As a preacher, Wesley was remarkable for simplicity of style and
force of argument. Whitefield was an impassioned orator; Charles
Wesley carried everything before him by his deep emotion and his
forcible application; John Wesley appealed to the reason with
irresistible power. “His attitude in the pulpit was graceful
and easy; his action calm and natural, yet pleasing and expressive;
his voice not loud, but clear and manly; his style neat, simple,
perspicuous, and admirably adapted to the capacity of his hearers.”
* Henry Moore, his biographer and intimate friend, says that when
he first heard Wesley preach, he thought it strange that a man
who spoke with such simplicity should have made so much noise
in the world. He paid a great tribute to the sermon, however,
for he said that he remembered more of it than of any he had ever
heard.
Wesley early learned this art of simplicity. As a young man,
he once preached a highly finished sermon to a country congregation.
The people listened with open mouths. He saw at once that they
did not understand what he said. He struck out some of the hard
expressions, and tried again. Their mouths were now only half
open. Wesley, however, was resolved to carry them entirely with
him. He read the sermon to an intelligent servant, and got her
to tell him whenever she did not understand. Betty’s “Stop,
sir,” came so often that he grew impatient. But he persevered,
wrote a plain word over every hard one, and had his reward in
seeing that his congregation now clearly understood every word.
Wesley’s journals show what a lofty estimate he set on
St. John’s First Epistle. It was evidently his own model.
He expounded it in his Societies, and advised every young preacher
to form his style upon it. “Here,” he says, “are
sublimity and simplicity together, the strongest sense and the
plainest language! How can any one that would ‘speak as
the oracles of God’ use harder words than are found here
?“ *
His first extempore sermon was preached in All Hallows Church,
Lombard Street, in 1735. He went there to hear Dr. Heylyn, but
as he did not come, Wesley yielded to the request of the churchwardens
and preached to the crowded congregation.t On the last Sunday
of 1788, be preached again in that church. He told the attendant
that as he was going up the pulpit stairs in 1735, he hesitated,
and returned in much confusion to the vestry. A woman (the church-keeper)
asked what was the matter, and when she found that Wesley had
no sermon, she put her hand• on his shoulder with the
words, “Is that all? Cannot you trust God for a sermon?”
Her question produced such an effect upon him that he preached
with great freedom and acceptance, and never afterwards took
a sermon into the pulpit.
Wesley preached in gown and cassock even in the open air.*
His clear voice was heard throughout Gwennap Amphitheatre. At
Birstal in 1753 he was afraid that the people would not hear,
but even those who sat in John Nelson’s windows, a hundred
yards off, distinctly caught every word.t On another occasion
it was found by measurement that his voice could be clearly
heard for a hundred and forty yards. Sometimes he took his stand
on tables, sometimes on walls. At Haworth, where his friend
Grimshaw was the minister, Wesley found a little platform erected
outside one of the church windows. After prayers the people
flocked into the churchyard. Wesley then stepped through the
window, and addressed the multitude gathered from all parts.
The power of his preaching is evident from every page of the
journals. There were cases of imposture and hysterical excitement,
but allowing for these, no preaching of the Evangelical Revival
produced such effect on the conscience as John Wesley’s.
John Nelson, who had long been seeking peace, felt his heart
beat like the pendulum of a clock when he heard him at Moorfields,
and thought the whole discourse was aimed at him. His words
were often “as a hammer and a flame.” § He tells
us that when speaking on the righteousness of faith he was constrained
to break off in the midst of his discourse. “Our hearts
were so filled with a sense of the love of God, and our mouths
with prayer and thanksgiving. When we were somewhat satisfied
herewith, I went on to call sinners to the salvation ready to
be revealed.” At one place a number of people Were seated
on a long wall built of loose stones. In the middle of Wesley’s
sermon this wall fell down all at once. None screamed; few altered
their position. No one was hurt; they simply seemed to have
dropped into a lower seat. During this strange incident there
was no interruption of the sermon or of the marked attention
of the congregation.
