Orange County observer., 1903-08-06
ON JOHN WESLEY,
OUR REGULAR SUNDAY SERMON

OUR REGULAR SUNDAY SERMON
Stands Out Supreme Among the
Preachers of the Ages-A drea,
Influence.
New YORK CITY.-Union services of
the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian and
began Sunday morning in the edifce of the
first named The Rev. Dr. NJ. w. Stryker,
President of Hamilton College, Clinton, N
Y, spoke on John Wesley but used no
text. AS will be seen, he paid an eloquent
tribute to the influence Of his preaching
Upon June II, 1903, that is, 200 years
ago, was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire
100 miles from London, and at about the
east centre Of England-a man whose in
fiuence stands out supreme above all the
men me- 81 of hi his age Eighty eight years old, on
life compassed nearly the whole of the
eighteenth century, and under God it was
the most fertllizing 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 consecrations, the energies
and the efficiency of that one mani ohm
Wesley. A mighty impulse and potent
organization attested and attests his sin
gular and recreatlve purpose and achieve
ment. We may well reckon with such
personality in considering the movement of
records wonder and furnishes corrective
to hundred superficial PHILOSOPHERS and a
thousand shallow neglects While Wes-
!eyans and Methodists in all lands are recit-
ing that story, let us all. with them, who
share a like precious faith recall and re-
II.
OF 1T are as deep as the first principles of
the Christian religion, and the fame and
forces OF 1T are the common possession of
all who hail the kingdom of the Son of
God.
This man was born into a home when
lite 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
he never saw her equal His ancestry was
| OF that Puritan stock and stuff whose fiber
| OF conscience had affirmed the real Eng
| land; its vigors and rigors had been super
ceded by the recrudescence of the livid
Stuarts, but, though ignored, it had not de-
parted, and in him and by him it spoke
again and bore it's second harvest.
| Wesley began his work in the Estab-
lished, and Episcopal Church, and though
| by it he was soon despised and rejected he
loved it always and cherished its better
part. For two years he wrought in Geor-
gia, but the Grand Jury OF that colony in
dlcted him. There he uttered that notable
word, II 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
action to enlarge, John Wesley, it had done
mighty work. But their narrowness he
escaped, while retaining their intensity
Over the deep and critical experiences OF
his inner heart, with its unusual combina-
tion of sensitiveness and decision, we will
found the Light he followed to the end.
See him at Oxford He was student
intensely SO. Specially and always of logic
and language. He found in these an ample
discipline; fol. language is organized
thought. An able master of five tongues,
his Life he wrote or edited $50 volumes.
AT Oxford he was the centre of 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
called the he'"Godly Clu b''-'Bible Moths
"Methodists." Opprobri. IN easily finds de-
rlslve names. A hundred wears. and more,
earlier this same devotion had been called
they It isns seaeHt 5G aaG
rowdy age. Read Thackeray's "Four
Georges Lecky's ample treatment
who says call the dazzling episodes of the
reign of George II. must yield in real i'm
PBort;ance1 PB1; e,7ot9 to Msthodism. It Hear Bishop
many assume Christianity to be purely fcti-
tious and no longer subjest Of inquiry p
The general sentiment of the church was
benumbed, torpid, stagnant-drv ESSAY SER
mons were the vogue. a .anguid and luke
warm moderation held sway, ready to hate
whatever molested it's sodden Indifferent
ism. Look into the cartoons of Hogarth
and see if the times he pictured did not OF
need the winds of God! Consider the We
neers of Chesterfield and reckon if that
stllled and padded and fostering society
did not demand the breath of reality Pub
lie life was debauched by the coarse and
frank corruption of the ministry of Robert
Walpole., 1t was, Wesley more than all
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. It was Wesley
who under God broke the moral drouth-
struck an artesian well far into the sub
stratum beneath the morass of the desert
led the great reaction which made possi
Bile the reform and the mower of modern
England; made possible the revival Of the
nineteenth century-Heber, and Martyn
and Keble, and Liddon. He became an in
Huence SO incalculably fertile and diffusive
| that to no other man Of modern times save
Luther, to no other Englishman save Wy
cliff, does the world owe SO much It
pleased Matthew Arnold. with an icy Phil
istin;sm, to aeer 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
| results.
When conformity and nonconformity
were alike moribund, he renewed the indi-
vidualism Of the gospel message, personal
lied its appeal and rediscovered mankind!
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 few
| men.
The work began in the open air. Whit
field, with his lively ard unselfsh charac-
ter and that wondrous,y emotional voice,
led the way among the golfers OF Kings
wood in Cornwall. England was full Of pa
| gan poverty, and this new departure to-