PREACHER, WRITER, AND PHILANTHROPIST

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.