The scenes in Epworth churchyard in 1743 bear witness to Wesley’s
power as a preacher. The gentleman drinking in every word, Wesley’s
personal appeal to him, and his touching answer, “Sinner
indeed “—that incident forms one of the most impressive
scenes of Wesley’s ministry.t The conquest of the mob
at Bolton in 1749 is not less striking. At York in 1753 Wesley
says, “I began preaching at seven, and God applied it
to the hearts of the hearers. Tears and groans were on every
side, among high and low. God, as it were, bowed the heavens
and came down. The flame of love went before Him; the rocks
were broken in pieces, and the mountains flowed down at His
presence.” Finding many fashionable people in his congregation
at the Court House at Castlebar in 1771, be says, “I spoke
with such closeness and pungency, as I cannot do but at some
peculiar seasons. It is indeed the gift of God, and cannot be
attained by all the efforts of nature and art united.”
His beautiful expressions, “God Himself made the application,”
§“Truly God preached to their hearts,” I show how
be recognised the Divine blessing.
The applications of Wesley’s sermons were never slurred.
The discourses in the Scotch kirks struck him as specially defective
in this respect.1 On one occasion he speaks of the excellent
truths he there listened to, but adds, “As there was no
application, it is likely to do as much good as the singing
of a lark." His own experience in Scotland was not encouraging.
Though he never met with people who loved preaching like his
friends across the Tweed, he often felt helpless in the presence
of those self-contained hearers. “Use the most cutting
words, and apply them in the most pointed manner, still they
hear, but feel no more than the seats they sit upon !"
Wesley was always careful in his choice of texts. A young gentleman
at Armagh, in June, 1787, observed that he had quite mistaken
his subject—his sermon was suitable for the vulgar, but
not for gentlefolk.t He did not know Wesley’s method,
however. A friend once complained because he preached to a respectable
congregation from the words, “Ye serpents, ye generation
of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” That
text would have done for Billingsgate, but not for such hearers,
was the criticism, Wesley replied that if he had been in Billingsgate,
he should have preached from “Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world.” It was his rule
to preach the Law to the careless. To speak of justification
by faith before people desired to find it was, he felt, only
likely to do harm; when’ people were “ripe for the
Gospel,” then Wesley preached it with power. He availed
himself of all circumstances that might render his message impressive.
A passing bell was tolling out as he stood in Llanelly churchyard,
and led him strongly to enforce the words, “It is appointed
unto men once to die.” § A lady of great ability, deep
piety, and a fine person had died between two of his visits
to Castle Cary. Wesley therefore earnestly applied the words,
“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;
for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom,
in the grave.” “All the people seemed to feel it.”
Wesley was sometimes so drawn out, that he scarcely knew how
to close his sermon. At Berwick in 1748 the word of God was
“as a fire and a hammer.” He began again and again
after he thought he had done, and his words grew more and more
weighty. At Stanley, near Gloucester, in 1739,t he preached
on a little green near the town. “I was strengthened,”
he says, “to speak as I never did before; and continued
speaking near two hours, the darkness of the night and a little
lightning not lessening the number, but increasing the seriousness,
of the hearers.” Twelve days later at Cardiff almost the
whole town came together. Wesley spoke on the Beatitudes with
such enlargement of heart, that he knew not how to give over,
so that they “continued three hours.” When expounding
the ninth chapter of Romans at the Foundery during the Calvinistic
debates of 1741, he was constrained to speak an hour longer
than usual. At Birstal, in April, 1745, he writes,” I
was constrained to continue my discourse there near an hour
longer than usual; God pouring out such a blessing, that I knew
not how to leave off.” Three years before he had another
long service there. “I began about seven, but could not
conclude till half an hour past nine,” Twelve days later
he was holding his farewell service in Epworth churchyard. A
vast multitude had assembled from all parts, among whom Wesley
continued nearly three hours. Even then he and his congregation
scarcely knew how to part. In the last years of his life his
sermons were generally short, seldom more than half an hour
in length. In 1765 Wesley says that he preached eight hundred
sermons a year.t During his half-century of itinerant life he
travelled a quarter of a million miles, and delivered more than
forty thousand sermons. Such a restless and far-reaching itinerancy
exerted an enormous influence on behalf of evangelical religion
throughout the United Kingdom.
