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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ad56b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #61062 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61062) diff --git a/old/61062-0.txt b/old/61062-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9b509b4..0000000 --- a/old/61062-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7498 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 61062 *** - - The Great Revival.—Frontispiece. - -[Illustration: - - The Foundry, Moorfields. -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - THE - - GREAT REVIVAL - - OF - - THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. - - - BY - - REV. EDWIN PAXTON HOOD, - - AUTHOR OF - - “Isaac Watts: his Life and Writings, his Home and Friends,” etc. - - - - - With a Supplemental Chapter on the Revival in America. - - - - - PHILADELPHIA: - AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, - 1122 CHESTNUT STREET. - - NEW YORK. CHICAGO. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - EDITOR’S NOTE. - - -------------- - - -The only changes made in revising this work are in the local allusions -to England as “our country,” etc., and in a few phrases and expressions -naturally arising from the original preparation of the chapters for -successive numbers of a magazine. If any reader thinks that the Author’s -enthusiasm in his subject has caused him to ascribe too great influence -to the “Methodist movement,” and not to give due recognition to other -potent agencies in the “great awakening” of the last century, let him -remember that this volume does not profess to give a _complete_, but -only a _partial_ history of the Great Revival. Indeed, the Author’s -graphic pictures relate chiefly to the movement, as it swept over London -and the great mining centres of England, where the truth, as proclaimed -by the great leaders, Whitefield, the Wesleys, and their co-laborers, -won its greatest victories, and where Methodism has ever continued to -render some of its most valiant and glorious services for Christ. It is -not to be inferred that in Scotland, Ireland, and in the American -colonies, as in many portions of England, other organizations, -dissenting societies and churches were not a power in spreading the -Great Revival movement. - -A brief chapter has been added at the close, sketching some phases of -the revival in the American colonies, under the labors of Edwards, -Whitefield, the Tennents, and their associates. Whatever other material -has been added by the Editor is indicated by brackets, thus leaving the -distinguished Author’s views and expressions intact. - -An Index has also been added, to increase the permanent value of the -book to the reader. If the history of the remarkable “religious -awakenings” of the eighteenth century were more diligently studied, and -the holy enthusiasm and wonderful zeal of those great leaders in -“hunting for souls” were to inspire workers of this century, what -marvellous conquests and victories should we witness for the Son of God! - -Philadelphia, March, 1882. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PREFACE. - - -------------- - - -The author of the following pages begs that they may be read kindly—and, -he will venture to say, _not_ critically. Originally published as a -series of papers in the _Sunday at Home_, * * * they are only -_Vignettes_—etchings. The History of the great Religious Movement of the -Eighteenth Century yet remains unwritten; not often has the world known -such a marvellous awakening of religious thought; and, as we are further -removed in time, so, perhaps, we are better able to judge of the -momentous circumstances, could we but seize the point of view. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - CONTENTS. - - -------------- - - - CHAP. PAGE. - - I. THE DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 7 - - II. FIRST STREAKS OF DAWN 24 - - III. OXFORD: NEW LIGHTS AND OLD LANTERNS 48 - - IV. CAST OUT FROM THE CHURCH—TAKING TO THE 68 - FIELDS - - V. THE REVIVAL CONSERVATIVE 86 - - VI. THE SINGERS OF THE REVIVAL 109 - - VII. LAY PREACHING AND LAY PREACHERS 132 - - VIII. A GALLERY OF REVIVALIST PORTRAITS 154 - - IX. BLOSSOMS IN THE WILDERNESS 180 - - X. THE REVIVAL BECOMES EDUCATIONAL—ROBERT 193 - RAIKES - - XI. THE ROMANTIC STORY OF SILAS TOLD 216 - - XII. MISSIONARY SOCIETIES 250 - - XIII. AFTERMATH 260 - - XIV. REVIVAL IN THE NEW WORLD 281 - - APPENDICES 303 - - INDEX 321 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE GREAT REVIVAL. - - -------------- - - - - - CHAPTER I - - DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN. - - -It cannot be too often remembered or repeated that when the Bible has -been brought face to face with the conscience of corrupt society, in -every age it has shown itself to be that which it professes, and which -its believers declare it to be—“the great power of God.” It proved -itself thus amidst the hoary and decaying corruptions of the ancient -civilisation, when its truths were first published to the Roman Empire; -it proclaimed its power to the impure but polished society of Florence, -when Savonarola preached his wonderful sermons in St. Mark’s; and -effected the same results throughout the whole German Empire, when Bible -truth sounded forth from Luther’s trumpet-tones. The same principle is -illustrated where the great evangelical truths of the New Testament -entered nations, as in Spain or France, only to be rejected. From that -rejection and the martyrdoms of the first believers; those nations have -never recovered themselves even to this hour; and of the two nations, -that in which the rejection was the most haughty and cruel, has suffered -most from its renunciation. - -England has passed through three great evangelical revivals. - -The first, the period of the REFORMATION, whose force was latent there, -even before the waves of the great German revolution reached its shores, -and called forth the pen of a monarch, and that monarch a haughty Tudor, -to enter the lists of disputation with the lowly-born son of a miner of -Hartz Mountains. What that Reformation effected in England we all very -well know; the changes it wrought in opinion, the martyrs who passed -away in their chariots of fire in vindication of its doctrines, the -great writers and preachers to whose works and names we frequently and -lovingly refer. - -Then came the second great evangelical revival, the period of -PURITANISM,[1] whose central interests gather round the great civil -wars. This was the time, and these were the opinions which produced some -of the most massive and magnificent writers of our language; the whole -mind of the country was stirred to its deepest heart by faith in those -truths, which to believe enobles human nature, and enables it to endure -“as seeing Him who is invisible.” There can be no doubt that it produced -some of the grandest and noblest minds, whether for service by sword or -pen, in the pulpit or the cabinet, that the world has known. Lord -Macaulay’s magnificently glowing description of the English Puritan, and -how he attained, by his evangelical opinions, his stature of strength, -will be familiar to all readers who know his essay on Milton. - -Footnote 1: - - Appendix A. - -But the present aim is to gather up some of the facts and impressions, -and briefly to recite some of the influences of the third great -evangelical revival in the Eighteenth Century. We are guilty of no -exaggeration in saying that these have been equally deserving historic -fame with either of the preceding. The story has less, perhaps, to -excite some of our most passionate human interests; it had not to make -its way through stakes and scaffolds, although it could recite many -tales of persecution; it unsheathed no sword, the weapons of its warfare -were not carnal; and on the whole, it may be said its doctrine distilled -“as the dew;” yet it is not too much to say that from the revival of the -last century came forth that wonderfully manifold reticulation and holy -machinery of piety and benevolence, we find in such active operation -around us to-day. - -All impartial historians of the period place this most remarkable -religious impulse in the rank of the very foremost phenomena of the -times. The calm and able historian, Earl Stanhope, speaking of it, as -“despised at its commencement,” continues, “with less immediate -importance than wars or political changes, it endures long after not -only the result but the memory of these has passed away, and thousands” -(his lordship ought to have said millions) “who never heard of Fontenoy -or Walpole, continue to follow the precepts, and venerate the name of -John Wesley.” While the latest, a still more able and equally impartial -and quiet historian, Mr. Lecky, says, “Our splendid victories by land -and sea must yield in real importance to this religious revolution; it -exercised a profound and lasting influence upon the spirit of the -Established Church of England, upon the amount and distribution of the -moral forces of that nation, and even upon the course of its political -history.” - -Shall we, then, first attempt to obtain some adequate idea of what this -Revival effected, by a slight effort to realise what sort of world and -state of society it was into which the Revival came? One writer truly -remarks, “Never has century risen on christian England so void of soul -and faith as that which opened with Queen Anne, and which reached its -misty noon beneath the second George, a dewless night succeeded by a -dewless dawn. There was no freshness in the past and no promise in the -future; the Puritans were buried, the Methodists were not born.” It is -unquestionably true that black, bad and corrupt as society was, for the -most part, all round, in the eighteenth century, intellectual and -spiritual forces broke forth, simultaneously we had almost said, and -believing, as we do, in the Providence which governed the rise of both, -we may say, consentaneously, which have left far behind all social -regenerations which the pen of history has recited before. Of almost all -the fruits we enjoy, it may be said the seeds were planted then; even -those which, like the printing-press or the gospel, had been planted -ages before, were so transplanted as to flourish with a new vigour. - -Our eye has been taught to rest on an interesting incident. It was in -1757 John Wesley, travelling and preaching, then about fifty years of -age, but still with nearly forty years of work before him, arrived in -Glasgow. He saw in the University its library and its pictures; but, had -he possessed the vision of a Hebrew seer he might have glanced up from -the quadrangle of the college to the humble rooms, up a spiral -staircase, of a young workman, over whose lodging was the sign and -information that they were tenanted by a “mathematical instrument maker -to the University.” This young man, living there upon a poor fare, and -eking out a poor subsistence, with many thoughts burdening his mind, was -destined to be the founder of the greatest commercial and material -revolution the world has known: through him seems to have been fulfilled -the wonderfully significant prophecy of Nahum: “The chariots shall rage -in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broad ways: -they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings.” This -young man was James Watt, who gave to the world the steam engine. A few -years after he gave his mighty invention to Birmingham; and the world -has never been the same world since. “By that invention,” says Emerson, -“one man can do the work of two hundred and fifty men;” and in -Manchester alone and in its vicinity there are probably sixty thousand -boilers, and the aggregate power of a million horses. - -Let not the allusion seem out of place. That age was the seed-time of -the present harvest fields; in that time those great religious ideas -which have wrought such an astonishing revolution, acquired body and -form; and we ought to notice how, when God sets free some new idea, He -also calls into existence the new vehicle for its diffusion. He did not -trust the early christian faith to the old Latin races, to the selfish -and æsthetic Greek, or to the merely conservative Hebrew; He “hissed,” -in the graphic language of the old Bible, for a new race, and gave the -New Testament to the Teutonic people, who have ever been its chief -guardians and expositors; and thus, in all reviews of the development -and unfolding of the religious life in the times of which we speak, we -have to notice how the material and the spiritual changes have re-acted -on each other, while both have brought a change which has indeed “made -all things new.” - -Contrasting the state of society after the rise of the Great Revival -with what it was before, the present with the past, it is quite obvious -that something has brought about a general decency and decorum of -manners, a tenderness and benevolence of sentiment, a religious interest -in, and observance of, pious usages, not to speak of a depth of -religious life and conviction, and a general purity and nobility of -literary taste, which did not exist before. All these must be credited -to this great movement. It is not in the nature of steam engines, -whether stationary or locomotive, nor in printing presses, or -Staffordshire potteries, undirected by spiritual forces, to raise the -morals or to improve the manners of mankind. - -If sometimes in the presence of the spectacles of ignorance, crime, -irreligion, and corruption in our own day, we are filled with a sense of -despair for the prospects of society, it may be well to take a -retrospect of what society was in England at the commencement of the -last century. When George III. ascended the throne the population of -England was not much over five millions; at the commencement of the -present century it was nearly eleven millions; but with the intensely -crowded population of the present day, the cancerous elements of -society, the dangerous, pauperised, and criminal classes are in far less -proportion, not merely relatively, but really. It was a small country, -and possessed few inhabitants. There are few circumstances which can -give us much pleasure in the review. National distress was constantly -making itself bitterly felt; it was the age of mobs and riots. The state -of the criminal law was cruel in the extreme. Blackstone calculates that -for no fewer than one hundred and sixty offences, some of them of the -most frivolous description, the judge was bound to pronounce sentence of -death. Crime, of course, flourished. During the year 1738 no fewer than -fifty-two criminals were hanged at Tyburn. During that and the preceding -years, twelve thousand persons had been convicted, within the Bills of -Mortality, for smuggling gin and selling it without licence. The -amusements of all classes of people were