"In age and feebleness extreme,Who shall a sinful worm redeem?Jesus, my only hope thou art,Strength of my failing flesh and heart:O could I catch one smile from thee,And drop into eternity!"
At the very moment that Charles was bidding adieu to earth John was at Shropshire, and the congregation was engaged in singing:
"Come, let us join our friends aboveThat have obtained the prize,And on the eagle wings of loveTo joys celestial rise.Let all the saints terrestrial sing,With those to glory gone;For all the servants of our King,In earth and heaven, are one."One family we dwell in him,One church above, beneath,Though now divided by the stream,The narrow stream, of death.One army of the living God,To his command we bow;Part of his host have crossed the flood,And part are crossing now."
Thus friend after friend departed, but Wesley pressed forward with a zeal which knew no abatement until eighty and seven years had passed over him.
On his last birthday he writes: "This day I enter into my eighty-eighth year. For above eighty-six years I found none of the infirmities of old age; my eye did not wax dim, neither was my natural strength abated. But last August I found almost a sudden change—my eyes were so dim that no glasses would help me; my strength likewise quite forsook me and probably will not return in this world. But I feel no pain from head to foot, only it seems nature is exhausted, and, humanly speaking, will sink more and more till
'The weary springs of life stand still at last.'"
He attended and presided at his last Conference, held at Bristol, July 20, 1790. Anxious to devote every hour and moment to the service of the Master, he visits Cornwall, London, and the Isle of Wight, and then returns to Bristol. He is again in London, and then he is seen standing under the shade of a large tree at Winchelsea, preaching his last outdoor sermon. Though unable to preach longer in the open air, he still continues to preach "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." At Colchester rich and poor, clergy and laity, throng to hear him in wondering crowds. At Norwich,where once mob violence swept everything, he is received as an angel of mercy. At Yarmouth the house is thronged. At Lynn all the clergymen in the town, save one who was lame, came out to hear him.
Again he is in London preaching in all his chapels, and even making preparations to visit Ireland and Scotland, but these last visits his failing strength will not allow. Well does Tyerman call him "the flying evangelist."
The shadows are lengthening, and he seems conscious that his end is near. He preaches his last sermon at Leatherhead, Wednesday, February 3, 1791, from Isa. lv, 6: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near." He concluded the sermon by singing one of Charles Wesley's hymns:
"O that without a lingering groanI may the welcome word receive;My body with my charge lay down,And cease at once to work and live!"
On that day fell from his lips a Gospel trumpet which had sounded the word of life more frequently and effectually than was ever known to have been done by an uninspired man.
WESLEY AND HIS TRIUMPHANT DEATH.
Wesleyhad reached his home—City Road—the proper place from which to be translated to his heavenly mansion. He is waiting for the chariot. His friends are deeply anxious. Joseph Bradford sends the following dispatch to the preachers:
"Dear brethren, Mr. Wesley is very ill. Pray! Pray! Pray!"
Looking over the whole of an extended life of unparalleled labor and suffering, he exclaims:
"I the chief of sinners am,But Jesus died for me."
The day following he was heard to say, "There is no way into the holiest but by the blood of Jesus."
He frequently, with full heart, sang Watts's rapturous hymn, beginning:
"I'll praise my Maker while I've breath."
The tide of life is rapidly ebbing, but light from the realms above reveals to his enraptured soul the glories of his eternal home. Collecting all his remaining strength, he joyfully exclaims, "The best of all is, God is with us."
The chamber where the good man gathered up his feet in death seemed radiant with the divine glory. A few of his preachers and intimate friends were there—Bradford, long his traveling companion; Dr. Whitehead, afterward his biographer; Rogers and his devoted wife, Hester Ann, who ministered to him in his last hours; the daughter of Charles Wesley; Thomas Rankin; George Whitefield, his book steward; and a few others. They knelt around the couch of the dying saint. Bradford prayed. Then with a low but almost angelic whisper he said, "Farewell." It was his last. And at the moment Bradford was saying, in a petition which must have reached the throne of God, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and this heir of glory shall come in." While they thus lingered "the weary wheels of life" stood still, and the unparalleled career of John Wesley was ended at 10a. m., March 2, 1791.
Hester Ann Rogers, who was present, says: "And while he could hardly be said to be an inhabitant of earth, being now speechless, and his eyes fixed, victory and glory were written on his countenance, and quivered, as it were, on his dying lips. No language can paint what appeared in that face! The more we gazed upon it the more we saw heaven unspeakable."
Thus lived and died the founder of the Methodist denomination.
It was remembered that when the mother of Wesley was dying she said, "Children, as soon as I am dead sing a song of praise." So, as Wesley himself ceased to breathe, his friends, standing about his lifeless form, sang:
"Waiting to receive thy spirit,Lo! the Saviour stands above;Shows the purchase of his merit,Reaches out the crown of love."
He had requested in his will, and, in the name of God, most solemnly adjured his executors scrupulously to observe it, that six poor men should carry his body to the grave, and should receive one pound each for the same. He requested that there should be no display, no hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp, except the tears of those who loved him and were following him to Abraham's bosom. All these directions were strictly observed.
He was buried in the cemetery of the City Road Chapel.