Leslie Stephent pays a high tribute to Wesley as a writer.
“He shows remarkable literary power; but we feel that
his writings are means to a direct practical end, rather than
valuable in themselves, either in form or substance. It would
be difficult to find any letters more direct, forcible, and
pithy in expression. He goes straight to the mark, without one
superfluous flourish. He writes as a man confined within the
narrowest limits of time and space, whose thoughts are so well
in hand, that he can say everything needful within these limits.
The compression gives emphasis, and never causes confusion.
The letters, in other words, are the work of one who for more
than half a century was accustomed to turn to account every
minute of his eighteen working hours.”
Wesley’s service to popular literature entitles him to
a distinguished place among the benefactors of the eighteenth
century. Most of his writings and his brother’s hymns
were published at prices that put them within the reach of all.
Many were in the form of penny tracts, so that even the poorest
could purchase them. In 1771 to ‘774 he published an edition
of his own works, in weekly numbers of seventy-two pages, stitched
in blue paper, at sixpence each. They were afterwards issued
in thirty-two small volumes. Particular attention was paid to
the quality of the paper, and new type was cast for this work.
Whilst this edition was passing through the press, Wesley writes,
“I have laboured as much as many writers; and all my labour
has gained me, in seventy years, a debt of five or six hundred
pounds.” • In later years, however, he found, to
his surprise, that his cheap publications had made him rich.t
He created an appetite for reading among his people, and as
the Societies grew, the demand for his books became enormous.
Wesley published little before his mission to Georgia. A collection
of prayers for every day in the week, published in 1733, was
the beginning of his strength. Next year he prepared an abridgment
of Norris’s “Treatise on Christian Perfection.”
His father’s letter of advice to a young clergyman, a
sermon of his own on “The Trouble and Rest of Good Men,”
and the “Imitation of Christ,” in two editions,
were printed in 1735. He also published a hymn-book at Charlestown,
America, in 1737. This represents Wesley’s literary activity
before 1738. From that time to the end of his life he made as
abundant use of the press as of the pulpit. His journals represent
the history of the Evangelical Revival. The hymnology was mainly
his brother’s contribution to the great cause to which
they were both devoted heart and soul. John Wesley took his
share in this work, however. One original hymn of his, a paraphrase
of the Lord’s Prayer in three parts, will be found in
the present Wesleyan Hymn Book. There may be others, but as
the early collections of poetry were published in the name of
both brothers, we have sometimes no means of ascertaining what
hymns John Wesley himself may have contributed. His translations
from the German, however, bear witness to his power as a poet.
There are twenty-one of these in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, with
one from the French and one from the Spanish. They are not mere
translations. Wesley enriches the thought, and adds greatly
to the force of the original. In January, 1740, Molther, the
Moravian minister at Fetter Lane, asked Wesley to supply him
with a rendering of a German hymn. To this request Methodism
owes one of its most treasured hymns :— Now I have found
the ground wherein
Sure my soul’s anchor may remain,
The wounds of Jesus, for my sin
Before the world’s foundation slain,
Whose mercy shall unshaken stay
When heaven and earth are fled away.’
One of his finest translations is from Scheffler.
We can only quote one verse :— I thank Thee, uncreated
Sun,
That Thy bright beams on me have shined;
I thank Thee, who hast overthrown
My foes, and healed my wounded mind;
I thank Thee, whose enlivening voice
Bids my free heart in Thee rejoice.t
Tersteegen’s hymn beginning
Thou hidden love of God *
was translated by Wesley in Georgia in 1736. Wesley not only
contributed to the preparation of the
Methodist hymnology: he taught his people to sing. In 1742
he published “A Collection of Tunes as they are
commonly sung at the Foundery.” Mr. Lampe, the theatrical
composer, who was converted by reading Wesley’s “Farther
Appeal,” rendered good service to Methodism by prepanng
a tune-book for the use of the united Societies. In sending
Boyce’s “Cathedral Music” to his brother as
a present for his eldest boy, Wesley adds, “A little you
can perhaps pick out for the use of our plain people.”
His preachers were expected to take special oversight of the
singing. “Exhort every one in the congregation to sing,”
he says; “in every large Society let them learn to sing;
recommend our tune-book everywhere.”
