During the year 1768, Charles Wesley, with his brother’s full concurrence, removed his family from Bristol to London, which henceforth was his place of residence.⁠[1] Whitefield spent the first half of the year in the metropolis. In July, he set out for Scotland; but, about a month after, returned to London to inter his wife, who died on August 9. His health was somewhat feeble; but he continued to itinerate and preach to the utmost of his power. His orphan house in America, and Lady Huntingdon’s college at Trevecca, demanded his attention, and had it. He and Wesley were still warm hearted friends; and yet there seems to have been a shade of coldness come over them. Hence the following, written when the year was closing.

Another letter, of the same kind, was addressed to Wesley, on New Year’s day, by his old friend at Everton.

At the close of the year 1767, the Earl of Buchan died triumphing in the faith of Christ. He had been in the habit of hearing Whitefield, the Wesleys, and others, at Bath, and had felt their ministry a blessing. His last words were, “Happy, happy, happy!” The inscription upon his coffin run thus: “His life was honourable, his death blessed; he sought earnestly peace with God,—he found it with unspeakable joy, alone in the merits of Christ Jesus, witnessed by the Holy Spirit to his soul.”⁠[4] His countess dowager was a woman of deep piety, of elegant taste, and of great genius. She was the mother of a numerous family, and appointed Venn, Berridge, and Wesley her domestic chaplains. This was done through the intervention of Lady Huntingdon,⁠[5] to whom Wesley addressed the following letter.

A few months after this, Wesley went to Scotland, where the Countess of Buchan resided, and there wrote, and probably preached, his remarkable sermon, “The Good Steward,” in which, with great emphasis, he lays down the doctrine, that we hold in trust our souls, our bodies, our goods, and all our other talents; and, for the use of them, must render an account at the judgment seat of Christ. This was dealing faithfully with his noble patroness, as well as with others; for the sermon was immediately published in 12mo, 24 pages, with the title, “The Good Steward. A Sermon, by John Wesley, Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Countess Dowager of Buchan.”

Wesley was not the man to be elated by being noticed by the rich, the noble, and the great. He was thankful for their help; but far from being proud of their approbation. Many of his most trusted friends were poor and mean in reference to this world’s goods; but, at the same time, were possessed of riches incomparably superior to all the gold existing. The following letter, addressed to Fletcher of Madeley, though a month or two out of its chronological order, refers to these and to other matters.

One more letter may be introduced, before we turn to Wesley’s journal. At the beginning of 1768, a third son was born to Charles Wesley, and it was naturally the wish of such a father, that one of his three sons might become a minister of Christ,—a wish, however, that was not realised. Wesley alludes to this, and to the yearly collections and other things, in the following to his brother, showing that Charles either seldom attended conference, or, if he did attend, took little interest in its financial matters.

Wesley’s first journey from London, in 1768, was on the 18th of February, to Chatham. Methodism of some sort had existed here for a considerable time. As early as 1751, the Gentleman’s Magazine relates, that a man and his wife at Chatham, both of them being Methodists, had hanged themselves; and that, in order to prove the man a lunatic, his friends produced, to the coroner’s jury, the New Testament, on a roll of paper, which the man had written with his blood.⁠[10]

Wesley writes: “Thursday, February 18—Having been importunately pressed thereto, I rode through a keen east wind to Chatham. About six in the evening, I preached at the barracks, in what they call the church. It is a large room, in which the chaplain reads prayers, and preaches now and then. It was soon as hot as an oven, through the multitude of people; some hundreds of whom were soldiers; and they were ‘all ear,’ as Mr. Boston says, scarcely allowing themselves to breathe. Even between five and six the next morning, the room was warm enough. I suppose upwards of two hundred soldiers were a part of the audience. Many of these are already warring a good warfare.”

This was Wesley’s first visit to Chatham; but not his last. From the beginning, he had loved soldiers, and, to the end, it was always a pleasure to preach to them.

On March 6, he set out on his long northern journey, which occupied the next five months. A few jottings respecting it may be acceptable.

At Gloucester, a “noisy and mischievous mob” had been “taken in hand and tamed by an honest magistrate.” Cheltenham was “a quiet, comfortable place,” despite the “rector and the anabaptist minister.” At Worcester, the difficulty was, where to preach, no room being large enough to contain the people, and it being too cold for them to stand in the open air. At length, a friend offered the use of his barn, which “was larger than many churches.” “Nothing,” says Wesley, “is wanting here but a commodious house.” Such a house was built four years afterwards,⁠[11] and lasted till 1812, when good old James M‘Kee Byron and the Worcester Methodists were mad enough to build another costing upwards of £8000, the great bulk of which was left to be paid by their successors.⁠[12]

At Evesham, Wesley preached in the parish church; and was announced, by the vicar, to do the same at Pebworth; but “the squire of the parish” interposed an interdict, and therefore he preached in the open air.

