torchlight, to avoid the pressure of the anxious crowd, doubtless many a hostile conjecture was uttered in the metropolis, that the hope of Methodism was buried with him. The biographies of the old preachers of the day abound in sad and ominous allusions to its possible fate:

The determination of the problem could hardly have been devolved upon more inauspicious times. Wesley died while the tumults of the French revolution were alarming the civilized world. During the preceding two or three years continental Europe had been surging with the first violent motions of that grand catastrophe. While he was dying the throne of France was falling, and in a few weeks her king was flying from his people only to be brought back to the guillotine. More than twenty millions of Frenchmen were soon after plunged in a saturnalia of tumult and terror, tens of thousands flying to arms or flying before them. The best political doctrines were abused to the worst ends; the worst moral doctrines were consecrated as a religion of vice and honored with hecatombs of martyrs. The throne, the altar, and social order were prostrated, and for a quarter of a century the political foundations of Europe, from Scandinavia to the Calabrias, from Madrid to Moscow, were shaken as by incessant earthquakes.

The American people had presented a remarkable example of self-liberation and self-government. The French Revolution followed in the wake of the American Revolution, and, as it adopted the American democratic ideas, it is not surprising that liberal Englishmen at first hailed it as a new era of liberty and progress for the human race. Such an uprising of a great people for such principles had never before occurred in the history of the world. Generous minds were everywhere too much interested in its sublime energy and promise to perceive at first its radical and disastrous errors. All England became more or less infected with these errors. Liberal and learned divines, like Price and Priestley, sympathized with the revolution and promoted its doctrines in their country; both these clergymen were honored with the rights of French citizenship. Literary men generally hailed with hope the mighty uprising, especially the new poets of the age, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey. The gentle and pure-minded Wordsworth held in Paris, three years after the death of Wesley, relations of intimacy with the ferocious Robespierre; and Watt, the greatest benefactor the human race has had in the practical arts, shared the poet's friendship with the demoniacal revolutionist. Mackintosh wrote his "Vindiciae Gallicae," and was made a French citizen; and Leigh Hunt and Tames Montgomery suffered imprisonment under suspicion of French principles. Horne Tooke was their active partisan. Fox, Sheridan, and other Whig leaders, yielded to the new influence. One month before the death of Wesley, Fox pronounced the new French constitution "the most stupendous edifice of liberty" ever erected. Under such auspices the dangerous doctrines, though generally associated with profound religious errors, could not but spread rapidly among the masses. An extraordinary man, Thomas Paine, a man of the people, direct and energetic in thought, vigorous though often coarse in style, of indomitable persistence, and not without generous purposes at first, suddenly appeared and spread the new opinions over most of the realm. His writings did more to corrupt the moral and political sentiments of the common people of both England and America, than those of any other author of the last or present century. They were scattered over the kingdom by the hundred thousand, sold at a sixpence a volume, or distributed gratuitously into the obscurest corners of the country by revolutionary clubs, which held their head-quarters in London, but had ramifications all over the land, and were in relations of correspondence with the Jacobin club of Paris. England was, in fine, pervaded by the new opinions, Ireland was in rebellion, and the United Kingdom seemed fast drifting toward a disastrous crisis.

Such were the auspices under which Methodism had to meet its great trial-the loss of its founder, the experiment of a new administration of its system, the solution of new ecclesiastical questions which were agitated by the excited people. The country was rocking with political and infidel tumults, its pulpits were resounding with discussions of the French revolutionary doctrines, the masses were maddened with agitations, and breaking out in one island with insurrection, in the other with mobs.

It would be neither interesting, nor is it necessary to record here the details of the internal strifes of Methodism which followed the death of Wesley. It was an age of pamphlets; printed "appeals" and "circulars," on the questions in controversy in the Church, flew over the United Kingdom, like the leaves of autumn, during the ensuing seven years. Public assemblies, "district meetings," (which had their origin as an institution of the denomination in these times,) and delegated conventions were held, and were often inflamed with excitement. Good men mourned at the perilous prospect of the great cause, and its enemies congratulated one another on its probable failure. While its guides were exhorting or remonstrating with each other, Churchmen were seeking to draw it into the establishment, and Dissenters exasperated its embarrassments by discussions of its system as incoherent and impracticable.

The preachers met in local conventions to provide for the new exigency before the next Conference. The people clamored for the sacraments from their own pastors, hitherto only partially granted by Wesley. Hundreds of trustees (who were generally men of wealth or social position, and therefore in strong sympathy with the national Church) issued circulars and pamphlets, and held meetings to demand that no such concession should be made; they also demanded the concession to themselves of greater control of the denominational affairs. They were arrayed against the people and the people against them, and both more or less against the preachers, who, divided in opinion among themselves, were nevertheless disposed to be steadfast, and await deliverance from their apparently inextricable embarrassments, by the providence of God, which had never forsaken them, and which they believed was now trying their faith for some blessed purpose.

At their Conference of 1792 many petitions were presented in favor of the wishes of the people, and also remonstrances against them. The preachers had conflicting opinions on the subject. "For some time," says pile of them, "they knew not what to do. They were sensible that either to allow or to refuse the privilege of the sacraments would greatly increase the uneasiness, and perhaps cause a division." Profoundly embarrassed by the difficulty of the question, and unable to reach its solution by discussions, an extraordinary measure was proposed by Pawson as the only means of concluding the debate, and as affording at least a common ground of mutual concession till time should bring them nearer to unanimity. They resolved to determine it for the present by lot. However questionable this proceeding may seem, the scene was one of affecting solemnity and interest, as showing the difficulties and the forbearing spirit of these good men. They knelt while four of them offered prayer. "Almost all the preachers were in tears," and "the glory of God filled the room," say the old Minutes. Adam Clarke was then appointed to draw the lot. He stood upon a table and proclaimed it: "You shall not give the sacrament this year!" Pawson, who was present, says: "His voice in reading it was like a voice from the clouds. A solemn awe rested upon the assebmbly, and we could say, 'The Lord is here of a truth!' All were satisfied or submitted, and harmony and love returned."

