“London, October 30, 1790.
“Dear George,—The assistant in every circuit (not the leaders) is to determine how each preacher is to travel. If Jonathan Hern will not, or cannot, take his turn with his fellow labourers, I must send another that will. I do not like dividing circuits. Could not three or more of the northern places be added to the Sunderland or Newcastle circuits, in order to lessen yours, and bring it into a six weeks’ circuit? Pray send me the manner of your travelling through your circuit. I think, I shall order it better.
“I am, with love to sister Holder, dear George, yours, etc.,
“John Wesley.”[762]
A small circuit then was one of the things which Wesley thought inimical to the interests of Methodism. Was Wesley right? Unless Methodist preachers can become thoroughly pastoral in their habits,—a thing which triennial changes render extremely difficult,—would it not be better for circuits to be of such a size as to make daily preaching a healthy duty, instead of being so circumscribed that one or two sermons, between sabbaths, is all that their necessities require? This is a serious problem, which we must leave to be solved by others.
Another hindrance, as Wesley thought, to Methodist progress, was the neglect of reading. Hence the following extract from an unpublished letter, dated November 8, 1790.
“If you and your wife strengthen each other’s hands in God, then you will surely receive a blessing from Him. But it is not abundance of money, or any creature, that can make us happy without Him.
“It cannot be that the people should grow in grace, unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people. A people who talk much will know little. Press this upon them with your might; and you will soon see the fruit of your labours.”
An extract from another letter may be given here. The letter was addressed to Alexander Mather.
“No, Aleck, no! The danger of ruin to Methodism does not lie here. It springs from quite a different quarter. Our preachers, many of them, are fallen. They are not spiritual. They are not alive to God. They are soft, enervated, fearful of shame, toil, hardship. They have not the spirit which God gave to Thomas Lee at Pateley Bridge, or to you at Boston. Give me one hundred preachers, who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell, and set up the kingdom of heaven upon earth.”[763]
As we have often shown, Wesley regarded the preaching of the doctrine of Christian perfection as of the utmost importance. The following letter to Adam Clarke is to the same effect.
“London, November 26, 1790.
“Dear Adam,—To retain the grace of God, is much more than to gain it; hardly one in three does this. And this should be strongly and explicitly urged on all who have tasted of perfect love. If we can prove that any of our local preachers or leaders, either directly or indirectly, speak against it, let him be a local preacher or leader no longer. I doubt whether he should continue in society. Because he, that could speak thus in our congregations, cannot be an honest man. I wish sister Clarke to do what she can, but no more than she can. Betsy Ritchie, Miss Johnson, and Mary Clarke are women after my own heart. Last week I had an excellent letter from Mrs. Pawson, (a glorious witness of full salvation,) showing how impossible it is to retain pure love without growing therein. I am, etc.,
“John Wesley.”[764]
Such letters might be greatly multiplied. We only add another. He was now an old man, and extremely feeble; and Mr. Ireland, having heard that claret wine had been recommended to him by his medical adviser, sent him a small case as a present. The wine was seized by the custom house authorities, to whom Wesley addressed the following laconic letter.
“City Road, November 14, 1790.
“Gentlemen,—Two or three days ago, Mr. Ireland sent me, as a present, two dozen of French claret, which I am ordered to drink, during my present weakness. At the White Swan it was seized. Beg it may be restored to,
“Your obedient servant,
“John Wesley.
“Whatever duty comes due, I will see duly paid.”
The letter seems to have been returned to the dying man; and, across it, a government official curtly wrote: “No. M. W.”[765]
Wesley’s only publication, in 1790, besides the thirteenth volume of his Magazine, was his translation of “The New Testament, with an Analysis of the several Books and Chapters.” 16mo, 424 pages. In his preface, he remarks:
“In this edition, the translation is brought as near as possible to the original; yet the alterations are few and seemingly small; but they may be of considerable importance. Though the old division of chapters is retained, for the more easy finding of any text, yet the whole is likewise divided, according to the sense, into distinct sections; a little circumstance which makes many passages more intelligible to the reader. The analysis of every book and epistle is prefixed to it. And this view of the general scope of each will give light to all the particulars.”
It ought to be remarked, that this is, by no means, a verbatim reprint of Wesley’s translation, published with his Notes in 1755. The book is extremely scarce; but the variations are too numerous and minute to be pointed out in a work like this.