Mr. Wesley's death attracted public notice beyond any former example not only in London, but throughout the United Kingdom. Thousands of his people, with the traveling preachers, went into mourning for him. The pulpits of the Methodists and of many other denominations were draped in black, and hundreds of sermons were preached on the subject of his death.
His indefatigable zeal had long been witnessed by all classes; but his motives had been variously estimated. Some attributed it to love of popularity, others to ambition, and others to love of wealth; but it now appeared that he was actuated by a pure regard for the immortal interests of mankind. Many ministers, both of the Establishment and among Dissenters, spoke with great respect of his long, laborious, devoted, and useful life, and earnestly exhorted their hearers to follow him as he followed Christ.
"He was a man," says Lord Macaulay, "whose eloquence and logical acuteness might have rendered him eminent in literature; whose genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu; and who devoted all his powers, in defiance of obloquy and derision, to what he sincerely considered the highest good of his species."
The ardor of his spirit was never dampened by difficulties nor subdued by age. The world ascribed this to enthusiasm, but he ascribed it to the grace of God. Whatever it was, it has commanded the respect of the present generation. He who was expelled from all the churches as a madman and a fanatic is now deemed worthy of a most eligible niche in England's grandest cathedral.
Dr. Watts's admirable elegy on ThomasGouge has been applied to the death of Wesley:
"The muse that mourns a nation's fallShould wait at Wesley's funeral;Should mingle majesty and groans,Such as she sings to sinking thrones;And in deep-sounding numbers tellHow Zion trembled when this pillar fell;Zion grows weak, and England poor,Nature herself, with all her store,Can furnish such a pomp for death no more."
On the monument in Westminster Abbey is the simple inscription:
JOHN WESLEY, M.A.Born June 17, 1703; Died March 2, 1791.CHARLES WESLEY, M.A.Born December 17, 1707; Died March 29,1788.
This is engraved upon the tablet:
"I look upon all the world as my parish.""The best of all is, God is with us."
"God buries his workmen, but carries on his work."
The first two were the utterances of John, and the last of Charles, Wesley.
The following poem was written by the "Bard of Sheffield," Hon. James Montgomery,on the first centennial of Wesleyan Methodism, 1836. It is a beautiful tribute:
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
One song of praise, one voice of prayer,Around, above, below;Ye winds and waves the burden bear,A hundred years ago!A hundred years ago! What then?There rose the world to blessA little band of faithful men—A cloud of witnesses.It looked but like a human hand;Few welcomed it, more feared.But as it opened o'er the landThe hand of God appeared.The Lord made bare his holy armIn sight of earth and hell;Fiends fled before it with alarm,And alien armies fell.God gave the word, and great has beenThe preachers' company.What wonders have our fathers seen!What signs their children see!One song of praise for mercies past,Through all our courts resound;One voice of prayer, that to the lastGrace may much more abound.All hail! a hundred years ago!And when our lips are dumb,Be millions heard rejoicing so,A hundred years to come.
WESLEY'S CHARACTER AS ESTIMATED BY UNBIASED JUDGES.
Rev. Dr. Rigg, author ofThe Living Wesley, says: "No single man for centuries has moved the world as Wesley moved it; since Luther, no man."
Dr. Abel Stevens, the historian of Methodism, says Mr. Wesley "possessed, in an eminent degree, one trait of a master mind—the power of comprehending and managing at once the outlines and details of plans. It is this power that forms the philosophical genius in science; it is essential to the successful commander and great statesman. It is illustrated in the whole economical system of Methodism."
Bishop Coke, in speaking of Mr. Wesley's unbounded benevolence, says: "Sometimes, indeed, the love which believeth and hopeth all things, of which he had so large a share, laid him open to imposition, and wisdom slept at the door of love; if there was any fault in his public character, it was an excess of mercy."
Mr. Lecky (no mean judge) has this to say: "The evangelical movement which directly orindirectly originated with Wesley produced a general revival of religious feeling which has incalculably increased the efficiency of almost every religious body in the community, while at the same time it has materially affected party politics."
In Green'sHistory of the English Peoplehe speaks of Wesley and Whitefield thus: "In power as a preacher Wesley ranked next to Whitefield; as a hymn writer he stood second to his brother Charles. But, combining in some degree the excellences of either, he possessed qualities in which both were utterly deficient—an indefatigable industry, cool judgment, command over others, a faculty of organization, and a union of patience and moderation, with an imperious ambition which marked him as a ruler of men." "If men may be measured by the work they have accomplished, John Wesley can hardly fail to be recorded as the greatest figure that has appeared in the religious world since the days of the Reformation."
When Dean Stanley, in 1876, unveiled the memorial tablet erected in Westminster Abbey to the memory of John and Charles Wesley, consisting of medallion profiles of these great men, he said: "John Wesley is presented as preaching on his father's tomb, and I have always thought that it is, as it were, a parable which represented his relation to national institutions.He took his stand on his father's tomb—on the venerable and ancestral traditions of the country and the Church. That was the stand from which he addressed the world; it was not from points of disagreement, but from the points of agreement, with those in the Christian religion that he produced those great effects which have never since died out in English Christendom. It is because of his having been in that age, which I am inclined to think has been unduly disparaged, the reviver of religious fervor among our churches that we all feel we owe him a debt of gratitude, and that he ought to have this monument placed among those of the benefactors of England. These men had a perfect right to this national and lasting honor."