Wesley’s “Sermons” had an enormous circulation.
They must not be taken altogether to represent his ordinary
preaching. The substance of his discourses is doubtless to be
found in them, but they were prepared for the press rather than
for the pulpit. The first series, consisting of fifty-three
sermons, was published in four small volumes between 1746 and
1760. These four volumes, with Wesley’s “Notes on
the New Testament,” form the doctrinal standard of Methodism.
Henry Moore says that after some years of labour in all parts
of the country, Wesley felt the necessity of preparing some
concise, clear, and full “body of divinity” to guide
his preachers and people. After thinking much on this subject,
he retired to the house of his friend Mrs. Blackwell at Lewisham,
where he composed at several visits the first four volumes of
his sermons. He simply took his Hebrew Bible and Greek Testament
with him. His purpose was to furnish “plain truth for
plain people.” “My design,” he says in his
preface, “is, in some sense, to forget all that I have
ever read in my life.”
One paragraph of the preface is so striking a revelation of
his motives and methods, that we must not omit it. Wesley never
wrote anything more lofty in its tone. “To candid reasonable
men, I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts
of my heart. I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing
through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come
from God, and returning to God, just hovering over the great
gulf; till a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into
an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, the way
to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself
has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came
down from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. Oh, give
me that book! At any price, give me the book of God ! I have
it; here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri.
Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone;
only God is here. In His presence I open, I read His book, for
this end: to find the way to heaven. Is there a doubt concerning
the meaning of what I read? Does anything appear dark or intricate?
I lift up my heart to the Father of lights. ‘Lord, is
it not Thy word, If any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God?
Thou givest liberally, and upbraidest not. Thou hast said, if
any man be willing to do Thy will, he shall know. I am willing
to do; let me know Thy will.’ I then search after and
consider parallel passages of Scripture, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual. I meditate thereon, with all the attention
and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still
remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of
God, and then the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak.
And what I thus learn, that I teach.”
The Second Series consists of sermons prepared for his Magazine,
and published in four volumes in 1788. They are not so doctrinal,
and have more variety and literary illustration. Other sermons
were published afterwards. That on “Faith is the evidence
of things not seen” was finished only six weeks before
Wesley’s death. His pen was busy to the last. In March,
1790, he wrote his sermon on the Wedding Garment. “My
eyes,” he says, “are now waxed dim; my natural force
is abated. However, while I can, I would fain do a little for
God before I drop into the dust.” Wesley’s “Notes
on the New Testament” are singularly concise. His great
aim was to make them as short as possible, that the comment
might neither swallow up nor obscure the text. His revision
of the text is admirable. Readers of the Notes were put into
possession of some of the best results which the New Testament
Company gave the public in 1881.
Wesley’s Christian Library, in fifty volumes, was his
boldest literary venture. He abridged the choicest works of
practical divinity, beginning with the Apostolic Fathers. He
wished to place the whole range of such literature within the
reach both of his preachers and his people. This publication
entailed a loss of two hundred pounds. It is remarkable that
he did not lose more by so great an undertaking. Wesley’s
Magazine, of which the first number was published in January,
1778, laid a heavy literary burden upon him. His editor was
not competent for the revision of the press, so that many errors
crept into its pages, greatly to Wesley’s distress. The
Arminian Magazine gave Methodism an official organ, in which
its distinctive teaching could be explained and defended. But
its hold on the Societies was largely due to the fact that all
phases of Methodist life were preserved in its pages. The biographies
of preachers and Methodist people make its volumes a mine of
history. For a Methodist a place in the Magazine was something
like a niche in the Abbey for a statesman or a poet. The Magazine,
which has been issued monthly ever since 1778, was never so
attractive or popular as it is to-day.