But while, in their annual conferences, the preachers generally forbore with one another's opinions for the common good, out among the societies their concurrence with or dissent from the people could not always be withheld. At Bristol especially a sad spectacle was presented. Benson and Moore (two of Wesley's veterans) were appointed to that circuit; the latter was in favor of the administration of the sacraments, the former was opposed to it, under existing circumstances at least. The trustees of the city chapels, including the first erected by Wesley, were stanch against the popular demand. When Moore arrived, they ascended the pulpit before he could enter it, and refused him liberty to preach. They had even served him with a legal notice that he must not intrude into the desk. They accorded him liberty at last to explain to the congregation why he did not preach. Taking the legal paper from his pocket, he read it to the assembly, declaring that he would not claim his right to preach there, but would go thence to an appointment on Portland-street and preach unfettered. Nearly the whole congregation followed him, not more than twenty persons being left behind. The new Portland-street chapel was erected by them. Benson and some of his colleagues sided with the trustees, others sided with Moore. They did not even "exchange" with one another. The breach seemed irreparable; the circuit was divided. Moore appealed to the district meeting, composed of preachers; it sanctioned his proceedings, and declared Benson and his associates seceders. Pamphlets on both sides rapidly followed one another, and the whole connection was agitated with the question. Pawson declared "we have no government," and that division, if not wreck, must ensue to the connection if it did not speedily settle its disputes.

Meanwhile Alexander Kilham, a man of invincible energy, was issuing pamphlet after pamphlet in favor not only of the claims of the people to the sacraments, bat of other and radical changes of the Methodist polity. He had been a traveling companion to the sainted Robert Carr Brackenbury, a gentleman of property and high social rank, whose sumptuous Raithby Hall had often been Wesley's home, mid whose wealth had been liberally used for the spread of Methodism. He became a useful preacher and, with Kilham, founded Methodism amid fierce persecution in the Channel Isles, whence it entered France. Kilham endured the trials of mobs for the cause, and showed himself a brave man and a successful preacher. He was now on circuits in England and Scotland, and having caught the contagion of the ultra-democratic ideas of the day, was determined to reform Methodism. His pamphlets are admitted by his biographer to have been unpardonably severe. He accused the ministry of disregard for the rights of the people, and charged them with abject submission to the national Church; they had "bowed in the house of Rimmon," and God was visiting the connection with retributive afflictions for this sin. He impeached the conference as perverse, if not corrupt, in several matters of administration. Most of the titles of his numerous pamphlets were of a sarcastic if not vulgar style, and his language generally was offensive and often obstreperous. Coke, Clarke, and others, of London, demanded that the chairman of his district in the north should summon him to trial, but it was at last deemed best to defer proceedings against him till the annual conference. The condition of either the connection or the country would not admit of an immediate trial without dangerous liabilities.

Meanwhile meetings and conventions were frequent among the laymen. The trustees held a delegated assembly at the session of the conference, and demanded concessions; they were treated with much respect by the preachers, and their wishes were accorded as far as was possible. Benson, lamenting the unfortunate example of Bristol, prepared the celebrated "Plan of Pacification," and it was adopted at the conference of 1795. It gave some relief but could not appease the public clamor. Coke, Clarke, Mather, Taylor, Moore, and others, met for counsel at Litchfield, where the American system of episcopal government was urged by Coke. He proposed to ordain the preachers present, and initiate it at once as the only salvation of tire connection; but Mather and Moore demanded that it should be first submitted to the Conference. All of diem, however, signed their names to a paper detailing the plan, and pledging them to advocate it at the next session. That body rejected it. Adam Clarke was favorable to the claim of the societies for the sacraments; he declared he would have religions liberty "if he had to go to the ends of the world for it;" but he was as prudent as he was zealous, and bravely opposed all undue haste. Even the good Bramwell sympathized strongly with the proposed reform; he at last became so tired of the protracted conflict that he actually withdrew from the connection, resolved to pursue his powerful ministrations alone; but his good sense returned and quickly led him back. Kilham was finally called to an account before tire conference; he was tried, required to acknowledge his errors, and, refining to do so, was expelled. Two preachers seceded and joined him; they organized the New Methodist Connection, and bore away at once five thousand members of societies. Distraction now spread apace. Kilham traversed die country, and was admitted into many Methodist chapels, dividing their societies, setting people against trustees, and both against preachers.

