Never in his life was Wesley the subject of a more infamous press persecution than in 1778.

First of all, there was a pamphlet published, in which Thomas Maxfield was pitiably preeminent. This mendacious publication asserted that, when Whitefield went to America, in 1741, he handed over to the two Wesleys thirty thousand people, whose hearts the Wesleys so turned against him, that, when he returned to England, not three hundred would come to hear him. It further alleged, that “vile contentions” followed, in which the Wesleys “raked the filthiest ashes, to find some black story against their fellow preachers;” and that what had been published, on both sides, by the friends of Whitefield and Wesley, within the last six years, was a disgrace to all concerned.

Wesley replied to this, in “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Thomas Maxfield, occasioned by a late Publication”: 8vo, 11 pages. He states, with perfect truth, that, at the time referred to, there were not five thousand Methodists in the world; that his own societies contained not more than fourteen or fifteen hundred members, and Whitefield’s not so many. He declares that, so far from receiving thirty thousand people from Whitefield in solemn trust, the latter never delivered up to him one thousand, nor one hundred. He admits, that division followed; but affirms that Whitefield himself occasioned it. Whitefield first published a treatise against him by name; but he made no reply to it. Wesley asserts that Whitefield constantly preached against him and his brother, both in Moorfields, and in other public places. Even in the very Foundery, while Charles Wesley sat beside him, he preached the absolute decrees, in the most peremptory and offensive manner; but, instead of returning railing for railing, they always and everywhere spoke of him in respectful terms. And then, with respect to the publications of the last six years, Wesley states that, though the two Hills, and Toplady, had poured upon him, in great abundance, bitterness and wrath, yea, low, base, and virulent invective, he himself had published only three tracts during the entire controversy, and in none of them had he spoken one bitter, passionate, or disrespectful word. “Where,” he asks, “have I, in one single sentence, returned them railing for railing? I have not so learned Christ. I dare not rail, either at them or you. I return not cursing but blessing. That the God of love may bless them and you, is the prayer of your injured, yet still affectionate brother, John Wesley.”

Wesley’s letter was worthy of himself. True, his statements, respecting his old friend Whitefield, are scarcely to Whitefield’s honour; but it must be borne in mind, that they are not opinions, but facts; and facts not volunteered, but extorted by the falsehoods of Maxfield and those with whom Maxfield now associated.

Wesley replied to Maxfield; but the publications which must be next noticed were properly treated with the silent contempt they merited. We reluctantly advert to these vile productions; and yet, for the reason already repeatedly assigned, we must. Our notices shall be brief: first, for want of space; and secondly, because we can hardly make quotations without fouling our pages. The publications were seven in number, all, except one, printed by a man of the name of Bew, in Paternoster Row, on the best of paper, and in the best of type.

1. “The Gospel Shop. A comedy in five acts: with a new prologue and epilogue, intended for public representation, but suppressed at the particular desire of some eminent divines. By R. Hill, Esq., of Cambridge.” 8vo, 88 pages. The chief dramatis personæ are Dr. Scapegoat, Parson Prolix, Mr. Rackett, and Simon Sycophant; and an idea of the whole of this infamous production may be obtained from two lines taken from the motto on the title page.

2. “The Saints: a satire.” 4to, 30 pages; with a frontispiece made up of two scrolls, labelled respectively, “Inspiration,” and “Election,” a bottle inscribed with the word “Gin,” and a satyr’s head inscribed “Perfection.” A Methodist is described as a mixture of ignorance and folly, piety and hypocrisy. The whole tribe are “downright scoundrels,” “religious mountebanks,” “wretches who make a trade of religion,” and “show an uncommon concern for the next world, only to raise their fortunes with greater security in this.” Two lines must suffice as a specimen, and, for the sake of decency, two of the words must be given in a skeletonised form. Of Wesley it is said, he

3. “Perfection; a poetical epistle, calmly addressed to the greatest hypocrite in England.” 4to, price two shillings. Of course, Wesley was the hypocrite; and the work is ornamented with an emblematical frontispiece in accordance with its foul and calumnious falsehoods.