As it respects the Magazine, there can be no doubt, that all the articles composing it may be considered to be in harmony with Wesley’s own sentiments; but, as usual, in this review, we only notice the articles which Wesley himself contributed; and that, principally, for the purpose of obtaining knowledge of his latest opinions and feelings. We pass over his “Thoughts on Memory”; his critique on Captain Wilson’s “Account of the Pelew Islands”; and his “Thoughts on Suicide”; and direct attention to his last, his dying manifesto, on separation from the Established Church. The article is dated, “December 11, 1789,” and is in the April number of the Magazine for 1790.
He states that, next to the primitive church, he had, from childhood, esteemed the Church of England as the most scriptural, national church in the world; and had, therefore, not only assented to all the doctrines, but observed all the rubric in the liturgy; and that with all possible exactness, even at the peril of his life. He proceeds to give the history of the rise of Methodism, and of his own irregularities; and thus concludes:
“I never had any design of separating from the Church. I have no such design now. I do not believe, the Methodists in general design it, when I am no more seen. I do, and will do, all that is in my power to prevent such an event. Nevertheless, in spite of all that I can do, many of them will separate from it (although, I am apt to think, not one half, perhaps not one third of them). These will be so bold and injudicious as to form a separate party, which, consequently, will dwindle away into a dry, dull, separate party. In flat opposition to these, I declare once more, that I live and die a member of the Church of England; and that none, who regard my judgment or advice, will ever separate from it.”
To the same effect is his sermon on “No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron,”—a sermon which he wrote at Cork, in May 1789, and published in his magazine, twelve months afterwards. He correctly maintains that, in ancient times, the offices of priest and preacher were entirely distinct. Priests were not preachers; and preachers, or prophets, were not priests. He argues that, in the New Testament, the office of an evangelist is not the same as that of a pastor. Pastors presided over the flock, and administered the sacraments; evangelists helped them, and preached the word. He asserts that the same distinction is recognised in the English, presbyterian, and Roman churches; and then, coming to Methodism, tells his readers that Methodist itinerant preachers are evangelists, not pastors; and that their work is wholly and solely to preach, not to administer sacraments. His address to them is worth quoting.
“God has commissioned you to call sinners to repentance; but it does by no means follow from hence, that ye are commissioned to baptize, or to administer the Lord’s supper. Ye never dreamt of this, for ten or twenty years after ye began to preach. Ye did not then, like Korah Dathan, and Abiram, seek the priesthood also. Ye knew, ‘No man taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.’ O contain yourselves within your own bounds. Be content with preaching the gospel. Do the work of evangelists. I earnestly advise you, abide in your place; keep your own station. Ye were fifty years ago,—those of you that were then Methodist preachers,—extraordinary messengers of God, not going in your own will, but thrust out, not to supersede, but to provoke to jealousy the ordinary messengers. In God’s name, stop there! Both, by your preaching and example, provoke them to love and good works. Ye are a new phenomenon in the earth; a body of people, who, being of no sect or party, are friends to all parties, and endeavour to forward all, in the knowledge and love of God and man. Ye yourselves were, at first, called in the Church of England; and though ye have and will have a thousand temptations to leave it, regard them not. Be Church of England men still. Do not cast away the peculiar glory which God hath put upon you, and frustrate the design of Providence, the very end for which God raised you up.”
In reply to the charge that he himself had already separated from the Church, Wesley allows, that he deviated from the rules of the Church in “preaching abroad,” in “praying extempore,” in forming societies, and in employing lay preachers; but he adds:
“All this is not separating from the Church. So far from it, that, whenever I have opportunity, I attend the Church service myself, and advise all our societies so to do. Nevertheless, the generality even of religious people naturally think, ‘I am inconsistent.’ And they cannot but think so, unless they observe my two principles. The one, that I dare not separate from the Church, that I believe it would be a sin so to do; the other, that I believe it would be a sin not to vary from it in the points above mentioned. I say, put these two principles together, first, I will not separate from the Church; yet, secondly, in cases of necessity, I will vary from it; and inconsistency vanishes away. I have been true to my profession from 1730 to this day.”
Here we leave the matter. This is the last time we shall quote Wesley on separation from the Church. We care not either to vindicate or to condemn his thoughts and course of conduct. In a few lines, Wesley here says all that can be said in favour of the anomalous position in which he stood: he did not separate, but he varied from the Church of England. It will be difficult for either sophistry or sound argument to make either more or less than this of the vexed question,—the difference between Wesley’s profession and his practice in reference to his continued adherence to, or separation from, the Established Church. He lived and died a hearty, but inconsistent Churchman.
