The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1903-08-12
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A BIOGRAPHICAL DISCOURSE BY
PRES. STRIKER: OF HAMILTON.

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 q Religious Leader.
New YORK C1TY.-Union services OF
the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian ana
Clinton Avenue Congregations. ehurehees Ies
first named. The Rev. DR.. M. w. Strykeerr,
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.
DR.. Stryker said:
Upon June IT, 1903, that is, 200 years
! ago, was born at Epworth, Lncolnshlre-
$50 miles from London, and at about the
east centre of England-a man whose IN
fuence stands out supreme above az sne
men Of his age. Eighty,eight years sI' old' on on
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 consecrations, the energies
and the efficiency Of that one man-John
Wesley. A mighty impulse and a potent
organization attested and attests his SIN
guIar and recreative purpose and achieve
ment. We may well reckon with such o
personality in considering the. movement OF
the modern world. Even the barest outline
records a wonder and furnishes corrective
to hundred superficial PHILOSOPHERS and
thousand shallow neglects. While Wes.
eyans and Methodists in all lands are reclt-
ing that story, let US all, with them, who
share like precious faith RECALL and re-
joice, ponder and hope. For the elements
the Christian religion, and the fame ane
forces of it are the common possession OF
all who hail the kingdom of the Son OF
God.
This man was born into 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
he never saw her equal. His ancestry was
of that Puritan stock and stuff whose fiber
of conscience had affirmed the real Eng.
land: it's vigors and rigors had been super.
ceded by the recrudescence Of the ivid
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
loved it always and cherished its better
part. For two years he wrought in Geor-
gia, but the Grand jury of that colony in
word, "I hope to learn the sense of the gos.
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-
action to enlarge, John Wesley, it had done
a mighty work. But their narrowness he
escaped, while retaining their intensity:
Over the deep and critical experiences OF
his inner heart, with it's unusual. combina:
tion of sensitiveness and decision, we viii
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 30. Specially and always of logic
discipline; for language is organized
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 tie 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 pure life. They served God
by method-alf Of them at this time Jealous
and even ultra Episcopalians: They were
called the "Godly Club"-"Bible Moths
"Methodists." Oppr. br..m easily finds de-
risive names. A hundred years, and more,
earlier this same devotion had been called
:Paritan."
Consider that eighteenth century into
which they came. It was a feculent and
George" Lecky's ample treatment
uyho cava call tho dazz1ino cniendes of the
reign of George II. must yield in real i'm.
portance" to Methodism. Hear Bishop
Butler (l738). "It is come to pass that
many assume Christianity to be purely fcti.
tious and no longer subject of inquiry"
The general sentiment of the church was
benumbed, torpid, stagna2t-dry essay SER
mons were the vogue: .anguid and luke
warm moderation held sway, ready to hate
whatever :molested its sodden indifferent
ism. Look into the cartoons o. Hogarth
and see if the times he pictured did not
need the winds of God Consider the We
neers of Chesterfield and reckon if that
stilled 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 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 artesian well far into the sub
stratum beneath the morass of the desert
led the great reaction which made posi-
bic the reform and the power Of modern
England; made possible the revival of the
nineteenth century-Heber, and Martyr,
and Keble, and Liddon. He became an in
fuence so incalculably fertile and diffusive
that to no other man of modern times cave
Luther, to no other Englishman save Wy
elf, does the world owe so much. It
pleased Matthew Arnold, with an icy Phil
age him as "a third-class mind" But by
what token this frosty estimate? In that
drunken, ,unciean, insolent century, Wes-
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 college, and lay in the devoted.
ness and relentless aggressivencss of few
men.
The work began in the open air. Whit
field, with his lively and unselfsh charac-
ter and that wondrousiy emotional voice,
led the way among the colliers of Kings
gan poverty, and this new departure to-
ward the Submerged" and the forgotten
this human compulsion of a zeal that ate up
neglect and its embitterments, broke once
for all with the traditions of apathy. Thel
John Wesley stormed Bristol town. Little
did men know. little did these men know,
what chord they had struck, as their in
domitable fervor and unintermittent ag-