exactly of that order -calculated to create a cruel disposition, and thus to encourage crime; -bear-baiting, bull-baiting, prize-fighting, cock-fighting: on a Shrove -Tuesday it was dangerous to pass down any public street. This was the -day selected for the barbarity of tying a harmless cock to a stake, -there to be battered to death by throwing a stick at it from a certain -distance. The grim humour of the people took this form of expressing the -national hatred to the French, from the Latin name for the cock, -_Gallus_. It was in truth a barbarous pun. - -With abundant wealth and means of happiness, the people fell far short -of what we should consider comfort now. Life and liberty were cheap, and -a prevalent Deism or Atheism was united to a wild licentiousness of -manners, brutalising all classes of society. For the most part, the -Church of England had so shamefully forgotten or neglected her duty—this -is admitted now by all her most ardent ministers—while the -Noncomformists had sunk generally into so cold an indifferentism in -devotion, and so hard and sceptical a frame in theology, that every -interest in the land was surrendered to profligacy and recklessness, -and, in thoughtful minds, to despair. Society in general was spiritually -dead. The literature of England, with two or three famous exceptions, -suffered a temporary eclipse. Such as it was, it was perverted from all -high purposes, and was utterly alien to all purity and moral dignity. A -good idea of the moral tone of the times might be obtained by running -the eye over a few volumes of the old plays of this period, many of them -even written by ladies; it is amazing to us now to think not only that -they could be tolerated, but even applauded. The gaols were filled with -culprits; but this did not prevent the heaths, moors, and forests from -swarming with highwaymen, and the cities with burglars. In the remote -regions of England, such as Cornwall in the west, Yorkshire and -Northumberland in the north, and especially in the midland -Staffordshire, the manners were wild and savage, passing all conception -and description. We have to conceive of a state of society divested of -all the educational, philanthropic, and benevolent activities of modern -times. There were no Sunday-schools, and few day-schools; here and -there, some fortunate neighbourhood possessed a grammar-school from some -old foundation. Or, perhaps some solitary chapel, retreating into a -bye-lane in the metropolitan city, or the country town, or, more -probably, far away from any town, stood at some confluence of roads, a -monument of old intolerance; but, as we said, religious life was in fact -dead, or lying in a trance. - -As to the religious teachers of those times, we know of no period in our -history concerning which it might so appropriately be said, in the words -of the prophet, “The pastors” are “become brutish, and have not sought -the Lord.” In the life of a singular man, but not a good one, Thomas -Lord Lyttleton, in a letter dated 1775, we have a most graphic portrait -of a country clergyman, a friend of Lyttleton, who went by the -designation of “Parson Adams.” We suppose him to be no bad -representative of the average parson of that day—coarse, profane, -jocular, irreligious. On a Saturday evening he told Lyttleton, his host, -that he should send his flocks to grass on the approaching Sabbath. “The -next morning,” says Lyttleton, “we hinted to him that the company did -not wish to restrain him from attending the Divine service of the -parish; but he declared that it would be adding contempt to neglect if, -when he had absented himself from his own church he should go to any -other. This curious etiquette he strictly observed; and we passed a -Sabbath contrary, I fear, both to law and to gospel.” - -If we desire to obtain some knowledge of what the Church of England was, -as represented by her clergy when George III. was king, we should go to -her own records; and for the later years of his reign, notably to the -life of that learned, active, and amiable man, Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of -London, whose memory was a wonderful repository of anecdotes, not -tending to elevate the clergy of those times in popular estimation. -Intoxication was a vice very characteristic of the cloth: on one -occasion the bishop reproved one of his Chester clergy for drunkenness: -he replied, “But, my lord, I never was drunk on duty.” “On duty!” -exclaimed the bishop; “and pray, sir, when is a clergyman not on duty?” -“True,” said the other; “my lord, I never thought of that.” The bishop -went into a poor man’s cottage in one of the valleys in the Lake -district, and asked whether his clergyman ever visited him. The poor man -replied that he did very frequently. The bishop was delighted, and -expressed his gratification at this pastoral oversight; and this led to -the discovery that there were a good many foxes on the hills behind the -house, which gave the occasion for the frequency of calls which could -scarcely be considered pastoral. The chaplain and son-in-law of Bishop -North examined candidates for orders in a tent on a cricket-field, he -being engaged as one of the players; the chaplain of Bishop Douglas -examined whilst shaving; Bishop Watson never resided in his diocese -during an episcopate of thirty-four years. - -And those who preached seem rarely to have been of a very edifying order -of preachers; Bishop Blomfield used to relate how, in his boyhood, when -at Bury St. Edmund’s, the Marquis of Bristol had given a number of -scarlet cloaks to some poor old women; they all appeared at church on -the following Sunday, resplendent in their new and bright array, and the -clergyman made the donation of the marquis the subject of his discourse, -announcing his text with a graceful wave of his hand towards the poor -old bodies who were sitting there all together: “Even Solomon, in all -his glory, was not arrayed like one of these!” This worthy seems to have -been very capable of such things: on another occasion a dole of potatoes -was distributed by the local authorities in Bury, and this also was -improved in a sermon. “He had himself,” the bishop says, “a very -corpulent frame, and pompous manner, and a habit of rolling from side to -side while he delivered himself of his breathing thoughts and burning -words; on the occasion of the potato dole, he chose for his singularly -appropriate text (Exodus xvi. 15): ‘And when the children of Israel saw -it, they said one to another, It is manna;’ and thence he proceeded to -discourse to the recipients of the potatoes on the warning furnished by -the Israelites against the sin of gluttony, and the wickedness of taking -more than their share.” - -When that admirable man, Mr. Shirley, began his evangelistic ministry as -the friend and coadjutor of his cousin, the Countess of Huntingdon, a -curate went to the archbishop to complain of his unclerical proceedings: -“Oh, your grace, I have something of great importance to communicate; it -will astonish you!” “Indeed, what can it be?” said the archbishop. “Why, -my lord,” replied he, throwing into his countenance an expression of -horror, and expecting the archbishop to be petrified with astonishment, -“he actually wears white stockings!” “Very unclerical indeed,” said the -archbishop, apparently much surprised; he drew his chair near to the -curate, and with peculiar earnestness, and in a sort of confidential -whisper, said, “Now tell me—I ask this with peculiar feelings of -interest—does Mr. Shirley wear them over his boots?” “Why, no, your -grace, I cannot say he does.” “Well, sir, the first time you ever hear -of Mr. Shirley wearing them over his boots, be so good as to warn me, -and I shall know how to deal with him!” - -We would not, on the other hand, be unjust. We may well believe that -there were hamlets and villages where country clergymen realised their -duties and fulfilled them, and not only deserved all the merit of -Goldsmith’s charming picture,[2] but were faithful ministers of the New -Testament too. But our words and illustrations refer to the average -character presented to us by the Church; and this, again, is illustrated -by the vehement hostility presented on all hands to the first -indications of the Great Revival. For instance, the Rev. Dr. Thomas -Church, Vicar of Battersea, in a well-known sermon on charity schools, -deplored and denounced the enormous wickedness of the times; after -saying, “Our streets are grievously infested; every day we see the most -dreadful confusions, daring villanies, dangers, and mischiefs, arising -from the want of sentiments of piety,” he continues: “For our own sakes -and our posterity’s everything should be encouraged which will -contribute to suppressing these evils, and keep the poor from stealing, -lying, drunkenness, cruelty, or taking God’s name in vain. While we feel -our disease, ’tis madness to set aside any remedy which has power to -check its fury.” Having said this, with a perfectly startling -inconsistency he turns round, and addressing himself to Wesley and the -Methodists, he says, “We cannot but regard you as our most dangerous -enemies.” - -Footnote 2: - - Appendix B. - -When the Great Revival arose, the Church of England set herself, -everywhere, in full array against it; she possessed but few great minds. -The massive intellects of Butler and Berkeley belonged to the -immediately preceding age. The most active intellect on the bench of -bishops was, no doubt, that of Warburton; and it is sad to think that he -descended to a tone of scurrility and injustice in his attack on Wesley, -which, if worthy of his really quarrelsome temper, was altogether -unworthy of his position and his powers. - -Thus, whether we derive our impressions from the so-called Church of -that time, or from society at large, we obtain the evidences of a -deplorable recklessness of all ordinary principles of religion, honour, -or decorum. Bishop Butler had written, in the “Advertisement” to his -_Analogy_, and he appears to have been referring to the clerical and -educated opinion of his time: “It is come, I know not how, to be taken -for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a -subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be -fictitious;” and he wrote his great work for the purpose of arguing the -reasonableness of the christian religion, even on the principles of the -Deism prevalent everywhere around him in the Church and society. Addison -had declared that there was “less appearance of religion in England than -in any neighbouring state or kingdom, whether Protestant or Catholic;” -and Montesquieu came to the country, and having made his notes, -published, probably with some French exaggeration, that there was “no -religion in England, and that the subject, if mentioned in society, -excited nothing but laughter.” - -Such was the state of England, when, as we must think, by the special -providence of God, the voices were heard crying in the wilderness. From -the earlier years of the last century they continued sounding with such -clearness and strength, from the centre to the remotest corners of the -kingdom; from, the coasts, where the Cornish wrecker pursued his strange -craft of crime, along all the highways and hedges, where rudeness and -violence of every description made their occasions for theft, outrage, -and cruelty, until the whole English nation became, as if instinctively, -alive with a new-born soul, and not in vision, but in reality, something -was beheld like that seen by the prophet in the valley of vision—dry -bones clothed with flesh, and standing up “an exceeding great army,” no -longer on the side of corruption and death, but ready with song and -speech, and consistent living, to take their place on the side of the -Lord. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER II - - FIRST STREAKS OF DAWN. - - -In the history of the circumstances which brought about the Great -Revival, we must not fail to notice those which were in action even -before the great apostles of the Revival appeared. We have already given -what may almost be called a silhouette of society, an outline, for the -most part, all dark; and yet in the same period there were relieving -tints, just as sometimes, upon a silhouette-portrait, you have seen an -attempt to throw in some resemblance to the features by a touch of gold. - -Chief among these is one we do not remember ever to have seen noticed in -this connection—the curious invasion of our country by the French at the -close of the seventeenth century. That cruel exodus which poured itself -upon our shores in the great and even horrible persecution of the -Protestants of France, when the blind bigotry of Louis XIV. revoked the -Edict of Nantes, was to us, as a nation, a really incalculable blessing. -It is quite singular, in reading Dr. Smiles’s _Huguenots_, to notice the -large variety of names of illustrious exiles, eminent for learning, -science, character, and rank, who found a refuge here. The folly of the -King of France expelled the chief captains of industry; they came hither -and established their manufactures in different departments, creating -and carrying on new modes of industry. Also great numbers of Protestant -clergymen settled here, and formed respectable French churches; some of -the most eminent ministers of our various denominations at this moment -are descendants of those men. Their descendants are in our peerage; they -are on our bench of bishops; they are at the bar; they stand high in the -ranks of commerce. At the commencement of the eighteenth century, their -ancestors were settled on English shores; in all instances men who had -fled from comfort and domestic peace, in many instances from affluence -and fame, rather than be false to their conscience or to their Saviour. -The cruelties of that dreadful persecution which banished from France -almost every human element it was desirable to retain in it, while they -were, no doubt, there the great ultimate cause of the French Revolution, -brought to England what must have been even as the very seasoning of -society, the salt of our earth in the subsequent age of corruption. Most -of the children of these men were brought up in the discipline of -religious households, such as that which Sir Samuel Romilly—himself one -of the descendants of an earlier band of refugees. Dr. Watts’s mother -was a child of a French exile. Clusters of them grew up in many -neighbourhoods in the country, notably in Southampton, Norwich, -Canterbury, in many parts of London, where Spitalfields especially was a -French colony. When the Revival commenced, these were ready to aid its -various movements by their character and influence. Some fell into the -Wesleyan ranks, though, probably, most, like the eminent scholar and -preacher, William Romaine, one of the sons of the exile, maintained the -more Calvinistic faith, reflecting most nearly the old creed of the -Huguenot. - -This surmise of the influence of that noble invasion upon the national -well-being of Britain is justified by inference from the facts. It is -very interesting to attempt to realise the religious life of eminent -activity and usefulness sustained in different parts of the country -before the Revival dawned, and which must have had an influence in -fostering it when it arose. And, indeed, while we would desire to give -all grateful honour to the extraordinary men (especially to such a man -as John Wesley, who achieved so much through a life in which the length -and the usefulness were equal to each other, since only when he died did -he cease to animate by his personal influence the immense organisation -he had formed), yet it seems really impossible to regard any one mind as -the seed and source of the great movement. It was as if some cyclone of -spiritual power swept all round the nation—or, as if a subtle, unseen -train had been laid by many men, simultaneously, in many counties, and -the spark was struck, and the whole was suddenly wrapped in a Divine -flame. - -Dr. Abel Stevens, in his most interesting, indeed, charming history of -Methodism, from his point of view, gives to his own beloved leader and -Church the credit of the entire movement; so also does Mr. Tyerman, in -his elaborate life of Wesley. But this is quite contrary to all -dispassionate dealing with facts; there were many men and many means in -quiet operation, some of these even before Wesley was born, of which his -prehensile mind availed itself to draw them into his gigantic work; and -there were many which had operated, and continued to operate, which -would not fit themselves into his exact, and somewhat exacting, groove -of Church life. - -We have said it was as if a cyclone of spiritual power were steadily -sweeping round the minds of men and nations, for there were -undoubted gusts of remarkable spiritual life in both hemispheres, at -least fifty years before Methodism had distinctly asserted itself as -a fact. Most remarkable was the “Great Awakening” in America, in -Massachusetts—especially at Northampton (that is a remarkable story, -which will always be associated with the name of Jonathan -Edwards).