neatly, clearly, not seldom felicitously, with a rare combination of reason and sentiment. He is calm, yet the love of God and of men animates every page of his works. Philosophically considered, his mind was adapted to moderate rather than aggressive principles and parties; to the good sense of practical life, rather than to the unattainable ideal; at the same time he is impressed to the depths of his soul with the divine. purpose in all things; he is devoted to it, thinks of naught else, and consecrates to it with passion all the power of his wisdom and virtue. He has been accused, with some justice, of credulity, a love for the marvelous, a certain inclination for alarming the imagination of his followers, of producing violent emotions, and thereby causing doubtful if not dangerous physical disturbances. Assuredly he was no adherent of Locke or Shaftesbury; but this tendency of his mind may have contributed to the extraordinary, if not altogether legitimate, power which he exercised over the world of his day. Possibly a less credulous man would have been less persuasive. It was apparently a new and bold idea to initiate a religious movement in the eighteenth century; by the popular voice, to undertake the conversion and sanctification of the contemporaries of Chesterfield and Bolingbroke. Wesley succeeded therein, and justly merited the praise since accorded him as the first of theologianstatesmen. Macaulay also spoke truly when he said of him, "With his penetrating logic and eloquence he might have been eminent in literature; but his genius for government was equal to that of Richelieu." His excellent biographer attempts with much warmth to defend him from the charge of ambitiona defense which seems both needless and impossible; for who has ever risen to the exercise of extraordinary power without being more or less urged thereto by the passion for power, which is simply ambition? How can a disinclination to dominion be characteristic of a great ruler? And who have most loved power? Were they not Alexander, Saint Paul, Luther, Cromwell, Charles V., Loyola, and other mighty men who, being born to command, have desired and striven for the sway that was theirs by the prerogative of nature?

The result has exalted the workman and justified the work. Wesley at his death left to Methodism five hundred and forty preachers, and nearly a hundred and thirty-five thousand

members. Of these about two hundred and thirty preachers and fifty-eight thousand members were in America.

According to late statistics, England and Wales contain about thirty-four thousand five hundred places of worship. Of these upward of eighteen thousand are free churches; nine tenths of them are closed to the Anglican Liturgy. And as regards the whole population, only fifty-two in a hundred belong to the Establishment. The Wesleyan Societies occupy three thousand two hundred and forty-four chapels; the other Methodists five thousand three hundred and sixty-five. The latter include eight divisions: the Connection of Lady Huntingdon, Methodists of the New Connection, Primitive Methodists, Methodist Protestants, Bible Christians, Associated Methodists, Inghamites, and Welsh Calvinist Methodists. According to M. Lelièvre, Methodism throughout the world to-day numbers eighteen thousand itinerant preachers, nearly three million communicants, and probably ten million hearers.

These are significant figures. Yet if the work of Whitefield and Wesley had resulted simply in these statistical details, if it had not been an important movement in the national history, the moral phenomena would still afford us a subject of interest and study. The rise and progress of Methodism compels our attention as the manifestation of a spiritual need in an entire people-a trait of the national character which had lain wellnigh dormant for more than a century in the heart of the AngloSaxon race, and which perhaps would never have been aroused nor satisfied had not this renaissance of the Reformation found champions so signally gifted, and empowered to awaken faith in slumbering souls. The immediate results of their ministry were great, indeed; but the student of history discerns in their example and work an indirect force whose power cannot well be expressed by a merely mathematical estimate. Throughout all English-speaking countries they have originated a religious movement that has been in progress for a whole century, and has utterly refuted the predictions of all such prophets as Voltaire and Montesquieu. Not that they were prejudiced or incompetent observers. On the contrary, they convey to us a just and fair indication of the condition of the times. Judge Blackstone said, twenty years after Voltaire's visit, that though he had frequently and attentively listened to the most distin

guished preachers of London, he had yet to hear a sermon wherein could be detected more Christianity than might easily be eliminated from a discourse of Cicero's, and that it would have been impossible to determine from the utterances of any of these speakers whether he was a Mohammedan or a Chris tian. Especially was this criticism applicable to the pulpits of the Establishment. The Dissenting communions still adhered to their dogmatic creeds, and retained in some measure their primitive zeal; but they were affected and somewhat incapacitated by the universal torpor, and lacked men capable of authority or of inciting them to a new life. Moreover, a rationalism pervaded their ranks; a rationalism not Antichristian, but yet ill adapted to engender and nourish the ardor which is essential to an efficient and communicative piety. Its effect was to put at rest all opinions or questions that agitated the heart. A nation finds relief in the cessation of controversy, and the fanaticism and persecution engendered by it; but such discussions as were rife at this period on differences in the phraseology and style of creeds, though they were in a certain sense an evidence of religious growth, do not give proof of that vigilance which we commonly associate with the Christian life.

