JOHN WESLEY, like all the Epworth family, was J short of stature.
He measured not quite five feet six inches, and weighed eight
stone ten pounds. He seemed not to have an atom of superfluous
flesh, but was muscular and strong. His face was remarkably
fine, even to old age. A clear, smooth forehead, an aquiline
nose, an eye the brightest and most piercing that can be conceived,
conspired to render him a venerable and most interesting figure.
In youth his hair was black; in old age, when it was white as
snow, it added fresh grace to his appearance, which was like
that of an Apostle. He wore a narrow plaited stock, and a coat
with a small, upright collar. He allowed himself no knee-buckles,
no silk or velvet in any part of his dress.
Wesley was scrupulously neat in his person and habits. Henry
Moore never saw a book misplaced or a scrap of paper lying about
his study in London. His punctuality and exactness enabled him
to transact the enormous work which rested on him for half a
century with perfect composure. He once told a friend that
he had no time to be in a hurry. “Though I am always in
haste, I am never in a hurry, because I never undertake any
more work than I can get through with perfect calmness of spirit.~
He wrote to all who sought his counsel, and had perhaps a greater
number of pious correspondents than any man of his century.~
He did everything deliberately, because he had no time to spend
in going over it again. Moore says that he was the slowest writer
he ever saw. Wesley once said to his brother Charles’s
youngest son, “Sammy, be punctual. Whenever I am to go
to a place, the first thing I do is to get ready; then what
time remains is all my own.” t His coachman was expected
to be at the door exactly at the moment fixed. If anything
detained his carriage, Wesley would walk on till it overtook
him. Every minute, both of day and night, had its appointed
work. “Joshua, when I go to bed, I go to bed to sleep,
and not to talk,” ~ was his rebuke to a young preacher
who once shared his room and wished to steal some of Wesley’s
precious moments of repose for conversation on some difficult
problems. To one who asked him how it was that he got through
so much work in so short a time, he answered, “Brother,
I do only one thing at a time, and I do it with all my might.”
His extensive reading, his vast experience, and his natural
amiability of temper combined to make Wesley a singularly interesting
and welcome guest. Dr. Johnson greatly enjoyed his company.
“John Wesley’s conversation is good,” he
said, “but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged
to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man
who loves to fold his legs and have his talk out, as I do.”
This is high praise from the greatest talker of the eighteenth
century. Wesley once dined with the Doctor. He had set apart
two hours for this visit. Dinner, however, was an hour late.
Wesley was therefore obliged to get up immediately it was done.
His sister, Mrs. Hall, who was Johnson’s intimate friend,
tried to soothe the lexicographer, who was greatly disappointed
at the departure of his guest. “Why, Doctor,” she
said, “my brother has been with you two hours.”
“Two hours, madam !" was his answer; “I could
talk all day, and all night too, with your brother.”
Wesley’s cheerfulness under all privations is one of
the most notable features of his life. At the close of 1780
he writes, “I do not remember to have felt lowness of
spirits for one quarter of an hour since I was born.”
Twenty-five years before he had told his friend Mr. Blackwell
that his companions were always in good humour when with him,
and that he could not bear to have people about him of any other
spirit. “If a dinner ill-dressed, a hard bed, a poor room,
a shower of rain, or a dirty road, will put them out of humour,
it lays a burden upon me greater than all the rest put together.
By the grace of God, I never fret; I repine at nothing; I am
discontented with nothing. And to have persons at my ear fretting
and murmuring at everything is like tearing the flesh off my
bones. I see God sitting upon His throne, and ruling all things
well.” t
Wesley was greatly beloved in the homes where he was entertained
during his long itinerancy. He would spend an hour after dinner
with his friends, pouring forth his rich store of anecdotes,
to the delight of young and old. “He was always at home
and quite at liberty.”
He generally closed the conversation with two or three verses
of some hymn strikingly appropriate to the occasion, and made
every one feel at ease by his unaffected courtesy and his varied
conversation. Two years before his death his friend Alexander
Knox had an opportunity of spending some days in his company.
He endeavoured to form an impartial judgment of the venerable
evangelist. The result was that every moment afforded fresh
reasons for esteem and veneration. “So fine an old man
I never saw! The happiness of his mind beamed forth in his countenance.
Every look showed how fully he enjoyed
The gay remembrance of a life well spent
Wherever Wesley went, he diffused a portion of his own felicity.