4. “The Temple of Imposture. A poem by the author of ‘The Saints,’ ‘Perfection,’ etc.” 4to, 35 pages. This, like all the others, has a characteristic frontispiece, in which Wesley is represented as a huge serpent, labelled “The subtlest beast of the field.” The serpent forms a circle, inside of which, among other things, there are four books respectively inscribed, “Koran,” “Bedlam’s Hymns,” “Druid Hymns,” and “Ignat. Loyola Monita Secreta”; also a gridiron, called “Mahommed’s Gridiron”; a sword, inscribed “A Calm Address”; a bottle, with a burning candle in its neck, and labelled “Gin”; and two scrolls, one with the words “Old Light at Mecca,” and the other, “New Light in Moorfields.” The professed object of the work is to show, that, in tyranny, lust, avarice, persecution, and imposture, Wesley is a successor of Mahommed; and, in a bad sense, an improved edition of Ignatius Loyola. Wesley is accused of long seeking to be made a bishop. “Of all impostors since the flood,” he is denounced as the very worst; while his preachers are “mechanic missionaries,—bawling, crafty, illiterate wretches, sent out by their priestly masters, to sow seeds of false doctrine and fanaticism, which spring up, throughout the country, in plentiful crops of idleness, beggary, madness, and sometimes suicide.”

5. “The Lovefeast. A poem by the author of the ‘Saints: a satire,’ etc.” 4to, 47 pages. Here the frontispiece is a sort of chapel scene, in which Wesley, as a fox, dressed in canonicals, is having a mitre placed upon his head by the goddess Murcia, while a parson behind waves his wig and shouts “Hurrah,” and another hurries away with an air of disappointment and disgust. Wesley’s Foundery is described as “a spiritual slop shop,” where he equips his “preaching lubbers” with all the necessary paraphernalia for playing their several parts; while the preachers themselves are designated “the worst of scum,” “smugglers of Scripture phrases,” “learning’s sworn foes,” “Jack Cade’s apostles,” and “mere conduit pipes of rhapsody and cant.” The following are the last lines of the piece, and are used concerning Wesley himself.

6. “Sketches for Tabernacle Frames.” 4to, 36 pages. In this, the frontispiece consists of Wesley, again represented as a fox in canonicals, with the crosier of a mock bishop behind him, and round about a library of books, which he is supposed to sell, the shelves being labelled “Primitive Physic,” “Political Pamphlets,” and “Prayers, Sermons, and Hymns.” Before him kneels a mechanic, with an ass’s head, holding, in one hand, a bottle inscribed with the words “Primitive Physic,” and, in the other, a pamphlet called “A Calm Address,” while the poor asinine wretch himself is having his mouth opened by Wesley, who is about to indulge in the agreeable recreation of extracting his teeth. At the top of the picture are two portraits, one of James II., indicative of Wesley being a Jacobite; and the other of Lucy Cooper, indicating him to be something worse. The poem is dedicated to the “Rev. Mr. Evans, Mr. Hill, and Mr. Hawes, in acknowledgment of their services to the public.” After describing Wesley by such epithets as “a nostrum monger,” “a preacher, pamphleteer, and quack,” than whom “few can whistle off rank nonsense better,” the work concludes with the two lines following:

The reader has had more than enough of these dunghill rakings; but, in order to be saved from the hateful task of returning to this series of abominable poems, we add another published in the year following.