At Birmingham, the tumults, of so many years’ continuance, were “now wholly suppressed by a resolute magistrate.” Here Wesley met “with a venerable monument of antiquity, George Bridgins, in the one hundred and seventh year of his age, still able to walk to preaching, and retaining his senses and understanding tolerably well.”

On Sunday, March 20, Wesley preached at West Bromwich, where a small society of about twenty persons had been kept together by Francis Asbury, a native of a neighbouring parish, but afterwards the Methodist bishop of the United States.

Five years before, at Wolverhampton, the mob had levelled the Methodist meeting-house to the ground, and four young fellows concerned in the outrage had been sent to prison;⁠[13] but now, says Wesley “all was quiet: only those who could not get into the house made a little noise for a time; and some hundreds attended me to my lodging; but it was with no other intent than to stare.”

Wesley pronounces Newcastle under Lyme “one of the prettiest towns in England.” Though it was extremely cold, the largeness of the congregation constrained him to preach in the open air; “a more attentive or better behaved congregation” he “scarce ever saw.” Sixteen years later, Newcastle had a society of one hundred and nine members, the leaders of whom were John Glynn, William Bayley, Robert Keeling, and Thomas Bamfield.⁠[14]

At Burslem, on March 25, he opened the new chapel; and, at Congleton, had “an elegant, yet earnestly attentive congregation,” the behaviour of the society having won the approbation of all the people in the town, except “the curate, who still refused to give the sacrament to any who would not promise to hear the Methodist preachers no more.”

For nine years past, the Methodists had been wont to meet in a room provided by Dr. Troutbeck, behind his own residence; and here they had been subjected to the same sort of outrages that most towns in the kingdom thought it their duty to commit upon the Methodists. Drums were beaten to disturb their services; dogs were let loose in their congregations; and rotten eggs and filth were often hurled at them in plentiful profusion; but, by their godly behaviour, they had outlived all this, and now had a galleried chapel, capable of containing about four hundred persons.

Wesley spent Sunday, March 27, at Macclesfield, where he preached to “thousands upon thousands.” A few years before, George Pearson and Elizabeth Clulow had opened a preaching house, which would hold forty people, and which, to prevent ejectment, they secured to themselves for forty years. “Ah, George!” said Mrs. Clulow, when they first went into it, “we shall never be able to fill the place; why, it will hold forty folk;” to which Mr. Pearson replied, “I’ll warrant you; hold up your heart.” The result was as George predicted. In a month the room was crammed, and a hole was cut through the chamber floor, so that the preacher might, at the same time, address those above as well as those below. Soon after this, Mr. Ryles gave ground and materials for a chapel, on condition that Mrs. Clulow would pay the workmen their wages for building it. This was done in 1764, and now, in 1768, Methodism in Macclesfield was fairly started.⁠[15]

From Macclesfield, Wesley proceeded to Stockport, Manchester, and New Mills. He writes: “Wednesday, March 30—I rode to a little town called New Mills, and preached in their large new chapel, which has a casement in every window, three inches square! That is the custom of the country!” This well ventilated chapel was built principally by Mr. and Mrs. Beard, the parents of the wife of the late T. Holy, Esq., of Sheffield.⁠[16]

Coming to Liverpool, on April 6, Wesley says: “We had a huge congregation at Liverpool; but some pretty, gay, fluttering things did not behave with so much good manners as the mob at Wigan. The congregations in general were quite well behaved, as well as large, both morning and evening; and I found the society both more numerous and more lively than ever it was before.”

One of these “huge congregations,” after a sermon by Wesley, on Sunday, April 10, were munificent enough to make a collection amounting to £1 4s. 9d.; and the society, which was more numerous and lively than ever, aided by the general congregations, managed to contribute, in their classes and at public collections, from September 1, 1768, to January 16, 1769, the sum of £10 17s. 5d. for the support of the work of God among them.⁠[17] Such was Liverpool Methodism a hundred years ago!

On April 19, Wesley arrived in Glasgow, and says: “We have few societies in Scotland like this. The greater part of the members not only have found peace with God, but continue to walk in the light of His countenance. That wise and good man, Mr. Gillies, has been of great service to them, encouraging them to abide in the grace of God.” Three years before this, Thomas Taylor had been sent to Glasgow, and, after travelling several hundreds of miles to his appointment, had, as his first congregation, two bakers’ boys and two old women, which congregation, however, kept increasing till it reached about two hundred. Taylor tells us, that for want of means he never kept so many fast days as he did in Glasgow; and, though he ultimately obtained a preaching room, and formed a society, and engaged to pay a precentor fourpence for each service at which he led off the psalms, he found it so difficult to raise the money that he dismissed the psalms and the psalm singer all together. He left behind him, however, a society of seventy members.

