The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-11-21

shall gain the whole world, and lose
Igive in exchange for his soul?-Mat-
thew xvi:26.
We mentioned that there was fresh
Interest gathering about the name Of
John Wesley in his native country
England. Literary men and others
discuss him. Lore Macaulay was the
the first great writer to recognize the
distinguished gifts and services of the
very eminent ecclesiastical statesman.
Mr.. Lecky, the very able historian,
whose History Of England in the
Eighteenth Century is monumental
and extended. filling eight octavos,
called particular attention 70 the work
and influence of Mr.. Wesley. 1t has been
some. fifteen years perhaps since We
read it, but we distinctly recall that
he discussed the Wesleyan Move
lment" through many pages, we think
lquite twelve or thirteen. He said but
for Mr.. Wesley's work among the mid
idle and lower classes the bloody scene
olAa WIN IAA3@ SAAN v
France during the Revolution" be-
lginning in 1889, would have crossed
the narrow channel and swept over
lEngland-that Mr.. Wesley saved Eng
land from such a stupendous calamity
and curse. We are not reporting him,
but use our own language and state
conclusions as we remember them. In
THE london Spectator of some w
months ago there appeared IN interest
ing paper discussing "Wesley's Ser
vices to England" The Spectator is
of high rank among England's most
famous literary journals. Since then,
the distiny uished w. E. Henley, es-
lsayist and poet, has written a paper IN
Wesley, but which we have not seen.
las we are not writing for a denomi-
national organ, we do not go into the
Isubject here as we otherwise would.
I'VE merely treat Wesley as we
would Luther or Melancthon or
calvin or Arminius or Cramner or
Knox or any other great leader in a
Istupendous crisis-men Of w and
learning and zeal and influence, men
such as only a century produces now
and then, or produces but one, for
there has been in no century two
lLuthers or two Calvins or two John
lWesleys. The Spectator, after recall
ing great events and prominent re-
Iligious leaders, say this: but when
jail is said and done, John Wesley re-
lmains the one supreme and towering
figure, a characteristic product of
England, and one of the noblest and
most sainted of her sons" Not one
lof these writer's who recognize the
lgreat parts and eminent usefulness Of
John Wesley was a Methodist. Here
is the testimony of The Spectator:
eff it be asked what is Wesley's su-
Ipreme title to fame, the answer, we
think, would be that he arrested the
moral and spiritual decline of England,
and hat he was the chief agent in the
renewal of her inward and spiritual
life. An agnostic Whiggism had de-
graded the church from a spiritual Or
lganization into a mere political mech
Ianism; it had, as Cowper later on put
lit, made
1.-the symbols of ~atoning grace
An ofhce-key, a plcklOck to a place.
THE hungry sheep looked up and were
mot fed; half the parishes in England
lwere void of spiritual life, many were
Isunk in the lowest vice without re-
|straint or reproof. The governing
I~classes were perhaps even feebler and
more corrupt than in the reign Of the
lsecond Charles"
This is not new to careful students
Iof eighteenth century history. There
is abundant contemporary evidence
Ito establish it's truth. The Spectator
lsays that sit seemed as though Eng
llish society were doomed to decad-
%lence," and that "humanly speaking, it
would have ensued had it not been for
1.-THE new movement of which Wesley
was the leading religious and moral
Expression"
There are several passages, we
marked, it would be instructive to
lcopy, but we give but the closing SEN
%ltence:
May the country which bore him
and the University (Oxford) which
reared him give us in the coming CEN
Itury such another religious leader to
laid US, in the spirit of sobriety and
truth, in the eternal contest with the
evils r sins which grow like weeds
lin our human soil"