There is another point which must be mentioned. The reader has already seen Wesley’s intense anxiety in reference to rich Methodists. In the last fourteen sermons that he wrote, during the last two years of his eventful life, and which were, for the first time, published in the magazines for 1790, 1791, and 1792, he again and again, in the strongest and most affecting language, reverts to this momentous matter. Exception may be taken to his opinions; but they are worthy of being quoted. They are the last sentiments of an old man, with unparalleled experience; and, throughout a long life, were by himself reduced to practice. The following are extracts.
In the remarkable sermon, on Jeremiah viii. 22, written in Dublin, July 2, 1789, in which he tries to answer the question, “Why has Christianity done so little good in the world?” he writes:
“Who regards those solemn words, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth? Of the three rules, which are laid down on this head, in the sermon on The Mammon of Unrighteousness, you may find many that observe the first rule, namely, Gain all you can. You may find a few that observe the second, Save all you can. But how many have you found, that observe the third rule, Give all you can? Have you reason to believe, that five hundred of these are to be found among fifty thousand Methodists? And, yet, nothing can be more plain, than that all who observe the two first rules, without the third, will be twofold more the children of hell than ever they were before.
“O that God would enable me once more, before I go hence and am no more seen, to lift up my voice like a trumpet to those who gain and save all they can, but do not give all they can! Ye are the men, some of the chief men, who continually grieve the Holy Spirit of God, and, in a great measure, stop His gracious influence from descending on our assemblies. Many of your brethren, beloved of God, have not food to eat; they have not raiment to put on; they have not a place where to lay their head. And why are they thus distressed? Because you impiously, unjustly, and cruelly detain from them what your Master and theirs lodges in your hands, on purpose to supply their wants. In the name of God, what are you doing? Do you neither fear God, nor regard man? Why do you not deal your bread to the hungry? And cover the naked with a garment? Have you laid out, in your own costly apparel, what would have answered both these intentions? Did God command you so to do? Does He commend you for so doing? Did He entrust you with His,—not your,—goods for this end? And does He now say, ‘Servant of God, well done’? You well know He does not. This idle expense has no approbation, either from God or your own conscience. But, you say, ‘You can afford it!’ O be ashamed to take such miserable nonsense into your mouths. Never more utter such stupid cant, such palpable absurdity! Can any steward afford to be an arrant knave? to waste his lord’s goods? Can any servant afford to lay out his master’s money, any otherwise than his master appoints him? So far from it, that whoever does this ought to be excluded from a Christian society.
“I am distressed. I know not what to do. I see what I might have done once. I might have said peremptorily and expressly, ‘Here I am: I and my Bible. I will not, I dare not, vary from this book, either in great things or small. I have no power to dispense with one jot or tittle of what is contained therein. I am determined to be a Bible Christian, not almost but altogether. Who will meet me on this ground? Join me on this, or not at all.’ With regard to dress in particular, I might have been as firm, (and I now see it would have been far better,) as either the people called quakers, or the Moravian brethren. I might have said, ‘This is our manner of dress, which we know is both scriptural and rational. If you join with us, you are to dress as we do: but you need not join us unless you please.’ But alas! the time is now past. And what I can do now, I cannot tell. The Methodists grow more and more self indulgent, because they grow rich. Although many of them are still deplorably poor (Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon!), yet many others, in the space of twenty, thirty, or forty years, are twenty, thirty, yea, a hundred times richer than they were when they first entered the society. And it is an observation which admits of few exceptions, that nine in ten of these decreased in grace, in the same proportion as they increased in wealth. Indeed, according to the natural tendency of riches, we cannot expect it to be otherwise.
“But how astonishing a thing is this! Does it not seem (and yet this cannot be!) that true scriptural Christianity has a tendency, in process of time, to undermine and destroy itself? For, wherever it spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural course of things, beget riches. And riches naturally beget pride, love of the world, and every temper that is destructive to Christianity. Now, if there be no way to prevent this, Christianity is inconsistent with itself, and, of consequence, cannot stand, cannot long continue among any people; since, wherever it generally prevails, it saps its own foundation.
“But, allowing that diligence and frugality must produce riches, is there no means to hinder riches destroying the religion of those that possess them? I can see only one possible way; find out another who can. Do you gain all you can, and save all you can? Then you must, in the nature of things, grow rich. Then if you have any desire to escape the damnation of hell, give all you can; otherwise I can have no more hope of your salvation, than for that of Judas Iscariot.
