CHAPTER XI
THE EXTENSION OF THE WORK
WESLEY’S journey to Newcastle in 1742 forms
an important stage in his itinerant life. He had been much exercised
during the early successes of field-preaching at Bristol in
7739 about the unusual manner of his ministration there. After
much prayer and careful weighing, of all objections, he felt
that he could still adhere to the views expressed in a letter
to his friend, the Rev. James Hervey, some time before, and
printed in his journaL* In that letter occurs the famous phrase
on the memorial tablet erected to the Wesleys in Westminster
Abbey: “I look upon all the world as my parish.”
The practical outcome of this principle was gradually exhibiting
itself. Up to the spring of 1742 Wesley’s labours had
been confined mainly to London and Bristol. At Oxford he was
a frequent visitor, and many places on the road between the
two Methodist centres enjoyed his ministry. Wales and various
adjacent towns and villages had been visited from BristoL He
had also found his way to the Moravian Societies in Nottingham
and other places. The year 7742 saw the boundaries of his great
circuit stretched to the extreme north of England. John Nelson,
who had been converted under Wesley’s first sermon in
Moorfields, afterwards returned to his home at Birstal, in Yorkshire.
His labours soon changed the face of the whole town. So many
came to hear him read and exhort that he had to stand at the
door of his house and talk to the crowd that stood within and
without. Six or seven people were converted every week, and
the greatest profligates and drunkards in the county were changed.
Nelson begged Wesley to come to his help. The Countess of Huntingdon
was also anxious that the colliers on the Tyne should share
the blessing which the colliers of Kingswood had already found.
The immediate cause of Wesley’s journey,
however, was a summons from Leicestershire to visit his dying
friend Miss Cowper, who lived with the Countess of Huntingdon.
He had arranged to start for Bristol on the day this call reached
him, but set off to the north at once. From Donnington Park
he pushed on to Birstal, and sent for Nelson to his inn. Wesley
now heard from the heroic stonemason the story of his fifteen
months’ labour, and himself preached to the people. On
May 28th he reached Newcastle. He found that he had not come
too soon. In his first walk through the town he says, “I
was surprised: so much drunkenness, cursing, and swearing (even
from the mouths of little children), do I never remember to
have seen and heard before in so small a compass of time. Surely
this place is ripe for Him ‘who came not to call the righteous,
but sinners, to repentance.” He could find no one who
appeared to care for religion. At seven o’clock on the
Sunday morning, he walked down to Sandgate, the poorest and
most contemptible part of the town, with his travelling companion,
John Taylor. Standing alone at the end of the street, they began
to sing the hundredth Psalm. Three or four people came out to
see what was the matter. Soon the number increased to four or
five hundred, and before the service was over twelve or fifteen
hundred assembled. Wesley’s text was, “He was wounded
for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the
chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and by His stripes we
are healed.”
When the sermon was over, the people stood gaping
and staring at the preacher in profound astonishment. Seeing
their amazement, he said, “If you desire to know who I
am, my name is John Wesley. At five in the evening, with God’s
help, I design to preach here again.” At the appointed
hour, the bill on which he intended to stand was covered from
top to bottom. Neither at Moorfields nor at Kennington Common
had he seen such an audience. Wesley knew that even his voice,
strong and clear though it was, could not reach one half of
this vast concourse; but he stood where he had all in view,
ranged on the side of the hill. Then he explained and applied
that promise, “I will heal their backsliding; I will love
them freely.” Wesley had never received such a welcome
as he found in the metropolis of the north. The poor people,
he says, were ready to tread him under foot out of pure love
and kindness. For some time he was quite unable to get out of
the press. When at last he reached his inn, several people were
waiting there who “vehemently importuned” him to
stay at least a few days, or even one day longer. Wesley had
promised to be at Birstal on Tuesday, so that he could not comply
with their request. But about two months later Charles Wesley
took his brother’s place. Before the year was out Wesley
himself was with them again.
He set out from Newcastle after his first visit
at three o’clock on the Monday morning. He was welcomed
everywhere. The mistress of the inn at Boroughbridge, where
he stayed for the night, begged that she and her family might
join in Wesley’s evening devotions. Next morning, between
four and five, she joined them again at prayers. Riding through
Knaresborough, where they had no intention of stopping, a young
man begged Wesley to gà to his house. There he learned that
some words spoken to a man as he and his companion passed through
the place on their way to Newcastle had set many in a flame.