7. “Fanatical Conversion, or Methodism Displayed. Illustrated and verified from J. Wesley’s fanatical journals.” 1779: 4to, 55 pages. In two different copies we find two different frontispieces. One is an ass, on its hind legs, preaching. The other is much more elaborate, and is too obscene to be fully described. Leaving out the parts referred to, Wesley, as a clerical fox, is represented as preaching in a barn, his right hand in the coat pocket of a man called “Old Cloaths,” and his left taking a penny from a boy, a tapster, who has just been broaching a hogshead of “Culvert’s Gin.” One man approaches the preacher, with a cudgel, crying, “Give me my money!” Another, in the form of a donkey, is making a most hideous noise, and is called “Brother Bray.” A third is vomiting a black monster, and represented as saying, “He’s gone, he’s gone!” A fourth is standing on his head, and shouting, “Sure I am in heaven.” Two others are hurling a squib at Wesley’s head, and flourishing a scroll, “For the benefit of Trick upon Trick, or Methodism Displayed.” At Wesley’s feet is the favourite bottle, labelled “Primitive Physic”; and in the centre is, what may be taken as the artist’s name, “Rowland Hill, 1778.” The following four lines, selected almost hap-hazard, are a very moderate specimen of all the rest. Of course, they are spoken concerning Wesley.

We gladly leave these disgusting publications. Like dishonoured children, they are without an acknowledged father. Who was their infamous author? We neither know, nor care to know; but there are three facts concerning them which must be noticed. First, in almost the whole of them there is a most virulent attack on Wesley’s “Calm Address to the American Colonies.” Secondly, though irreligious to a supreme degree, they are levelled, not against religion in general, but against that particular form of it espoused by Wesley. Thirdly, throughout, the Calvinists are either passed sub silentio, or with words of commendation; and, in footnotes and other places, Rowland Hill is evidently in the writer’s good graces. We have read hundreds of tracts and pamphlets published against Wesley; but nothing which, for profanity, pollution, and violent abuse, equals these. They display talent; but talent prostituted to the most infernal purposes. In style, they resemble,—shall we say it? the style of one of Wesley’s most calumnious Calvinian opposers; but we charitably, though feebly, hope, that no man professing, much less teaching, the Christian religion, had to do with their production.

What had Wesley done to merit all this? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He was an old man whose life had been spent in one great act of Christian beneficence. These wretched poems, issued in the best style of the art of printing, by J. Bew, of Paternoster Row, were the foul sputterings of a muse, not naturally ignoble, but envious of Wesley’s majestic goodness, and animated with a feeling almost as malignant as the heart of Apollyon. So far from answering them, Wesley never even condescended to mention them, in any journal or letter yet made public.

Before we trace Wesley’s wanderings in 1778, there are two or three other facts which must be noticed. On Tuesday, August 11, 1778, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, occurred the death of the Rev. Augustus Toplady. In more respects than one, this was a memorable event to Wesley and his friends. In the death of Toplady, Wesley lost one of his bitterest opponents; and Calvinism lost its ablest champion.

Soon after, the report was circulated, that Wesley had stated, to some of his friends, that Toplady died in despair and uttering blasphemy. Sir Richard Hill rushed into print, by sending an anonymous letter to the General Advertiser, requesting Wesley either to deny the accusation, or to produce his authority, otherwise his character would suffer, “for having vented a most gross, malicious falsehood.” Not content with this, he published a pamphlet, in the form of a “Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley,” in which, as usual, he made use of the most intemperate language, telling Wesley that, unless he cleared himself from the charge alleged against him, he would be branded “as the raiser and fabricator of a most nefarious report,” and would be guilty of a sin little less “than the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost.” The whole of this mare’s nest was simply this: Mr. Gawkrodger, of Bridlington, told Sir Richard Hill, that Mr. Thomas Robinson told him, that Wesley told him, that Toplady “died in black despair and blasphemy.” If Sir Richard Hill had courteously asked for an explanation, Wesley, like a gentleman and a Christian, would have given one; but, having demanded it in the most offensive terms, telling him that he had been “vilifying the ashes and traducing the memory” of Toplady; and that “his grand design in all his publications, whether sermons, journals, appeals, preservatives, or Arminian magazines, was that of trumpeting forth his own praises”; and that he was “a man of cunning and subtlety, and artifices, and foul aspersions, and quibbles, and evasions,”⁠[305]—we say, that Sir Richard Hill having used such terms as these, in the very letters in which he requested the explanation, deserved, not an answer, but, the silent contempt with which Wesley wisely treated him.