In these perilous circumstances, so long continued, the preachers maintained their forbearance with each other's difference of opinion, and with the excited societies. With the exception of the three who formed the Kilham schism, and the transient separation of Bramwell, all were steadfast to the common cause; with the exception of the deplorable altercation at Bristol, they presented no bad example to the people. They differed among themselves in theory, but knew that premature measures on one side or the other would, in the immature state of the popular parties, be disastrous. The casual allusions, in cotemporary biographies, to some of their conference sessions, are deeply affecting; they consulted, conceded, wept together; they spent days of their sessions on their knees in fasting and prayer. Benson, Bradburn, Clarke, and similar leaders, preached with power before them in behalf of their old unity. The formidable difficulty was, that if they conceded to the claims of the mass of the people, they must alienate the trustees and the highest class of the laity, who were generally attached to the Church as Wesley bad taught them to be; if they conceded to the latter, they would precipitate the people into schism. Under these circumstances what could they do? three things, as wise and godly men; and they did them nobly. First, stand in unbroken unity themselves, whatever might be their personal differences; secondly, make concessions as fast as the relative state of parties would admit, without insupportable offense to either; third, push forward their pastoral work, preaching, visiting the people, promoting revivals, and waiting for God to send them deliverence.

Their steadfastness and moderation at last brought them that deliverance, and they marched at the head of their hosts, out of the wilderness into the promised land with a triumph which deserves perpetual commemoration, as an example for all their successors. At the Conference of 1797, an imposing delegated convention of laymen was held. It was presided over by Thomas Thompson, of Hull, a man of great influence in the community of that city, and in the Wesleyan Connection generally. Its demands were treated by the Conference with the greatest deference; both bodies exchanged communications, and negotiated by joint committees, through nine or ten days. Both adjourned at last cordially satisfied, passing resolutions of mutual congratulation, and pledging themselves to each other to pray and labor for the peace and perpetual success of their common cause. We have not here time to detail the concessions made by the preachers; suffice it now to say that nothing which was asked was withheld by these devoted and self-sacrificing men, if it could be conceded without an abandonment of the fundamental system left them by Wesley. They sent forth an address to the people, in which they said: " Thus, brethren, we have given up the greatest part of our executive government into your hands, as represented in your different public meetings." (Minutes, 1797.)

The time had arrived for these generous concessions; parties had been modified, especially by the growing majority in favor of the claims of the people; the faithfulness of the ministry, in its great embarrassments, its maintenance of its spiritual work, its moderation and mutual forbearance, notwithstanding its own diversities of opinion, its firmness in executing discipline, as in the case of Kilham, all tended to secure it public respect and confidence. Its moral power advanced with every concession of its ecclesiastical power; it was beloved and revered by its people; and preachers and people, grasping hands, were substantially united forever.

Thus did the tossed and driven bark come forth from the pro-longed storm, with its sails fully set, and its colors displayed, to pursue its destined course, confounding the predictions of its enemies and disappointing gratefully even its most sanguine friends. The result of the struggle was not only beneficial in the restoration of harmony, but, if possible, more so, as giving a consolidated government to Methodism, by winch it has not only survived later strifes, but has extended its sway, with in-creasing energy, more or less around the world; a government which in our day, after more than half a century of labors and struggles, remains as effective a system of Church polity as Protestant Christendom affords.

We have passed rapidly over these eventful struggles. More agreeable scenes now ensued, and through the first five years of the new century the energies of the connection were increasing and consolidating in a remarkable manner, preparatory for the new missionary development to which the denomination was about to be providentially summoned as its next and grandest historical phase. It had been well tried, and being found worthy, it was now to be led forth conquering and to conquer. We cannot detail the successive stages of this new progress; we need not, for it is read of nearly all men and hi nearly all parts of the world to-day. But its first indication, next to the spiritual revivals which prevailed at the beginning of the century, was the great representative men who entered the field about this period, and who for many years conducted the new development. As these important men continued almost down to our day, and their personal history thus became a history of the connection from this new epoch, we cannot perhaps better conclude our paper than by "sketching" some of them as exponents of the subsequent course of Wesleyan Methodism. Six of them may be said to be specially entitled to this distinction, three of the higher order of mind, and three of lowlier but of hardly less effective position; for Methodism was still to be, and may it ever be, a field for the humblest and for the highest intellects.

RICHARD WATSON, a young man who was to be pre-eminent above all the lay preachers hitherto received by the conference, was first recorded on its roll in 1796, the time of the climax of its agitations. Morally great, brilliant and profound in intellect, successful in the most important labors of the Church through a ministerial life of thirty-seven years, his brethren were to deplore his death, at last, as "one of the most mournful bereavements which any Christian Church ever suffered," and to bear testimony that "to his understanding belonged a capacity which the greatness of a subject could not exceed; a strength and clearness which the number and complexity of its parts could not confuse; and a vigor which the difficulty and length of an inquiry could not weary." (Minutes, 1833.) He was to become one of the greatest preachers of his acre combining the imagination of the poet with the understanding of the philosopher; one of the most commanding legislators of his Church, whose judgment was to be recognized as little short of infallible; its greatest theological writer, whose works were to be its text-books wherever it extended; and the eloquent advocate and manager of its missions, directing their foreign operations, defending them by his pen, representing them before the authorities of his country, and commanding for them the respect and patronage of the British people. He was born at Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, in 1781, and was, therefore, but about sixteen years old when he entered the Conference, the youngest candidate which it has ever received. He was remarkable from his childhood for the precosity of his faculties, and suffered the usual penalty of such superiority, life-long feebleness of constitution. He was seldom exempt from pain, and his wasted appearance in the pulpit appealed to the sympathies of the admiring audiences, which were struck with wonder at the contrasted and majestic strength of his intellect. His education included the elements of the classic languages; but he afterward mastered them, as also the Hebrew tongue, and acquired a comprehensive knowledge of literature and the sciences.