One of these was Robert Mackie, who, for thirty years, acted as a faithful classleader; and another was a poor old woman, concerning whom John Pawson, in an unpublished letter, tells the following story. Meeting in the street the minister of the kirk she had been accustomed to attend, she was thus accosted: “Oh, Janet, where have ye been, woman? I have no seen ye at the kirk for long.” “I go,” said Janet, “among the Methodists.” “Among the Methodists!” quoth the minister; “why what gude get ye there, woman?” “Glory to God!” replied Janet, “I do get gude; for God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven me aw my sins!” “Ah, Janet,” said the minister, “be not highminded, but fear; the devil is a cunning adversary.” “I dunna care a button for the deevil,” answered Janet, “I’ve gotten him under my feet. I ken the deevil can do muckle deal, but there is ane thing he canna do.” “What is that, Janet?” “He canna shed abroad the love of God in my heart; and I am sure I’ve got it there!” “Weel, weel!” replied the good tempered man, “if ye have got there, Janet, hold it fast, and never let it go!”

Wesley’s information was sometimes incorrect. From what he had heard, he expected to find a numerous and lively society at Perth; but, instead of that, he “found not above two believers, and scarce five awakened persons in it.”

At Aberdeen, the society was knit together in peace and love, and the congregations large and deeply attentive; but, among them, were “many rude, stupid creatures, who knew as little of reason as of religion,” and one of whom threw a potato at Wesley.

Having spent a month in Scotland, Wesley reached Berwick on the 18th of May, and proceeded to Newcastle, in the neighbourhood of which he employed the next ten days.

At Sunderland, he had an interview with Elizabeth Hobson, a young woman of twenty-four years of age; and took down, from her own lips, what he properly designates “one of the strangest accounts that he ever read.” The substance of it is to illustrate her assertion, that, from her childhood, when any of her neighbours died, she used to see them, either just at the time of their decease, or a little previous. He says: “The well known character of Elizabeth Hobson excludes all suspicion of fraud, and the nature of the circumstances themselves excludes the possibility of delusion. The reader may believe the narrative if he pleases; or may disbelieve it, without any offence to me. Meantime, let him not be offended if I believe it, till I see better reason to the contrary.” After this follow Elizabeth Hobson’s bewildering statements.

Wesley has been censured and ridiculed for this credulity. Southey says, “he invalidated his own authority by listening to the most absurd tales and recording them as authenticated facts.” Did Wesley deserve this? The reader must not forget the undeniable, though mysterious, supernatural noises in the Epworth rectory. He must also bear in mind, that one of the most striking features in Wesley’s religious character was his deep rooted, intense, powerful, and impelling conviction of the dread realities of an unseen world. This great conviction took possession of the man; he loved it, cherished it, tried to instil it into all his helpers and all his people; and, without it, he would never have undertaken the Herculean labour, and endured the almost unparalleled opprobrium, that he did. Besides, his own justification of himself is more easily sneered at than answered. He writes:⁠—

At the same time, it is only fair to add that, though Wesley was a firm believer in witches and apparitions, he was not the fanatic which some had been before him; hence, in 1769, he writes: “I read Mr. Glanvill’s ‘Sadducismus Triumphatus;’ but some of his relations I cannot receive, and much less his way of accounting for them. All his talk of ‘aerial and astral spirits,’ I take to be stark nonsense. Indeed, supposing the facts true, I wonder a man of sense should attempt to account for them at all. For who can explain the things of the invisible world, but the inhabitants of it?”

Before proceeding further in Wesley’s history, extracts from two or three of his letters, belonging to this period, may be inserted here.

Separation from the Church, and the doctrine of Christian perfection, were points still far from being settled. Hence the following to his brother.

A month later, Wesley recurs to the same subject, and congratulates his brother on the results of his removing to London.

Dr. Erskine’s attack on Wesley has been already mentioned (see Vol. II., p. 530). During Wesley’s visit to Scotland, he sought an interview with his opponent, and refers to their points of difference in the following interesting letter to the Rev. Mr. Plendelieth, of Edinburgh.

These were mutterings before the storm,—skirmishes before the battle,—a prelude to the great Calvinian controversy of 1770 and onwards.

We abruptly turn to another matter. Wesley was a man who believed in the importance of making preparations for dying, in more respects than one. He writes on the last day of the year 1786: “From these words, ‘Set thy house in order,’ I strongly exhorted all who had not done it already, to settle their temporal affairs without delay. It is a strange madness which still possesses many, that are in other respects men of understanding, who put this off from day to day, till death comes in an hour when they looked not for it.”