In 1778, England was in great excitement. Panic was general; and the country was thought to be on the brink of ruin. It was this state of things which led Wesley to publish the two political pamphlets following:

First, “A Serious Address to the People of England, with regard to the state of the nation:” 12mo, 28 pages; the object of which was to show, that England, notwithstanding the war, was in prosperity. Its cattle and vegetable productions were undiminished. Its inhabitants had increased a million within the last twenty years; and, during the same period, hundreds of thousands of acres of unprofitable land had been put under tillage. England might have lost eight hundred of its ships since the beginning of the war; but it had also taken more than it had lost. The trade with Ireland had prodigiously increased; and, comparatively speaking, the national debt was not so great as in 1759. “Friends and countrymen!” writes Wesley, “let none deceive you with vain words! Let none, by subtle reasonings, or by artful, elaborate harangues, persuade you out of your senses. Let no sweet tongued orator, by his smooth periods, steal away your understanding; no thundering talker fill you with vain fears, of evils that have no being. You are encompassed with liberty, peace, and plenty. Know the public, as well as private, blessings which you enjoy; and be thankful to God and man.”

The second, and shorter tract, was published, with the title, “A Compassionate Address to the Inhabitants of Ireland”: 12mo, 12 pages. Wesley laughs to scorn the report, that General Washington had an army of 65,000 men; and says, that “the French will as soon swallow up the sea,” as swallow up old England; that the Spanish have not yet forgotten Havannah; and that the Portuguese were “not such arrant fools” as to join in a confederacy with England’s enemies.

These were odd topics for Wesley to take up; but the war excitement was now at its highest point. Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh raised regiments at their own expense. The Whig opposition considered this to be highly reprehensible, and accused Lord North and the other members of the government with employing soldiers without consent of parliament, and of entertaining designs dangerous to the liberties of the country. Fox moved, in the House of Commons, that no more troops should be sent out of the kingdom; alleging that a war with France and Spain was imminent; and that the navy was inefficient, and the militia contemptible. Burke, in a speech of three hours and a half duration,—said to be the greatest triumph of eloquence within the memory of man,—endeavoured to weaken the hands of government, by dwelling on the ferocities and horrors committed by their savage auxiliaries in America, the red Indians. Lord George Gordon, who was not yet quite so mad as he became a year or two later, expressed his earnest wish, that Lord North “would call off his butchers from America, retire with all the rest of his majesty’s evil advisers, and turn from his wickedness and live.” John Wilkes, the ex-lord mayor of London, who had not yet attained to the post of city chamberlain, but who was engaged in constant manœuvres to escape out of the purgatory of duns, or to draw more money from the purses of private friends, was as lavish with his sarcasms, ribaldry, and drollery as ever, and told the minister, that nothing but a cessation of hostilities would save General Howe from the fate of Burgoyne. France was exerting itself to the utmost, to induce, not only Spain, but also Austria, Prussia, Russia, and the other despotisms, to become the allies and protectors of the young and free republic. The king and his ministers were involved in the greatest difficulties; and John Wesley, like a loyal man, at the head of forty thousand Methodists, felt it to be a duty to assist them as he best could, not only in private and in the pulpit, but also with his pen.

Having spent the first two months of 1778 in London and its vicinity, Wesley started, at the commencement of March, for Ireland, where he employed his time and energies till towards the end of July following; but there was nothing in the tour so unusually remarkable as to demand attention. The days of mob persecution were over; and everywhere Wesley was received with respect, and, in many places, with affection. At Tullamore, where he preached in the riding-house, the commanding officer ordered all the soldiers to be present, and attended himself, with the rest of the officers. At Cork, two companies of volunteers were present in the chapel, while Wesley preached; the side gallery being filled with the men in scarlet, and the front with the men in blue. In one instance, this old evangelist actually, we had almost said cruelly, drove a pair of horses sixty-eight miles in a single day. In another instance, coming to a slough near Sligo, a sturdy Irishman took Wesley over on his shoulders; and others took his chaise. At Dublin, his little conference of twenty preachers debated the duty of leaving the Established Church; “but, after a full discussion of the point,” says Wesley, “we all remained firm in our judgment,—that it is not our duty to leave the Church, wherein God has blessed us, and does bless us still.”