In the midst of his usefulness he was led, after traveling about five years, to forsake the ministry, by unjust reflections on his orthodoxy among his brethren. He joined the New Connection Methodists, but returned to the Wesleyan body deeply regretting the haste of his youthful indiscretion. Thenceforward his career was determined; no man better appreciated the capacity of Methodism; none more fully consecrated his powers to its promotion. He now especially became eminent as the representative of its foreign missionary enterprise. At the death of Coke, who had embodied that great interest in his own person, it required thorough reorganization. Watson by his splendid eloquence in the pulpit and on the platform, and by his counsels in the Conference and in committees, was one of the chief men who conducted it through that crisis and founded its present effective scheme. An epoch in his life was his call, in 1816, to plead for this cause in the metropolis. He preached in City Road Chapel; he paced its vestry, before the sermon in deep agitation, oppressed by the burden of his theme and the sense of his inadequacy to represent it justly. On ascending the pulpit he announced for his text: "He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet." "It is hardly possible," says his biographer, "to conceive of argumentation more lucid and powerful, sentiments more sublime, imagery more beautiful, diction more rich, than characterized this wonderful discourse."

At the next Conference he was appointed to London, and became one of the missionary secretaries; in 1821 he was made resident secretary, and thenceforward that great cause was the principal interest of his life. His annual reports, his speeches in many parts of the kingdom, his correspondence with the missionaries, and his consultations with the state functionaries who had charge of the foreign British dependencies, gave it an importance which commanded the public confidence, and animated its operations at home and abroad. At the beginning of his connection with it' its annual receipts were short of £7 000; he saw them raised to £50,000, and he, as much perhaps as any other man, gave them that impulse by which, in our day, they have reached the magnificent sum of £140,000; its missionaries were about 60, he saw them multiplied to more than 100; the mission stations comprised 15,000 communicants, he saw them increased to nearly 44,000; he saw the cause extended to South Africa, India, New South Wales, the Tonga Islands, and so thoroughly established abroad and influential at home as to promise to encompass, sooner or later, the whole heathen world.

Meanwhile he found time for important literary labors. His "Observations on Southey's Life of Wesley" effectually vindicated the great Methodist in both the religious and literary worlds. His "Theological Institutes" are an elaborate body of divinity, and have elevated the theological character of Methodism, which has everywhere recognized them as standards in its ministerial course of study. His "Biblical Dictionary" has been a manual to its preachers. His "Catechisms" have formed the religious opinions of its children. His " Conversations for the Young" have instructed its youth. His "Life of Wesley" has been the popular memoir of its great founder. Besides these literary benefactions to his Church, and many occasional pamphlets, be left an incomplete, but able "Exposition" of the New Testament, which has been published; and his collected "Sermons" are a monument of his genius.

The appearance of Richard Watson in the arena of Methodism at this critical time was one of those providential signs which have always marked its history and foretokened its destiny. His influence was hardly less important on its intellectual than on its moral character, and it is perhaps not too much to say, that no superior mind has ever yet been given to its ministry. "He soars," said Robert Hall, who delighted to hear him, "into regions of thought where no genius but his own can penetrate."

On a Sunday in 1798 a young man stood up in the door of a mechanic, on "Cross Lane," Manchester, and delivered to the people in the street his first public " exhortation." In August, 1799, having been received as a candidate by the Conference, he set out on foot, with his saddle-bags across his shoulder, for his first circuit. He was accompanied some distance by an aged Methodist, who had been his class-leader. At parting they knelt down by the roadside, and the old man, "whose heart was full," implored with tears God's blessing upon, and gave his own to, the young evangelist. Such was the beginning of JABEZ BUNTING'S ministry; his subsequent history is that of Wesleyan Methodism for nearly sixty years.

Be became the recognized legislative leader of the connection. Its most important measures were either conceived or chiefly effected by his unrivaled ability and influence. Beyond his own Church he was a commanding guide of many of those great religions interests which have been common to the Protestant denominations of England. An eminent divine of another communion, (Dr. Leifchild,) said at his grave, that "in the extent of his information, the comprehensiveness of his views, the conclusiveness of his reasoning, and the urbanity of his manners, I never saw his equal and never expect to."

He was elected president of the Conference four times; oftener than any other man, except his great compeer, Robert Newton, who joined that body the same year with him. On the death of Coke he became, like Watson, a chief representative of the Wesleyan missions, taking precedence even of Watson, and indeed of all his brethren, in commanding influence for them. He was for some years senior missionary secretary and editor of the Book Room, and on the death of Watson he became resident secretary, and sustained the onerous duties of that office for eighteen years. He was president of the Theological Institution for ministerial education from its commencement to his death.

He had witnessed much of the seven years' war which followed the death of Wesley, and doubtless the lessons of that great controversy influenced his course as an ecclesiastical legislator. If it afforded no other advantage, this was no small compensation to the Church for the protracted trial. Bunting's policy was soundly conservative, but also progressive. he was the first to introduce laymen into the management of the missionary affairs of the connection, and also into the "District Meetings;" for these measures he contended with much opposition from his older ministerial brethren, but he persisted, and advocated so urgently lay co-operation in all the connectional committees which involved financial interests, that at last it became a conceded point that laymen should share equally with the preachers in all such business. A high Methodist authority affirms that he did "more than any other man to encourage lay agency in the connection, and thereby to extend lay influence in it." (Jackson's Life of Newton.)

As a debater he was without a competitor. He was chary of his remarks in Conference sessions, well knowing that frequent and unimportant speeches there are a sure forfeiture of influence. He seldom spoke over five minutes, and then after most others were through, and for the purpose of concentrating the dispersed thoughts of the body, of allaying exasperated feelings, or of clinching the subject by some summary and conclusive argument. When, however, the occasion required it, he could enter the arena full armed and fight the combat out, almost invariably with victory.