[3] We have referred to the exodus of the persecuted from -France; equally remarkable was another exodus of persecuted -Protestants from Salzburg, in Austria. The madness of the Church of -Rome again cast forth an immense host of the holiest and most -industrious citizens. At the call of conscience they marched forth -in a body, taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods rather than -disavow their faith: such men with their families are a treasure to -any nation amongst whom they may settle. Thomas Carlyle has paid a -glowing historical eulogy to the memory of these men, and the exodus -has furnished Goethe with the subject of one of his most charming -poems. - -Footnote 3: - - See Appendix C. - -Philip Doddridge’s work was almost done before the Methodist movement -was known. It seems to us that no adequate honour has ever yet been paid -to that most beautiful and remarkably inclusive life. It was public, it -was known and noticed, but it was passed almost in retreat in -Northampton. That he was a preacher and pastor of a Church was but a -slight portion of the life which succumbed, yet in the prime of his -days, to consumption. His academy for the education of young ministers -seems to us, even now, something like a model of what such an academy -should be; his lectures to his students are remarkably full and -scholarly and complete. From thence went forth men like the saintly -Risdon Darracott, the scholarly and suggestive Hugh Farmer, Benjamin -Fawcett, and Andrew Kippis. The hymns of Doddridge were among the -earliest, as they are still among the sweetest, of that kind of offering -to our modern Church; their clear, elevated, thrush-like sweetness, like -the more uplifted seraphic trumpet tones of Watts, broke in upon a time -when there was no sacred song worthy of the name in the Church, and -anticipated the hour when the melodious acclamations of the people -should be one of the most cherished elements of Christian service. - -[Illustration: - - ISAAC WATTS. -] - -And Isaac Watts was, by far, the senior of Doddridge; he lived very much -the life of a hermit. Although the pastor of a city church, he was -sequestered and withdrawn from public life in Theobalds, or Stoke -Newington, where, however, he prosecuted a course of sacred labor of a -marvellously manifold description, inter-meddling with every kind of -learning, and consecrating it all to the great end of the christian -ministry and the producing of books, which, whether as catechisms for -children, treatises for the formation of mental character, philosophic -essays grappling with the difficulties of scholarly minds, or -“comfortable words” to “rock the cradle of declining age,” were all to -become of value when the nation should awake to a real spiritual power. -They are mostly laid aside now; but they have served more than one -generation well; and he, beyond question, was the first who taught the -Protestant Christian Church in England to sing. His hymns and psalms -were sounding on when John Wesley was yet a child, and numbers of them -were appropriated in the first Methodist hymn-book. But Watts and -Doddridge, by the conditions of their physical and mental being, were -unfitted for popular leaders. Perhaps, also, it must be admitted that -they had not that which has been called the “instinct for souls;” they -were concerned rather to illustrate and expound the truth of God, and to -“adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour,” by their lives, than to flash -new convictions into the hearts of men. It is characteristic that, good -and great as they were, they were both at first inimical to the Great -Revival; it seemed to them a suspicious movement. The aged Watts -cautioned his younger friend Doddridge against encouraging it, -especially the preaching of Whitefield; yet they both lived to give -their whole hearts to it; and some of Watts’s last words were in -blessing, when, near death, he received a visit from the great -evangelist. - -[Illustration: - - PHILIP DODDRIDGE. -] - -Thus we need to notice a little carefully the age immediately preceding -the rise of what we call Methodism, in order to understand what -Methodism really effected; we have seen that the dreadful condition of -society was not inconsistent with the existence over the country of -eminently holy men, and of even hallowed christian families and circles. -If space allowed, it would be very pleasant to step into, and sketch the -life of many an interior; and it would scarcely be a work of fancy, but -of authentic knowledge. There were yet many which almost retained the -character of Puritan households, and among them several baronial halls. -Nor ought we to forget that those consistent: and high-minded Christian -folk, the Quakers [Friends], were a much larger body then than now, -although, like the Shunammite lady, they especially dwelt among their -own people. The Moravians also were in England; but all existed like -little scattered hamlet patches of spiritual life; they were respectably -conservative of their own usages. Methodism brought enthusiasm to -religion, and the instinct for souls, united to a power of organisation -hitherto unknown to the religious life. - -[Illustration: - - Doddridge’s House, Northampton. -] - -At what hour shall we fix the earliest dawn of the Great Revival? Among -the earliest tints of the “morning spread upon the mountains,” which was -to descend into the valley, and illuminate all the plains, was the -conversion of that extraordinary woman, Selina Shirley, the Countess of -Huntingdon; it is scarcely too much to call her the Mother of the -Revival; it is not too much to apply to her the language of the great -Hebrew song—“The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased until -that I arose: I arose a mother in Israel.” She illustrates the -difference of which we spoke just now, for there can be no doubt that -she had a passionate instinct for souls, to do good to souls, to save -souls. Her injunctions for the destruction of all her private papers -have been so far complied with as to leave the earlier history of her -mind, and the circumstances which brought about her conversion, for the -most part unknown. It is certain that she was on terms of intimate -friendship with both Watts and Doddridge, but especially with Doddridge. -Another intimate friend of the Countess was Watts’s very close friend, -the Duchess of Somerset; and thus the links of the story seem to run, -like that old and well-known instance of communicated influence, when -Andrew found his own brother, Simon, and these in turn found Philip and -Nathaniel. It was very natural that, beholding the state of society -about her, she should be interested, first, as it seems, for those of -her own order; it was at a later time, when she became acquainted with -Whitefield, that he justified her drawing-room assemblies, by reminding -her—not, perhaps, with exact critical propriety—of the text in -Galatians, where Paul mentioned how he preached “privately to those of -reputation.”[4] For some time this appears to have been the aim of the -good Countess, much in accordance with that pretty saying of hers, that -“there was a text in which she blessed God for the insertion of the -letter M: ‘not _m_any noble.’” The beautiful Countess was a heroine in -her own line from the earliest days of her conversion. Belonging to one -of the noblest families of England, she had an entrance to the highest -circles, and her heart felt very pitiful for, especially, the women of -fashion around her, brokenhearted with disappointment, or sick with -_ennui_. - -Footnote 4: - - Appendix D. - -Among these was Sarah, the great Duchess of Marlborough, apparently one -of the intimate friends of the Countess; her letters are most -characteristic. She mentions that the Duchess of Ancaster, Lady -Townshend, and others, had just heard Mr. Whitefield preach, and “What -they said of the sermon has made me lament ever since that I did not -hear it; it might have been the means of doing me some good, for good, -alas! I do want; but where among the corrupt sons and daughters of Adam -am I to find it?” She goes on: “Dear, good Lady Huntingdon, I have no -comfort in my own family; I hope you will shortly come and see me; I -always feel more happy and more contented after an hour’s conversation -with you; when alone, my reflections and recollection almost kill me. -Now there is Lady Frances Saunderson’s great rout to-morrow night; all -the world will be there, and I must go. I hate that woman as much as I -hate a physician, but I must go, if for no other purpose than to mortify -and spite her. This is very wicked, I know, but I confess all my little -peccadilloes to you, for I know your goodness will lead you to be mild -and forgiving; and perhaps my wicked heart may gain some good from you -in the end.” And then she closes her note with some remarks on “that -crooked, perverse little wretch at Twickenham,” by which pleasant -designation she means the poet, Pope. - -Another, and another order of character, was the Duchess of Buckingham; -she came to hear Whitefield preach in the drawing-room, and was quite -scandalised. In a letter to the Countess, she says, “The doctrines are -most repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence: it is -monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common -wretches that crawl the earth; this is highly offensive and insulting, -and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiments -so much at variance with high rank and good breeding.” Such were some of -the materials the Countess attempted to gather in her drawing-rooms, if -possible to cure the aching of empty hearts. If the two duchesses met -together, it is very likely they would be antipathetic to each other; a -prouder old lady than Sarah, the English empire did not contain, but she -was proud that she was the wife and widow of the great Marlborough. The -Duchess of Buckingham was equally proud that she was the natural -daughter of James II. When her son, the Duke of Buckingham, died, she -sent to the old Duchess of Marlborough to borrow the magnificent car -which had borne John Churchill’s body to the Abbey, and the fiery old -Duchess sent her back word, “It had carried Lord Marlborough, and should -never be profaned by any other corpse.” The message was not likely to -act as an _entente cordiale_ in such society as we have described. - -The mention of these names will show the reader that we are speaking of -a time when the Revival had not wrought itself into a great movement. -The Countess continued to make enthusiastic efforts for those of her own -order—we are afraid, with a few distinguished exceptions, without any -great amount of success; but certainly, were it possible for us to look -into the drawing-room in South Audley Street, in those closing years of -the reign of George II., we might well be astonished at the brilliancy -of the concourse, and the finding ourselves in the company of some of -the most distinguished names of the highest rank and fashion of the -period. It was the age of that cold, sardonic sneerer, Horace Walpole; -he writes to Florence, to his friend Sir Horace Mann, in his scoffing -fashion: “If you ever think of returning to England, you must prepare -yourself with Methodism; this sect increases as fast as almost any -religious nonsense ever did; Lady Fanny Shirley has chosen this way of -bestowing the dregs of her beauty, and Lyttleton is very near making the -same sacrifice of the dregs of all those various characters that he has -worn. The Methodists love your big sinners as proper subjects to work -upon, and indeed they have a plentiful harvest.” Then he satirises Lady -Ferrars, whom he styles “General, my Lady Dowager Ferrars.” But, indeed, -it is impossible to enumerate the names of all, or any proportion of the -number who attended this brilliant circle. Sometimes unhappy events took -place; Mr. Whitefield was sometimes too dreadfully, although -unconsciously, faithful. Lady Rockingham, who really seems to have been -inclined to do good, begged the Countess to permit her to bring the -Countess of Suffolk, well known as the powerful mistress of George II. -Whitefield “knew nothing of the matter;” but some arrow “drawn at a -venture,” and which probably might have as well fitted many another lady -about the court or in that very room, exactly hit the Countess. However -much she fidgeted with irritation, she sat out the service in silence; -but, as soon as it was over, the beautiful fury burst forth in all the -stormful speech of a termagant or virago. She abused Lady Huntingdon; -she declared that the whole service had been a premeditated attack upon -herself. Her relatives, Lady Bertie, the celebrated Lady Betty Germain, -the Duchess of Ancaster, one of the most beautiful women in England, and -who, afterwards, with the Duchess of Hamilton, conducted the future -queen of George III. to England’s shores, expostulated with her, -commanded her to be silent, and attempted to explain her mistake; they -insisted that she should apologise to Lady Huntingdon for her behaviour, -and, in an ungracious manner, she did so; but we learn that she never -honoured the assembly again with her presence. - -What a singular assembly from time to time! the square dark face of that -old gentleman, painfully hobbling in on his crutched stick—face once as -handsome as that of St. John, now the disappointed, moody features of -the massive, but sceptical intelligence of Bolingbroke; poor worn-out -old Chesterfield, cold and courtly, yet seeming so genial and humane, -coming again and again, and yet again; those reckless wits, and leaders -of the _ton_ and all high society, Bubb Doddington, afterwards Lord -Melcombe, and George Selwyn; the Duchess of Montague, with her young -daughter; Lady Cardigan, often there, if her mother, Sarah of -Marlborough, were but seldom a visitor. Charles Townshend, the great -minister, often came; and his friend, Lord Lyttleton, who really must -have been in sympathy with some of the objects of the assembly, if we -may judge from his _Essay on the Conversion of St. Paul_, a piece of -writing which will never lose its value. There you might have seen even -the great commoner, William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham; but we can -understand why he would be there to listen to the manifold notes of an -eloquence singularly resembling, in many particulars, his own. And, in -fact, where such persons were present, we might be sure that the entire -nobility of the country was represented. It might be tempting to loiter -amidst these scenes a little longer. It was an experiment made by the -Countess; she probably found it almost a failure, and, in the course of -a few years, turned her attention to the larger ideas connected with the -evangelisation of England, and the training of young men for the work of -the ministry. She long outlived all those brilliant hosts she had -gathered round her in the prime of life. But we cannot doubt that some -good was effected by this preaching to “people of reputation.” Courtiers -like Walpole sneered, but it saved the movement to a great degree, when -it became popular, from being suspected as the result of political -faction; and probably, as all these nobles and gentry passed away to -their various country seats, when they heard of the preachers in their -neighbourhoods, and received the complaints of the bishops and their -clergy, with some contempt for the messengers, they were able to feel, -and to say, that there was nothing much more dreadful than the love of -God and His good will to men in their message. - -It seems a very sudden leap from the saloons of the West End to a -Lincolnshire kitchen; but in the kitchen of that most romantic old -vicarage of Epworth, it has been truly said, the most vigorous form of -Methodism had its origin. There, at the close of the seventeenth -century, and the commencement of the eighteenth, lived and laboured old -Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley. Samuel was in -every sense a wonderful man, more wonderful than most people know, -though Mr. Tyerman has done his best to set him forth in a very clear -and pleasant light, in his very entertaining biography. Scholar, -preacher, pastor, and poet was Samuel Wesley; he led a life full of -romantic incident, and full of troubles, of which the two most notable -are debts and ghosts: debts, we must say, in passing, which had more to -do with unavoidable calamity than with any personal imprudence. The good -man would have been shocked, and have counted it one of his sorest -troubles, could he, in some real horoscope, have forecast what “Jackey,” -his son John, was to be. But it was his wife, Susannah Wesley, patient -housewife, much-enduring, much-suffering woman, Mary and Martha in one, -saint as sacredly sweet as any who have seemed worthy of a place in any -calendar of saints, Catholic or Protestant, mother of children, all of -whom were remarkable—two of them wonderful, and a third highly -eminent—it was Susannah Wesley, whose instinct for souls led her to look -abroad over all the parish in which she lived, with a tender, spiritual -affection; in her husband’s absence, turning the large kitchen into a -church, inviting her poor neighbours into it, and, somewhat at first to -the distress of her husband, preaching to and praying with them there. -This brief reference can only memorialise her name; read John Kirk’s -little volume, and learn to love and revere “the mother of the Wesleys!” -The freedom and elevation of her religious life, and her practical -sagacity, it is not difficult to see, must have given hints and ideas -which took shape and body in the large movement of which her son John -came to be regarded, and is still regarded, as the patriarch. Thus Isaac -Taylor says, “The Wesleys’ mother was the mother of Methodism in a -religious and moral sense, for her courage, her submissiveness to -authority, the high tone of her mind, its independence, and its -self-control, the warmth of her devotional feelings, and the practical -direction given to them, came up, and were visibly repeated in the -character and conduct of her sons.” Later on in life she became one of -the wisest advisers of her son, in his employment of the auxiliaries to -his own usefulness. Perhaps, if we could see spirits as they are, we -might see in this woman a higher and loftier type of life than in either -of those who first received life from her bosom; some of her quiet words -have all the passion and sweetness of Charles’s hymns. Our space will -not permit many quotations, but take the following words, and the sweet -meditation in prose of the much-enduring, and often patiently suffering -lady in the old world country vicarage, which read like many of her -son’s notes in verse: “If to esteem and have the highest reverence for -Thee; if constantly and sincerely to acknowledge Thee the supreme, and -only desirable good, be to love Thee, I DO LOVE THEE! If to rejoice in -Thy essential majesty and glory; if to feel a vital joy overspread and -cheer the heart at each perception of Thy blessedness, at every thought -that Thou art God, and that all things are in Thy power; that there is -none superior or equal to Thee, be to love Thee, I DO LOVE THEE! If -comparatively to despise and undervalue all the world contains, which is -esteemed great, fair, or good; if earnestly and constantly to desire -Thee, Thy favour, Thy acceptance, Thyself, rather than any, or all -things Thou hast created, be to love Thee, I DO LOVE THEE!” At length -she died as she had lived, her last words to her sons breathing the -spirit of her singular life: “Children, as soon as I am released, sing a -psalm of praise to God!” - -Thus, from the polite circles of London, from the obscure old farm-like -vicarage, the rude and rough old English home, events were preparing -themselves. John Wesley was born in 1703; the Countess of Huntingdon in -1707: near in their birth time, how far apart the scenery and the -circumstances in which their eyes first opened to the light. Whitefield -was born later, amidst the still less auspicious scenery of the old Bell -Inn, at Gloucester, in 1714. These were undoubtedly among the foremost -names in the great palpitation of thought, feeling, and holy action the -country was to experience. Future chapters will show a number of other -names, which were simultaneously coming forth and educating for the -great conflict. So it has always been, and singularly so, as -illustrating the order of Providence, and the way in which it gives a -new personality to the men whom it designs to aid its purposes. In every -part of the country, all unknown to each other, in families separated by -position and taste, by birth and circumstances, a band of workers was -preparing to produce an entire moral change in the features of the -country. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER III - - OXFORD: NEW LIGHTS AND OLD LANTERNS. - - -It is remarkable that one of the very earliest movements of the new -evangelical succession should manifest itself in Oxford—many minded -Oxford—whose distant spires and antique towers have looked down through -so many ages upon the varying opinions which have surged up around and -within her walls. Lord Bacon has somewhere said that the opinions, -feelings, and thoughts of the young men of any present generation -forecast the whole popular mind of the future age. No remark can be more -true, as exhibited generally in fact. Thus it is not too much to say -that Oxford has usually been a barometer of coming opinions: either by -her adhesion or antagonism to them, she has indicated the pathway of the -nearing weather, either for calm or storm. It was so in the dark ages, -with the old scholastic philosophy; it was so in the times immediately -succeeding them: in our own day, the great Tractarian movement, with all -its influences Rome-ward, arose in Oxford; later still, the strong -tendencies of high intellectual infidelity, and denial of the sacred -prerogatives and rights of the Holy Scriptures, sent forth some of their -earliest notes from Oxford. Oxford has been likened to the magnificent -conservatory at Chatsworth, where art combines with nature, and achieves -all that wealth and taste could command; but the air is heavy and close, -and rich as the forms and colours are around the spectator, there is -depression and repression, even a sense of oppression, upon the spirits, -and we are glad to escape into the breezy chase, and among the old trees -again. This is hardly true of Oxford; no doubt the air is hushed, and -the influences combine to weigh down the mere visitor by a sense of the -hoariness of the past, and the black antiquity and frost of ages; but -somehow there is a mind in Oxford which is always alive—not merely a -scholarly knowledge, but a subtle apprehension of the coming winds—even -as certain creatures forebode and know the coming storm before the rain -falls or the thunder rolls. - -We may presume that most of our readers are acquainted with the -designation, “the Oxford Methodists;” but, perhaps, some are not aware -that the term was applied to a cluster of young students, who, in a time -when the university was delivered over to the usual dissoluteness and -godless indifference of the age, met together in each other’s rooms for -the purpose of sustaining each other in the determination to live a holy -life, and to bring their mutual help to the reading and opening of the -Word of God. From different parts of the country they met together -there; when they went forth, their works, their spheres were different; -but the power and the beauty of the old college days seem to have -accompanied them through life; they realised the Divine life as a real -power from that commencement to the close of their career, although it -is equally interesting to notice how the framework of their opinions -changed. Some of their names are comparatively unknown now, but John and -Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and James Hervey, are well known; nor -is John Gambold unknown, nor Benjamin Ingham, who married into the -family of the Countess of Huntingdon, of whom we will speak a little -more particularly when we visit the wild Yorkshire of those days; nor -Morgan of Christ Church, whose influence is described as the most -beautiful of all, a young man of delicate constitution and intense -enthusiasm, who visited and talked with the prisoners in the -neighbourhood, visited the cottages around to read and pray, left his -memory as a blessing upon his companions, and was very early called away -to his reward. This obscure life seems to have been one most honoured in -that which came to be called by the wits of Oxford, “The Holy Club.” - -It was just about this time that Voltaire was predicting that, in the -next generation, Christianity would be overthrown and unknown throughout -the whole civilised world. Christianity has lived through, and long -outlived many such predictions. Voltaire had said, “It took twelve men -to set up Christianity; it would only take one” (conceitedly referring -to himself) “to overthrow it;” but the work of those whom he called the -“twelve men” is still of some account in the world—their words are still -of some authority, and there are very few people on the face of the -earth at this moment who know much of, and fewer still who care much for -the wit of the vain old infidel. That Voltaire’s prediction was not -fulfilled, under the Providential influence of that Divine Spirit who -never leaves us in our low estate, was greatly owing to this obscure and -despised “Holy Club” of Oxford. These young men were feeling their way, -groping, as they afterwards admitted, and somewhat in the dark, after -those experiences, which, as they were to be assurances to themselves, -should be also their most certain means of usefulness to others. - -They were also called Methodists. It is singular, but neither the -precise etymology nor the first appropriation of the term Methodist has, -we believe, ever been distinctly or satisfactorily settled. Some have -derived it from an allusion in Juvenal to a quack physician, some to a -passage from the writings of Chrysostom, who says, “to be a methodist is -to be beguiled,” and which was employed in a pamphlet against Mr. -Whitefield. Like some other phrases, it is not easy to settle its first -import or importation into our language. Certainly it is much older than -the times to which this book especially refers. It seems to be even -contemporary with the term Puritan, since we find Spencer, the librarian -of Sion College under Cromwell, writing, “Where are now our Anabaptists -and plain pack-staff Methodists, who esteem all flowers of rhetoric in -sermons no better than stinking weeds?” A writer in the _British -Quarterly_ tells a curious story how once in a parish church in -Huntingdonshire, he was listening to a clergyman, notorious alike by his -private character and vehement intolerance, who was entertaining his -audience, on a week evening, by a discourse from the text, Ephesians iv. -14, “Whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” He said to his people, “Now, -you do not know Greek; I know Greek, and I am going to tell you what -this text really says; it says, ‘they lie in wait to make you -Methodists.’ The word used here is _Methodeian_, that is really the word -that is used, and that is really what Paul said, ‘They lie in wait to -make you Methodists’—a Methodist means a deceiver, and one who deludes, -cheats, and beguiles.” The Grecian scholar was a little at fault in his -next allusion, for he proceeded to quote that other text, “We are not -ignorant of his devices,” and seemed to be under the impression that -“device” was the same word as that on which he had expended his -criticism. “Now,” said he, “you may be ignorant, because you do not know -Greek, but we are not ignorant of his devices, that is, of his methods, -his deceivers, that is, his Methodists.” In such empty wit and ignorant -punning it is very likely that the term had its origin. - -John Wesley passed through a long, singular, and what we may call a -parti-coloured experience, before his mind came out into the light. In -those days his mind was a singular combination of High Churchism, -amounting to what we should call Ritualism now, and mysticism, both of -which influences he brought from Epworth: the first from his father, the -second from the strong fascination of the writings of William Law. He -found, however, in the “Holy Club” that which helped him. He tells us -how, when at Epworth, he travelled many miles to see a “serious man,” -and to take counsel from him. “Sir,” said this person, as if the right -word were given to him at the right moment, exactly meeting the -necessities of the man standing before him, “Sir, you wish to serve God -and to go to heaven: remember you cannot serve Him alone; you must -therefore find companions, or make them. The Bible knows nothing of -solitary religion.” It must be admitted that the enthusiasm of the -mystics has always been rather personal than social; but the society at -Oxford was almost monastic, nor is it wonderful that, with the spectacle -of the dissolute life around them, these earnest men adopted rules of -the severest self-denial and asceticism. John Wesley arrived in Oxford -first in 1720; he left for some time. Returning home to assist his -father, he became, as we know, to his father’s immense exultation, -Fellow of Lincoln College. - -In 1733 George Whitefield arrived at Oxford, then in his nineteenth -year. Like most of this band, Whitefield was, if not really, -comparatively poor, and dependent upon help to enable him to pursue his -studies; not so poor, perhaps, as an illustrious predecessor in the same -college (Pembroke), who had left only the year before, one Samuel -Johnson, the state of whose shoes excited so much commiseration in some -benevolent heart, that a pair of new ones was placed outside his rooms, -only, however, creating surprise in the morning, when he was seen -indignantly kicking them up and down the passage. Whitefield was not -troubled by such over-sensitive and delicate feelings; men are made -differently. Johnson’s rugged independence did its work; and the easy -facility and amiable disposition, which could receive favours without a -sense of degradation, were very essential to what Whitefield was to be. -He, however, when he came to Oxford, was caught in the same glamour of -mysticism as John Wesley. But in this case it was Thomas à-Kempis who -had besieged the soul of the young enthusiast; he was miserable, his -life, his heart and mind were crushed beneath this altogether inhuman -and unattainable standard for salvation. He was a Quietist—what a -paradox!—Whitefield a Quietist! He was seeking salvation by works of -righteousness which he could do. He was practising the severest -austerities and renouncing the claims of an external world; he was -living an internal life which God did not intend should bring to him -either rest or calm; for, in that case, how could he ever have stirred -the deep foundations of universal sympathy? - -But that heart, whose very mould was tenderness, was easily called aside -by the sight of suffering; and there is an interesting story, how, at -this time, in one of his walks by the banks of the river, in such a -frame of mind as we have described, he met a poor woman whose appearance -was discomposed. Naturally enough, he talked with her, and found that -her husband was in the gaol in Oxford, that she had run away from home, -unable to endure any longer the crying of her children from hunger, and -that she even then meditated drowning herself. He gave her immediate -relief, but arranged with her to meet him, and see her husband together -in the evening at the prison. He appears to have done them both good, -ministering to their temporal necessities; he prayed with them, brought -them to the knowledge of the grace which saves, and late on in life he -says, “They are both now living, and I trust will be my joy and crown of -rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Happy is the man to whose life -such an incident as this is given; it calls life away from its dreary -introspections, and sets it upon a trail of outwardness, which is -spiritual health; no one can attain to much religious happiness until he -knows that he has been the means of good to some suffering soul. Faith -grows in us by the revelation that we have been used to do good to -others. - -It was about this time that Charles Wesley met Whitefield moodily -walking through the college corridors. The misery of his appearance -struck him, and he invited him to his rooms to breakfast. The memory of -the meeting never passed away; Charles Wesley refers to it in his elegy -on Whitefield. In a short time he leaped forth into spiritual freedom, -and almost immediately became, youth as he was, preacher, and we may -almost say, apostle. The change in his mind seems to have been as -instantaneous and as luminous as Luther’s at Erfurt. Whitefield was at -work, commencing upon his own great scale, long before the Wesleys. John -had to go to America, and to be entangled there by his High Church -notions; and then there were his Moravian proclivities, so that, -altogether, years passed by before he found his way out into a light so -clear as to be able to reflect it on the minds of others. - -To some of the members of this “Holy Club,” we shall not be able to -refer again; we must, therefore, mention them now. Especially is some -reference due to James Hervey; his name is now rather a legend and -tradition than an active influence in our religious literature; but how -popular once, do not the oldest memories amongst us well know? On some -important points of doctrine he parted company from his friends and -fellow-students, the Wesleys. John Wesley used to declare that he -himself was not converted till his thirty-seventh year, so that we must -modify any impressions we may have from similar declarations made by the -amiable Vicar of Weston Favel: the term conversion, used in such a -sense, in all probability means simply a change in the point of view, an -alteration of opinion, giving a more clear apprehension of truth. Hervey -was always infirm in health, tall, spectral; and, while possessing a -mind teeming with pleasing and poetic fancies, and a power of perceiving -happy analogies, we should regard him as singularly wanting in that fine -solvent of all true genius, geniality. Hence, all his letters read like -sermons; but his poor, infirm frame was the tabernacle of an intensely -fervent soul. Shortly after his settlement in his village in -Northamptonshire he was recommended by his physician to follow the -plough, that he might receive the scent of the fresh earth; a curious -recommendation, but it led to a conversation with the ploughman, which -completely overturned the young scholar’s scheme of theology. The -ploughman was a member of the Church of Dr. Doddridge, afterwards one of -Hervey’s most intimate friends. As they walked together, the young -minister asked the old ploughman what he thought was the hardest thing -in religion? The ploughman very respectfully returned the question. -Hervey replied, “I think the hardest thing in religion is to deny sinful -self,” and he proceeded, at some length, of course, to dilate upon and -expound the difficulty, from which our readers will see that, at this -time, his mind must have been under the same influences as those we meet -in _The Imitation_ of Thomas à-Kempis. “No, sir,” said the old -ploughman, “the hardest thing in religion is to deny righteous self,” -and he proceeded to unfold the principles of his faith. At the time, -Hervey thought the ploughman a fool, but the conversation was not -forgotten, and he declares that it was this view of things which created -for him a new creed. Our readers, perhaps, know his _Theron and -Aspasia_: we owe that book to the conversation with the ploughman; all -its pages, alive with descriptions of natural scenery, historical and -classical allusion, and glittering with chromatic fancy through the -three thick volumes, are written for the purpose of unfolding and -enforcing—to put it in old theological phraseology—the imputed and -imparted righteousness of Christ, the great point of divergence in -teaching between Hervey and John Wesley. - -Thus the term Methodism cannot, any more than Christianity, be contented -with, or contained in one particular line of opinion. Thus, for -instance, among the members of the “Holy Club” we find the two Wesleys -and others distinctly Arminian—the apostles of that form of thought -which especially teaches us that we must attain to the grace of God; -while Whitefield first, and Hervey afterwards, became the teachers of -that doctrine which announces the irresistible grace of God as that -which is outside of us, and comes down upon us. No doubt the doctrines -were too sharply separated by their respective leaders. In the ultimate -issue, both believed alike that all was of grace, and all of God; but -experience makes every man’s point of view; as he feels, so he sees. The -grand thought about all these men in this Great Revival was that they -believed in, and untiringly and with immense confidence announced, that -which smote upon the minds of their hearers almost like a new -revelation; in an age of indifference and Deism they declared that “the -grace of God hath appeared unto all men.” - -There is a very interesting anecdote showing how, about this time, even -the massive and sardonic intellect of Lord Bolingbroke almost gave way. -He was called upon once by a High Church dignitary, his intimate friend, -Dr. Church, Vicar of Battersea, and Prebendary of St. Paul’s, to whom we -have already referred as from the first opposed to the Revival, and, to -the doctor’s amazement, he found Bolingbroke reading Calvin’s -_Institutes_. The peer asked the preacher, the infidel the professed -Christian, what he thought of it. “Oh,” said the doctor, “we think -nothing of such antiquated stuff; we think it enough to preach the -importance of morality and virtue, and have long given up all that talk -about Divine grace.” Bolingbroke’s face and eyes were a study at all -times, but we could wish to have seen him turn in his chair, and fix his -eyes on the vicar as he said: “Look you, doctor. You know I don’t -believe the Bible to be a Divine revelation, but those who do can never -defend it but upon the principle of the doctrine of Divine grace. To say -the truth, there have been times when I have been almost persuaded to -believe it upon this view of things; and there is one argument I have -felt which has gone very far with me on behalf of its authenticity, -which is, that the belief in it exists upon earth even when committed to -the care of such as you, who pretend to believe in it, and yet deny the -only principle upon which it is defensible.” The worn-out statesman and -hard-headed old peer hit the question of his own day, and forecast all -the sceptical strife of ours; for all such questions are summed in one, -Is there supernatural grace, and has that grace appeared unto men? This -was the one faith of all these revivalists. The world was eager to hear -it, for the aching heart of the world longs to believe that it is true. -The conversation we have recited shows that even Bolingbroke wished that -it might be true. - -[Illustration: - - WESTON FAVEL CHURCH, - (Where James Hervey Preached.) -] - -The new creed of Hervey changed the whole character of his preaching. -The little church of Weston Favel, a short distance from the town of -Northampton, became quite a shrine for pilgrimages; he was often -compelled to preach in the churchyard. He was assuredly an intense lover -of natural scenery, a student of natural theology of the old school. His -writing is now said to be meretricious and gaudy. One critic says that -children will always prefer a red to a white sugar-plum, and that the -tea is nicer to them when they drink it from a cup painted with coloured -flowers; and this, perhaps, not unfairly, describes the style of Hervey; -we have prettiness rather than power, elegant disquisition rather than -nervous expression, which is all the more wonderful, as he must have -been an accomplished Latin scholar. But he had a mind of gorgeous -fullness, and his splendid conceptions bore him into a train of what now -seem almost glittering extravagances. Hervey was in the manner of his -life a sickly recluse, and we easily call up the figure of the old -bachelor—for he never married—alternately watching his saucepan of gruel -on the fire, and his favourite microscope on the study table. He was -greatly beloved by the Countess of Huntingdon, perhaps yet more by Lady -Fanny Shirley—the subject of Walpole’s sneer. He was, no doubt, the -writer of the movement, and its thoughts in his books must have seemed -like “butter in a lordly dish.” But his course was comparatively brief; -his work was accomplished at the age of forty-five. He died in his -chair, his last words, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in -peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy most comfortable salvation;” shortly -after, “The conflict is over; all is done;” the last words of all, -“Precious salvation.” And so passed away one of the most amiable and -accomplished of all the revivalists. - -John Gambold, although ever an excellent and admirable man, lived the -life rather of a secluded mystic, than that of an active reformer. He -became a minister of the Church of England, but afterwards left that -communion, not from any dissensions either from the doctrines or the -discipline of the Church, but simply because he found his spiritual -relationships more in harmony with those of the Moravians, of whose -Church he died a bishop. We presume few readers are acquainted with his -poetical works; nor are there many words among them of remarkable -strength. _The Mystery of Life_ is certainly pleasingly impressive; and -his epitaph on himself deserves quotation: - - “Ask not, ‘Who ended here his span?’ - His name, reproach, and praise, was Man. - ‘Did no great deeds adorn his course?’ - No deed of his but showed him worse: - One thing was great, which God supplied, - He suffered human life—and died. - ‘What points of knowledge did he gain?’ - That life was sacred all—and vain: - ‘Sacred, how high? and vain, how low?’ - He knew not here, but died to know.” - -Such were some of the men who went forth from Oxford. Meantime, as the -flame of revival was spreading, Oxford again starts into singular -notice; how the “Holy Club” escaped official censure and condemnation -seems strange, but in 1768 the members of a similar club were, for -meeting together for prayer and reading the Scriptures, all summarily -expelled from the university. Their number was seven. Several of the -heads of houses spoke in their favour, the principal of their own hall, -Dr. Dixon, moved an amendment against their expulsion, on the ground of -their admirable conduct and exemplary piety. Not a word was alleged -against them, only that some of them were the sons of tradesmen, and -that all of them “held Methodistical tenets, taking upon them to pray, -read and expound the Scriptures, and sing hymns at private houses.” -These practices were considered as hostile to the Articles and interests -of the Church of England, and sentence was pronounced against them. - -Of course this expulsion created a great agitation at the time; and as -the moral character of the young men was so perfectly unimpeachable, it -no doubt greatly aided the cause of the Revival. Dr. Horne, Bishop of -Norwich, author of the Commentary _On the Psalms_—no Methodist, although -an admirable and evangelical man—denounced the measure in a pamphlet in -the strongest terms. The well-known wit and Baptist minister of -Devonshire Square in London, Macgowan, lashed the transaction in his -piece called _The Shaver_. All the young men seem to have turned out -well. Some, like Thomas Jones, who afterwards became curate of Clifton, -and married the sister of Lady Austen, Cowper’s friend—found admission -into the Church of England; the others instantly found help from the -Countess of Huntingdon, who sent them to finish their studies at her -college in Trevecca, and afterwards secured them places in connection -with her work of evangelisation. The transaction gives a singular idea -of what Oxford was in 1768, and prepares us for the vehement -persecutions by which the representatives of Oxford all over the country -armed themselves to resist the Revival, whilst it justifies our -designation of this chapter, “New Lights and Old Lanterns.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - CAST OUT FROM THE CHURCH—TAKING TO THE FIELDS. - - -It was field-preaching, preaching in the open air, which first gave -national distinctiveness to the Revival, and constituted it a movement. -Assuredly any occasions of excitement we have known, give no idea -whatever of the immense agitations which speedily rolled over the -country, from one end to the other, when these great revivalists began -their work in the fields. And the excitement continued, rolling on -through London, and through the counties of England, from the west to -the north, not for days, weeks, or months merely, but through long -years, until the religious life of the land was entirely rekindled, and -its morals and manners re-moulded; and all this, especially in its -origination, without money, no large sums being subscribed or guaranteed -to sustain the work. The work was done, not only without might or power, -but assuredly in the very teeth of the malevolence of might and of -power; nor is it too much to say that it probably would not have been -done, could not have been done, had the churches, chapels, and great -cathedrals been thrown open to the preachers. - -It seems a singular thing to say, but we should speak of Whitefield as -the Luther of this Great Revival, and of Wesley as its Calvin. Both in -the quality of their work and in their relation in point of time, this -analogy is not so unnatural as it perhaps seems at first. The -impetuosity and passion, the vehemence and sleepless vigilance of -Whitefield first broke open the way; the calm, cautious, frequently even -nervously timid intelligence of Wesley organised the work. - -How could a writer, in a recent number of the _Edinburgh Review_, say: -“It is a great mistake to complain, as so many do, that the Church cast -out the Wesleys. We have seen at the beginning how kindly, and even -cordially, they were treated by the leading members of the episcopate.” -Surely any history of Methodism contradicts this statement. Bishop -Benson, indeed, ordained Whitefield, but he bitterly lamented to the -Countess of Huntingdon that he had done so, attributing to him what -seemed to the Bishop the mischief of the evangelical movement. “My -lord,” said the Countess, “mark my words: when you are on your dying -bed, that will be one of the few ordinations you will reflect upon with -complaisance.” - -The words were, in a remarkable degree, prophetic; when the Bishop was -on his death-bed he sent ten guineas to Mr. Whitefield as a token of his -“regard, veneration, and affection,” and begged the great field-preacher -to remember him in prayer. If the bishops were kind and cordial to the -first Methodists, they certainly took a singular way of dissembling -their love. For instance, Bishop Lavington, of Exeter, whose well-known -two volumes on Methodism are really a curiosity of episcopal scurrility, -was in a passion with everything that looked like Whitefieldism in his -diocese. Mr. Thomson, the Vicar of St. Gennys, was a dissipated -clergyman, a character of known immorality; he was a rich man, and not -dependent upon his vicarage. In the midst of his sinful life conscience -was arrested; he became converted; he countenanced and threw open his -pulpit to Mr. Whitefield; he became now as remarkable for his devout -life and fervent gospel preaching as he had been before for his -ungodliness. What made it all the worse was, that he was a man of real -genius. Now all his brethren in the ministry disowned him, and closed -their pulpits against him; and presently Bishop Lavington summoned him -to appear before him to answer the charges made against him by his -brethren for his Methodistical practices. “Sir,” said the Bishop, in the -course of conversation, “if you pursue these practices, and countenance -Whitefield, I will strip your gown from off you.” Mr. Thomson had on his -gown at the time—more frequently worn by ministers of the Church then -than now. To the amazement of the Bishop, Mr. Thomson exclaimed, “I will -save your lordship the trouble!” He took off his gown, dropped it at the -Bishop’s feet, saying, “My lord, I can preach without a gown!” and -before the Bishop could recover from his astonishment he was gone. This -was an instance, however, in which the Bishop was so decidedly in the -wrong that he sent for the vicar again, apologised to him; and the -circumstance, indeed, led to the entertainment by the Bishop of views -which were somewhat milder with reference to Methodism than those which -still give notoriety to his name. - -[Illustration: - - GEORGE WHITEFIELD. -] - -Southey[5], in his certainly not impartial volumes, admits that, for the -most part, the condition of the clergy was dreadful; it is not wonderful -that they closed their churches against the innovators. There was, for -instance, the Vicar of Colne, the Rev. George White; when the preachers -came into his neighbourhood, it was his usual practice to call his -parishioners together by the beat of a drum, to issue a proclamation at -the market-cross, and enlist a mob for the defence of the Church against -the Methodists. Here is a copy of the proclamation, a curiosity in its -way: “Notice is hereby given that if any man be mindful to enlist in His -Majesty’s service, under the command of the Rev. Mr. George White, -Commander-in-Chief, and John Bannister, Lieutenant-General of His -Majesty’s forces for the defence of the Church of England, and the -support of the manufactory in and about Colne, both which are now in -danger, let him repair to the drumhead at the Cross, where each man -shall receive a pint of ale in advance, and all other proper -encouragements.” Such are some of the instances, which might be -multiplied to any extent, showing the reception given to the revivalists -by the clergy of the time. But let no reader suppose that, in reciting -these things, we are willingly dwelling upon facts not creditable to the -Church, or that we forget how many of her most admirable members have -made an abundant _amende honorable_ by their eulogies since; nor are we -forgetting that Nonconformist chapels, whose cold respectability of -service and theology were sadly outraged by the new teachers, were not -more readily opened than the churches were to men with whom the Word of -the Lord was as a fire, or as a hammer to break the rock in pieces.[6] -Whitefield soon felt his power. Immediately after his ordination, he in -some way became for a time an occasional supply at the chapel in the -Tower; he found a straggling congregation of twenty or thirty hearers; -after a service or two the place was overflowing, and remained so. -During his short residence in that neighbourhood the youth continued -throughout the whole week preaching to the soldiers, preaching to -prisoners, holding services on Sunday mornings for young men before the -ordinary service. He was still ostensibly at Oxford; a profitable living -was offered to him in London, and instantly declined. He went to -Gloucester, to Bristol, to Kingswood. Of course it is impossible to -follow Whitefield step by step through his career; we can only rapidly -bring out a crayon sketch of the chief features of his work. He made -voyages to Georgia; voyaging was no pastime in those days, and he spent -a great amount of time in transit to and fro on the seas; our business -with him is chiefly as the first field-preacher; and Kingswood, near -Bristol, appears to have been the first place where this great work was -to be tried. It was then, what it is still, a region of rough -collieries, the Black Country of the West; the people themselves were of -the roughest order. Whitefield spoke at Bristol, to some friends, of his -probable speedy embarkation to preach the Gospel among the Indians of -America; and they said to him, “What need of going abroad to do this? -Have we not Indians enough at home? If you have a mind to convert -Indians, there are colliers enough in Kingswood!” A savage race! As to -taking to the fields in this instance, it was simply a necessity; there -were no churches from whence the preacher could be ejected. Try to -realize it: the heathen society, indoctrinated only in brutal sports; -the rough, black labour only typical of the rough, black minds, the -rough, black souls. Surely he must have been a very brave man; nor was -he one at all of that order of apostles whose native roughness is well -fitted, it seems, to challenge roughness to civility. - -Footnote 5: - - Appendix E. - -Footnote 6: - - Appendix F. - -Whitefield was a perfect gentleman, of manners most affectionate and -amiable; altogether the most unlikely creature, it seems, to rise -triumphant over the execrations of a mighty mob. The oratory of -Whitefield seems to us almost the greatest mystery in the history of -eloquence: his voice must have been wonderful; its strength was -overwhelming, but it was not a roar; its modulations and inflections -were equal to its strength, so that it had the all-commanding tones of a -bell in its clearness, and all the modulations of an organ in its -variety and sweetness. Kingswood only stands as a representative of -crowds of other such places, where savages fell before the enchantment -of his sweet music. Read any accounts of him, and it will be seen that -we do not exaggerate in speaking of him as the very Orpheus of the -pulpit. Assuredly, as it has been said Orpheus, by the power of his -music, drew trees, stones, the frozen mountain-tops, and the floods to -bow to his melody, so men, “stockish, hard, and full of rage,” felt a -change pass over their nature, as they came under the spell of -Whitefield. Yet, perhaps, he would not have gone to Kingswood had he not -been inhibited from preaching in the Bristol churches. He had preached -in St. Mary Redcliff, and the following day had preached opening sermons -in the parish church of SS. Philip and Jacob, and then he was called -before the Chancellor of the diocese, who asked him for his licence by -which he was permitted to preach in that diocese. Whitefield said he was -an ordained minister of the Church of England, and as to the special -licence, it was obsolete. “Why did you not ask,” he said, “for the -licence of the clergyman who preached for you last Thursday?” The -Chancellor replied, “That is no business of yours.” Whitefield said, -“There is a canon forbidding clergymen to frequent taverns and play at -cards, why is that not enforced?” The Chancellor evaded this, but -charged Whitefield with preaching false doctrine; Whitefield replied -that he preached what he knew to be the truth, and he would continue to -preach. “Then,” said the Chancellor, “I will excommunicate you!” The end -of it was that all the city churches were shut against him. “But,” he -says, “if they were all open, they would not contain half the people who -come to hear. So at three in the afternoon I went to Kingswood among the -colliers.” Whitefield laid his case in a very respectful letter, before -the Bishop, but on he went. As to Kingswood, tears poured down the black -faces of the colliers; the great audiences are described as being -drenched in tears. Whitefield himself was in a passion of tears. “How -can I help weeping,” he said to them, “when you have not wept for -yourselves?” And they began to weep. Thus in 1739 began the mighty work -at Kingswood, which has been a great Methodist colony from that day to -this. That was a good morning’s work for the cause of Christ when the -Chancellor shut the doors of the churches of Bristol against the brave -and beautiful preacher, and threatened to excommunicate him. Was it not -said of old, “Thou makest the wrath of man to praise Thee”? - -Now, then, see him girt and road-ready; we might be sure that the -example of the Chancellor of Bristol would be pretty generally followed. -The old ecclesiastical corporations set themselves in array against him; -but how futile the endeavour! Their canons and rubrics were like the -building of hedges to confine an eagle, and they only left him without a -choice—without any choice but to fulfil his instinct for souls, and to -soar. Other “little brief authorities,” mayors, aldermen, and such like, -issued their fulminations. Coming to Basingstoke, the mayor, one John -Abbott, inhibited him. John Abbott seems to have been a burly butcher. -The intercourse and correspondence between the two is very humorously -characteristic; but, although it gives an insight as to the antagonism -which frequently awaited Whitefield, it is too long to quote in this -brief sketch. The butcher-mayor was coarse and insolent; Whitefield -never lost his sweet graciousness; writing to abusive butchers or -abusive bishops, as in his reply to Lavington, he never