Mr. Augustin Birrell, queen's councilor and member of Parliament, in a lecture before the Royal Institute of London, says of John Wesley: "The life of John Wesley, who was born in 1703 and died in 1791, covered, practically, the whole of the eighteenth century, of which he was one of the most remarkable and strenuous figures, and his Journals were the most amazing records of human exertion ever penned by man. Those who have ever contested a parliamentary election know how exhausting was the experience; yet John Wesley contested the three kingdoms in the cause of Christ, and during the contest, which lasted forty-fouryears, he paid more turnpike toll than any man who ever lived. His usual record of travel was eight thousand miles a year [we think this an overestimate], and even when he was an old man it seldom fell below five thousand miles. Wesley was a great bit of the eighteenth century, and was, therefore, a great revealing record of the century. He was a cool, level-headed man, and had he devoted his talents to any other pursuit than that of spreading religion he must have acquired a large fortune; but from the first day of his life, almost, he learned to regard religion as his business."
"A greater poet may rise than Homer or Milton," says Dr. Dobbins, "a greater theologian than Calvin, a greater philosopher than Bacon, a greater dramatist than any of ancient or modern fame; but a more distinguished revivalist of the churches than John Wesley, never."
"Taking him altogether," says Mr. Tyerman, "Wesley is a mansui generis. He stands alone; he has no successor; no one like him went before; no contemporary was a coequal. There was a wholeness about the man such as is rarely seen. His physique, his genius, his wit, his penetration, his judgment, his memory, his beneficence, his religion, his diligence, his conversation, his courteousness, his manners, and his dress made him as perfect as we ever expect man to be on this side of heaven." Hearose with the lark, traveled with the sun, preached like an angel through three kingdoms, claimed the world for his parish, and died like a hero, shouting, "The best of all is, God is with us."
Wilberforce said, "I consider Wesley as the most influential mind of the last century—the man who will have produced the greatest effects centuries, or perhaps millenniums, hence, if the present race of men should continue so long."
No more graphic description of the Wesleyan movement has appeared than that given by F. W. Farrar, Dean of Canterbury. He says:
John Wesley found a Church forgetful and neglectful of its duties, somnolent in the plethora of riches, and either unmindful or unwisely mindful of the poor. He found churches empty, dirty, neglected, crumbling into hideous disrepair; he found the work of the ministry performed in a manner scandalously perfunctory.... But John Wesley, becoming magnetic with moral sincerity, flashed into myriads of hearts fat as brawn, cold as ice, hard as the nether millstone, the burning spark of his own intense convictions, and thus he saved the Church....Although the world and the Church have learned to be comparatively generous to Wesley, now that a hundred years have sped away, and though the roar of contemporary scandal has long since ceased, I doubt whether even now he is at all adequately appreciated. I doubt whether many are aware of the extent to which to this day the impulse to every great work of philanthropy and social reformationhas been due to his energy and insight. The British and the Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, the London Missionary Society, even the Church Missionary Society, owe not a little to his initiative. The vast spread of religious instruction by weekly periodicals, and the cheap press, with all its stupendous consequences, were inaugurated by him. He gave a great extension to Sunday schools and the work of Robert Raikes. He gave a great impulse both to national education and to technical education, and in starting the work of Silas Told, the foundry teacher, he anticipated the humble and holy work of John Pounds, the Portsmouth cobbler. He started in his own person the funeral reform, which is only now beginning to attract public attention, when in his will he directed that at his obsequies there should be no hearse, no escutcheon, no coach, no pomp. He visited prisons and ameliorated the lot of prisoners before John Howard; and his very last letter was written to stimulate William Wilberforce in his parliamentary labors for the emancipation of the slave. When we add to this the revival of fervent worship and devout hymnology among Christian congregations, and their deliverance from the drawling doggerel of Sternhold and Hopkins, and the frigid nullities of Tate and Brady, we have indeed shown how splendid was the list of his achievements, and that, as Isaac Taylor says, he furnished "the starting point for our modern religious history in all that is characteristic of the present time."And yet, in this long and splendid catalogue, we have not mentioned his greatest and most distinctive work, which was that through him to the poor the Gospel was again preached. Let Whitefield have the credit of having been the first to make the green grass his pulpit and the heaven his sounding-board; but Wesley instantly followed, at all costs, the then daring example, and through all evil report and allfurious opposition he continued it until at last at Kingswood, at the age of eighty-one, he preached in the open air, under the shade of trees which he himself had planted, and surrounded by the children and children's children of his old disciples, who had long since passed away. Overwhelming evidence exists to show what preaching was before and in his day; overwhelming evidence exists to show what the Church and people of England were before and in his day—how dull, how vapid, how soulless, how Christless was the preaching; how torpid, how Laodicean was the Church; how godless, how steeped in immorality was the land. To Wesley was mainly granted the task, for which he was set apart by the hands of invisible consecration—the task which even an archangel might have envied him—of awakening a mighty revival of the religious life in those dead pulpits, in that slumbering Church, in that corrupt society. His was the religious sincerity which not only founded the Wesleyan community, but, working through the heart of the very Church which had despised him, flashed fire into her whitening embers. Changing its outward forms, the work of John Wesley caused, first, the evangelical movement, then the high church movement, and, in its enthusiasm of humanity, has even reappeared in all that is best in the humble Salvationists, who learned from the example of Wesley what Bishop Lightfoot called "that lost secret of Christianity, the compulsion of human souls." Recognizing no utterance of authority as equally supreme with that which came to him from the Sinai of conscience, Wesley did the thing and scorned the consequence. His was the voice which offered hope to the despairing and welcome to the outcast.... The poet says:"Of those three hundred grant but threeTo make a new Thermopylæ."And when I think of John Wesley, the organizer,of Charles Wesley, the poet, of George Whitefield, the orator, of this mighty movement, I feel inclined to say of those three self-sacrificing and holy men, Grant but even one to help in the mighty work which yet remains to be accomplished! Had we but three such now,
John Wesley found a Church forgetful and neglectful of its duties, somnolent in the plethora of riches, and either unmindful or unwisely mindful of the poor. He found churches empty, dirty, neglected, crumbling into hideous disrepair; he found the work of the ministry performed in a manner scandalously perfunctory.... But John Wesley, becoming magnetic with moral sincerity, flashed into myriads of hearts fat as brawn, cold as ice, hard as the nether millstone, the burning spark of his own intense convictions, and thus he saved the Church....