A sermon they had given him had travelled from one end of the
town to the other. Just then a woman begged to speak with Wesley.
At her house he found five or six of her friends, one of whom
had long been under deep conviction. They spent an hour together
in prayer with great blessing. Such incidents were God’s
call to thrust in the sickle, for the harvest was ripe.
The most interesting part of this preaching tour
was Wesley’s visit to Epworth. After spending a few days
in the neighbourhood of Birstal, he rode on to his native place.
He does not seem to have been at Epworth since he consulted
his mother about his mission to Georgia seven years before.
Not knowing, as he says, whether there were any left who would
not be ashamed of his acquaintance, Wesley took up his quarters
at an inn in the middle of the town. Here an old servant of
the Parsonage, with two or three other poor women, found him
out. When he asked if she knew any in the place who were in
earnest to be saved, she answered, “I am, by the grace
of God; and I know I am saved through faith.” Many others,
she assured him, could rejoice with her. In this happy way Wesley
spent his Saturday night at Epworth. Next morning he offered
to assist Mr. Romley, either by preaching or reading prayers.
But the drunken curate would have none of his help. The old
church was crowded in the afternoon in consequence of a rumour
that Wesley would preach. Mr. Romley gave them a sermon on “Quench
not the Spirit,” in which he said that enthusiasm was
one of the most dangerous ways of doing this, and enlarged in
a very florid and oratorical manner on the character of an enthusiast.
Every one knew the application he had in view.
As the people flocked out of church they learned
that they were not to be disappointed. John Taylor stood in
the churchyard and gave notice, “Mr. Wesley, not being
permitted to preach in the church, designs to preach here at
six o’clock.” When the hour came such a congregation
assembled as Epworth had never seen before. Wesley stood near
the east end of the church, upon his father’s tombstone,
and cried, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink,
but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”
He was urged to visit the neighbouring villages, and though
very anxious to pursue his journey, he could not resist the
appeal. Through the influence of Moravian teachers in the district,
many had forsaken church; others were plunged in doubt. Wesley
yielded to their entreaties, and remained for seven days more.
He visited the neighbouring villages, and preached every evening
on his father’s tomb. During the week he went to see a
justice of the peace in a neighbouring town who had shown a
candour and good feeling which were rare in those days. A waggon-load
of the new heretics had been carried before him by their angry
neighbours. When he asked what these people had done, there
was deep silence. No one seemed to have thought of such an insignificant
matter. One of the accusers at last found a voice. He informed
the magistrate that they pretended to be better than other people,
and prayed from morning to night. “But have they done
nothing beside?” he inquired. “Yes, sir,”
said an old man; “and please your worship, they have converted
my wife. Till she went among them, she had such a tongue ! And
now she is quiet as a lamb.” “Carry them back, carry
them back,” replied the justice, “and let them convert
all the scolds in the town.”
On the Saturday evening many in the churchyard
congregation dropped down as dead. Wesley’s voice could
scarcely be heard for the cries of those who were seeking rest;
but their sorrow was soon changed to praise. One gentleman,
who had not been at public worship for more than thirty years,
stood there as motionless as a statue. His chaise was outside
the churchyard; his wife and one or two servants were with him.
Wesley, seeing him stand thus, asked abruptly, “Sir, are
you a sinner?” With a deep and broken voice, he answered,
“Sinner enough.” He “continued staring upwards
till his wife and a servant or two, all in tears, put him into
his chaise and carried him home.” This touching scene
has a happy sequel. The impression then made was never effaced.
Ten years later, in April, 7752, Wesley says, “I called
on the gentleman who told me he was ‘sinner enough’
when I preached first at Epworth on my father’s tomb,
and was agreeably surprised to find him strong in faith, though
exceeding weak in body. For some years, he told me, he had been
rejoicing in God, without either doubt or fear, and was now
waiting for the welcome hour when he should depart and be with
Christ.’”