Wesley’s “Appeals,” published in 1744 and
1745, did much to explain the true character of Methodism. They
vindicate Wesley’s position and work with mingled dignity
and tenderness, which must have been irresistible with reasonable
men. His desire for the salvation of others breathes in every
line of the “Earnest Appeal” He calmly weighs all
objections, and shows how faithful Methodism was to the doctrines
of Scripture and the Church of England. Doddridge wrote to him
in 1746, “I have been reading (I will not pretend to tell
you with what strong emotion) the fourth edition of your ‘Farther
Appeals,’ concerning which I shall only say, that I have
written upon the title-page, ‘How forcible are right words
!'" Three months before the date of this letter, Wesley
mentions in his journal t that two clergymen who had just read
his “Farther Appeal” invited him to call on them.
“I thought,” he adds, “the publication of
this tract would have enraged the world above measure. And,
on the contrary, it seems nothing ever was published which softened
them so much !" On January 6th, 1748, Wesley was visited
by “Counsellor G—, many years eminent for an utter
disregard of all religion.” A lady, whom he had attacked
for her Methodism, said to him, “Sir, here is a fuller
answer to your objections, than I am able to give.” She
handed him a copy of the “Earnest Appeal.” By this
he was thoroughly convinced that there was something in religion.
He told Wesley all that was in his heart, and was much affected
at the watchnight service he attended. The same “Appeal”
led to the conversion of Mr. Lampe, who had been a Deist for
many years.In September, 1748, Wesley took breakfast
at Wadebridge with Dr. W—, who had been for many years
“a steady, rational infidel But it pleased God to touch
his heart in reading the ‘Appeal;’ and he is now
labouring to be altogether a Christian.” The prejudice
which Mrs. Gwynne, of Garth, Mrs. Charles Wesley’s mother,
felt against the Wesleys, melted away when she read this “Appeal.”
Controversial writing was always distasteful to Wesley. When
he began to write his second letter to Bishop Lavington, who
had compared the Methodists to the Papists, he describes his
task with a sigh.t “Heavy work, such as I should never
choose; but sometimes it must be done. Well might the ancient
say, ‘God made practical divinity necessary, the devil
controversial. But it is necessary: we must “resist the
devil,” or he will not “flee from us.” “Oh
that I might dispute with no man !" he says on another
occasion. “But if I must dispute, let it be with men of
sense.” Wesley’s controversial writings are brief
and direct. The real issue is kept resolutely in view; all disguises
are torn away; not a word is wasted. Wesley was attacked from
every quarter by men of all shades of thought, but his skill
in argument and the strength of his cause brought him off victorious
in these encounters. When he discovered errors of scholarship,
he did not mention them in his reply, but sent a private letter
to the writer. For this he received the special thanks of some
of his most distinguished opponents.
The controversy with Dr. Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, was one
of the most painful Wesley ever had. Soutbey considers that
he did not treat the Bishop with the urbanity which he showed
to all other opponents. The fact is that Lavington, who wrote
anonymously, indulged a spirit sadly unbecoming such a subject
and such a writer. Miss Wedgwood says,’ He “deserves
to be coupled with the men who flung dead cats and rotten eggs
at the Methodists, not with those who assailed their tenets
with arguments, or even serious rebuke.” Wesley clearly
pointed this out: “Any scribbler with a middling share
of low wit, not encumbered with good-nature or modesty, may
raise a laugh on those whom he cannot confute, and run them
down whom he dares not look in the face. By this means, even
a comparer of Methodists and Papists may blaspheme the great
work of God, not only without blame, but with applause, at least
from readers of his own stamp. But it is high time, sir, you
should leave your skulking place. Come out, and let us look
each other in the face.” The controversy continued for
two years. It is pleasant to add that in August, 1762, a fortnight
before the Bishop’s death, Wesley was at Exeter Cathedral.
“I was well pleased,” he says, “to partake
of the Lord’s Supper with my old opponent, Bishop Lavington.
Oh, may we sit down together in the kingdom of our Father !"
Wesley’s masterly treatise on “Original Sin”
was written in answer to Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, whom Fletcher
calls “the wisest Arian, Pelagian, and Socinian of our
age.” In this work Wesley carefully observed his own rule
laid down in a letter to Dr. Taylor himself, whom he greatly
esteemed “as a person of uncommon sense and learning.”
“We may agree,” he says, “to leave each other’s
person and character absolutely untouched, while we sum up and
answer the several arguments advanced as plainly and closely
as we can.” The treatise has therefore permanent value
as a careful discussion of the important subject of which it
treats.