Although the world and the Church have learned to be comparatively generous to Wesley, now that a hundred years have sped away, and though the roar of contemporary scandal has long since ceased, I doubt whether even now he is at all adequately appreciated. I doubt whether many are aware of the extent to which to this day the impulse to every great work of philanthropy and social reformationhas been due to his energy and insight. The British and the Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, the London Missionary Society, even the Church Missionary Society, owe not a little to his initiative. The vast spread of religious instruction by weekly periodicals, and the cheap press, with all its stupendous consequences, were inaugurated by him. He gave a great extension to Sunday schools and the work of Robert Raikes. He gave a great impulse both to national education and to technical education, and in starting the work of Silas Told, the foundry teacher, he anticipated the humble and holy work of John Pounds, the Portsmouth cobbler. He started in his own person the funeral reform, which is only now beginning to attract public attention, when in his will he directed that at his obsequies there should be no hearse, no escutcheon, no coach, no pomp. He visited prisons and ameliorated the lot of prisoners before John Howard; and his very last letter was written to stimulate William Wilberforce in his parliamentary labors for the emancipation of the slave. When we add to this the revival of fervent worship and devout hymnology among Christian congregations, and their deliverance from the drawling doggerel of Sternhold and Hopkins, and the frigid nullities of Tate and Brady, we have indeed shown how splendid was the list of his achievements, and that, as Isaac Taylor says, he furnished "the starting point for our modern religious history in all that is characteristic of the present time."
And yet, in this long and splendid catalogue, we have not mentioned his greatest and most distinctive work, which was that through him to the poor the Gospel was again preached. Let Whitefield have the credit of having been the first to make the green grass his pulpit and the heaven his sounding-board; but Wesley instantly followed, at all costs, the then daring example, and through all evil report and allfurious opposition he continued it until at last at Kingswood, at the age of eighty-one, he preached in the open air, under the shade of trees which he himself had planted, and surrounded by the children and children's children of his old disciples, who had long since passed away. Overwhelming evidence exists to show what preaching was before and in his day; overwhelming evidence exists to show what the Church and people of England were before and in his day—how dull, how vapid, how soulless, how Christless was the preaching; how torpid, how Laodicean was the Church; how godless, how steeped in immorality was the land. To Wesley was mainly granted the task, for which he was set apart by the hands of invisible consecration—the task which even an archangel might have envied him—of awakening a mighty revival of the religious life in those dead pulpits, in that slumbering Church, in that corrupt society. His was the religious sincerity which not only founded the Wesleyan community, but, working through the heart of the very Church which had despised him, flashed fire into her whitening embers. Changing its outward forms, the work of John Wesley caused, first, the evangelical movement, then the high church movement, and, in its enthusiasm of humanity, has even reappeared in all that is best in the humble Salvationists, who learned from the example of Wesley what Bishop Lightfoot called "that lost secret of Christianity, the compulsion of human souls." Recognizing no utterance of authority as equally supreme with that which came to him from the Sinai of conscience, Wesley did the thing and scorned the consequence. His was the voice which offered hope to the despairing and welcome to the outcast.... The poet says:
"Of those three hundred grant but threeTo make a new Thermopylæ."
And when I think of John Wesley, the organizer,of Charles Wesley, the poet, of George Whitefield, the orator, of this mighty movement, I feel inclined to say of those three self-sacrificing and holy men, Grant but even one to help in the mighty work which yet remains to be accomplished! Had we but three such now,
"Hoary-headed selfishness would feelHis deathblow, and would totter to his grave;A brighter light attend the human day,When every transfer of earth's natural giftShould be a commerce of good words and works."
Wesley's grave drawingJOHN WESLEY'S GRAVE.
We have, it is true, hundreds of faithful workers in the Church of England and in other religious communities. But for the slaying of dragons, the rekindlement of irresistible enthusiasm, the redress of intolerable wrongs, a Church needs many Pentecosts and many resurrections. And these, in the providence of God, are brought about, not by committees and conferences and common workers, but by men who escape the average; by men who come forth from the multitude; by men who, not content to trudge on in the beaten paths of commonplace and the cart-ruts of routine, go forth, according to their Lord's command, into the highways and hedges; by men in whom the love of God burns like a consuming flame upon the altar of the heart; by men who have become electric to make myriads of other souls thrill with their own holy zeal. Such men are necessarily rare, but God's richest boon to any nation, to any society, to any Church, is the presence and work of such a man—and such a man was John Wesley.