On the last Sunday of this visit, Wesley preached
morning and evening at Wroote, where John Whitelamb, his brother—in-law,
was Rector. He had been Samuel Wesley’s amanuensis whilst
he was writing his book on Job, and was afterwards John Wesley’s
pupil at Oxford. Mary Wesley, his wife, only lived nine or ten
months after their marriage. Whitelamb had been in Wesley’s
congregation on the first Sunday when he preached in Epworth
churchyard. The little church at Wroote would not hold the people
who came from all the district to hear their old friend and
minister, who had laboured among them for two years with such
acceptance. After three other services on the Sunday Wesley
took his stand at six o’clock on his father’s tomb.
A vast multitude had assembled from all parts. “I continued
among them for near three hours; and yet we scarce knew how
to part.” His reflections upon the work at Epworth have
peculiar interest. “Oh, let none think his labour of love
is lost because the fruit does not immediately appear. Near
forty years did my father labour here; but he saw little fruit
of his labour. I took some pains among this people, too; and
my strength also seemed spent in vain. But now the fruit appeared.
There were scarce any in the town on whom either my father or
I had taken any pains formerly, but the seed sown so long since
now sprang up, bringing forth repentance and remission of sins.”
Five weeks later, after visiting Sheffield and
Bristol, Wesley returned to London. He found his mother on the
borders of eternity. She had no doubt or fear. Her one desire
was to depart and be with Christ. Wesley’s description
of the work at Epworth must have filled his mother’s heart
with joy. Her Rectory services had borne witness to her intense
desire for the salvation of the people. Her labour also was
bearing fruit. After the account of her burial, Wesley inserted
in his journal the letter to her husband in which she justifies
her services. She also had been, he reminds his readers, in
her measure and degree, a preacher of righteousness. She died
on Friday, July 23rd, three days after her son’s return.
Her five daughters were with her. Charles Wesley, who was absent
on one of his evangelistic tours, was the only member of her
family who was not at her side. Her children, standing around
her bed, fulfilled her last request, made just before she lost
her speech: “Children, as soon as I am released, sing
a psalm of praise to God.”
Mrs. Wesley had spent her last days at the Foundery,
where she lived in her son’s apartments. She was thoroughly
identified with all the early phases of the Great Revival. Samuel
Wesley had ventured to offer some remonstrance because she was
present at John’s open-air service at Kennington in September,
1739. Three or four weeks before that service, whilst her son-in-law,
Mr. Hall, handed her the cup at the Sacrament, with the words,
“The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for
thee,” the words, she said, “struck through my heart,
and I knew God, for Christ’s sake, had forgiven me all
my sins.” On the Monday before she went to Kennington
she told John Wesley the blessing she had found. When he asked
whether her father, Dr. Annesley, had not the same faith, she
replied that he had it himself, and declared shortly before
his death that for more than forty years he had no darkness,
no fear, no doubt at all of his being “accepted in the
Beloved,” but he never preached explicitly on the subject,
and Mrs. Wesley had scarcely ever heard such a thing mentioned
as having forgiveness of sins now, or the witness of the Spirit.
From the time of this service her heart was filled with peace.
She took part in the consultation held at the Foundery before
Wesley read his final protest on his withdrawal from the Fetter
Lane Society. She also rendered important service when the subject
of lay-preaching was exercising Wesley’s mind.
On Sunday, August 1st, 1742, she was buried in
Bun hill Fields, close to the Foundery. An innumerable company
of people gathered at five o’clock in the afternoon. Great
was the mourning when Wesley read, “I commit the body
of my dear mother to the earth.” • He afterwards
spoke from the words, “I saw a great white throne, and
Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and tht heaven
fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw
the dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were
opened. And the dead were judged out of those things which were
written in the books, according to their works.” “It
was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw, or expect
to see on this side eternity.” The mother lived on in
her sons and in the glorious work which they were doing for
God and their country. Her name has become one of the household
names of the world. Isaac Taylor says, with great justice,t
“The Wesleys’ mother was the mother of Methodism
in a religious and moral sense; for her courage, her submissiveness
to authority, the high tone of her mind, its independence, and
its self-control, the warmth of her devotional feelings, and
the practical direction given to them, came up and were visibly
repeated in the character and conduct of her sons.”
Wesley spent the three months after his mother’s
death between London and Bristol. He travelled over the highroad
between the two cities five times in these months. On November
8th he set out from Bristol to Newcastle. Charles Wesley had
just left on his way to London, after a few weeks’ visit.
