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necessity of leaving the beaten track of pastoral instruction, and of working like a missionary in an unchristian country. was prepared, therefore, to listen to an appeal from Whitefield, who had met with marvelous success, to come and join him. He had proclaimed his Gospel message to the miners of Kingswood, near Bristol, at first to two hundred, afterward to two, five, and fifteen thousand. These are the figures of Methodist chroniclers, whose narratives recall the ministrations recorded in certain passages of the Acts of the Apostles.

Wesley rejoined his friend. He had long hesitated to follow his example. To preach in the open country-anywhere, indeed, than in the consecrated house of God-was an innovation that startled his prudence and his conscience; but the attempt once made dispersed all his doubts, and in a field near Bristol he preached to three thousand persons. In the profound emotions evinced on that occasion he recognized the triumph of grace; and, while continuing his public exhortations, he gave himself immediately to the task of gathering all the mining population into small bands or class meetings, each one directed by a leader of the same sex as the members, and pledged to unite regularly for prayer, reading of the Bible, and religious conversation. The religious organization of so degraded a people, and the great moral change that was wrought among them, was the first convincing testimony to the two evangelists that their work was good. Thereafter they had no doubt that the undertaking thus begun was destined to become effectual and permanent. The new congregation required a place of refuge and worship, whereupon the first Methodist chapel was built. Thus these still respectful sons of the Church were led to raise altar against altar. All this was the work of a few months. Whitefield's first sermon was preached February 17, 1739, Wesley's, April 20, and the corner-stone of the chapel was laid the 12th of May. These three dates are red-letter days in the Methodist calendar.

By the end of the year Bristol and its vicinity, a part of Wales, Oxford, and London itself, had heard the preachers of the people. They had spoken at Moorfields to audiences of twenty and thirty thousand, gathered from the lowest strata of the metropolitan population. An austere, yet enthusiastic eloquence, that yielded to no weakness of those whom it sought

to warn, which condemned sin and alarmed the conscience, stirred with the deepest emotion multitudes who till then had lived the life of the flesh only. Tears, sobs, ejaculations of grief, overwhelmed at times the voices of the preachers. Sinners, seized with terror or enraptured with enthusiasm, fell to the ground with almost convulsive tremblings. These physical phenomena accompanied strong and sudden emotions, especially among those who believed that their souls had been touched by the Divine hand. Wesley has carefully described these singular manifestations, which astonished him at first, and whose reality he thoroughly verifies. What was remarkable, they were produced more particularly among his own hearers, although his discourses were gentle and penetrating rather than vehement and impetuous. He testifies that these phenomena were neither simulated nor forced. They were readily explicable by purely natural causes, but he was disposed to attribute them to supernatural influences. Though neither seeking for miracles, properly so called, nor desiring that the laws of the world's order should yield to his voice, yet nothing forbade him from believing that God manifested the power of his grace by extraordinary effects, and that the regenerating inspiration, by suddenly taking possession of the soul, should disturb the whole organization. But the learned and the scorners did not thus regard them. They are still considered as simulations or mummeries; witness the name mummers applied to the Methodists of Switzerland. The more charitable of the clergy held that these phenomena, when not counterfeit, were the evidences of a rude fanaticism. Orthodoxy has its incredulities like philosophy, and whatever disturbs faith is not more acceptable than whatever eludes science. Wesley replied to the doubts and reproofs of his brother Samuel, who approved neither of his ideas nor his course; and the letter is still extant that contains the significant facts witnessed by himself. In his presence, persons passed instantly from a state of despair to one of hope; from terror to joy. These transitions from the power of Satan to the power of God were made sometimes in sleep, sometimes they resulted from a vivid presentation to the spiritual vision of the Saviour on the cross, or in his glory. And these changes were not only attested by tears, sighs, groans, but by a permanent amendment and a new life. The rude, the fierce, the cruel,

became mild, peaceable, tractable. We must either consider Wesley as a false witness, or acknowledge in his account the work of God. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not the mere fancies of a visionary.