We have, it is true, hundreds of faithful workers in the Church of England and in other religious communities. But for the slaying of dragons, the rekindlement of irresistible enthusiasm, the redress of intolerable wrongs, a Church needs many Pentecosts and many resurrections. And these, in the providence of God, are brought about, not by committees and conferences and common workers, but by men who escape the average; by men who come forth from the multitude; by men who, not content to trudge on in the beaten paths of commonplace and the cart-ruts of routine, go forth, according to their Lord's command, into the highways and hedges; by men in whom the love of God burns like a consuming flame upon the altar of the heart; by men who have become electric to make myriads of other souls thrill with their own holy zeal. Such men are necessarily rare, but God's richest boon to any nation, to any society, to any Church, is the presence and work of such a man—and such a man was John Wesley.
THE GREATER WESLEY OF THE OPENING CENTURY.
Whenon March 2, 1791, John Wesley closed his eyes to earth and opened them in heaven the visible results of his life were already great. At the opening of this new century they are greater. Only a few rods from where he his "body with his charge laid down, and ceased at once to work and live," is Wesley's Chapel, City Road, the head center of universal Methodism. Standing on the walls of this Zion in 1791 and looking around, what would we see?
Confining our vision within the bounds of Great Britain and Ireland, we would see this chapel surrounded by 644 others, "wholly appropriate to the worship of God." These chapels are ministered unto by 294 itinerant preachers, and have an enrollment of 71,668 members of the societies.
Extending our vision to the regions beyond, in the Wesleyan Methodist missions in France, the West Indies, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, we would see in 1791 an enrolled membership of 5,300, looked after by 19 ministers; giving as the total of WesleyanMethodists at that time 76,968, and 313 ministers.
In addition to the home and foreign work of which John Wesley was the head, and City Road Chapel the center, was the Methodism of the United States, which in 1790 reported 43,265 members and 198 ministers, and which was known as "The Methodist Episcopal Church of America." So that we would see as the total of Methodists in the world at Wesley's last Conference, in 1790, 120,233 members, and 511 ministers. Besides these, a great number who, from 1739 to 1790, saved by Methodist agency, had been transferred to the Church above.
Let us now in this year 1901 stand again on the walls of this old Methodist cathedral and look around us for the living monument of the greater Wesley. With the March quarterly meetings' returns in our hands we see that in great Britain alone "the total number of persons meeting in class, seniors and juniors, is 573,140, an increase for the year of 12,937." To these must be added the 46,262 full members and 11,619 "on trial" in the Wesleyan foreign missions reported in 1899. All these are under the government of the mother Conference. Then there are the Irish, French, South African, and West Indian Conferences, which are affiliated to it; and to these must be added the detached bodies, such as the AustralianMethodist Church, the Methodist New Connection, Wesleyan Reform Union, Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, United Methodist Free Churches, and Independent Methodist Churches, all included in "Old World Methodism," and rolling up the grand totals of 25,675 churches, 1,201,663 members and probationers, and 64,550 traveling and local preachers.
Thus the great Methodism of the Old World in 1791, with its 313 ministers and 76,968 members, in 1901 has become the greater Methodism, with 64,550 preachers and 1,201,663 members.
Let the point of view now be changed from City Road Chapel, London, to John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, in New York city, for a survey of the New World Methodism. To the north is the Methodist Church of Canada, with 11 Conferences and a mission in China, with a ministry, traveling and local, of 4,322, and a membership of 284,901. The missions in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, in 1791, have thus developed and become the greater Canadian Methodism.
After this telescopic view let the vision be confined to American Methodism. We are still at old John Street Church in New York city. The Methodist tree, planted on this spot in 1766, has spread itself out into 16 branches, which with the parent trunk includes9 white and 8 colored growths. The 43,265 American Methodists of 1790 have grown into 5,916,349 in 1901, and the 198 ministers have increased to 37,907, who preach in 54,351 Methodist churches. The Methodists lead the ecclesiastical hosts in America in the matter of members, and stand second only to the Roman Catholics, who count all adherents as communicants. The latter claim 8,766,083 by including all born into their families. Roman Catholicism in America has for its sharpest competitor American Methodism. If the Methodists counted their adherents as the Catholics do they would claim about 18,000,000 over against the Catholics less than 9,000,000.
The names of the branches of the American Methodist family are: 1. The Methodist Episcopal; 2. Union American Methodist Episcopal; 3. African Methodist Episcopal; 4. African Union Methodist Protestant; 5. African Methodist Episcopal Zion; 6. Methodist Protestant; 7. Wesleyan Methodist; 8. Methodist Episcopal, South; 9. Congregational Methodist; 10. Congregational Methodist (colored); 11. New Congregational Methodist; 12. Zion Union Apostolic; 13. Colored Methodist Episcopal; 14. Primitive Methodist; 15. Free Methodist; 16. Independent Methodist; 17. Evangelical Missionary. These all claim to be one in doctrine, one in spirit and aim, andshould be one in piety. Would that they were all one in Church union!