This discussion was brought about principally by the Rev. Edward Smyth, already mentioned as a clergyman who had been expelled from his curacy for his fidelity to the truth. At present, he was in connection with the Methodists; and was now eager to persuade Wesley and his preachers to separate from the Church; but without effect. Myles, in his Chronological History, says, that the minute adopted was the following:

This was an important action. Twenty years before, Wesley had wavered in his attachment to the Church; now and henceforth, in language at least, he was more decided. This is a question which will repeatedly present itself in succeeding years.

On July 19, Wesley left Dublin to attend his English conference in Leeds, preaching on his way at Liverpool, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Halifax, Bradford, and Birstal, at which last mentioned place his congregation was supposed to number twelve or fourteen thousand persons.

Wesley’s notice of the Leeds conference is brief. He writes:

Mr. Benson writes:

Thomas Taylor, in his manuscript diary, remarks:

Three things are noticeable here. 1. Others, beside itinerant preachers, were admitted to Wesley’s conference in 1778. 2. Long and tedious conferential speeches are not a novelty; but were inflicted upon impatient and unwilling listeners in former days as they are sometimes inflicted now. 3. The conference had an immense sacrament such as Methodist conferences and Methodist congregations now never witness.

Stationing preachers was then a difficulty as it is at present, one of the four days being chiefly occupied with this. Some modern Methodists seem to think, that Wesley, in this, acted as he pleased; but that is hardly true. The people then, to say nothing about the preachers, liked to have a voice in their appointments; and then, as now, not unfrequently made worse selections than others would have made for them. In the spring of the present year, Wesley significantly wrote, while at Bristol: “March 9—On this and the following days I visited the society, and found a good increase. This year, I myself (which I have seldom done) chose the preachers for Bristol; and these were plain men, and likely to do more good than had been done in one year, for these twenty years.”

It is a curious fact, that, as this was the first conference in whose minutes the name of Thomas Coke appeared, so also it was a conference remarkable for its discussion of the great question of Christian missions, to which Coke, soon after, devoted his unwearied life. The mission to Africa has been mentioned. Mr. Benson writes:

One of the strangers, who were present at the conference of 1778, was Thomas Thompson, Esq., afterwards member of parliament for the town of Hull, and who, at the first missionary meeting, held at Leeds, stated that the discussion respecting this African mission lasted several hours, and was marked by deep piety, sound sense, and powerful eloquence. Mr. Thompson continued: “The deepest impression, however, seemed to be made, on the minds of all persons present, by the short speech of a young man, who appeared to be far gone in a consumption, but who promptly offered himself as a missionary, and, in unaffected language, declared his readiness to go to Africa, or to any other part of the world, to which it might please God and his brethren to send him.”⁠[308]

Who was this young man? Though not absolutely certain, we believe it was Duncan McAllum. At all events, the following information, hitherto unpublished, will be acceptable. The two African princes escaped from slavery, about the year 1775, after the breaking out of the American rebellion. One of them was baptized at Bristol; and the other was seriously disposed. The two Germans, who went out, were brothers of the name of Syndrum, and were treated by the uncle of the princes with all possible attention. When the intelligence of their death arrived in England, Dr. Coke addressed a circular to all the young itinerant preachers in the connexion, asking for volunteers for this African mission, and stating that they would be supported by a legacy of £500, left, for that purpose, by Miss Johnson, of Bristol.⁠[309] Duncan McAllum was now in the third year of his itinerancy, and was stationed at Dundee. With a brave heart, he offered his services, even before the conference; but, without assigning reasons, Wesley declined accepting them. Hence the following hitherto unpublished letter.