Wesley’s tracts are models of brevity and of searching
appeal. “A Word to a Sabbath-breaker,” “A
Word to a Drunkard,” “A Word to a Smuggler, “
“A Word to a Methodist,” are the titles of some
of these vigorous writings. They were composed in moments of
quiet, snatched during the incessant labours of his itinerancy,
and were spread broadcast through the country. Wesley was one
of the pioneers of tract-writing and distribution. “Two-and-forty
years ago,” he writes, “having a desire to furnish
poor people with cheaper, shorter, and plainer books than any
I had seen, I wrote many small tracts, generally a penny apiece,
and afterwards several larger. Some of these had such a sale
as I never thought of; and by this means I unawares became rich.”
One glimpse of Wesley’s literary activity at the age of
eighty-three is given in his journal for September, 1786: “I
now applied myself in earnest to the writing of Mr. Fletcher’s
life, having procured the best materials I could. To this I
dedicated all the time I could spare till November from five
in the morning till eight at night. These are my studying hours.
I cannot write longer without hurting my eyes.” By such
unwearied labour the press as well as the pulpit was made to
serve the cause of the Revival.
Wesley’s charity was only limited by his income. At Oxford
he lived on twenty-eight pounds, and gave away the rest.t As
his income increased, his charities extended. He thus distributed
more than thirty thousand pounds during his lifetime. He received
an allowance of thirty pounds a year from the London Society;
the country Methodists very occasionally paid his travelling
expenses. Wesley’s private charities were drawn from the
income of his Book Room. In 1782 he spent £5 19s. on his clothes,
gave away £356 himself, and £237 13s. through his book steward.
In 1783 the amount expended was £832 Is. 6d.; in 1784, £534
17s. 6d.; in 1785, £851 12s. in 1786, £738 5s.' in 1787 (including
travelling expenses), £961 4s.; in 1788, £738 4s.; in 1789,
£766 and travelling expenses, £6o. Even this statement does
not fully represent the case. Samuel Bradburn said that between
the Conference of 1780 and that of the following year Wesley
distributed more than £1,4oo in private charities.’ He
told Bradburn in 1787 that he never gave away less than £i,000
a year.
One or two instances will show how much Wesley did to relieve
those in distress. At Bath he gave four guineas to save from
jail some one who had already been arrested.t In London, in
February, 1766, a gentleman who had been defrauded of a large
fortune, and was now starving, called upon him. Wesley wished
to help him, but he had run short of money. He therefore asked
him to call again. Just before the time appointed some one put
twenty guineas into Wesley’s hands, so that he was able
to clothe this man from head to foot and send him back to Dublin.
Once, when his chaise stuck fast in an Irish slough, he walked
forward, leaving his friends to get the carriage out. A poor
man who had been turned out of doors because he could not pay
twenty shillings due for rent overtook him in deep distress.
When Wesley gave him a guinea, the man knelt down in the road
to pray for his benefactor.
Then he cried out in his joy, “Oh, I shall have a house!
I shall have a house over my head !" Whenever poor people
thanked him, Wesley used courteously to lift his hat.’
His patience was sometimes sorely tried. A clamouring crowd
of beggars once surrounded his carriage at Norwich. He turned
round and asked somewhat sharply whether they thought he could
support the poor everywhere. Entering his carriage, he slipped,
and fell. “It is all right, Joseph,” he said, “it
is all right; it is only what I deserved, for if I had no other
good to give, I ought at least to have given them good words.”
t
Wesley’s personal charity was only a part of his service
for the poor. For more than forty years all the class money
given by the London Society, amounting to several hundred pounds
a year, was distributed to those who were in distress He did
not confine his care to his own Societies. At Bristol, in January,
1740, the severe frost threw many out of work. They had no assistance
from the parish, and were in the last extremity. Wesley made
three collections in one week, and was thus able to feed a hundred,
sometimes a hundred and fifty, a day. The twelve or thirteen
hundred French prisoners at Knowle, near Bristol, whom he visited
in October, 1759, also found in him a zealous friend and helper.