Epworth Leaguers will be more especially interested in the progress of their own Methodist Episcopal Church, which is the oldest daughter, as well as the largest branch, of Wesleyan Methodism. FromThe Methodist Year Book, 1901, we learn that our "lay membership—total of full members and probationers (on partial returns only)—is 2,907,877." Dr. H. K. Carroll inThe Christian Advocate, January 3, 1901, tells the story of progress so well that we insert the entire article:
Only living things grow. The abundant life of American Methodism, beginning under favorable conditions, made growth natural, luxuriant, and easy. The soil and the sun, the air and the rains, were all that the fresh, vigorous plant needed for a development which has been truly amazing.Time, 1766; place, New York; a godly woman calling a few backslidden Methodists to their duty; a local preacher; meetings in a sail loft; a new church costing $3,000. Such was the beginning.The soil was fallow. It produced rank weeds. There were few husbandmen. Other churches insisted on well-trained men from European schools. Methodism, having no such resources, organized training classes on the field and taught its men at the plow. Such were the conditions.Time, 1784; place, Baltimore; a plain meetinghouse with stiff benches; 60 preachers in Conference; an independent Church, with a name, an episcopacy, a ministry, the sacraments, a practical system, a doctrinal standard, a ritual. Such was the organization. What has been the growth?A growth of 2,900,000 in 134 years and of 2,835,000 in the past century. The 65,000 has added to itselfnearly 44 times. The average annual gain has been 28,350.The percentage of increase is 4,362. If the population of the country had increased in this period at the same rate, it would now be 232,000,000 instead of 76,300,000.But the gains of the Methodist Episcopal Church have been only a part of the gains of Methodism. Include all branches since 1834, and we have:The 65,000 has repeated itself about 91 times, or once every 13 months during the last century. The percentage of gain is 8,977. If the population had increased at the same rate it would now be 476,000,000 instead of 76,300,000. The average annual gain has been 58,350.The gain in preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church is indicated as follows:The gain for the century is 17,413. The 287 have been multiplied by 62; average annual gain, 174.The beginning in a sail loft in 1766, the erection shortly afterward of a church costing $3,000, gave no more promise of ecclesiastical wealth than it did of growth in membership. Our 27,000 churches, worth $116,000,000, show a development of resources as wonderful as a miracle. It takes now between $23,000,000 and $24,000,000 a year to carry on the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to say nothing about its universities, colleges, and hospitals. The consecration of wealth is truly stupendous. Methodists have not been stingy.Methodism was ninth among Protestant denominations in number of churches in 1775, and third in number of communicants in 1800. It soon advanced to first place in numbers, and easily holds this place at the end of the century. It was only a handful of corn on the top of the mountains at the beginning. How wonderfully has God multiplied it!It is pertinent to ask, How did it win its success?Not by immigration, as many other Churches did. Roman Catholics came here from Europe by hundreds of thousands. The Lutheran, Reformed German, and Presbyterian Churches gained immensely by the streams of immigration. But Methodists and Baptistshave grown out of American soil and drawn their chief strength from the surrounding elements.Not by proselytism. We have lost hundreds of thousands of converts; we have gained comparatively few in return from the denominations we have fed. We would like to hold all who are converted at our altars, but we do not feel that our losses have impoverished us, though they have enriched our neighbors.Not because of wealth, social prestige, ecclesiastical antiquity, or what an historian calls "the aristocracy of education and position." Other Churches had these; we began with nothing but a needy field and earnest men, full of the Holy Ghost and flaming with zeal for the Gospel.Not by our machinery and methods. These were powerful, even providential, aids; but if we ever come to depend on these alone Methodism will be a great system of enginery, with wheels, pulleys, cogs, and joints, all silent and inert, because the boilers are cold. It was not our itinerancy, our class meetings, our Conferences, or our methods which gave us success.Our hosts have been won, by the power of the Gospel manifested in a real, religious experience, from the vast classes of unconverted persons. We have regarded these, wherever we found them, as legitimate prey. We count it a special honor that our millions are trophies won for Christ from the masses of godless, indifferent, unconverted persons. The late Dr. John Hall once said that he specially honored the Methodist Church for the importance it attaches to conversion. The power of Methodism is spiritual in its nature.I do not believe a greater boon could be asked for our Church in the twentieth century than that it might continue to regard it as its special task to call men and women to repentance and insist upon an experience such as our fathers enjoyed and we profess.
Only living things grow. The abundant life of American Methodism, beginning under favorable conditions, made growth natural, luxuriant, and easy. The soil and the sun, the air and the rains, were all that the fresh, vigorous plant needed for a development which has been truly amazing.
Time, 1766; place, New York; a godly woman calling a few backslidden Methodists to their duty; a local preacher; meetings in a sail loft; a new church costing $3,000. Such was the beginning.
The soil was fallow. It produced rank weeds. There were few husbandmen. Other churches insisted on well-trained men from European schools. Methodism, having no such resources, organized training classes on the field and taught its men at the plow. Such were the conditions.
Time, 1784; place, Baltimore; a plain meetinghouse with stiff benches; 60 preachers in Conference; an independent Church, with a name, an episcopacy, a ministry, the sacraments, a practical system, a doctrinal standard, a ritual. Such was the organization. What has been the growth?
