own day no body of religious ministers surpasses them in piety, in philanthropic energy, or in popular regard.

"In the nation at large appeared a new moral enthusiasm which, rigid and pedantic as it often seemed, was still healthy in its social tone, and whose power was seen in the disappearance of the profligacy which had disgraced the upper classes, and the foulness which had infested literature ever since the Restoration. A new philanthropy reformed our prisons, infused clemency and wisdom into our penal laws, abolished the slave trade, and gave the first impulse to popular edu

cation."1

1J. R. Green: "History of the English People," Vol. IV, Book VIII, pp. 149, 150.

M

IV

METHODISM AND DOCTRINE

ETHODISM has been one of the religious marvels of the ages. That has been the estimate of historians, of philosophers, and of its students in many denominations. What made Methodism such a marvel?

The facts stand out very distinctly. First, its high educational beginning; second, its thorough organization; and third, its exceedingly practical methods.

Methodism had its beginning in Britain's best university. The earliest leaders were university graduates, like the Wesleys, Whitefield, and Coke, all of whom were university men and graduates of Oxford. Others were great and broad scholars like John Fletcher, who was educated at Geneva; Adam Clarke, the son of a classical teacher, became a great oriental scholar, and the author of a most valuable Biblical commentary to the preparations of which he devoted forty years; Joseph Benson, who was educated for the ministry of the Church of England, whom Dr. Adam Clarke pronounced "a sound scholar, a powerful and able preacher, and a profound theologian," who also wrote a "Commentary on the Scriptures"; the wonderful Thomas Walsh, who, born a Roman Catholic, became a Methodist Saint. Of him Wesley said: "Such a master of Biblic knowledge I never saw before, and never expect to see again," and that "he was so thoroughly ac

quainted with the Bible that if he was questioned concerning any Hebrew word in the Old, or any Greek word in the New Testament, he would tell, after a little pause, not only how often the one or the other occurred in the Bible, but also what it meant in every place." Another said of him: "With the devotion of à Kempis-strongly tinged, too, with his asceticism—and the saintliness of Fletcher, he had the memory of Pascal and the studiousness of Origen." In the pulpit where, as one says: "He often seemed clothed with the ardor and majesty of a seraph," his eloquence was most thrilling, as one who knew him phrased it, "Such a sluice of Divine oratory ran through the whole of his language as is rarely to be met with," and, when he preached to the Irish in their native tongue, "They wept, smote their breasts, invoked the Virgin with sobbing voices, and declared themselves ready to follow him as a Saint over the world."

Coming later was Richard Watson, not a university graduate, but a profound scholar, who was invited to a professorship in an American university. As a preacher, Robert Hall said: "He soars into regions of thought where no genius but his own can penetrate," and the London Quarterly Review, in 1854, said: "Watson had not the earnestness and force of Chalmers, but he possessed more thought, philosophy, calm ratiocination, and harmonious fullness. He had not, perhaps, the metaphysical subtlety and rapid combination, the burning affections and elegant diction of Hall; but he possessed as keen a reason, a more lofty imagination, an equal or superior power of painting, and as we think, a much more vivid perception of the spiritual world, and a richer leaven of evangelical sentiment, . and

exceeded Owen in stretch of thought, sublimity, beautiful imagery, and deep and touching pathos." If Watson had not been physically feeble and suffering from disease nearly all his life, he might have shown robustness like unto that of Chalmers.

His abiding work was his "Theological Institutes." This work has received lofty commendation. Richard Watson died in 1833, but his "Theological Institutes " still live. Doctor John Brown of Edinburgh, in 1852, characterized Watson as "a Prince in theology, and the 'Institutes' as the noblest work in Methodism, and truly valuable." Doctor J. W. Alexander said, "Turrentine is in theology instar ominum (worth all of them), that is, so far as Blackstone is in law. Making due allowance for difference in age, Watson, the Methodist, is the only systematizer, within my knowledge, who approaches the same eminence; of whom I use Addison's words 'He reasons like Paley, and descants like Hall.""

Methodism always has had its great scholars as well as its great orators. It has had its university graduates and its great scholars who got their education outside the college, but under the very best instructors, and who, as scholars, were not surpassed even by the university men. In the beginning it was so, and it has never ceased to be so.

At the beginning Methodism did not spring from ignorance and then rise into intelligence, but began among the scholars and amid the loftiest learning, and took the results of high scholarship down to the plain people and enlightened them, and never has Methodism been without learned men, no matter where they got their scholarship.

Such men have aided, taught, and guided the generations, but scholastic education alone does not account for the unique success of Wesleyan Methodism. These cultured men with their varied abilities have been duplicated and repeated through the generations, and they have done a needed and invaluable work for the Church, but something more is needed to explain the success of the Methodist movement.

Something was due to the nature of its organization, which has called forth the admiration of all branches of the Church of Christ, because of its thoroughness and marvellous efficiency. Something was due to its practical methods of work with its splendid system for reaching and retaining the people. Something was due to the direct and earnest style of preaching, something to the character of the services with their hearty sing. ing and their fervent prayers. Something, indeed, very much was due to the class system, giving a direct personal oversight of each and every individual in the organization, and very much was due to the fact and spirit of general activity and coöperation.

All the things mentioned had their place and contributed to the general result, but altogether they do not explain Methodism and its success. Was there something more? If so, what was it?

There was able and eloquent preaching, which, as a producer of striking results, was more important than the organic or strictly scholastic element. The Gospel was to be preached and emphasis was placed on preaching. All its ministers were preachers in an emphatic sense. The first and last question was: Can he preach, and does his preaching show the right results? That was the great test. The candidates had to be speakers