vagance that he encouraged, show also the powerful ascendancy which Wesley had obtained over him by his talents and his virtues. "Dear brother," he says, "I saw you at Epworth on Tuesday evening. Fain would I have spoken to you, but that I am quite at a loss how to address or behave. Your way of thinking is so extraordinary, that your presence creates an awe, as if you were an inhabitant of another world. God grant you and your followers may always have entire liberty of conscience: will you not allow others the same? Indeed I cannot think as you do, any more than I can help honouring and loving you. Dear Sir, will you credit me? I retain the highest veneration and affection for you. The sight of you moves me strangely. I feel, in a higher degree, all that tenderness and yearning of bowels with which I am affected toward every branch of Mr. Wesley's family. I cannot refrain from tears, when I reflect, this is the man who at Oxford was more than a father to me! this is he whom I have there heard expound or dispute publicly, or preach at St. Mary's with such applause! and, oh that I should ever add, whom I have lately heard preach at Epworth! Dear Sir, is it in my power to serve or oblige you in any way? Glad I should be that you would make use of me. God open all our eyes, and lead us into truth, whatever it be."

Wesley has said that Whitelamb did not at this time believe in Christianity, nor for many years af terwards. If it were so, the error was not improbably occasioned by a strong perception of the excesses into which the Methodists had been betrayed; just as monkery and Romish fables produce irreligion in Catholic countries. But it is most likely a hasty, or a loose expression, for Whitelamb was a man of excellent character: no tendency to unbelief appears in such of his letters as have been published; and the contrary inference may be drawn from what he says to Charles: "I cannot but look upon your doctrines as of ill consequence;-consequence, I say; for, take them nakedly in themselves, and nothing seems more innocent; nay, good and holy. Suppose we grant that in you and the rest of the leaders,

who are men of sense and discernment, what is called the seal and testimony of the Spirit is something real, yet I have great reason to think that, in the generality of your followers, it is merely the effect of a heated fancy." This is judicious language, and certainly betrays no mark of irreligion. He offered his pulpit to Wesley, and incurred much censure for so doing, from those who neither considered the relation in which he stood to him, nor did justice to his principles and feelings.

Some remarkable circumstances attended Wesley's preaching in these parts. Some of his opponents, in the excess of their zeal against enthusiasm, took up a up a whole wagon load of Methodists, and carried them before a justice. When they were asked what these persons had done, there was an awkward silence; at last one of the accusers said, "Why, they pretended to be better than other people; and, besides, they prayed from morning till night." The magistrate asked if they had done nothing else.→

Yes, Sir," said an old man, "an't please your worship, they have convarted my wife. Till she went among them, she had such a tongue! and now she is as quiet as a lamb!"" Carry them back, carry them back," said the magistrate, "and let them convert all the scolds in the town." Among the hearers in the church-yard was a gentleman remarkable for professing that he was of no religion: for more than thirty years he had not attended at public worship of any kind; and, perhaps, if Wesley had preached from the pulpit instead of the tomb-stone, he might not have been induced to gratify his curiosity by hearing him. But when the sermon was ended, Wesley perceived that it had reached him, and that he stood like a statue; so he asked him abruptly, "Sir, are you a sinner?"-" Sinner enough," was the reply, which was uttered in a deep and broken voice; and he continued staring upwards, till his wife and servants, who were all in tears, put him into his chaise and took him home. Ten years afterwards, Wesley says in his journal, "I called on the gentleman who told me he was sinner enough,' when I

preached first at Epworth on my father's tomb, and was agreeably surprised to find him strong in faith, though exceeding weak in body. For some years, he told me, he had been rejoicing in God without either doubt or fear, and was now waiting for the welcome hour when he should depart and be with Christ."