A growth of 2,900,000 in 134 years and of 2,835,000 in the past century. The 65,000 has added to itselfnearly 44 times. The average annual gain has been 28,350.
The percentage of increase is 4,362. If the population of the country had increased in this period at the same rate, it would now be 232,000,000 instead of 76,300,000.
But the gains of the Methodist Episcopal Church have been only a part of the gains of Methodism. Include all branches since 1834, and we have:
The 65,000 has repeated itself about 91 times, or once every 13 months during the last century. The percentage of gain is 8,977. If the population had increased at the same rate it would now be 476,000,000 instead of 76,300,000. The average annual gain has been 58,350.
The gain in preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church is indicated as follows:
The gain for the century is 17,413. The 287 have been multiplied by 62; average annual gain, 174.
The beginning in a sail loft in 1766, the erection shortly afterward of a church costing $3,000, gave no more promise of ecclesiastical wealth than it did of growth in membership. Our 27,000 churches, worth $116,000,000, show a development of resources as wonderful as a miracle. It takes now between $23,000,000 and $24,000,000 a year to carry on the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to say nothing about its universities, colleges, and hospitals. The consecration of wealth is truly stupendous. Methodists have not been stingy.
Methodism was ninth among Protestant denominations in number of churches in 1775, and third in number of communicants in 1800. It soon advanced to first place in numbers, and easily holds this place at the end of the century. It was only a handful of corn on the top of the mountains at the beginning. How wonderfully has God multiplied it!
It is pertinent to ask, How did it win its success?
Not by immigration, as many other Churches did. Roman Catholics came here from Europe by hundreds of thousands. The Lutheran, Reformed German, and Presbyterian Churches gained immensely by the streams of immigration. But Methodists and Baptistshave grown out of American soil and drawn their chief strength from the surrounding elements.
Not by proselytism. We have lost hundreds of thousands of converts; we have gained comparatively few in return from the denominations we have fed. We would like to hold all who are converted at our altars, but we do not feel that our losses have impoverished us, though they have enriched our neighbors.
Not because of wealth, social prestige, ecclesiastical antiquity, or what an historian calls "the aristocracy of education and position." Other Churches had these; we began with nothing but a needy field and earnest men, full of the Holy Ghost and flaming with zeal for the Gospel.
Not by our machinery and methods. These were powerful, even providential, aids; but if we ever come to depend on these alone Methodism will be a great system of enginery, with wheels, pulleys, cogs, and joints, all silent and inert, because the boilers are cold. It was not our itinerancy, our class meetings, our Conferences, or our methods which gave us success.
Our hosts have been won, by the power of the Gospel manifested in a real, religious experience, from the vast classes of unconverted persons. We have regarded these, wherever we found them, as legitimate prey. We count it a special honor that our millions are trophies won for Christ from the masses of godless, indifferent, unconverted persons. The late Dr. John Hall once said that he specially honored the Methodist Church for the importance it attaches to conversion. The power of Methodism is spiritual in its nature.
I do not believe a greater boon could be asked for our Church in the twentieth century than that it might continue to regard it as its special task to call men and women to repentance and insist upon an experience such as our fathers enjoyed and we profess.
When John Wesley lay dying in 1791 there were only four Methodist schools in England—three small ones at London, Newcastle-on-Tyne,and Bristol, and the Kingswood School, near Bristol. The latter is still doing most excellent work at Bath. English Methodism has no university or college empowered to grant degrees. It sadly lacks secondary schools. The Leys School at Cambridge is its nearest approach to a reputable American college. But it has a good share in the elementary education of the people. Colonial Methodism excels in respect to secondary and higher education. Of American Methodism in general, and of the Methodist Episcopal Church in particular, it may be said, in this respect, "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." Whilst some of our colleges are somewhat prophetic, yet the long list of our institutions and the honorable records they have made place us in the front rank of American educators. It has been well said that "The Methodist Episcopal Church began the century with the ashes of one college." In 1900 it had 56 colleges and universities, 60 academies and seminaries, 8 institutions exclusively for women, 4 missionary institutions and training schools, 25 schools of theology, and 99 foreign mission schools—228 in all. These schools have more than 3,000 instructors, and about 50,000 students. The total value of property and endowment is about $30,000,000. "The Board of Education" in 1873 began itsnoble work of placing the first steps to these institutions very near to the feet of any young man or woman who has the ability to climb them, whether a Methodist or not. President Warren, of Boston University, puts our educational work in the strongest possible light, and in the briefest space, thus: "The Banner Church in Education."
That the Methodist Episcopal Church is indeed "the banner Church in education" the following facts bear witness:
From 1784, the year of its organization, to 1884, the Methodist Episcopal Church established 225 classical seminaries and colleges; in other words, established a classical seminary or college every fifth month through a hundred toilsome years. No other organization in human history ever made so honorable a record in the higher education, or was entitled to celebrate so jubilant a centennial. If we go back through the stormy period of the Revolution to the first feeble beginnings of American Methodism in 1766, we must add to the above-mentioned 225 institutions belonging to the Church the 58 known schools of more private ownership, to get the true aggregate of Methodist institutions for the higher education, namely, 283, a little more than one for every fifth month through the first 118 years of our existence as a Church, infancy included.