Easy and affable in his demeanour, he accommodated himself
to every sort of company, and showed how happily the most finished
courtesy may be blended with the most perfect piety. In his
conversation we might be at a loss whether to admire most his
fine classical taste, his extensive knowledge of men and things,
or his overflowing goodness of heart. While the grave and serious
were charmed with his wisdom, his sportive sallies of innocent
mirth delighted even the young and thoughtless; and both saw
in his uninterrupted cheerfulness the excellency of true religion.
No cynical remarks on the levity of youth embittered his discourses.
No applausive retrospect to past times marked his present discontent.
In him even old age appeared delightful, like an evening without
a cloud; and it was impossible to observe him without wishing
fervently, ‘May my latter end be like his !
Wesley’s relations to children and young people set his
character in a peculiarly attractive light. His visits were
eagerly anticipated by his young friends. He provided himself
with a stock of new money, and often gave them one of these
bright coins. He would take the children in his arm and bless
them, reconcile their little differences, and teach them to
love one another. In his last years he greatly rejoiced at the
rise of Sunday-schools all over the country, and preached sermons
on their behalf in various places. The singing of the boys and
girls selected out of the Sunday-school at Bolton seemed to
him a blessed anticipation of the songs of angels in our Father’s
house. One who loved children more than Wesley it would be hard
indeed to find. “I reverence the young,” he said,
“because they may be useful after I am dead.” The
boys on Guy Fawkes Day always found him a kind friend. His nephew
says that he used to give his present with one condition: “Here,
my boys, is something for you on condition you do not drink
more than will do you good.”~
Wesley and a preacher of his were once invited to lunch with
a gentleman after service. The itinerant was a man of very plain
manners, quite unconscious of the restraints belonging to good
society. While talking with their host’s daughter, who
was remarkable for her beauty, and had been profoundly impressed
by Mr. Wesley’s preaching, this good man noticed that
she wore a number of rings. During a pause in the meal he took
hold of the young lady’s hand, and raising it, called
Wesley’s attention to the sparkling gems. “What
do you think of this, sir,” said he, “for a Methodist’s
hand?” The girl turned crimson. The question was extremely
awkward for Wesley, whose aversion to all display of jewellery
was so well known. But the aged evangelist showed a tact which
Lord Chesterfield might have envied. With a quiet, benevolent
smile, he looked up, and simply said, “The hand is very
beautiful.” The young lady appeared at evening worship
without her jewels, and became a firm and decided Christian.
In 1821 Wesley’s niece sent Adam Clarke a sketch’
of some incidents in his life, in which she says, “His
distinguished kindness to me from the earliest period I can
remember made an indelible impression. I can retrace no word
but of tenderness, no action but of condescension and generosity.”
She clearly shows how great a mistake it was to represent Wesley
as stern and stoical “It behooves a relative,” she
adds, “to render this justice to his private virtues and
attest from experience that no human being was more alive to
all the tender charities of domestic life than John Wesley.
His indifference to calumny and inflexible perseverance in what
he believed his duty has been the cause of this idea.”
Miss Wesley has also given a charming description of their visit
to Canterbury in 1775. “He said in the carriage, ‘You
are just the right age to travel with me. No one can censure
you and I.’ The instances of his tender care are fresh
in my mind. As we journeyed the weather was very cold. The preacher
who rode on horseback by the side of the carriage at the first
stage brought a hassock, with some straw, to keep his feet warm.
Instantly he asked, ‘Where is one for my little girl?’
Nor would he proceed till I was as well accommodated as himself.
You knew him. Did you ever see him inattentive to the feelings
of others when those feelings did not impede his plan of usefulness?
As we proceeded he pointed out every remarkable place we passed,
and condescended to delight and instruct with the same benign
spirit which distinguished him in public. I remember reading
to him part of the way Beattie’s ‘Minstrel,’
a book then lately published, and which, he said, as I loved
poetry, would entertain me, making remarks as we went on upon
the other poems. He would not allow the people to call me up
till six in the morning, though he himself preached at five,
and always procured me the most comfortable accommodation in
every place where we sojourned.