It is certain, at least, that these natural though exceptional results of powerful and popular preaching may be attended with genuine conversion, and the instances attested by Wesley filled him with joy, though they aroused still more a hostile clergy and public against him. Every day he encountered new dif ficulties. Up to that time he had been in accord with the Moravians; but some brethren lately come from Germany introduced a dogma which perverted that of justification by faith, by affirming that perfect faith dispenses with the works of the law, both Judaic and moral, inasmuch as they are made for an imperfect or more or less impure state of spiritual life. Thereby they rendered valueless all outward duties, even to the reading of the Scriptures and prayer. This doctrine was called the True Tranquillity, or Inward Stillness-Antinomianism among the Protestants, Quietism among the Romanists. Wesley entertained a reverential regard for the character of Madame Guyon, perhaps the most eminent exemplar of Quietism, but he feared the contagion of these dangerous errors among his disciples. At a general reunion of the Moravians he announced his definite separation from them; and, noting the spread of the Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination among his people, he insisted more strenuously upon the Arminian principles of his belief; that is, he maintained the responsibility of the will, and its power to attain, or at least to respond to the grace of election. Thereby he tacitly opposed himself to the teaching of Whitefield, who had returned to America, where he was spreading the principles of a vigorous Calvinism, which is far from having disappeared to-day. A well-known sermon on Free Grace gave the summary of his objections, and his censors themselves have conceded to the production the merit of forcible reasoning and effective statement. Whitefield, on hearing what Wesley was doing, wrote a hasty response, full of bitterness, which was sent to England and printed there, though, it is thought, without the knowledge of the writer. Wesley called attention to it in the pulpit before a large assembly, and tore the unfortunate document in pieces. Whitefield was recalled by his friends.

He was of an impetuous, irritable disposition, and, after some futile attempts at reconciliation, the separation of the two friends led to the division of Methodism (1741) into two branches, which still exist independently of one another.

By his adherence to Arminian principles Wesley still maintained his connection with the Established Church, which he always respected, and from which he never formally detached himself. At the same time he braved its authority by upholding and urging a doctrine that it had practically ignored, by forming societies that it refused to recognize, and by resorting to methods of preaching and regular observances that it discountenanced. Hence, of necessity, he incurred remonstrances, interdictions, polemic strifes with the Bishops and their clergy. Not seldom the multitude was incited against him, pursued him with its menaces and maledictions, and strove to prevent his preaching by mobs, which remind us of the welcome that Paul and Silas received at Iconium, Philippi, and Antioch of Pisidia. But this resistance, like all opposition to a reform that meets a need of the time, only served to manifest the expansive power of the new faith. So expansive was it that, erelong, instead of a dearth of audiences, the preachers were too few for the people. The leaders appointed by Wesley over the local societies were charged only to maintain the rules ordained by him, but not to instruct the people. One of them, however, Thomas Maxfield, oppressed by the spiritual poverty of his community, and urged by a zeal that seemed to him like an inspiration, began to preach at London in the gatherings of the society, and had great success. Wesley, hearing of this proceeding at Bristol, hastened back, disturbed, displeased even. He feared the innovation as a disorder, and an infringement upon the strict obedience in which he so firmly believed; but his mother, who, after sore anxiety and hesitation, had given her countenance and approval to his work, counseled him to decide nothing without deliberation and examination. He heard Maxfield, and said, "This is of the Lord." John Nelson, a humble mason of Yorkshire, was the next to follow the example. He thus writes of Wesley, after hearing him preach for the first time: "This morning was a benediction to my soul. When he rose to speak on the platform he pushed back his hair, and turned his face toward the place where I stood, and it was as if

he fixed his eyes on me. His countenance struck me with such a respectful fear, before I had heard him say a word, that my heart beat like the pendulum of a clock, and when he spoke I thought all his sermon was addressed to me." This, in fact, describes the manner of Wesley. His sermons had the character of direct personal appeals. He seemed when speaking to have some one in view whose heart he knew, and whose conversion he desired. To his audience he was like those portraits whose eyes seem always to be looking at each beholder.

The action of Maxfield and Nelson was decisive. Wesley consented to institute a lay ministry. The societies, divided into classes, each directed by its leader, were authorized to unite themselves under a Pastor, subject to Wesley's approval. This Pastor was most often a man of humble life, pursuing his daily avocation, but empowered to dispense the bread of heaven to his people to the best of his ability and the utmost of his zeal. This organization was the initiative step toward constituting Methodism a separate sect. It took the character of a Christian democracy, yet a democracy that submitted to a master. By the supremacy of eloquence, faith, and character, by his simple presence, his entire personnel, Wesley was made for a leader, a commander.

ART. IV. GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1844.

THIS Conference was held in Greene-street Church, New York city, commencing the first day of May, and continuing until the eleventh of June. It was the first General Conference the writer ever had the honor to attend, and was the longest, most laborious, and, perhaps, the most important, of the seven in which he has been called to participate. It is impossible for those who have come upon the stage since that time to appreciate the difficulties of the hour, or to comprehend the reasons why certain measures were adopted instead of others, which, in their judgment, would have been more appropriate. It is not remarkable, therefore, that they should reach different conclusions from those arrived at by the General Conference. If any wish to investigate the matter further, they