“I call God to record upon my soul, that I advise no more than I practise. I do, blessed be God, gain, and save, and give all I can. And so, I trust in God, I shall do, while the breath of God is in my nostrils. But what then? I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus, my Lord! Still
To the same effect is Wesley’s searching and terrible sermon, on the Rich Fool, written at Balham, February 19, 1790; and another written at Bristol, September 21, 1790, on the text, “If riches increase, set not thine heart upon them.” In the latter sermon, he writes:
“By whatsoever means thy riches increase, whether with or without labour; whether by trade, legacies, or any other way, unless thy charities increase in the same proportion,—unless thou givest a full tenth of thy substance, of thy fixed and occasional income, thou dost undoubtedly set thy heart upon thy gold, and it will eat thy flesh as fire.
“But O! who can convince a rich man, that he sets his heart upon riches? For considerably above half a century, I have spoken on this head, with all the plainness that was in my power. But with how little effect? I doubt whether I have, in all that time, convinced fifty misers of covetousness.
“I have a message from God unto thee, O rich man, whether thou wilt hear, or whether thou wilt forbear. Riches have increased with thee; at the peril of thy soul, set not thine heart upon them. Be thankful to Him that gave thee such a talent, so much power of doing good. Yet dare not to rejoice over them, but with fear and trembling.
“Let us descend to particulars; and see that each of you deal faithfully with his own soul. If any of you have now twice, thrice, or four times as much substance as when you first saw my face, faithfully examine yourselves, and see if you do not set your hearts, if not directly on riches themselves, yet, on some of the things that are purchaseable thereby, which comes to the same thing. Do you not eat more plentifully or more delicately than you did ten or twenty years ago? Do not you use more drink, or drink of a more costly kind, than you did then? Do you sleep on as hard a bed as you did once, suppose your health will bear it? Do you fast as often now you are rich, as you did when you were poor? Ought you not in all reason to do this, rather more often than more seldom? I am afraid, your own heart condemns you. You are not clear in this matter.
“Do not some of you seek no small part of happiness in that trifle of trifles, dress? Do not you bestow more money, or, which is the same, more time and pains upon it, than you did once? I doubt this is not done to please God. Then it pleases the devil. If you laid aside your needless ornaments, some years since, ruffles, necklaces, spider caps, ugly, unbecoming bonnets, costly linen, expensive laces, have you not, in defiance of religion and reason, taken to them again?
“After having served you between sixty and seventy years, with dim eyes, shaking hands, and tottering feet, I give you one more advice before I sink into the dust. Mark those words of St. Paul, Those that desire, or endeavour, to be rich, that moment, fall into temptation; yea, a deep gulf of temptation, out of which nothing less than Almighty power can deliver them. Permit me to come a little closer still: perhaps I may not trouble you any more on this head. I am pained for you that are rich in this world. Do you give all you can? You who receive £500 a year, and spend only £200, do you give £300 back to God? If not, you certainly rob God of that £300. ‘Nay, may I not do what I will with my own?’ Here lies the ground of your mistake. It is not your own. It cannot be, unless you are Lord of heaven and earth. ‘However, I must provide for my children.’ Certainly. But how? By making them rich? When you will probably make them heathens, as some of you have done already. Leave them enough to live on, not in idleness and luxury, but by honest industry. And if you have not children, upon what scriptural or rational principle can you leave a groat behind you, more than will bury you? I pray consider: What are you the better for what you leave behind you? What does it signify, whether you leave behind you ten thousand pounds, or ten thousand shoes and boots? Oh, leave nothing behind you! Send all you have before you into a better world! Lend it, lend it all unto the Lord, and it shall be paid you again! Is there any danger that His truth should fail? It is fixed as the pillars of heaven. Haste, haste, my brethren, haste! lest you be called away, before you have settled what you have, on this security!”[767]
To say the least, this was plain speaking, such as is seldom heard at present; the following, in the sermon on Matthew vi. 22, 23, written at Bristol, September 25, 1789, is terrific.
