New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-09-06
CITY RO1D CHAPEL

CITY ROAD CHAPEL
| Tomorrow morning the Methodists of the
| world will organize their Ecumonical Confer
ence in City Road Chapel. This unpretentious
name belongs to an edfce in London, which
will be during this week the most conspicuous
ecclesiastical point on the globe. 1t is the
Oldest existing temple of Mcthodism, and
Methodism goes up from all the continents to
worship and to fraternize at the venerable
shrine Although City Road Chapel is not n
| Mecca or Rome it is place halowed by so
! many pious memories thatit must have per-
| manent place in the religious history of man
kind. There Wesley completed the organiza-
ton OF Methodism from that spot went forth
sacred impulse which is still gathering force
When the American Methodists-who are four
ffths OF the entire body-proposed to hold q
Pan Methodist Council in the old chapel, their
English brethren approved of the meeting, but
preferred that it should be held in the United
States. The Americans here had their own way
and the family assemblies in the old homestead
Careless philosophers may find in this incident
a proof that we Americans are especially rev.
ercnt towards historical associations; but the
incident probably proves nothing of the sort
1t is safe to say that the American Methodist
III,
to say his prayers in City Road. He is a very
practical person with no nonsense about him.
If John Wesley were preaching in the old
chapel this American Methodist would take
great pains to hear him; hut accepting the
world as he finds it, he actually goes to hear Mr.
Spurgeon or the next greatest living London
preacher. The selection of City Road Chapel
for tho Conference indicates no relapsing of
McthodIsm into pilgrimages 1t pleased :" the
guShers If may thus shortly describe an
enthusiasm which is not at all gencral-to 90
to London TO the main body of the Americans
II mattcrcd little where the Conference should
meet If only some real and lasting good were
gotten through its deliberations. Methodism
does not. and never did, express its life in
| special or popular forms of enthusiasm: but
the few who shouted and stormcd always had
abundant liberty. If philosophy will count
noses, 1t will learn that, while few Americans
were anxious to make pilgrimage, the many
were solictous only concerning the fruits of
this gathering of their whole people.
And yet the City Road homestead is one of
the sacred spots on the earth. If it be possible
to pour into an ecclesiastical pile a vitality of
enduring force, the Wesleyan Chanel and
| grounds must possess this mysterious power. If
| 1T be only tho imagination and the emotions
that serve themselves with such material ex-
PRESTON it is still Il duty rs well rs a pleasure
| to study these sacred spots in order to discover
| by what historical mechanics the human heart
makes out OF brick and stone u voice for its
| feeling. There is some room for the play of the
historical imagination in the fact that Moor
fields (now Finsbury) lay without the gales of
the City Of London, and that the founding of
this City Road Chapel, on April II, 1777. may
| well IA IN fl,o
! Wesley and his followers from the Established
Church. They had opened preaching places
forty years before. Wesley had reached his
seventy fourth year and had already founded
| Methodlsm; but this chapel was II conspicuous
| sign OF It's distinct character. The student of
| history may well find an unconscious decIara-
| ton OF independence in the text which Wesley
| used at the dedication, November |, IT'S II
| was taken from SOlomon's prayer at the dedi
| cation of the Jewish Temple
rms temple of MethodiSm now usually means
both the Chapel and the Wesley House. The
Chapel has been several times renovated and
enlarged but it has not now a large audience
room, and some fears have been entertained
that 1t will not contain, in addition to the four
hundred delegates, ali the unofficial pilgrims
The Wesley House, adjoining the Chanel rr-
mains rs nearly as possible in the same state "a
Whcn JOhn wesley brcathed his last within its
plain walls. Here the visitor, whether reycrent
or curious, sees the things which Weslev daily
handled, his substantial chair, his plain table
| the marrow bed on which he died. aud even the
| china kettle which he used in Georgia "A we'll
rs in London. PiOus cares have preserved
these relics for the eyes of the pilgrims The
tablets in the chapel viii recall freshly to tho
minds OF the delegates the large Drained mother
OF the Wcsleys as well as the Wcsleys them
Selves; and with something more than curious
interest the far-trayelled Methodist brethren
will read inscriptions in memory of Fletcher
Madely, Adam Clarke, of Richard Watson and
other associates of the great founder. There
can be little doubt that these monumental OH
Jects draw their inspiration from the warm
heart OF the beholder; they do not create but
they refresh his emotion by reminding him IF
the treasure of his personal faith. But there il
probably more power in the recollectiops of an
earlier Methodist city which lies almost under
the Chapel. Going back nearly forty years we
see Wesley opening the Foundry as "a place
OF worship in 1888. The Britt Government