Well balanced faculties; a penetrating sagacity; an almost intuitive perception of the adaptation of means to ends; dexterity in reconciling dissonant minds by winning them, not so much to each other's opinions as to his own wiser or more moderate convictions; self-control, securing that tone of repose which usually characterizes the highest class of intellects, and which classic art has impressed on its noblest representations of humanity; a happy art of tranquilizing ruffled passions in debate, and of diffusing an amicable spirit among disputants; an effective but rare use of sarcasm; a style singularly lucid and terse; a readiness of reply never found wanting; a versatile capacity for work as well as for counsel; a practical habit of mind in all things, brushing aside, perhaps too much, sentiment and imagination-were traits which he not only combined, but in any one of which he has been seldom equaled.

His preaching was methodical, perspicuous, rich in scriptural citation, usually more logical than eloquent, but sometimes overwhelmingly powerful, and producing visible effect, so that "large numbers together were cut to the heart and cried out, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?’"

He was robust and dignified in stature, with calm features, a noble brow, and a sonorous voice. His gestures were few, and as simple as possible; he stood erect in the pulpit, was never hurried, never lacked the appropriate word, and never concluded his discourse without a profound impression.

Adam Clarke excelled him in learning, Newton in popular eloquence, Watson in theological analysis and sublime and speculative thought, but he surpassed them all in counsel, in administrative talents, and in versatile practical ability. They, with all his brethren, spontaneously conceded to him supremacy in the leadership of their common cause; and British Protestantism generally recognized him as a prince in Israel.

About the time that the seven years' controversy was culminating an extraordinary revival of religion prevailed in many places. It seemed, indeed, that the great Head of the Church was crowning the patient fidelity of the ministry with a spiritual triumph which should dispel its last fear and compensate for all its long struggles. ROBERT NEWTON was perhaps the noblest trophy of this triumph. More than four hundred persons were converted on the Whitby circuit where he resided; penitent crowds flocked to the humble chapels, and he and a sister, ever after inexpressibly dear to him, went weeping with them. They were both afterward converted while on their knees, side by side, in a room of their father's house. In the year 1798 (the same in which Bunting preached his first sermon) Newton delivered his first discourse on the text, "We preach Christ crucified," in a cottage at Lyth. A Methodist chapel now stands on the site of the house, with its pulpit over the spot where the young preacher stood, with a chair before him, to deliver the first of those eloquent proclamations of the truth, which for more than half a century swayed the masses of the English people.

He joined the conference in 1799. His popularity was immediate, and thenceforward his congregations were crowds. He was tall and well proportioned, with "a large front and an eye sublime "-a man fit to stand before kings. His voice was a deep musical bass, incomparable in the variety and sweetness of its modulations. His manner in the pulpit was neither declamatory nor too colloquial, but subdued, solemn, pathetic, and irresistibly impressive. Cut of the desk as well as in it, he seemed anointed with a divine unction, so that one of his fellow-laborers, who heard him often, and was converted under his ministry, says that "veneration was everywhere felt for his character;" that "it was next to impossible to spend any time in conversation with him without perceiving that his intercourse with God was intimate and sanctifying;" that "he dwelt in God and God in him, and the principle of the divine life so filled and pervaded his mind, as to give an air of sanctity to his whole demeanor, which it is difficult to describe."

He was a diligent student; his sermons were mostly written, but delivered without the manuscript; on the platform he was however as successful as in the pulpit, though his speeches were evidently extemporaneous. Their casual and local allusions were frequent and often most felicitious. His language was always so simple as to be intelligible to the rudest peasant, and so correct and pertinent as to delight the most fastidious. An indescribable natural grace marked both his thoughts and his manners. His self-possession was perfect, giving him complete command of his audience and his faculties. His hearers felt that his discourses were performances of perfect facility to him-self; and yet inimitable by others.

Butterworth, the eminent Wesleyan layman, induced him to appear on the platform of the Bible Society hi London. His ability for such addresses was at once declared, and thenceforward he was the representative Methodist orator on anniversary occasions throughout the nation. He co-operated with Coke in the West Indian missions, and caught the infection of that wonderful man's zeal. During the remainder of his life he was the greatest popular advocate of missions in the United Kingdom. He disclaimed any special talent for the details of business; he devolved these upon Bunting, Watson, and their colleagues, and reluctantly, though faithfully, sat in missionary arid other committees; but abroad among the people he was without a ministerial competitor in the great cause. When he commenced his labors for it, there were but 50 Wesleyan missionaries, with about 17,000 communicants under their care; he saw them into more than 350 missionaries and 100,000 communicants..

The demand for his services at missionary anniversaries, at the opening of new chapels, and on other extraordinary occasions, became almost universal in England, Scotland, and Ireland. His election four times to the Conference presidency gave him facilities for such labors; but when he was appointed to circuits it became necessary to provide for him, from year to year till the end of his life, a young preacher who might fill his week-night appointments and attend to his pastoral work, relieving him to traverse the country. Perhaps no man of his day was better known to the drivers and guards of stagecoaches on the highways of England. During forty years he was as nearly ubiquitous in the United Kingdom as it was possible for a human being to be, and it has been estimated that he addressed from year to year a greater number of people than any other cotemporary man.