“How great is the darkness of that execrable wretch (I can give him no better title, be he rich or poor), who will sell his own child to the devil! who will barter her own eternal happiness, for any quantity of gold or silver! What a monster would any man be accounted, who devoured the flesh of his own offspring! And is he not as great a monster, who, by his own act and deed, gives her to be devoured by that roaring lion? As he certainly does (so far as is in his power), who marries her to an ungodly man. ‘But he is rich; he has £10,000!’ What if it were £100,000? The more the worse; the less probability will she have of escaping the damnation of hell. With what face wilt thou look upon her, when she tells thee in the realms below, ‘Thou hast plunged me into this place of torment! Hadst thou given me to a good man, however poor, I might now have been in Abraham’s bosom!’
“Are any of you, that are called Methodists, seeking to marry your children well (as the cant phrase is), that is, to sell them to some purchaser, that has much money, but little or no religion? Have ye profited no more by all ye have heard? Man, woman, think what you are about. Dare you also sell your child to the devil? You undoubtedly do this (as far as in you lies), when you marry a son or a daughter to a child of the devil, though it be one that wallows in gold and silver. O take warning in time! Beware of the gilded bait! Death and hell are hid beneath. Prefer grace before gold and precious stones; glory in heaven, to riches on earth! If you do not, you are worse than the very Canaanites. They only made their children pass through the fire to Moloch. You make yours pass into the fire that never shall be quenched, and to stay in it for ever. O how great is the darkness that causes you, after you have done this, to wipe your mouth and say, you have done no evil!
“Upwards of fifty years, I have ministered unto you. I have been your servant for Christ’s sake. During this time, I have given you many solemn warnings on this head. I now give you one more, perhaps the last. Dare any of you, in choosing your calling or situation, eye the things on earth, rather than the things above? In choosing a profession or a companion of life for your child, do you look at earth or heaven? And can you deliberately prefer, either for yourself or your offspring, a child of the devil with money, to a child of God without it? Repent, repent of your vile earthly mindedness! Renounce the title of Christians; or prefer, both in your own case and the case of your children, grace to money, and heaven to earth. For the time to come, at least, let your eye be single, that your whole body may be full of light!”
These were Wesley’s last words to the Methodists. The extracts are long; but, in this money making, mammon worshipping, intensely worldly age, they may be useful.
The other sermons, published in the last year of Wesley’s life, and in the year subsequent to his death, are well worthy of the reader’s notice. That on “Knowing Christ after the flesh” is perhaps the only one, in the English language, on such a subject. That on the text, “There is one God,” is characteristically thoughtful, keen, logical, and evangelical. That on “Walking by Faith,” terse, vigorous, earnest, practical, and terribly faithful. That on “The Wedding Garment,” an excellent exposition of an often ill used text. That on “The Deceitfulness of the Human Heart” is one which none but a man like Wesley could have preached. That on “Atheism,” ingenious, searching, and powerful. That on “The Treasure in Earthen Vessels,” simple and beautiful. While that on “Life like a Dream” was being printed on the very day when Wesley’s corpse lay in the chapel in City Road; and that on “Faith, the evidence of things not seen,” was the last he ever wrote, and was finished only six weeks previous to his death.
Both the last mentioned deserve quoting. They are the profoundly interesting musings of an old man, conscious that he must soon enter the spiritual and unseen world. Imagining a disembodied soul before him, he thus soliloquises.
“Now that your eyes are open, see how inexpressibly different are all the things that are now around you! What a difference do you perceive in yourself! Where is your body? Your house of clay? Where are your limbs? your hands, your feet, your head? There they lie; cold, insensible! What a change is in the immortal spirit! You see everything around you: but how? Not with eyes of flesh and blood! You hear; but not by a stream of undulating air, striking on an extended membrane. You feel; but in how wonderful a manner! You have no nerves to convey the ethereal fire to the common sensory; rather are you not now all eye, all ear, all feeling, all perception?”
Again, in his last, the sermon on faith:
“How will this material universe appear to a disembodied spirit? Who can tell whether any of these objects, that now surround us, will appear the same as they do now? What astonishing scenes will then discover themselves to our newly opening senses! Probably fields of ether, not only tenfold, but ten thousand fold, ‘the length of this terrene.’ And with what variety of furniture, animate and inanimate! How many orders of beings, not discovered by organs of flesh and blood! Perhaps ‘thrones, dominions, principalities, and, powers!’ And shall we not then, as far as angels’ ken, survey the bounds of creation, and see every place where the Almighty
Yea, shall we not be able to move, quick as thought, through the wide realms of uncreated night? Above all, the moment we step into eternity, shall we not feel ourselves swallowed up of Him, who is in this and every place, who filleth heaven and earth? It is only the veil of flesh and blood which now hinders us from perceiving, that the great Creator cannot but fill the whole immensity of space; He is every moment above us, beneath us, and on every side. Indeed, in this dark abode, this land of shadows, this region of sin and death, the thick cloud, which is interposed between, conceals Him from our sight. But then the veil will disappear, and He will appear in unclouded majesty, God over all, blessed for ever!”