The evening after his visit he preached a special sermon, in
which he pleaded for these strangers so earnestly, that the
sum of twenty-four pounds was raised to provide them with warm
clothing. Wesley also wrote a letter on their behalf to Lloyd’s
Evening Post. The distress they suffered from want of clothing
was soon abundantly relieved.
Wesley was a father to the Methodist people. In November, 1740,
he tells us that the clothes brought by friends who could spare
them were distributed among the poor of the London Society.
An arrangement was also made at the same time by which for four
months the Society room at the Foundery was turned into a place
for carding and spinning cotton.’ Twelve of the poorest
members were thus employed and maintained for very little more
than the produce of their labour. Next May Wesley made another
request for clothing and for contributions of a penny a week.
He wished to employ all the women who were out of work in knitting,
for which they were to be paid the ordinary price. Whatever
they needed in addition to their earnings was to be added. Twelve
persons were appointed to inspect the work, and visit all the
sick in their district every other day. In 1743 London was mapped
out into twenty-three divisions, for each of which two volunteer
visitors were appointed.t Great spiritual and temporal good
was the result. The sick and poor were both relieved and comforted
by these timely ministries.
In 1744 Wesley raised fifty pounds by a collection for the
deserving poor, which he began at once to lay out on clothes
and shoes. Ten days later he made another collection; then he
went through the classes begging for further help. The appeal
to the classes and three collections yielded about two hundred
pounds, with which three hundred and sixty or seventy poor people
were provided with dothing4 Similar efforts were made in other
places. At Newcastle he made a collection to relieve the poor,
and at one place in Ireland the clergyman of the parish stood
at the door after Wesley’s sermon to receive the people’s
help for a family in trouble.’ Sometimes Wesley was overwhelmed
by the distress with which he had to cope. In November, 1750,
he began to take an account of all his people who were in want,
but the numbers increased so fast upon him, particularly about
Moor-fields, that he “saw no possibility of relieving
them all, unless the Lord should, as it were, make windows in
heaven.” On the last day of 1772, the great embarrassment
caused by the necessities of the poor drove him and his officers
to special prayer.
At Bristol, in September, 1783, Wesley collected ninety pounds
for his poor members. But the most touching and interesting
glimpse of the aged philanthropist is in January, 1785, when
he was in his eighty-second year. At the new year coals and
bread were distributed among the poor of the Society. Wesley
saw that they needed clothes also, and set out.to beg the money.
The streets were filled with melting snow, which lay ankle-deep
on the ground, so that his feet were steeped in snow-water nearly
from morning to evening.j Four days of such travelling all over
London brought on a violent flux; but his friend Dr. Whitehead
came to his relief. Two years later Wesley made another begging
tour of the metropolis, which yielded two hundred pounds. Six
or seven of his people gave ten pounds each, but Wesley was
disappointed that he did not find forty or fifty to help in
the same way. He was anxious to provide for two hundred cases
of distress.
One of the most useful of Wesley’s funds was a lending
stock. It began in July, 1746, with a capital of about thirty
pounds, out of which two hundred and fifty-five persons were
relieved in eighteen months4 The capital was afterwards raised
to fifty pounds, and more than twenty years later Wesley’s
“strong words” lifted it to one hundred and twenty
pounds. The stewards attended every Tuesday morning to do business.
Loans of twenty shillings and upwards were made, to be repaid
weekly within three months.’ Mr. Lackington, the bookseller
who secured the shop in which he started business through the
kindness of the Methodists, received a loan of five pounds from
this fund in the year 1774 to increase his little stock of books.
He prospered so greatly that the year after Wesley’s death
his profits for the twelve months were five thousand pounds.t
For a long time he sold one hundred thousand volumes annually.
Lackington says that he has known Wesley give ten or twenty
pounds at once to tradesmen who were in need. He adds that “in
going a few yards from his study to the pulpit, Wesley generally
distributed a handful of half-crowns to poor old people of his
Society.” The charity schools at the Foundery and West
Street also rendered great service.
Wesley’s medical knowledge helped him to relieve much
suffering. In 1746, the same year that the lending stock was
started, he began to give medicines to the poor. Thirty came
the first day. In six months six hundred cases had been treated;
two hundred were sensibly better, fifty-one thoroughly cured.