With the providential advent of such men as Watson, Bunting, and Newton in the connection about the period of its greatest trial, Methodism could not but assume a new attitude of strength and hope. In them, and similar men rising up around them, it was seen that the primitive spirit of the movement was to survive with new abilities for new adaptations, by which the great cause was to reach classes of the community to whom it hitherto had but little access, to take its stand not only in the midst, but in the front of the Protestantism of the country, and to project its power to the ends of the earth.

It is a noteworthy coincidence that while these eminent men were entering its itinerant ministry, introducing there a higher style of ministerial ability, three men of almost equal notoriety with them, but who were to represent it in its old style of lowly life, and to be especially active among the common people in behalf of its new missionary projects, appared in its local ministry.

The name of SAMUEL HICK, "The Village Blacksmith," is known wherever the Methodist movement has extended. He knew nothing of learning beyond the arts of reading and writing, and these he acquired after his conversion; his use of his native Yorkshire dialect was hardly intelligible to the inhabitants of other districts; he was eminently holy notwithstanding an irrepressible natural humor, and was strong in common sense and native eloquence. "It is hardly possible," says a Methodist authority, "to estimate the fruits of this man's labors and prayers. Nor was his usefulness confined to those of his own rank in life; gentlemen, country squires, members of parliament, even peers of the realm, often heard from his lips the truth of God delivered in a manner which, from the holy unction with which it was charged, roused in their minds serious thoughts of God and religion, and not unfrequently so as at once to awaken real respect for the truth and its zealous teacher." (Smith's History of Methodism.)

Samuel Hick was early apprenticed to the blacksmith's craft; it made him a robust man in both nerve and muscle his round, generous face; his athletic form, marred somewhat by a slight stoop and a disproportion of his shoulders, the effect of hard work at the anvil; his commanding voice; his aptness for practical illustrations of his subjects, drawn from common life; his simple language, the more acceptable for being in the rude dialect of his neighbors; his tender feelings, often expressed in team; his humor, seldom sarcastic, but rich in geniality and in surprising appositeness to his subjects; his courage, which the hardiest of the mob respected too much to challenge; his liberality, which was his greatest weakness, and often left his pockets empty; his overflowing religious cheerfulness, ever uttering itself in hymns or familiar benedictions; and above all, the real sanctity of his spirit, secured him a command over the popular sympathies which was rarely equaled by any other preacher of Methodism in his day, not excepting Newton.

He was religiously inclined from his childhood, but a sermon which he heard from Wesley got such hold upon his conscience that he could not rest. He suddenly jumped out of his bed one night and fell upon his knees to pray; his groans awakened his 'wife, who, supposing he had been seized with dangerous illness, arose to call her neighbors. He exclaimed: "I want Jesus-Jesus to pardon my sins." "My eyes," he wrote years afterward, "were opened; I saw the, sins I had committed through the whole course of my life; I was like the Psalmist; I cried out like the jailer." He had a hard struggle there upon his knees, but before the dawn of day the light of life had dawned upon his soul.

Without neglecting his craft, (by which in later years he became independent enough to give up work and devote his whole time to religious labors,) he now "went about doing good." Soon some of his neighbors were converted; they induced the itinerants to supply them with preaching; a class-meeting was formed, and thus was Methodism introduced into Micklefield, where he resided. He preached at his anvil. "I had," he says "a good opportunity, as nearly the whole town came to my shop, and I was always at them."

A great revival in his neighborhood in 1794 called out his remarkable talents more fully; he became a "prayer leader," and finally a local preacher. His popularity was soon general, and wherever he went for nearly a half century crowds flocked to his artless but powerful ministrations. He founded Methodism in some places, and promoted the erection of chapels in others by his peculiar success in begging money for them. He became a tireless evangelist and a favorite platform speaker at missionary meetings. In chapels, in the open air, in prayer-meetings, in missionary assemblies, in the rural districts, and in the metropolis, Samuel Hick was always a chief attraction to the multitude, and always bore humbly his popularity. His spirit won all hearts, disarming often violent opposers. He seldom disputed with an opponent or with any person, but usually fell abruptly on his knees and conquered by prayer. A Yorkshireman threatened to knock him down for a word of exhortation which the blacksmith had uttered; the latter dropped. upon his knees and began to pray; his opponent took to flight. He was pleading in vain with a rich miser for a donation to Coke's West Indian missions; he at last knelt down and began to pray. "I will give thee a guinea if thou wilt give over," cried the covetous man. But Hick continued to pray for the miser, and for the heathen, for whose salvation a guinea would be so insignificant a pittance. "I tell thee to give over," exclaimed the miser; "I will give thee two guineas if thou wilt only give it up." Rising suddenly, the blacksmith took. the money and bore it away to a missionary meeting held in the neighborhood, where "he exhibited it with the high-wrought feelings of a man who had snatched a living child from the clutch of an eagle."

Samuel Hick was one of the most effective agents of the missionary development of Wesleyan Methodism-one of the organs through which the higher minds of the denomination reached, for that purpose, the masses of the people-and his services were hardly of less historical importance than those of his superior brethren.