Wesley acted upon his own advice. He was without money; but he had books, etc.: and to prevent quarrels after he was dead, he made more wills than one respecting their disposal. One executed in 1768 was, of course, different from his last, executed in 1789; and, as something more than a curiosity, we subjoin a verbatim copy, made from the original in Wesley’s own handwriting.

A man’s will is a document in which he generally makes mention of his best beloved friends. On this ground, a few notes appended to Wesley’s will of 1768 may be useful.

1. Wesley’s principal bequest, in 1768, was to Kingswood school, and to the poor of the society in London. In 1789, this bequest was made to “the general fund of the Methodist conference, in carrying on the work of God by itinerant preachers.”

2. James Roquet was made the trustee of Wesley’s manuscripts in 1768; but, having died during the interim, Dr. Coke, Dr. Whitehead, and Henry Moore were appointed in 1789 to take his place.

3. In 1768, he bequeathed all his gowns, cassocks, and bands to his brother; in 1789, to the clergymen preaching in City Road chapel, London.

4. In 1768, James Morgan was to have his watch; but, in 1789, James Morgan was dead, and Joseph Bradford got it.

5. In 1768, Mrs. Martha Hall had no bequest, for her bad husband was then living; in 1789, he was dead, and hence her legacy of £40.

6. In 1768, there was a legacy for his wife; in 1789, his wife was in her grave.

7. Wesley makes mention of his “dear daughter, Jane Smith.” This lady was really his wife’s daughter, who was now married to Mr. William Smith, of Newcastle upon Tyne, one of the witnesses.

8. James Roquet, to whom Wesley bequeathed his manuscripts, was the son of a French Protestant refugee, was educated in the Merchant Taylors’ school in London, was converted under Whitefield’s ministry, graduated at St. John’s college, Oxford, became master in Wesley’s school at Kingswood, obtained episcopal ordination, and was now curate of St. Werburgh, Bristol.

9. The Rev. William Ley, to whom Wesley bequeathed a set of his publications, was, from the year 1760 to 1763, an itinerant preacher. He was then episcopally ordained, and was now the curate of Lakenheath, but likely to be dismissed by the vicar, to whom his Methodistic preaching and procedure were offensive.⁠[23]

10. Of one of the executors of Wesley’s will, John Collinson, we can give no particulars.

11. The second, Mr. Teulon, was born at Bromley, in 1734; and was sent to school at Nottingham. At fourteen, he was put apprentice to his uncle, Mr. Wagner, of Pall Mall, hatter to King George II. He was converted under the ministry of Romaine, joined the Methodists, and, in 1761, married Miss Mecham, the daughter of one of the earliest Methodists in London. For four years, he was Wesley’s London steward, and was leader of a class. He was a man of some literary taste, and had read most of the best English authors. He died in 1806, respected and beloved by all who knew him.⁠[24]

12. The third executor, John Horton, was a member of the common council of London, sensible, well read, serious without gloom, cheerful without levity, and polite without ceremony. The unhappy differences after Wesley’s death induced him to leave the Methodists, and he went to reside at Bristol.⁠[25] He retained his warm attachment, however, to “the old ship,” as he was accustomed to designate Wesley’s system; again attended the Methodist preaching, and, only a few months before his death, when his son was preparing for the university, declared to Henry Moore, that he would “rather see his son a Methodist preacher, than archbishop of Canterbury.” He died in peace about the year 1802.⁠[26]

We left Wesley at Newcastle. On the 31st of May, he set out for Weardale, Teesdale, and Swaledale, where he spent the next four days. At Richmond, he preached in the market place, the Yorkshire militia forming a considerable part of his congregation,—“a rude rabble rout, without sense, decency, or good manners.” At Barnardcastle, the Durham militia was a perfect contrast, officers and soldiers all behaving well. Wesley’s visit to the “dales” circuit was a pleasant one. He writes: “I have not found so deep and lively a work in any other part of the kingdom as runs through the whole circuit, particularly in the vales that wind between these horrid mountains.”

Returning to Newcastle, Wesley visited South Shields, and preached to more than could hear him. Here the poor Methodists were often beaten, rolled in the mud and in the snow, and sometimes narrowly escaped with life: but, continuing faithful, God honoured them; a cockpit was turned into a Methodist chapel,⁠[27] and Methodism was firmly anchored.

On the 13th of June, Wesley left Newcastle for the south, and spent the next six weeks in visiting his societies in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

The Rev. Thomas Adam, rector of Wintringham, one of the evangelical clergymen of the period, has been already mentioned. Like some others, this unquestionably pious man had become a determined opponent of the Methodists, and hence the following letter, addressed to him by Wesley.