The Penn's Grove record., 1903-07-31
SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A BIOGRAPHICAL DISCOURSE BY
PRES. STRIKER. OF HAMILTON.

An Eloquent Tribute to John Wesley and
the Influence of His Preaching Stands
Out Supreme Above All Men of His
Age as a Religious Leader
New YORK GITY.-Union services of
the LAFAYETTE Avenue Presbyterian and
Clinton Avenue Congregational churches
began Sunday morning in the edlfce OF the
first named. The Rev. DR.. M. w. Stryker,
President of Hamilton College, Clinton, N.
text. As will be seen, he paid an eloquent
tribute to the influence of his preaching.
DR.. Stryker said:
Upon June II, 1903, that is, 200 years
ago, was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire
1850 miles from London, and at about the
east centre of England man whose in
huence stands out supreme above all the
men Of his age. Lightweight years old, OF
the I'd of March, 1871, he died. Thus his
life compassed nearly the whole of the
eighteenth century, and under God it was
the most fertilizing and redeeming agency
toward the moral forces and accomplish.
ments of the nineteenth. And still the
world is debtor, and will ever be, to the
convictions and CONSIDERATIONS, the energies
and the efficiency of that one man-John
Wesley. A mighty impulse and a potent
organization attested and attests his sim
gular and recfeative purpose and achieve
ment. We may well reckon with such a
personality in considering the movement of
the modern world. Even the barest outline
records a wonder and furnishes a corrective
to a hundred superficial PHILOSOPHERS and a
thousand shallow neglects. While Wes-
leyans and Methodists in all lands are recit-
ing that story, let US all, with them, who
share a like precious faith recall and re-
-. ---l-- --I 100 - H. l-----x
of it are as deep as the first principles of
the Christian religion, and the fame and
forces of it are the common possession of
all who hail the kingdom Of the Son of
God.
This man was born into a home when
life in an age that hated anything more
than formal religion was exceptional. The
mother that nurtured him was that Susan.
nah Wesley of whom Adam Clark said that
of that Puritan stock and stuff whose fiber
Of conscience had affirmed the real Eng
land; its vigors and rigors had been super
coded by the recrudescence of the hvid
Stuarts, but, though ignored, it had not de-
parted, and in him and by him it spoke
again and bore its second harvest.
Wesley began his work in the Estab-
lished and Episcopal Church, and though
by it he was soon despised and rejected he
WV y 49, 80 LIS OCttCl
part. For two years he wrought in Geor-
gia, but the Grand Jury Of that colony in
dicted him. There he uttered that notable
word, Il hope to learn the sense of the Cos
pei by preaching it." He came into close
touch with Moravians here and in Eu-
rope. Had that little body done nothing
else than directly to deepen, and by its re-
a mighty work. But their narrowness be
escaped, while retaining their intensity.
Over the deep and critical experiences Of
his inner heart, with its unusual combina-
ton of sensitiveness and decision, we will
not pause. They were basal. In them he
found the Light he followed to the end.
See him at Oxford. He was a student
intensely so. Specially and always of logic
and language. He found in these an ample
thought. An able master of five tongues,
he learned compass and discrimination. In
his life he wrote or edited $50 volumes.
At Oxford he was the centre of a little
group. Of which his brother Charles, and
soon Whitfield, were others. They began
to live by rule and made their protest and
example Of a pure life. They served God
by method-all of them at this time jealous
ana-eEea altra ~Episcopalians. They were
called the Cody Club"-"Bible Moths
"Methodists." .Oppr, br..m easily finds de-
risive names. A hundred years, and more.
earlier this same devotion had been called
Puritan"
Consider that eighteenth century into
which they came. 1t was a f~eculent and
rowdy age. Read Thackeray's -Four
Georges"-read Lecky's ample treatment
who says "all the dazzling episodes of the
reign of George III. must yield in real i'm
portance" to M~ethodism. Hear Bishop
many assume Christianity to be purely 6eti.
tious and no longer a subject of inquiry"
Ihe general sentiment of the church was
benumbed, torpid, stagnant-dry essay SER
mons were the vogue. a Aanguid and luke
warm moderation held sway, ready to hate
whatever molested its sodden indifferent
ISM. Look into the cartoons of Hogarth
and see If the times he pictured did not
need the winds OF God! Consider the We
neers OF Chesterfield and reckon il that
stllled and padded and fostering society
lid not demand the breath of reality! Pub
he life was debauched by the coarse and
frank corruption of the ministry of Robert
Walpole. 1t was Wesley more than ali
others who reused a public conscience to
rally about the stern and aggressive hon
esty of Pitt-Pitt, who rescued India, and
Germany, and America. 1t was Wesley
who under God broke the moral drouth-
struck an arteslan well far into the sub
stratum beneath the morass of the desert
LED the great reaction which made posi-
Bile the reform and the power of modern
England; made possible the revival of the
nineteenth century-Heber, and Martyn,
and keble, and Liddon. He became an in
nuence so intellectually fertile and diffusive
that to no other man of modern times save
Luther, to no other Englishman save Wy
pleased Matthew Arnold, with an icy Phil
lstinism, to feer at Wesley and to dispar-
age him as "a third-class mind, But by
what token this frosty estimate? In that
drunken, unclean, insolent century, Yves
ley's IS the brightest name, whether his
work is judged by its width or its depth,
whether by its immediate or its permanent
When conformity and nonconformity
were alike %moribund, he renewed the indi-
v.lduaiism Of the gospel message, personal
lied its appeal and rediscovered mankindl
DO not forget that this starting point of
modern religious history was within the
walls of a college, and lay in the devoted
ness and relentless aggressiveness of a few
men.
The work began in the open air. Whit
held, with his lively and unselish charac-
ter and that wondrousiy emotional voice,
led the way among the Golfers of Kings
wood IN Cornwall. England was full OF pa
49, HI tilio ACN uCpdEtuIc W
ward the submerged" and the forgotten
this human compulsion of a zeal that ate up
neglect and its embitterments, broke once
Tor all with the traditions of apathy. Then
John Wesley stormed Bristol town. Little
did men know, little did these men know,
h a chord they had struck, as their in
domltable fervor and unintermittent ag-
gression hurled out of their way the things
that would have INSTRUCTED them and once
more reached after the soul of the common
man.. 1t was a radical return to the SIM
pliclty OF Christ, and it had to face the
frown and scoffings of those who do always
resist the spirit Of what is real and uncom-
promising. The harvest was white and had
long e uninterrupted. The work was
born under the sky, baptized by the tears
OF the lowly, hailed by the new songs of
tens OF thousands under the dome of God!
# went with Christ after the lost sheep,
md sNent the very dust for the lost jewels.
~ did not reach down from an attitude of
stlff condescension and patronage, but
reached out from the universal level of
human sympathy and ehildiike love. And
IT proved by its errand and result that he
who wants the souls Of men enough to go
alter them in Christss way can have them.
This Is the method of the evangel for
which the world is aching and starving.
This is the idea Of service upon which
alone rests the power of Christ, Friend of