An effort was made in Parliament to free the Dissenters from the legal restrictions imposed upon them; and the motion made by Sir William Meredith called forth some noble utterances from Chatham that deserve to rank with his famous reply to Walpole's sneer, or his last speech in the House of Lords. The motion was foiled by certain growing societies that had undertaken to lead the Church back to its first faith. It is well known that Lady Huntingdon took pains to awaken Lord North's resistance, and that she even succeeded in exciting the generous mind of Burke to that conservative prejudice which was later to render him deaf to every demand for emancipation and liberty. She had zealously continued her religious work in high circles, and had doubtless by her example incited men devoted to the Establishment to adopt with certain revisions Wesley's project of restoring life to the Church. As it always happens, Methodism was attacked by those who borrowed from it; its enemies were among its imitators. The founders of what is now called the Evangelical party, among whom was

Venn, men who had accepted the truth as delivered by Whitefield, began to seek a quarrel with Wesley, who thereupon instituted the Arminian Magazine; but these hostilities lasted not long, for Venn, Thornton, Miss Hannah More, and soon afterward, Wilberforce, had the good sense to abandon subtle ques tions of dogma for works of Christian charity; and for these latter Dissent offered them opportunities which they could not ignore, for the Dissenters had been aroused and stimulated by the example of the Methodists. Howard, Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and William Allen arose and girded themselves for the reform of gigantic corruptions, the relief of multitudes of bondsmen. Organizations of men founded the Bible Society, Sunday-schools, and a score of other philanthropic institutions, while each sect had its missionary society; and to-day that of the Wesleyans is one of the foremost. All these undertakings had the sympathy and protection of the Evangelical party, called in the political world the Saints' party; for they were distinguished by a genuine piety, and had won their way to power in Parliament.

The same title had been given originally to the Methodists, and between them and the "Evangelicals" discord could not long continue. Wesley showed to the end of his life an earnest interest in all the undertakings acknowledged by a Christian civilization. There exists a letter of his bearing date of February 26, 1791, perhaps the last that he ever wrote, which is addressed to Wilberforce, and bids him Godspeed in the war he maintained against slavery, "that execrable infamy which is a scandal to religion, to England, and to human nature. We have seen that the awakening of England by Wesley and his disciples has attested its genuineness by numberless organizations for the public good, and by a practical though not nominal union of the sects in these common efforts for the elevation and consecration of social progress. The hostility inspired by the French Revolution produced a more clamorous effect, particularly in the higher classes and within the limits of the Establishment; but it was lacking in purity, for its piety was not disinterested. It was Toryism that became devoted, and religion inevitably compromises itself when it incorporates itself with diplomacy, for the saving of souls and the regulating of a State are functions that have nothing in common.

The

religious condition of England to-day is by no means that of ideal perfection; yet the effects we have mentioned above are so wide-spread, so gracious, that all friends of religion must heartily pray for some analogous awakening in the countries of the Continent, and must hope that the day will dawn wherein the ardor of faith will be manifested as it is not now in their civil and social progress.

ART. IV.-GROWTH OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA IN THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

History of the Methodist Episcopal Church. By NATHAN BANGS, D.D.

History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century, called Methodism. By ABEL STEVENS, LL.D.

History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America. By ABEL STEVENS, LL.D.

Journals of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1796 to 1868. History of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. By ROBERT EMORY, D.D., (1773 to 1844 inclusive.)

Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1848 to 1868.

Annual Reports of the Sunday -School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1845 to 1871.

FROM the beginning of the Sunday-school movement Methodism has been intimately associated with its history and progress. While we would not take the well-deserved laurel from the brow of Robert Raikes, it must not be forgotten that when, in 1781, he pointed to groups of neglected children in the streets of Gloucester and asked, "What can we do for them?" it was a Methodist young woman who answered, "Let us teach them to read, and take them to church;" and the two together attended the first company of Sunday-scholars to the house of God amid the ridicule of the spectators. It must also be borne in mind that while the original design of Mr. Raikes contemplated the employment of salaried teachers, Mr. Wesley improved the plan by soliciting and obtaining volunteers from the members of his society, who labored in the Sunday-school gratuitously.

The same interest in the good work has ever been manifested by the Methodism of America. The spiritual welfare of the children has been the subject of serious inquiry from the com