The work at Newcastle was different from any that Wesley had
yet seen. He says, “The grace of God flows here with a
wider stream than it did at first either at Bristol or Kingswood.
But it does not sink so deep as it did there. Few are thoroughly
convinced of sin, and scarce any can witness that the Lamb
of God has taken away their sins.” A week later he adds
that he never saw a work of God so evenly and gradually carried
on. It constantly increased. So much did not seem to be done
at any one time as had often been accomplished in Bristol or
London, but the work always made steady advance both in the
Society and in individual members. Wesley spent nearly seven
weeks in Newcastle, preaching constantly in the town and the
outlying district. He was detained by the endeavour to find
a site for a preaching-place. At last Mr. Stephenson, a merchant
in Newcastle, whose descendant, an ex-mayor of the city, is
one of its best-known Methodists, offered a plot of ground,
forty-eight by ninety feet, for forty pounds. Next day Wesley
signed an agreement. Within a week he had taken a lodging near
the ground, but the intense frost made it impossible to begin
the building. Wesley never felt such cold. His desk stood within
a yard of the fire, yet he could not write for a quarter of
an hour together without his hands being quite benumbed.
The first stone of the “house” was
laid on December 20th. People flocked from all parts. Three
or four times during the evening service Wesley was forced to
pause in his sermon that the congregation might pray and give
thanks. The cost of building was estimated at seven hundred
pounds. Many asserted that it would never be finished, or that
Wesley would not live to see it covered in. “I was of
another mind,” he says, “nothing doubting but, as
it was begun for God’s sake, He would provide what was
needful for the finishing it.” Wesley’s courage
will be better appreciated when it is known that he began to
build with only twenty-six shillings in hand. His confidence
was not disappointed. Soon afterwards a Quaker, who had heard
of his scheme, sent him the following letter
“FRIEND WESLEY,—! have had a dream
concerning thee. I thought I saw thee surrounded with a large
flock of sheep, which thou didst not know what to do with. My
first thought when I awoke was, that it was thy flock at Newcastle,
and that thou hadst no house of worship for them. I have enclosed
a note for one hundred pounds, which may help thee to provide
a house.” *
Supplies came in from time to time, so that the
work was pushed on rapidly. Wesley called it “The Orphan
House,” apparently after Francke’s schools at Halle,
which he had seen with great interest during his Continental
journey in 1738.
Wesley preached his farewell sermon on December
30th to a vast congregation. Men, women, and children hung upon
him, so that he could not disengage himself. When at last he
got to the gate and took horse, one woman kept her hold, and
ran by his side down to Sand-gate. Seven weeks later he returned,
as the work at Newcastle needed special oversight during the
building of the Orphan House. At last, on March 25th, 1743,
he preached in the shell of the building on “The Rich
Man and Lazarus.” A great multitude assembled and kept
a watchnight there. The Orphan House stood just outside Pilgrim
Street Gate. It had a blessed history. Its school, under the
care of a master and mistress, provided for forty poor children.
One of the first Sunday-schools in the north, with a thousand
scholars, met there; it had its Bible Society before the British
and Foreign Bible Society was established. In its choir, one
of the best in the country, the sons of Mr. Scott, afterwards
the celebrated Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, were sometimes found.
The colliers and keelmen of the district were so eager to hear
the Wesleys that they would lie down on the benches after evening
service and sleep till the hour for the early morning preaching.
The Newcastle of Wesley’s time was very different from
the city of to-day. Sir William Blackett’s mansion then
stood in its extensive pleasure-grounds on what is now the centre
of the place. When Wesley visited the town in June, 1759, he
found it in all its summer beauty. It called forth from him
the high tribute, “Certainly, if I did not believe there
was another world, I should spend all my summers here, as I
know no place in Great Britain comparable to it for pleasantness.”
“The Newcastle of Wesley’s time,” says a recent
writer, “must have been indeed one of the most beautiful
spots under the canopy of heaven, with its castle and its churches
and quaint groups of red-tiled, old-timbered houses, nestling
amongst orchard trees, with patches of meadow and garden here
and there, and all hemmed in by the encircling wall, with its
gateway, towers, and its turrets, which, an old writer tells
us, was the finest town-wall in Europe, and very like those
of Avignon and Jerusalem in appearance.”