WILLIAM DAWSON is a still more remarkable character, and is known throughout the Methodist world as much by his piety and usefulness as by his eccentricities. A Yorkshire farmer, a local preacher, a general missionary advocate, shrewd in natural discernment, intelligent without much education, apt at speech, a talent which was the more effective in popular assemblies for his native dialect; eccentric, but equally relevant in thought; given to allegory and the oddest illustrations of his subjects, to an irrepressible but kindly humor, which he lamented as his "besetment" and "plague," but which, if it was a fault, was apparently the worst one he had; robust in his moral manhood, tender and gentle as womanhood, simple and confiding as child-hood; apostolic in his faith and life; a poet-orator in rustic guise-such was the famous "Yorkshire Farmer." "He displayed a force of genius and command of striking illustration such as I rarely ever heard," says a good judge belonging to another communion, (Rev. John Angell James,) who also applies to him the remark of the poet, that "nature made him and then broke up the mould." With his intellectual traits he combined not a few personal advantages; he was nearly six feet high and strongly framed; he had a noble forehead, an eye "keen and full of fire," and features round, but expressive of "thought brilliant, active, and penetrating."

Such was the power of his genius and the extent of his public services, that, though he was not a member of the Conference, and therefore not recorded in his obituary, that body honored him at his death in its Annual Address to its societies. "Few men," it said, "were ever more extensively known in the Wesleyan Connection, or more highly esteemed wherever known." Such was the grateful and admiring regard of the common people for him that his funeral procession was like a triumphal march. Some of the factories of the town suspended their labors that their operatives might follow him to the grave. As he was borne through Leeds, the streets presented "for above a mile and a half one congregated mass of people." He was carried seven miles to his family bun al-place ; procession met procession, in the towns on the route; a hundred men on horseback, nearly a hundred carriages, with a vast multitude on foot, singing hymns on the highways as they bore him along. It was the spontaneous, tribute of the grateful people who had for years been benefited by his rare talents and unblemished example. Their Methodist ancestors bad borne brave John Nelson to the tomb in a similar manner in the early days of the denomination; the old battle field over which they bore Dawson was now waving with such a moral harvest as Methodism had produced nowhere else in the world.

He was converted in 1791 while kneeling at the sacramental altar, and was licensed as a local preacher in 1801. His singular talents were revealed in his first ministrations. The colliers especially followed him from town to town. His congregations were often so large that he had to preach in the open air. He was in general demand for missionary anniversaries, the dedication of new and collections for indebted chapels. In Leeds the churches were invariably thronged when he preached. Some of his sermons and speeches, frequently reported, became famous throughout the connection. His "Death on the Pale Horse" is described as a discourse surprisingly graphic and sublime. Under his sermon on "David slaying Goliah," an excited rustic rose in the congregation and shouted to the preacher, "Off with his head! off with his head!" A discourse to seamen, in which he described the wreck and loss of souls, so aroused a mariner that he rose and cried out," Launch the life-boat! launch the life-boat!" Some of his allegorical missionary speeches would have been burlesques with any other man, but with his peculiar manner they seemed not only congruous, but were often sublime examples of poetry and eloquence. His "Harvest Home," "Reform Bill," "Railroad" and "Telescope" speeches are yet talked of generally in the country. One who heard them says: "Their effects on immense audiences we never saw before, nor expect to see again. Not a man, woman, or child could resist him. His travels and labors were almost as extensive as those of Robert Newton; and few men have done more in support of the various institutions of Methodism." "What an astonishing mind he has," said the learned Adam Clarke after a long ride with him in a post-chaise. Such a man, of and among the people, wearing, as was the custom of the substantial farmers of Yorkshire, in their best attire on Sundays and holidays, breeches of corduroy or plain velvet, and thick soled "top-boots;" living a life noted for its honesty and purity, and overflowing with religious feeling, sympathy, and humor, could not but be a man of power. Down to about the middle of the century, none of the greater lights of Methodism could eclipse him in popular assemblies, especially on the missionary platform. Without accepting, for many years, a sixpence beyond his traveling expenses for his services, he went to and fro in the nation calling the multitude to repentance, collecting money for poor churches, opening new chapels, pleading for missions, and recruiting the societies. At last the "Dawson Fund" was established by the denomination to enable him to give his whole time to the public. He died in its service, after contributing as much perhaps as any cotemporary man to the spread of Methodism.

Another similar laborer did signal service in the local ministry during these times, and for nearly forty years, especially in the missionary development of Methodism. "It was thought fitting that a memorial should be raised for JONATHAN SAVILLE, by which the Church might glorify God in him," wrote a president of the Wesleyan Conference, and proceeded to prepare a "Memoir" of the good man, which is one of the most remarkable of those many records of the power of religion in humble life, which the denomination has afforded to the Church. Jonathan Saville was a poor, feeble, crippled man, the victim of cruel treatment in his childhood, whom Methodism found in an alms-house, but purified and exalted to be "a burning and a shining light " in the land. He was in Hoxton Workhouse before he was seven years of age. He was afterward apprenticed -a "fine, growing, active lad," but was sent by his master to work in the Denholme coal mines, where he labored from six o'clock in the morning to six at night, and after walking two or three miles was required to spin worsted till bed time. His health failed of course; on returning home one night when about ten years old, he was so feeble that he could not free his feet, which had stuck fast in a piece of swampy ground. A young man helped-him out and assisted him home. He could go no more to the. coal-pit. "My strength," he says, "was quite gone; I was more dead than alive, and my soul was sick within me;" but he was now closely confined to the spinning wheel at home. Shivering with the cold one day, he stepped to the fire to warm himself when a daughter of his master thrust him away and knocked him down, breaking his thigh bone. He crawled into a room and lay down on a bed, but was commanded by his master, with terrible threats, to resume his work; he attempted to reach the wheel, supporting himself by a chair, but fell to the floor, when the imbruted man dragged him to his task, where he labored the rest of the day in agony. No doctor was called to set his thigh; no relieving treatment was given him by the women of the house; they mocked at the groans of the little sufferer; he crept, as he could, to his bed at night, where he held the fractured bone in its place with his hand. Nature at last healed the broken limb; but he was left a mere wreck, bent almost double, and for some time compelled to creep whenever he went out of doors. Hopeless of any profitable service from him, his master conveyed him to the workhouse, carrying him part of the way, on his back, the broken leg of the poor boy "dangling in the air." The superintendent of the workhouse took compassion on him, bathed him, comforted him, fed him well, and gave him light tasks at spinning. The poor inmates healed his broken heart by their sympathies ; they remembered that his pious father had often prayed within their dreary walls. An aged man among them made him a pair of crutches, and an old palsied soldier taught him to read the Bible. He had suffered so much that when he was fourteen years old he was smaller in stature than when he was seven; but he worked so diligently that he was able to earn extra wages, which he expended at a neighboring evening school. He used to limp on his crutches to the Methodist chapel in Bradford, guiding thither an aged blind pauper, the "halt leading the blind," and the good people, patting him on the head in the street, would say: "Poor Jonathan! his father's prayers will be heard for him yet." They little supposed that he was to be venerated throughout their communion, and commemorated in their history.