This was done at an expense of thirty pounds.ff This success
led Wesley to form a dispensary at Bristol, which soon had two
hundred patients. Wesley’s shrewd observations on medical
works show how carefully he sought the best light of his time.
Electricity greatly interested him. During the first year he
supplied medicines to the poor he went, with some friends,
to see the electrical experiments in London.’ He carefully
read Dr. Franklin’s “Letters” and Dr. Priestley’s
“ingenious book.” t We find him advising a woman,
who was suffering from a stubborn paralytic disorder, to try
the new remedy4 She was electrified, and found immediate relief.
Wesley afterwards procured the proper apparatus, and ordered
several persons to be electrified.~ From this time he fixed
certain hours every week, then an hour every day, “wherein
any that desired it might try the virtue of this surprising
medicine.” Patients became so numerous, that they bad
to be met at four different parts of London. Hundreds, perhaps
thousands, Wesley says, received unspeakable good.II He himself
was no stranger to the benefits of electrical treatment. After
his serious illness in Ireland his hand shook so that he could
hardly write his name. A drive of four or five hours over very
rough pavement electrified him so thoroughly, he tells us, that
his hand was quite steady. In 1780 we find a medical man in
attendance twice a week, for three hours each time, at the chapel-house
in West Street, London. He prescribed and provided medicines
for any who showed their tickets of membership or came with
a note from Wesley or his preachers. If any were too ill to
come, they were visited in their own homes.
Wherever Wesley went he made use of his medical skill. His
favourite remedy for consumptive tendencies was a country journey,
and several friends were invited to share his itinerancy with
a view to the restoration of their health.’ His “Primitive
Physic,” of which a twenty-third edition was published
in the year of his death, grew out of his medical attention
to the poor. For nearly thirty years before its publication
he had made anatomy and physic the diversion of his leisure
hours. He had studied them with special attention before he
went to Georgia. His dispensary in 1747 was started with the
assistance of an apothecary and an experienced surgeon. Wesley
himself now studied medicine more carefully. He published his
“Primitive Physic” in 1747 or 1748. Its quaint remedies
often provoke a smile. Pounded garlic applied to the soles of
the feet was a “never-failing” remedy for hoarseness
and loss of voice. Boiled nettles and warm treacle were sovereign
cures for colds and swellings.t An eminent medical man, however,
some years ago pronounced the book incomparably superior to
any non-professional work of the same date.
A writer in the Gloucester Times § states that a poor widow,
who had several times heard Wesley when he was in that district,
was in deep trouble about her only daughter, who was worn to
a shadow with a distressing cough, and had severe pains in her
side and back. Her skin was yellow, and her legs much swollen.
Whilst sitting one day in great distress, a neighbour looked
in and asked if she was not aware that her friend Mr. Wesley
was preaching that night at Gloucester. The widow at once resolved
to ask his advice for her child. Wesley listened to her sad
account, and said that he would call next morning. “I
am to preach at Tewkesbury at twelve o’clock, and shall
pass your cottage.” When he came, he told the girl, “I
have thought over your state, and will give your mother a remedy
which, with God’s blessing, I trust will do you good;
and if God spares my life, I will call upon you when I come
this way again.” The medicine led to the girl’s
complete restoration. In March, 1790, exactly a year after his
first visit, Wesley came again. He said to the widow, “I
see that you are blessed by God with faculties to use the medicines
mercifully given by God for our use, so that I will instruct
you in some further remedies that I have discovered lately,
and as my body will soon be laid with the clods of the valley,
waiting for the resurrection, I shall like to give you these
remedies. Use them for God, and may He bless you, and be with
you.” Wesley left with her a small manuscript, in his
own handwriting, containing instructions for the treatment of
prevalent diseases. They won for the widow the name of “the
village doctor.” Her daughter’s son, who became
a skilful physician in the north of England, afterwards acknowledged
that Wesley’s remedies, handed down to him by his grandmother,
had been the most successful he had prescribed during fifty
years of professional life.
Sponsored by Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho.