So the matter ended. Help for Africa was deferred; but it is a blessed fact that Africans were being saved. The successful efforts of Mr. Gilbert in Antigua have been already noticed; and it is a remarkable coincidence, that, in this very year, when Coke first found a place in the conference minutes, and when, for the first time, missions to the heathen were discussed at the conference sittings, John Baxter, a Methodist shipwright at Chatham, felt himself constrained to leave his friends, and to embark for Antigua, principally, as he himself expresses it, that he “might have an opportunity of speaking for God.” He landed on April 2, and, a fortnight after, wrote to Wesley, telling him that the work, begun by the late Mr. Gilbert, still remained. He says: “The black people have been kept together by two black women, who have continued praying and meeting with those who attended every night. I preached to about thirty on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, to the same number; and, in the afternoon, to about four or five hundred. The old standers desire I would let you know that you have had many children in Antigua whom you never saw. I hope, sir, we shall have an interest in your prayers. Dear sir, give me your advice. Provisions are very scarce; but I have all things richly to enjoy; as I have four shillings a day, besides the king’s provisions. I am going to have a house built for me, with as much ground as is needful. I think God has sent me here for good to the poor souls, who are glad to hear, but unable to maintain, a preacher.”⁠[310]

Little more remains to be said respecting the conference of 1778, except that it was resolved “to receive no more married preachers, because,” says Wesley, “we cannot keep them”;⁠[311] and, further, that two most characteristic minutes were adopted in reference to preachers who were nervous. It was asked:

Wesley acted upon his own advice. Whatever might be said of others, he was not the man to be made nervous for want of exercise. Many Methodist preachers claim and enjoy a holiday after conference. With Wesley it was otherwise. The conference of 1778 closed on Saturday, August 8; the next day, Wesley preached to a congregation of some thousands in the market place at Dewsbury. He then hurried off to London; and thence to Cornwall, where he preached, in Gwennap amphitheatre, it was believed, to four-and-twenty thousand people. During this lengthened journey, he made the following curious entry in his journal.

Let the reader ponder this entry for a threefold purpose. (1) To form an estimate of the extent of Wesley’s reading. (2) To ascertain which sermons Wesley thought his best. (3) To find an answer to the charge that Wesley changed his doctrines.

Wesley, on his return from Cornwall, arrived on September 4 in Bristol, in the neighbourhood of which he spent the ensuing month.

The remainder of the year was occupied in London, and in his usual tours through the counties of Buckingham, Oxford, Bedford, Northampton, Hertford, and Kent; and it may be mentioned, as an evidence that the Church of England began at last to appreciate its ejected minister, that, during this interval, he preached, by request, to crowded congregations, in not fewer than four of the London churches.

It was at this time, also, that he opened, as already noticed, the new chapel in City Road. On the day of opening, he wrote as follows to Mrs. Penelope Cousins.

The opening of City Road chapel rendered it necessary, that Wesley should have clerical coadjutors; and he now received a letter from one who, in after years, rendered faithful and valuable service. The Rev. James Creighton was born in Ireland, in 1739; and, for fourteen years, had been an ordained clergyman; but it was only within the last two years that he had found peace with God, through faith in Jesus Christ, and that principally by reading the works of Wesley. He now began to preach in a barn, about four miles from his parish church; and, then, when the barn was no longer available, in a chapel which was erected for him, and in which he officiated for some time, though the windows were unglazed, and the mudden floor was such that his feet often sunk two inches deep during the performance of service. His parish was sixteen miles in length, and most of it mountainous and boggy; but he frequently walked, as well as rode, through all parts of it, in all kinds of weather.⁠[313] While here, he wrote the following to Wesley.

The discipline of the Church of England was a thing over which Wesley and his friends had no control. With the discipline of the Methodists it was otherwise. Hence, the following characteristic letter, hitherto unpublished, addressed to one of his itinerants, at Brecon, Mr. William Church, an ancestor of the Rev. Henry L. Church, who possesses the original.