The blessed old man already had glimpses of the shining ones, and of the gates of that celestial city, into which, six weeks after these words were written, he triumphantly entered.
[700] Life of Wesley, vol. ii., p. 380.
[701] Methodist Magazine, 1830, p. 251.
[702] Dunn’s Life of Clarke, p. 72.
[703] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 105.
[704] Pawson’s manuscripts.
[705] Moore’s sermon.
[706] Methodist Magazine, 1832, p. 594.
[707] Benson’s Life, by Macdonald, p. 209.
[708] Dunn’s Life of Clarke, pp. 72, 73.
[709] Methodist Magazine, 1845, p. 119.
[710] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 113.
[711] “Methodism in Preston,” p. 44.
[712] Cutler’s Life, p. 5.
[713] Methodist Magazine, 1792, p. 66.
[714] “Methodism in Halifax,” p. 181.
[716] Methodist Magazine, 1845, p. 121.
[717] Methodist Magazine, 1795, p. 423.
[718] Moore’s Life, p. 89.
[719] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 94.
[720] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 105.
[721] Kilham’s Life, by Blackwell, p. 114.
[722] Methodist Magazine, 1836, p. 494.
[723] Black’s Memoirs, p. 265.
[724] Moore’s Life of Wesley, vol. ii., p. 384.
[725] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 139.
[726] Dunn’s Life of Clarke, p. 73.
[727] Ought it not to be sixty-eight.
[728] An error occurred in the first edition of this volume, on page 224. It was there stated, that Wesley received £60 a year; it ought to have been £30. According to the old circuit book, at City Road, it was the custom to pay him £15 in the first quarter of each year, and £15 in the last.
[729] Now his steward.
[730] The sentence is unfinished.
[731] Samuel Bradburn remarks: “I know that, from the conference of 1780 to the conference of 1781, he gave away, in private charities, above £1400. He told me himself, in 1787, that he never gave away, out of his own pocket, less than £1000 a year.” Bradburn adds: “He never relieved poor people in the street, but he either took off, or removed, his hat to them, when they thanked him.”
[732] Methodist Magazine, 1825, p. 25.
[733] Ibid. 1828, p. 741; and Christian Miscellany, 1847, p. 173.
[734] Methodist Magazine, 1792, p. 288.
[735] Ibid. 1856, p. 234.
[736] Ibid. 1845, p. 123.
[737] Clarke’s Life, vol. i., p. 277.
[738] Methodist Magazine, 1847, p. 211.
[739] Methodist Magazine, 1837, p. 11.
[740] The assistant in Chatham circuit.
[741] The wife of Charles Boone, the assistant in Canterbury circuit.
[742] Local Preachers’ Magazine, 1851, p. 75.
[743] Methodist Magazine, 1847, p. 656.
[744] Wesleyan Times, June 11, 1866.
[745] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 98.
[746] Wesleyan Times, June 11, 1866.
[747] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 8.
[748] This was done with the approbation of the London stewards, who paid £1 19s. for the carriages and expenses. (City Road society book.)
[749] Life of James Rogers, p. 44.
[750] Life of James Rogers, p. 44.
[751] Youth’s Instructor, 1833, p. 330.
[752] Methodist Magazine, 1841, p. 1.
[753] Ibid.
[754] “Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson,” vol. i., p. 20.
[755] Crabbe’s Life.
[756] Methodist Magazine, 1856, p. 203.
[757] Reynolds’ “Anecdotes of Wesley,” p. 39.
[758] Methodist Magazine, 1846, p. 1189.
[759] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 113.
[760] Merely in the circuits above mentioned (a fraction of the Dales circuit) there are, at present, 7819 members. (See Minutes of Conference, 1870.)
[761] Circuit manuscript books.
[762] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 109.
[763] Sigston’s Life of Bramwell.
[764] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 99.
[765] Manuscript letter, kindly lent by Charles Reed, Esq., M.P.
[766] Methodist Magazine, 1790, pp. 348, 400, etc.
[767] Methodist Magazine, 1792, p. 341, etc.