After remaining some years in the almshouse, with improved but still feeble health, he learned the craft of a warper, and his industry enabled him to earn a comfortable living. He removed at last to Halifax, the scene of his remaining long life and of his greatest usefulness. He became a "prayer-leader," and was singularly useful in that office for several years. He was afterward appointed a class-leader. His gentle spirit, subdued by long sufferings, and sanctified by piety; his clear under-standing especially in the word of God, studied under such disciplinary adversities; his apt remarks, quaint, singularly pertinent, laconically brief, and refreshed by a cheerfulness which, on appropriate occasions, corruscated with humor and even with wit, led not only simple but intelligent people to seek his religious guidance. He soon had two, and then three classes under his care. His original class "swarmed" six times, and their new leaders were mostly his "pupils." He led out bands of prayer-leaders into all the neighboring villages and towns about Halifax, and in many of them he was the first to introduce Methodism and found societies and chapels. He conducted sometimes seven or eight meetings on a single Sabbath. His praying bands multiplied at last to twelve, and he became a praying bishop in a large diocese, which was kept alive with evangelic energy.

In 1803 he was enrolled on the "Local Preachers' Plan." Crowds now flocked to the chapels in Halifax and elsewhere to hear him, and he immediately became one of the notabilities of Methodism, his fame spreading throughout the country. His genial spirit, his deep piety, his originality of thought and simple but strong language, attracted irresistibly the rude masses; they both pitied and revered him. "Many of his sermons produced," says his biographer, "extraordinary impressions." Like the "Village Blacksmith" and the "Yorkshire Farmer," he had several remarkable discourses, which became celebrated, under quaint titles, among the common people. His sermons on "The Vision of Dry Bones," on "Studying to be quiet and do our own business," and on Whit-field's favorite text, "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord," will "never be forgotten by those who heard them." The latter especially is said to have usually produced electrical effect.

If Jonathan Saville was not grateful for his personal deformity, he was grateful for the advantages it gave him in his Christian labors. It made his appeals in behalf of the poor and afflicted irresistible; it gave force, by contrast with his peculiar talents, to his public discourses; it commanded tender respect from even ruffian men; drunkards in the street, it is said, became reverential as he passed them, for they knew what he had endured and how he had conquered. It is remarkable, says his biographer, how seldom they were known to treat him with incivility. One case is recorded that proved a blessing which the crippled evangelist would not have foregone. On going to a country appointment an intoxicated man knocked him down, calling him "a crooked little devil." "The God that made me crooked made thee straight," said the preacher as he rose. Whether the drunkard perceived the significant rebuke or not, the exhortation which followed it sunk into his heart. Years later, when Saville had been preaching in the city of Hull, a stranger seized his hand, exclaiming, "I bless God that ever I knocked thee down !" The good man was astonished; the stranger recalled to him the old offense, and said that it led to his reformation and conversion.

He became one of the most successful champions of the new missionary movement of Methodism, and was one of the most popular speakers of the connection on the missionary platform. Some of his speeches have been pronounced "brilliant, and worthy of men of greater name." He stood up, in this cause, by the side of the greatest Wesleyan leaders, and hardly could their superior abilities prove more effective on popular occasions than his peculiar genius.

Jonathan Saville, Samuel Hick, and William Dawson, personal friends and fellow-laborers, were, in fine, three of the most useful and historical men of Methodism during these times, and for most of the first half of the new century. Its strict regimen trained them to habits which, notwithstanding their eccentric tendencies, never detracted from its honor; their peculiarities never degenerated into vulgar indecorums; they were made by their religion modest as well as brave men, deferential to authorities, and regardful of religious discipline. They were good examples to all their brethren except in their peculiar talents, and were not so in their talents only because these were inimitable.

Such were some of the representative men, in the itinerant and in the lay ministries, with which God blessed the Wesleyan Church about the time of its emergence from the dark days of its seven years' trial after the death of its founder. When the missionary era of its history fully set in, they were prepared to take the lead of the movement. It deepened and widened under their labors till it became the great characteristic of modern Methodism, raising it from a revival of vital Protestantism chiefly among the. Anglo-Saxon race, to a world-wide system of evangelization which has reacted on all the great interests of its Anglo-Saxon field, has energized and ennobled it in all its characteristics, and would seem to pledge to it a universal and perpetual sway in the earth.

Abel Stevens, LL., D., New York

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XIII.-1

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XIII.-2

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