The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-04-20
THE EARLY METHoDlSTs.
The Three Principal Founders of
the Church, George Whit
Held and the Two
WesIeYs.
the First start and Rapid
Growth of the
Church.

Rant about ministerial corruption
during the administration of SiI
Robert Walpole would have fallen
flat on the public ear had not new
moral forces, a new sense of social
virtue, a new sense of religion been
stirring, however blindly in the
minds of Englishmen. The stir
showed itself remarkably in a re-
ligious revival which dates from the
later years of Walpole's ministry
and which began in a small knot OF
Oxford students, whose revolt
against the religious deafness OF
their times expressed itself in ascetiC
observances, an enthusiastic devo-
ton, aud a methodical regulari-
ty of life which gained
them the nickname of Methodists."
Three figures detached themselves
from the group as soon as, on its
transfer to London in 1888, it at
tracted public attention by the fer
vor and even extravaganza of its
piety; and each found his special
work in the task to which the in
stinct of the new movement led it
from the first, that of carrying Teli-
gion and morality 10 the vast masses
of population which lay concentra-
ted i'll the town or around the mines
and collieries of Cornwall and the
north. Whitfield. a servitOr of
Pembroke college, was above all
the preacher of the revival. Speech
was governing English politics
and the religious power of speech
was shown when a dread of "enthu-
siasm" closed against the new apos-
ties, the pulpits of the established
church, and forced them to
preach in the fields. Their voice
was soon heard i'll the widest and
most barbarous corners of the land
among the bleak mOors OF Northum-
bertrand, or IN the dens of London,
or in the long galleries where, in the
pauses of his labor, the Cornish
miner listens to the sObbing of the
sea. Whitfield's preaching was such
as England had never heard before,
theatrical, extravagant, often COM
monplace, but hushing all criticism
by its intense reality, its earnestness
of belief, its deep. tremulous SYM
thy with the sin and sorrow of man
kind. 1t was no common enthusi-
asst who could wiring gold from the
close-fisted Franklin, and admira-
ton from the fasIidious Horace
Walpole,'o or who could look down
from the top of green knoll at
Kingswood on 10000 golfers, grimy
from the Bristol coal-pits, and see,
as he preached, the tears making
white channels down their black
eued cheeks"
On the rough and ignorant masses
to whom they spoke, the effect of
Whitfield and his fellow Methodists
was mighty, both for good and ill.
Their preaching stirred passionate
hatred in their opponents. Their
lives were often in danger, they
were mObbed, they were ducked,
they were smothered with filth. But
the enthusiasm they aroused was
as passionate; strong men
were smitten suddenly to the EARTH;
the preacher was interrupted by
bursts of hysteric laughter or hys-
teric sobbing. All the phenomena
of strong spiritual excitement, so ia
miliar now, but at that time strange
and unknown, followed on their
sermons and the terrible sense of a
conviction of sin, new dread of
hell, a new hope of heaven, took
forms at once grOtesQue and
sublime. Charles Wesley, Christ
church student, came to add sweet
ness to this sudden and startling
light. He was the "sweet singer"
of the movement. His hymns ex-
pressed the fiery conviction of its
IN lines so chaste and beau
tiful that its more extravagant fea-
lures disappeared. The wild throes
of hysteric enthusiasm passed into
a passion for hymn-singing, and a
new musical impulse was aroused
in the people which gradually
changed the face of public devotion
England.
But it was his elder brother, John
Wesley, who embodied i'll himself
not this or that side of the new
but the movement him.
self. Even at Oxford, where he re-
sided as a fellow of Lincoln,
he had been looked upon as
head of the group of Methodists,
and after his return from a
quixotIc mission to the Indians Of
Georgia he again took the lead of
the little society, which had removed
in the interval to London. In power
as preacher he stood next to Whit
field; as a hymn writer he stood
second to his brother Charles. But
while combining in some degree the
excellences of either, he possessed
qualities in which both were utterly
deficient-an interchangeable industry,
4 cool judgment, command over
others, u faculty of organization, a
singular union of patience and mod
Grafton, with an imperious ambition,
which marked him as ruler of men.
Re had besides learning and skill
IN writing which no other of the
Methodists possessed; he was older
than any of bis colleagues at the
start of the movement, and he out
lived them all. His life indeed |
almost covers the century. He was
born in 1908, and lived on till 1871.
and the Methodist body had passed |
through every phase of its history |
before he sank into the grave at the |
age of lightweight. 1t would have |
been impossible for Wesley to have |
the power he did had he
not shared the extravaganza as well |
is the enthusiasm OF mis- disciples. |
his life his asceticism
vas that of q monk. He lived at |
lines on bread only, and he often
,lept on the boards. He lived in a
world OF wonders and divine inter-
POSITIONS. 1t was miracle if the |
'ain stopped and allowed him TO set
on journey. 1t was a
Judgment of heaven if hail storm
)urst over n town which had been
leaf to his preaching. One day. he
ellis us, when he was tired
md his horse fell lame, 81
hought cannot God heal either
nan or beast by any means or with
,ut any ?-Immediately my head
Iche ceased and my horses lameness
IN the same instant" With a still
more childish fanaticIsm he
guided his conduct, whether in
ordinary events or in the great cri-
es of bis life, by drawing lots or
the particular texts at
which his Bible opened.
But with all this extravaganza and
Wesley's mind was es-
entially practical, orderly and con-
ervative. No man ever stood at
he head of a great revolution whose
emper was so anti-revolutionary.
u his earlier days the bishops had
,een forced to rebuke him for the
larrowness and intolerance of his
workmanship. When Whitfield be-