There were indeed few places where his preaching was attended with greater or more permanent effect than at Epworth, upon this first visit. "Oh," he exclaims, "let none think his labour of love is lost, because the fruit does not immediately appear! Near forty years did my father labour here, but he saw little fruit of all his labour. I took some pains among this people too; and my strength also seemed spent in vain. But now the fruit appeared. There were scarce any in the town on whom either my father or I had taken any pains formerly, but the seed so long sown now sprung up bringing forth repentance and remission of sins." The intemperate and indecent conduct of the curate must undoubtedly have provoked a feeling in favour of Wesley; for this person, who was under the greatest obligations to the Wesley family, behaved toward him with the most offensive brutality. In a state of beastly intoxication himself, he set upon him with abuse and violence in the presence of a thousand people; and when some persons, who had come from the neighbouring towns to attend upon the new preacher, by his direction, waited upon Mr. Romley to inform him that they meant to communicate on the following Sunday, he said to them in reply, "Tell Mr. Wesley I shall not give him the sacrament, for he is not fit." This insult called forth from Wesley a strong expression of feeling in his journal: "How wise a God," says he, "is our God! There could not have been so fit a place under Heaven where This should befal me: first, as my father's house, the place of my nativity, and the very place where, according to the strictest sect of our religion, I had so long lived a Pharisee. It was also fit, in the highest degree, that he who re

pelled me from that very table, where I had myself so often distributed the bread of life, should be one who owed his all in this world to the tender love which my father had shown to his, as well as personally to himself."

CHAPTER XIV.

OUTCRY AGAINST METHODISM.-VIOLENCE OF MOBS AND MISCONDUCT OF MAGISTRATES.

METHODISM had now assumed some form and consistence. Meeting-houses had been built, societies formed and disciplined, funds raised, rules enacted, lay preachers admitted, and a regular system of itinerancy begun. Its furious symptoms had subsided, the affection had reached a calmer stage of its course, and there were no longer any of those outrageous exhibitions which excited scandal and compassion, as well as astonishment. But Wesley continued, with his constitutional fervour, to preach the doctrines of instantanteous regeneration, assurance, and sinless perfection. These doctrines gave just offence, and became still more offensive when they were promulgated by unlettered men, with all the vehemence and self-sufficiency of fancied inspiration. Wesley himself added to the offence by the loftiness of his pretensions. In the preface to his third journal he says, "It is not the work of man which hath lately appeared; all who calmly observe it must say, “This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.' The manner wherein God hath wrought is as strange as the work itself. These extraordinary circumstances seem to have been designed by God for the further manifestation of his work, to cause his power to be known, and to awaken the attention of a drowsy world." He related cures wrought by his faith and his prayers, which he considered and

represented as positively miraculous. By thinking strongly on a text of Scripture. which promised that these signs should follow those that believe, and by calling on Christ to increase his faith and confirm the word of his grace, he shook off instantaneously, he says, a fever which had hung upon him for some days, and was in a moment freed from all pain, and restored to his former strength. He visited a believer at night who was not expected to live till the morning: the man was speechless and senseless, and his pulse gone. "A few of us," says Wesley, "immediately joined in prayers. I relate the naked fact. Before we had done, his senses and his speech returned. Now, he that will account for this by natural causes has my free leave. But I choose to say, this is the power of God." So, too, when his own teeth ached, he prayed, and the pain left him. And this faith was so strong, that it sufficed sometimes to cure not only himself but his horse also. "My horse," he says, "was so exceedingly lame, that I was afraid I must have lain by. We could not discern what it was that was amiss, and yet he would scarce set his foot to the ground. By riding thus seven miles I was thoroughly tired, and my head ached more than it had done for some months. What I here aver is the naked fact: let every man account for it as he sees good. I then thought Cannot God heal either man or beast, by any means, or without any Immediately my weariness and headach ceased, and my horse's lameness in the same instant. Nor did he halt any more either that day or the next. A very odd accident this also."

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Even those persons who might have judged favourably of Wesley's intentions, could not but consider representations like these as discreditable to his judgment. But those who were less charitable impeached his veracity, and loudly accused him of hypocrisy and imposture. The strangest suspicions and calumnies were circulated; and men will believe any calumnies, however preposterously absurd, against those of whom they are disposed to think ill, He had hanged himself, and been cut down just in