New Britain herald., 1928-01-09

suallpox; ths third-and nsvsx.to- be-forgottsn expsrisnoe-wss when hs vas rescued from ths burning rectory just before the roof feel in.
 "When hs vas 17 hs went to Ox- ford, and he made . very remark- able record. For l7 ysers his moth CT had been training him. If there was any charaetsristic his mother had above another 1t was the char acteristic of doing things naethodi- cally, and the habits she instilied in her son were carried with him to Oxford.
 Tt was not very long before that famous Holy Club was organized there. They were ridiculed by the college. The other students laughed at them. They did things in such . niethodical way that the epithet ot 'Methodists' was applied to them. It is . term of honor now; 1t was not so In the, beginning.
 "These men were men Kho were ridiculed and looked d. VII upon by their fellov-students; put through these years came long and encour- aging letters from that old parson in the rectory. These letters encour- aged this group and kept them go- ing. When times grew hard and the students became intensely bitter, one of these letters would come and they would 90 ahead living out the principles they had worked into their Holy Club.
 "Do you know, have m idea that old Father Wesley in that reetory knew that it was just such groups of strange students that formed the salvation of the colleges. Colleges then and colleges nowadays have . habit of turning out machine-made goods. They turn out students who dress alike, talk alike, think slike and act alike, and all on tho same level of mediocrity. But once in 8 while there comes . student or group of students who refuse to wear the clothes-either physical or mental. They live lonely existence -ridiculed by the rest of their fel- low-students; but long years after they are dead and gone, some stu dent with the latest variety of stay comb on his hair showing somebody around will point to an upper win dow - Do you see that window: That is where the Holy Club used to meet
 Ut was not very long before people began to come by scores and hun dreds and thousands to hear him preach, and the Wesleys followed his example. They began to preach out in the open, and there hoated out of the mines and of the farms these men and women for whom the church had never cared and had never done anything. They came to hear this brand-ncw message.
 There begins at this point in Wesley's life that strange period like the opening chapters of the book of Mark. You will find that there are various words that occur again and again: Immediately, 'Straightway' and That very day. It seems as though there was some thing urging him and rushing him on to complete his work before the end should come, and that spirit of earnestness and intensity and eager ness seems to have characterized Wesley for the next fifty years.
 "When you come down to the end of his life you will find that he per formed almost unbelievable feats. He travelled 250,000 miles in the course of his lifetime, and he did it long years before a certain Scotch man by the name of McAdam had made his name famous by teaching men how to make good roads. Wes- ley did his travelling until his sev- entieth year by horseback. He states in his journal that he never traveled less, than 4,500 miles in a single year. Some of you men who drive cars just for pleasure will know how long it takes to pile up 4,5uO miles on your car. Think of mak- ing every one of those miles on horseback, where the horse was knee-deep in mud, and fording rivers.
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