During the year 1742 many Methodist Societies
were formed in Northumberland, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire,
Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Nottinghamshire, as well as
in the southern parts of Yorkshire. Charles Wesley’s
journal for this year has not been preserved, but glimpses of
him may be caught in Newcastle, Bristol, and London. He was
devoting himself to the labours of an itinerant’s life
with an ardour and success scarcely, if at all, inferior to
his brother’s. Whitefield was now working on his own lines,
but the Wesleys had already gathered a band of lay-preachers
around them, who were rendering inestimable service in extending
and consolidating the work.
We may here refer to Wesley’s connection
with his old university after his return from Georgia. He was
a frequent visitor to Oxford, and some important steps of his
preparation for the Great Revival were taken there.
Two pleasant glimpses of Wesley, at Lincoln College,
are given in his journal. On Saturday, December 8th, 1739, he
came into his old room, “from which I went to Georgia.
Here, musing on the things that were past, and reflecting how
many that came after me were preferred before me, I opened my
New Testament on those words (oh, may I never let them slip
!), ‘What shall we say, then? That the Gentiles, which
followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness.
But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath
not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because
they sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of
the Law.’ “ A month later he was in his room once
more, looking over the letters he had received for sixteen or
eighteen years. Few traces of inward religion were found there.
Only one of all his correspondents declared that the love of
God was shed abroad in his heart. Wesley did not then understand
his words. He adds, “He was expelled out of his Society
as a madman, and, being disowned by his friends, and despised
and forsaken of all men, lived obscure and unknown for a few
months, and then went to Him whom his soul loved.” Wesley
preached before the University in 1738 and 1741. He was bound
to take his turn in the pulpit, or pay three guineas for a substitute.
His last sermon was on Friday, August 24th, 1744. The races
brought many strangers to Oxford, who swelled his congregation
at St. Mary’s. The Vice-Chancellor, the Proctors, and
most of the heads of houses were present. Charles Wesley, Mr.
Piers, and Mr. Meriton had come down to support the preacher.
The little band of friends walked together to and from this
memorable service. “Never have I seen a more serious congregation,”
Charles Wesley wrote. “They did not let a word slip them.
Some of the heads stood up the whole time, and fixed their eyes
on him.” The Vice-Chancellor sent the beadle for Wesley’s
notes, which he sealed and forwarded to him immediately. Wesley
admired the wise providence of God in this request. By this
means every man of eminence in the University read his sermon.
He was not allowed to preach again. But the beautiful description
of Scriptural Christianity and the touching appeal to the venerable
men who were more especially called to form the tender minds
of youth show how unworthy and unfounded were the “false
and scurrilous” accounts of it which, Wesley tells us,
were published in almost every corner of the nation. Gibbon
and Adam Smith both bear witness how deeply Oxford then needed
reformation. Serious religious instruction or efficient tuition
was almost unknown. Wesley was never more faithful, more tender,
or more truly Scriptural in his teaching than in the sermon
which led to his exclusion from the pulpit of his university.
Dr. Conybeare, the learned Dean of Christ Church, said on the
day of the sermon, “John Wesley will always be thought
a man of sound sense, though an enthusiast.” * Dr. Kennicott,
the Hebrew scholar, then an undergraduate at Wadham College,
heard this sermon. He says Wesley’s “black hair,
quite smooth, and parted very exactly, added to a peculiar composure
in his countenance, showed him to be an uncommon man.”
He speaks of the agreeable emphasis with which the preacher
read his text. Kennicott did not like Wesley’s reflections
on the University, but was greatly impressed by his sermon.
“Had these things been omitted, and his censures moderated,
I think his discourse as to style and delivery would have been
uncommonly pleasing to others as well as to myself. He is allowed
to be a man of great parts.”*
Wesley resigned his Fellowship on June 1st, 1751,
wishing the Rector and Fellows “constant peace and all
felicity in Christ.” From November 6th, 1739, his leave
of absence had been regularly renewed every six months, till
November 6th, 1750, when he asked this favour for the last time.
His place was not filled till May zoth, 1754, because there
was no candidate duly qualified by county. Robert Kirke, B.A.,
of Lincoln College, was then chosen as his successor.