Is it not time to bury the ancient allegation that the early Methodists were indifferent or hostile to learning? If the long-standing slander must live on to the end of time, let us once in a hundred years lift it gently into the pillory of ecumenical publicity and placard it as an instructive example of immortal mendacity.
What shall we now say of universal Methodism?
Of the millions reached by her ministry we have heard. The sun never sets on her domain, for it is "from the rivers to the ends of the earth." Her people are found in every land and are at home in every zone. "All climates embrace them—the winters of Hudson's Bay, and the sun-scorched plains of India. The Pacific waves break upon their shores, and peaks crowned with eternal snow shadow their dwellings." As she enters upon the twentieth century there should be no "wrinkle upon her brow, no haze in her vision, no stoop to her form, no halt to her step, giving signs of wasted energy or declining vigor;" and this will be her history if the anointing of her founder abides upon her. Her sanctuaries will be Bethesdas, and her prayer meetings Bethels. "She will gather in the street Arab, and send missionaries to Orient fields of toil and death." Her doctrines will be as when Wesley died; her philanthropy as broad, her relations to other churches as catholic, as when he said, "The world is my parish."
Methodism is to be the friend of all and the enemy of none. So long as she maintains her power the world needs her, and she will not perish. So long as she believes in conversion, and effectually preaches it, she will not perish. So long as she believes in holiness of heart, and proclaims it "clearly, strongly, and explicitly," she will not perish. So long as she believes in the Holy Ghost and the baptism of fire, and possesses it in its fullness, she will not perish, but will go forth all aglow with the "dew of her youth bright as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners." She has the true doctrine and a flexible economy; now let her cultivate the spirit and maintain the tireless energy of her founders, and doctrines and Church shall be the doctrines and Church of the future, even till Christ comes.
"When he first the work begun,Small and feeble was his day:Now the word doth swiftly run;Now it wins its widening way:More and more it spreads and grows,Ever mighty to prevail;Sin's strongholds it now o'erthrows,Shakes the trembling gates of hell."
FOOTNOTES:[A]Some Heretics of Yesterday, pp. 294, 295.[B]Wesley Family, vol. i, p. 65.[C]Life of Wesley, pp. 24, 25.[D]The Christian Advocate.[E]Works, vol. ii, p. 24.[F]Works, vol. vi, p. 718.[G]Ibid., p. 525.[H]Sermons, vol. ii, p. 50.[I]Wesley'sNoteson 1 Cor. 15.[J]Works, vol. i, p. 454.[K]Noteson Matt. 25. 41.[L]Some Heretics of Yesterday, p. 300.[M]Wesley'sWorks, vol. 1, p. 344.[N]Works, vol. vi, p. 746.
[A]Some Heretics of Yesterday, pp. 294, 295.
[A]Some Heretics of Yesterday, pp. 294, 295.
[B]Wesley Family, vol. i, p. 65.
[B]Wesley Family, vol. i, p. 65.
[C]Life of Wesley, pp. 24, 25.
[C]Life of Wesley, pp. 24, 25.
[D]The Christian Advocate.
[D]The Christian Advocate.
[E]Works, vol. ii, p. 24.
[E]Works, vol. ii, p. 24.
[F]Works, vol. vi, p. 718.
[F]Works, vol. vi, p. 718.
[G]Ibid., p. 525.
[G]Ibid., p. 525.
[H]Sermons, vol. ii, p. 50.
[H]Sermons, vol. ii, p. 50.
[I]Wesley'sNoteson 1 Cor. 15.
[I]Wesley'sNoteson 1 Cor. 15.
[J]Works, vol. i, p. 454.
[J]Works, vol. i, p. 454.
[K]Noteson Matt. 25. 41.
[K]Noteson Matt. 25. 41.
[L]Some Heretics of Yesterday, p. 300.
[L]Some Heretics of Yesterday, p. 300.
[M]Wesley'sWorks, vol. 1, p. 344.
[M]Wesley'sWorks, vol. 1, p. 344.
[N]Works, vol. vi, p. 746.
[N]Works, vol. vi, p. 746.
Transcriber's Notes:The cover for this edition was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.Corrections made are listed below and also indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.Page 63, "Oglethrope" changed to "Oglethorpe" (reprove General Oglethorp)Page 66, "rickerty" changed to "rickety" (rickety old vessel)Page 77, "pheaching" changed to "preaching" (foolishness of preaching)Page 78, "aione" changed "alone" (Christ—Christ alone)Page 136, "that" changed to "than" (sermon than he could)Page 155, "evanglist" changed to "evangelist" (flaming Methodist evangelist)Page 182-183, James Burrill or Burrell both found in text, once each. A search by the transcriber could not find which spelling was accurate so this was retained.
The cover for this edition was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Corrections made are listed below and also indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.
Page 63, "Oglethrope" changed to "Oglethorpe" (reprove General Oglethorp)
Page 66, "rickerty" changed to "rickety" (rickety old vessel)
Page 77, "pheaching" changed to "preaching" (foolishness of preaching)
Page 78, "aione" changed "alone" (Christ—Christ alone)
Page 136, "that" changed to "than" (sermon than he could)
Page 155, "evanglist" changed to "evangelist" (flaming Methodist evangelist)
Page 182-183, James Burrill or Burrell both found in text, once each. A search by the transcriber could not find which spelling was accurate so this was retained.