"My brother Charles had an attachment in early life to an amiable
girl of low birth. This was much opposed by my mother and her
family, who mentioned it with concern to my uncle. Finding from
my father that this was the chief objection, he observed, 'Then
there is no family, but I hear the girl is good.' 'Nor no fortune
either,' said my mother, 'and she is a dawdle.' He made no reply,
but sent my brother fifty pounds for his wedding dinner, and,
I believe, sincerely regretted he was crossed in his inclination
(as she married another). But be always showed peculiar sympathy
to young persons in love." *
Southey’s beautiful and appreciative Life of Wesley has
one blot which he himself afterwards recognised, and was prepared
to remove. He had accused Wesley of ambition. After the publication
of his book he was convinced that he had misinterpreted the
character of the man whom he so highly honoured. “Mr.
Alexander Knox,” he wrote to Mr. Nichols in 1835, “has
convinced me that I was mistaken in supposing ambition entered
largely into Mr. Wesley’s actuating impulses. Upon this
subject he wrote a long and most admirable paper, and gave me
permission to affix it to my own work whenever it might be
reprinted. This I shall do, and make such alterations in the
book as are required in consequence.” He made the same
promise to Dr. Adam Clarke. Southey never published a second
edition himself, and thus the alterations were not made. His
son, the Rev. Cuthbert Southey, gave a similar promise to a
member of the Wesley family, but it was never fulfilled. Wesley’s
whole life is an answer to the charge of ambition. No man would
have more enjoyed learned leisure or more delighted in the intercourse
of men of talent than he. Yet he deliberately gave his life
to the common people. His days were spent among the poor. He
set himself to bring the masses to Christ, and to that purpose
he was faithful for more than half a century. Wealth had no
temptation for him. He gave away a great fortune to the suffering
and distressed. The violence of the mob and the fierce attacks
which for so many years issued from the press never caused him
to swerve from his work. His desire was to do good, to do as
much for the salvation of the world as he could, and do it in
the best and wisest way.
Lord Macaulay’s judgment that Wesley possessed as great
a genius for government as Richelieu is repeated on every hand.
In a confidential letter to his sister, Mrs. Hall, dated November
17th, 1742, Wesley acknowledges with gratitude the gift he possessed
for the management of his Societies. “I know this is the
peculiar talent which God has given me,” are his words.
No great statesman ever watched the course of public opinion
more carefully than Wesley watched the progress of events in
Methodism. He did not think out a system and force it on his
people. There is no special evidence of inventive power in Wesley’s
administration. He himself speaks of his want of any plan for
financial matters.* His rule over the united Societies owed
its success to the fact that he was always availing himself
of the fresh light which experience gave. Methodist organisation
was a gradual growth. Local experiments which approved themselves
in practice were introduced into all the Societies. Leaders,
stewards, and lay-preachers, the main instruments in spreading
and conserving the results of the Evangelical Revival, were
all the fruit of this growth. Wesley did not set his heart on
such means, but when circumstances suggested them he saw their
vast advantages, and soon incorporated them into his system.
This method Wesley pursued from the beginning of the Revival
to the last day of his life. It is the most marked feature of
his work. One might almost say that he never looked a day before
him. He sometimes laid himself open to the charge of slackness
in dealing with such disturbers as George Bell, but he was never
willing to move till the way was plain. His field-preaching,
his chapel-building, his calling out preachers, and his Deed
of Declaration all supply illustrations of this spirit. Methodist
polity and Methodist finance were built up step by step. No
man had a more candid mind than Wesley. He learned from every
one, and was learning till the last day of his life. Such a
spirit in the leader gave confidence to preachers and people.
Charles Wesley would have forced Methodism into his own groove,
and have shattered it to pieces in the attempt. His brother
was willing to leave his cause in the hands of God and to wait
for the unfolding of events which should mark His will. No cause
was ever more happy in its head; no people ever loved their
chief as the early Methodists loved John Wesley.
At the Conference before Wesley died, there were 71,463 members
in his Societies in the Old World, 48,610 in the New. America
had 108 circuits, just as many as there were in England, Scotland,
and Ireland. The latest returns show that, including 30,924
on its mission fields, there are now about 468,000 members under
the care of the Wesleyan Conference in England, with 2,540 ministers
and missionaries. Separate Conferences have been formed for
France, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the West Indies.
The Methodist family throughout the world now numbers about
five and a quarter million members, under the care Of some thirty-three
thousand ministers. If the Sunday scholars and attendants on
public worship be added, the number would reach about twenty-five
millions. If Wesley were with us to look upon the marvellous
growth of his Societies, and to watch the enormous activities
of the Church of England and other evangelical communions at
home and abroad, he would preach again from the text he chose
when he laid the foundation stone of City Road Chapel: “What
hath God wrought !“
Sponsored by Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho.