Another unpublished letter, of the same kind, addressed to Samuel Bradburn, will be welcome.

Reference is made, in Mr. Creighton’s letter, to the subject of the Methodists leaving the Established Church; and it has been already seen, that this was a matter earnestly debated, at the Dublin conference, during the present year. The following letter, sent to Miss Bishop, is of great importance, and, though long, must have insertion.

Whatever may be thought of the validity of Wesley’s reasons, there can be no question, that, in theory at least, he was still firmly attached to the Established Church. His enemies, not without reason, stigmatised him as a Dissenter; he persisted, that he himself and the Methodists were not Dissenters. Who is possessed of competent authority to decide the doubt?

Before passing to Wesley’s publications, there is another matter which deserves attention. One of the questions proposed at the conference of 1778 was,—“Is it not advisable for us to visit all the jails we can?” The answer was,—“By all means. There cannot be a greater charity.” From the first, this was a duty to which Wesley and his brother had devoted themselves to the utmost of their power; and so also had many of their preachers and followers, especially Silas Told, a man who richly deserves a passing notice.

Mr. Told was the son of a physician at Bristol, where he was born in 1711. At the age of fourteen, he was bound apprentice as a sailor; and, for eleven years, lived a life of adventurous romance. In 1740, Charles Casper Greaves, a young bricklayer, introduced him to the Methodists. In 1744, Silas, at Wesley’s request, became the master of the Foundery school, and received a salary of £26 a year. At the same time, he began to visit the London prisons, and to preach to debtors and malefactors. There was not a prison in the metropolis, nor scarcely a workhouse within twelve miles round it, where Silas Told was not a frequent and welcome visitor. The scenes he witnessed were horrible; but for these the reader must turn to Told’s autobiography. Suffice it to add, that Silas Told was preeminently, in London, the prison philanthropist, the real, though unrecognised chaplain of all its wretched prisoners. For more than thirty years, no man was better known, or more welcome in the jails of the metropolis, than he. All sorts of criminals, papists and protestants, clung to him in their anguish, for counsel and consolation. Notwithstanding opposition at the first, he persisted in his enterprise, till even turnkeys, sheriffs, and hangmen, as well as prisoners, were wont to weep while listening to his exhortations and his prayers. Silas Told continued his great good work, till he tottered under the weight of nearly threescore years and ten, when he peacefully expired in December 1778. It was befitting that Wesley himself should inter such at Methodist. He writes: “1778, Sunday, December 30—I buried what was mortal of honest Silas Told. For many years, he attended the malefactors in Newgate, without fee or reward; and I suppose no man for this hundred years has been so successful in that melancholy office. God had given him peculiar talents for it; and he had amazing success therein. The greatest part of those whom he attended died in peace, and many of them in the triumph of faith.”

Several of Wesley’s publications in 1778 have been already mentioned; only two still require notice.

The first was “Some Account of the late Work of God in North America, in a Sermon on Ezekiel i. 16.” 12mo, 23 pages. It was almost a misnomer to designate this a sermon; but it was vastly popular, and, before the year was out, reached a second edition. It is really a brief historical statement of American affairs from 1736 to 1778. Wesley begins with the colonisation of Georgia, passes on to the wonderful revival of religion in New England, and speaks of the amazingly successful labours of Whitefield, but affirms that, for want of forming his converts into societies, the far greater part of them became backsliders. He then traces the war to its origin, and concludes by foretelling, not the independency of the rebellious colonists, which he says would be “a heavy curse,” but a restoration of civil and Christian liberty. It is dangerous to turn prophet: in one respect, Wesley’s vaticination was soon falsified.

On August 14, 1777, Wesley wrote: “I drew up proposals for the Arminian Magazine.” We are not aware that these “Proposals” have ever been reissued, just as Wesley published them; and, as an original copy now lies before us, we insert the document verbatim.