lost his temper, -never indulged in satire, never exhibits any great marks of genius, -writes straight to the point, simply vindicates himself and his course, -never retracts, never apologises, goes straight on. - -There is no other instance of a preacher who was so equally at home and -equally impressive and commanding in the most various and dissimilar -circles and scenes; it is significant of the notice he excited that his -name occurs so frequently in the correspondence of that cold and -heartless man and flippant sneerer, Horace Walpole, whose allusions to -him are usually disgraceful; but so it was, he was equally commanding in -the polished and select circles of the drawing-room, surrounded by dukes -and duchesses, great statesmen and philosophers, or in the large old -tabernacle or parish church, surrounded by more orderly and saintly -worshippers, or in nature’s vast and grand cathedrals, with twenty or -thirty thousand people around him. - -From the day when he went to Kingswood, we may run a rapid eye along the -perspective of his career—in fields, on heaths, and on commons, it was -the same everywhere; from his intense life we might find many scenes for -description: take one or two. On the breast of the mountain, the trees -and hedges full of people, hushed to profound silence, the open -firmament above him, the prospect of adjacent fields—the sight of -thousands on thousands of people; some in coaches, some on horseback, -and all affected, or drenched in tears. Sometimes evening approaches, -and then he says, “Beneath the twilight it was too much for me, and -quite overcame me.” There was one night never to be forgotten. While he -was preaching it lightened exceedingly; his spirit rose on the tempest; -his voice tolled out the doom and decay hanging over all nature; he -preached the warnings and the consolations of the coming of the Son of -man. The thunder broke over his head, the lightning shone along the -preacher’s path, it ran along the ground in wild glares from one part of -heaven to the other; the whole audience shook like the leaves of a -forest in the wind, whilst high amidst the thunders and the lightnings, -the preacher’s voice rose, exclaiming, “Oh; my friends, the wrath of -God! the wrath of God!” Then his spirit seemed to pass serenely right -through the tempest, and he talked of Christ, who swept the wrath away; -and then he told how he longed for the time when Christ should be -revealed, amidst the flaming fire, consuming all natural things. “Oh,” -exclaimed he, “that my soul may be in a like flame when He shall come to -call me!” Can we realize what his soul must have been who could burn -with such seraphic ardours in the midst of such scenes? - -[Illustration: - - WHITEFIELD PREACHING IN LONDON. -] - -So he opened the way everywhere, by his field-preaching, for John -Wesley. Truly it has been said, “Whitefield, and not Wesley, is the -prominent figure in the opening of the Methodist movement;” and the time -we must assign to this first popular agitation is the winter of 1738-39. -The two men were immensely different. To Whitefield the preaching was no -light work; it was not talking. After one of his sermons, drenched -through, he would lie down, spent, sobbing, exhausted, death-like: John -Wesley, after one of his most effective sermons, in which he also had -shaken men’s souls, would just quietly mount his little pony, and ride -off to the next village or town, reading his book as he went, or -stopping by the way to pluck curious flowers or simples from the hedges; -the poise of their spirits was so different. All great movements need -two men, Moses and Aaron; the prophet Elijah must go before, “to restore -all things.” Whitefield lived in the immediate neighbourhood and -breathed the air of essential truth; Wesley looked at men, and saw how -all remained undone until the work took coherency and shape. As he says, -“I was convinced that preaching like an apostle, without joining -together those that are awakened, and training them up in the ways of -God, is only begetting children for the murderer.” Whitefield preached -like an apostle; the scenes we have described appear charming rural -scenes, in which men’s hearts were bowed and hushed before him; but -there were widely different scenes when he defied the devil, and sought -to win his victims away, even in fairs and wakes—the most wild and -dissolute periodical pests and nuisances of the age. Rough human nature -went down before him, as in the instance of the man who came with heavy -stones to pelt him, and suddenly found his hands as it were tied, and -himself in tears, and, at the close, went up to the preacher, and said, -“I came here only to break your head, and you have broken my heart!” - -But the roughs of London seem to have been worse than the roughs of -Kingswood; and we cannot wonder that men like Walpole, and even polite -and refined religious men, thought that a man who could go right into -St. Bartholomew’s Fair, in Moorfields, and Finsbury, take his station -among drummers, trumpeters, merry-andrews, harlequins, and all kinds of -wild beasts, must be “mad”; it must have seemed the height of -fanaticism, like preaching to a real Gadarene swinery. All the -historians of the movement—Sir James Stephen, Dr. Abel Stevens, Dr. -Southey, Isaac Taylor, and others, recite with admiration the story of -the way in which he wrestled successfully with the merry-andrews. He -began to preach at six o’clock in the morning; stones, dirt, rotten eggs -were hurled at him. “My soul was among lions,” he says; but the -marvellous voice overcame, and he went on speaking, and we know how -tenderly he would speak to them, of their own miseries, and the dangers -of their own sins; the great multitude—it was between twenty and thirty -thousand—“became like lambs;” he finished, went away, and, in the wilder -time—in the afternoon—he came again. In the meantime there had been -organisations to put him down: here was a man with a long heavy whip to -strike the preacher; there was a recruiting sergeant who had been -engaged with drum and fife to interrupt him. As he appeared on the -outskirts of the crowd, Whitefield, who well knew how to catch the -humour of the people too, exclaimed, “Make way for the king’s officer!” -and the mob divided, while, to his surprise, the recruiting officer, -with his drum, found himself immediately beneath Whitefield; it was easy -to manage him now. The crowd around roared like wild beasts; it must -have been a tremendous scene. Will it be believed—it seems -incredible—that he continued there, preaching, praying, singing, until -the night fell? He won a decided victory, and the next day received no -fewer than a thousand notes from persons, “brands plucked from the -burning,” who spoke of the convictions through which they had passed, -and implored the preacher to remember them in his prayers. - -This was in Moorfields, in which neighbourhood since, the followers both -of Wesley and of Whitefield have found their tabernacles and most -eminent fields of usefulness. Many have attempted fair-preaching since -Whitefield’s day, but not, we believe, with much success; it needs a -remarkable combination of powers to make such efforts successful. -Whitefield was able to attempt to outbid the showmen, merry-andrews, and -harlequins, and he succeeded. No wonder they called him a fanatic; he -might have said, “If we be beside ourselves, it is for God, that by all -means we may save some!” - -But what we have been especially desirous that our readers should note -is, that these more vehement manifestations of Methodism were not the -result of any methodised plan, but were a simple yielding to, and taking -possession of circumstances; it was as if “the Spirit of the Lord” came -down upon the leaders, and “carried them whither they knew not.” - - * * * * * - -[For an account of Whitefield’s labours in America, and the spread of -the Great Revival there, the reader is referred to the supplemental -chapter at the end of this volume.] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER V - - THE REVIVAL CONSERVATIVE. - - -Lord Macaulay’s verdict upon John Wesley, that he possessed a “genius -for government not inferior to that of Richelieu,” received immediate -demonstration when he came actively into the movement, and has been -abundantly confirmed since his death, in the history of the society -which he founded. It has been said that all institutions are the -prolonged shadow of one mind, and that by the inclusiveness, or power of -perpetuity in the institution, we may know the mind of the founder. Much -of our last chapter was devoted to some attempt to realise the place and -power of Whitefield;[7] what he was in relation to the Revival may be -defined by the remark, often made, and by capable critics, that while -there have been multitudes of better sermon-makers, it is uncertain -whether the Church ever had so great a pulpit orator. In Wesley’s mind -everything became structural and organic; he was a mighty master of -administration; but he also followed Whitefield’s example, and took to -the fields; and very great, indeed, amazing results, followed his -ministry. - -Footnote 7: - - See Chapter XIV. for his place and power in America. - -Many of the incidents which are impressive and amusing show the -difference between the men. Whitefield overwhelmed the people: Wesley -met insolence and antagonism by some sharp, concise, and cuttingly -appropriate retort, which was remarkable, considering his stature. But -both his presence and his words must have been unusually commanding: “Be -silent, or begone,” he turned round sharply and said once to some -violent disturbers, and they were obedient to the command. - -Wesley’s rencontre with Beau Nash at Bath is a fair illustration of his -quiet and almost obscurely sarcastic method of confounding a troublesome -person. Preaching in the open air at Bath, the King of Bath, the Master -of the Ceremonies, Nash, was so unwise as to attempt to put down the -apostolic man. Nash’s character was bad; it was that of an idle, -heartless, licentious dangler on the skirts of high society. He appeared -in the crowd, and authoritatively asked Wesley by what right he dared to -stand there. The congregation was not wholly of the poor; there were a -number of fashionable and noble persons present, and among them many -with whom this attack had been pre-arranged, and who expected to see the -discomfiture of the Methodist by the courtly and fashionable old dandy. -Wesley replied to the question simply and quietly that he stood there by -the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed to him “by the present -Archbishop of Canterbury, when he laid hands on me and said, ‘Take thou -authority to preach the Gospel!’” Nash began to bustle and to be -turbulent, and he exclaimed, “This is contrary to Act of Parliament; -this is a conventicle.” “Sir,” said Wesley, “the Act you refer to -applies to seditious meetings: here is no sedition, no shadow of -sedition; the meeting is not, therefore, contrary to the Act.” Nash -stormed, “I say it is; besides, your preaching frightens people out of -their wits.” “Sir,” said Wesley, “give me leave to ask, Did you ever -hear me preach?” “No!” “How, then, can you judge of what you have never -heard?” “Sir, by common report.” “Common report is not enough,” said -Wesley; “again give me leave to ask is your name not Nash?” “My name is -Nash.” And then the reader must imagine Wesley’s thin, clear, piercing -voice, cutting through the crowd: “Sir, I dare not judge of _you_ by -common report.” There does not seem much in it, but the effect was -overwhelming. Nash tried to bully it out a little; but, to make his -discomfiture complete, the people took up the case, and especially one -old woman, whose daughter had come to grief through the fop, in her way -so set forth his sins that he was glad to retreat in dismay. On another -occasion, when attempts were made to assault Wesley, there was some -uncertainty about his person, and the assailants were saying, “Which is -he? which is he?” he stood still as he was walking down the crowded -street, turned upon them, and said, “I am he;” and they instantly fell -back, awed into involuntary silence and respect. - -It is characteristic that while Whitefield simply took to the work of -field-preaching, and preaching in the open air, and troubled himself -very little about finding or giving reasons for the irregularity of the -proceeding, Wesley defended the practice with formidable arguments. It -is remarkable that the practice should have been deemed so irregular, or -should need vindication, considering that our Lord had given to it the -sanction of His example, and that it had been adopted by the apostles -and fathers, the greatest of the Catholic preachers, and the reformers -of every age. A history of field and street-preaching would form a large -and interesting chapter of Church history. Southey quotes a very happy -series of arguments from one of Wesley’s appeals: “What need is there,” -he says, speaking for his antagonists, “of this preaching in the fields -and streets? Are there not churches enough to preach in?” “No, my -friend, there are not, not for us to preach in. You forget we are not -suffered to preach there, else we should prefer them to any place -whatever.” “Well, there are ministers enough without you.” “Ministers -enough, and churches enough! For what? To reclaim all the sinners within -the four seas? and one plain reason why these sinners are never -reclaimed is this: they never come into a church. Will you say, as some -tender-hearted Christians I have heard, ‘Then it is their own fault; let -them die and be damned!’ I grant it may be their own fault, but the -Saviour of souls came after us, and so we ought to seek to save that -which is lost.” He went on to confess the irregularity, but he retorted -that those persons who compelled him to be irregular had no right to -censure him for irregularity. “Will they throw a man into the dirt,” -said he, “and beat him because he is dirty? Of all men living those -clergymen ought not to complain who believe I preach the Gospel; if they -will not ask me to preach in their churches, they are accountable for my -preaching in the fields.” This is a fair illustration of the neat -shrewdness, the compact, incisive common sense of Wesley’s mind. Thus he -argued himself into that sphere of labour which justified him in after -years in saying, without any extravagance, “The world is my parish.” - -We have said the Revival became conservative. It is true the Countess -of Huntingdon did much to make it so; but it assumed a shape of -vitality, and a force of coherent strength, chiefly from the touch of -Wesley’s administrative mind. The present City Road Chapel, which was -opened in 1776, opposite Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, is probably the -first illustration of this fact; it stands where stood the -Foundry—time-honoured spot in the history of Methodism. It stood in -Moorfields; the City Road was a mere lane then. The building had been -used by government for casting cannon; it was a rude ruin. Wesley -purchased it and the site at the very commencement of his work, in -1739; he turned it into a temple. As the years passed on it became the -cradle of London Methodism, accommodating fifteen hundred people. -Until within twenty years of Wesley’s purchase this had been a kind of -Woolwich Arsenal to the government; it became a temple of peace, and -here came “band-rooms,” school-rooms, book-rooms—the first saplings of -Methodist usefulness. - -[Illustration: - - JOHN WESLEY. -] - -It has been truly said by a writer in the _British Quarterly_, that the -most romantic lives of the saints of the Roman Catholic calendar do not -present a more startling succession of incidents than those which meet -us in the life and labours of Wesley. Romish stories claim that Blessed -Raymond, of Pegnafort, spread his cloak upon the sea to transport him -across the water, sailing one hundred and sixty miles in six hours, and -entering his convent through closed doors! The devout and zealous -Francis Xavier spent three whole days in two different places at the -same time, preaching all the while! Rome shines out in transactions like -these: Wesley does not; but he seems to have been almost ubiquitous, and -he moves with a rapidity reminding us of that flying angel who had the -everlasting Gospel to preach, and he shines alike in his conflicts with -nature and the still wilder tempests caused by the passions of men. We -read of his travelling, through the long wintry hours, two hundred and -eighty miles on horseback, in six days; it was a wonderful feat in those -times. When Wesley first began his itinerancy there were no turnpikes in -the country; but before he closed his career, he had probably paid more, -says Dr. Southey, for turnpikes, than any other man in England, for no -other man in England travelled so much. His were no pleasant journeys, -as of summer days; he travelled through the fens of Lincolnshire when -the waters were out; and over the fells of Northumberland when they were -covered with snow. Speaking of one tremendous journey, through dreadful -weather, he says, “Many a rough journey have I had before; but one like -this I never had, between wind and hail, and rain, and ice, and snow, -and driving sleet, and piercing cold; but it is past. Those days will -return no more, and are therefore as though they had never been. - - “‘And pain, like pleasure, is a dream!’” - -How singular was his visit to Epworth, where he found the church of his -childhood, his father’s church, the church of his own first -ministrations, closed against him! The minister of the church was a -drunkard; he had been under great obligations, both to Wesley himself -and to the Wesley family, but he assailed him with the most offensive -brutality; and when Wesley, denied the pulpit, signified his intention -of simply partaking of the Lord’s Supper with the parishioners on the -following Sunday, the coarse man sent word, “Tell Mr. Wesley I shall not -give him the Sacrament, for he is not _fit_.” It seems to have cut Mr. -Wesley very deeply. “It was fit,” he says, “that he who repelled me from -the 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 my -father had shown to his, as well as personally to himself.” He stayed -there, however, eight days, and preached every evening in the -churchyard, standing on his father’s tomb; truly a singular sight, the -living son, the prophet of his age, surely little short of inspired, -preaching from his dead father’s grave with such pathos and power as we -may well conceive. “I am well assured,” he says, “I did far more good to -my old Lincolnshire parishioners by preaching three days on my father’s -tomb than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit!” - -[Illustration: - - WESLEY PREACHING IN EPWORTH CHURCHYARD. -] - -As he travelled to and fro, odd mistakes sometimes happened. Arrived at -York, he went into the church in St. Saviour’s Gate; the rector, one Mr. -Cordeau, had often warned his congregation against going to hear “that -vagabond Wesley” preach. It was usual in that day for ministers of the -Establishment to wear the cassock or gown, just as everywhere in France -we see the French abbés. Wesley had on his gown, like a university man -in a university town. Mr. Cordeau, not knowing who he was, offered him -his pulpit; Wesley was quite willing, and always ready. Sermons leaped -impromptu from his lips, and this sermon was an impressive one; at its -close the clerk asked the rector if he knew who the preacher was. “No.” -“Why, sir, it was that vagabond Wesley!” “Ah, indeed!” said the -astonished clergyman; “well, never mind, we have had a good sermon.” The -anecdotes of the incidents which waited upon the preacher in his travels -are of every order of humorous, affecting, and romantic interest; they -are spread over a large variety of volumes, and even still need to be -gathered, framed, and hung in the light of some effective chronicle. - -[Illustration: - - EPWORTH CHURCH. -] - -The brilliant passage in which Lord Macaulay portrays, as with the -pencil of a Vandyke, the features of the great English Puritans, is -worthy of attention. Perhaps, even had the great essayist attempted the -task, he had scarcely the requisite sympathies to give an effective -portrait or portraits of the early Methodists; indeed, their characters -are different, as different as a portrait from the pencil of Denner to -one from that of Vandyke, or of Velasquez; but as Denner is wonderful -too, although so homely, so the Methodist is a study. The early -Methodist was, perhaps, usually a very simple, what we should call an -ignorant, man, but he had “the true Light which lighteth every man that -cometh into the world.” He was not such an one as the early Puritan[8] -or the ancient Huguenot, those children of the camp and of the sword, -Nonconformist Templars and Crusaders, whose theology had trained them -for the battle-field, teaching them to frown defiance on kings, and to -treat with contempt the proudest nobles, if they were merely -unsanctified men. The Methodist was not such an one as the stern -Ironside of Cromwell; as he lived in a more cheerful age, so he was the -subject of a more cheerful piety; he was as loyal as he was lowly. He -had been forgotten or neglected by all the priests and Levites of the -land; but a voice had reached him, and raised him to the rank of a -living, conscious, immortal soul. He also was one for whom Christ died. -A new life had created new interests in him; and Christianity, really -believed, does ennoble a man—how can it do otherwise? It gives -self-respect to a man, it shows to him a new purpose and business in -life; moreover, it creates a spirit of holy cheerfulness and joy; and -thus came about that state of mind which Wesley made subservient to -organisation—the necessity for meetings and reciprocations. It has been -said that every church must have some sign or counter-sign, some symbol -to make it popularly successful. St. Dominic gave to his order the -Rosary; John Wesley gave to his Society the Ticket. There were no -chapels, or but few, and none to open their doors to these strange new -pilgrims to the celestial city. We have seen that the churches were -closed against them. Lord Macaulay says, had John Wesley risen in the -Church of Rome, she would have thrown her arms round him, only regarding -him as the founder of a new order, with certain peculiarities calculated -to increase and to extend her empire, and in due time have given to him -the honours of canonisation. - -Footnote 8: - - See Appendix A. - -The English clergy as a body gathered up their garments and shrunk from -all contact with the Methodists as from a pestilence. What could be -done? Something must be done to prevent them from falling back into the -world. Piety needs habit, and must become habitual to be safe, even as -the fine-twined linen of the veil, and the ark of the covenant, and the -cherubim shadowing the mercy-seat, were shut in and all their glory -defended by the rude coverings of badger-skins. John Wesley knew that -the safety of the converted would be in frequent meetings for singing -and prayer and conversation. Reciprocation is the soul of Methodism; so -they assembled in each others’ houses, in rude and lonely but convenient -rooms, by farm-house ingles, in lone hamlets. Thus was created a homely -piety, often rugged enough, no doubt, but full of beautiful and pathetic -instincts. So grew what came to be called band-meetings, class-meetings, -love-feasts, and all the innumerable means by which the Methodist -Society worked, until it became like a wheel within a wheel; simple -enough, however, in the days to which we are referring. “Look to the -Lord, and faithfully attend all the means of grace appointed in the -Society.” Such was, practically, the whole of Methodism. So that famous -old lady, whose bright example has so often been held up on Methodist -platforms, when called upon to state the items of her creed, did so very -sufficiently when she summed it up in the four particulars of -“repentance towards God; faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; a penny a week; -and a shilling a quarter.” Wesley seems to have summed the Methodist -creed more simply still: “Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, and an -earnest desire to flee from the wrath to come.” This was his condition -of Church fellowship. When the faith became more consciously objective, -it too was seized by the passionate instinct, the desire t o save souls. -This drove the early Methodists out on great occasions to call vast -multitudes together on heaths, on moors. Perhaps—but this was at a later -time—some country gentleman threw open his old hall to the preachers; -though the more aristocratic phase of the Methodist movement fell into -the Calvinistic rather than into the Wesleyan ranks, and subsided into -the organisation of the Countess of Huntingdon, which was, in fact, a -kind of Free Church of England. The followers of Wesley sought the -sequestration of nature, or in cities and towns they took to the streets -or the broad ways and outlying fields. In some neighbourhoods a little -room was built, containing the germ of what in a few years became a -large Wesleyan Society. The burden of all these meetings, and all their -intercourse, whether in speech or song, was the sweetness and fulness of -Jesus. They had intense faith in the love of God shed abroad in the -heart; and their great interest was in souls on the brink of perdition. -They knew little of spiritual difficulties or speculative despair; their -conflict was with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and in this -person, whose features have lately become somewhat dim, and who has -wrapped himself in a new cloak of darkness, they did really believe. -Wesley dealt with sin as sin, and with souls as souls; he and his band -of preachers had little regard to proprieties, and it was not a polished -time; so, ungraceful and undignified, the face weary, and the hand heavy -with toil, they seemed out of breath pursuing souls. The strength of all -these men was that they had a definite creed, and they sought to guard -it by a definite Church life. The early Methodist had also cultivated -the mighty instinct of prayer, about which he had no philosophy, but -believing that God heard him, he quite simply indulged in it as a -passion, and in this to him there was at once a meaning and a joy. We -are not under the necessity of vindicating every phase of the great -movement, we are simply writing down some particulars of its history, -and how it was that it grew and prevailed. God’s ministry goes on by -various means, ordinary and extraordinary; that is the difference -between rivers and rains, between dews and lightnings. - -A very interesting chapter, perhaps a volume, might be compiled from the -old records of the mere anecdotes—the very humours—of the persecution -attending on the Revival. Thus, in Cornwall, Edward Greenfield, a -tanner, with a wife and seven children, was arrested under a warrant -granted by Dr. Borlase, the eminent antiquary, who was, however, a -bitter foe to Methodism. It was inquired what was the objection to -Greenfield, a peaceable, inoffensive man; and the answer was, “The man -is well enough, but the gentlemen round about can’t bear his impudence; -why, he says he knows his sins are forgiven!” The story is well known -how, in one place, a whole waggon-load of Methodists were taken before -the magistrates; but when the question was asked in court what they had -done, a profound silence fell over the assembly, for no one was prepared -with a charge against them, till somebody exclaimed, “They pretended to -be better than other people, and prayed from morning till night!” And -another voice shouted out, “And they’ve _convarted_ my wife; till she -went among they, she had a tongue of her own, and now she’s as quiet as -a lamb!” “Take them all back, take them all back,” said the sensible -magistrate, “and let them convert all the scolds in the town!” - -There is a spot in Cornwall which may be said to be consecrated and set -apart to the memory of Wesley; it is in the immediate neighbourhood of -Redruth, a wild, bare, rugged-looking region now, very suggestive of its -savage aspect upwards of a hundred years since. The spot to which we -refer is the Gwennap Pit; it is a wild amphitheatre, cut out among the -hills, capable of holding about thirty thousand persons. Its natural -walls slant upwards, and the place has altogether wonderful properties -for the carrying the human voice. Wesley began to preach in this spot in -1762. When he first visited Cornwall, the savage mobs of what used to be -called “West Barbary,” howled and roared upon him like lions or wild -beasts; in his later years of visitation, no emperor or sovereign prince -could have been received with more reverence and affection. The streets -were lined and the windows of the houses thronged with gazing crowds, to -see him as he walked along; and no wonder, for Cornwall was one of the -chief territories of that singular ecclesiastical kingdom of which he -was the founder. When he first went into Cornwall, it was really a -region of savage irreligion and heathenism. The reader of his life often -finds, usually about once a year, the visit to Gwennap Pit recorded: he -preached his first sermon there, as we have said, in 1762; at the age of -eighty-six he preached his last in 1789. There, from time to time, they -poured in from all the country round to see and to listen to the words -of this truly reverend father. - -[Illustration: - - The Great Revival. - Wesley Preaching in Gwennap Pit. -] - -The traditions of Methodism have few more imposing scenes. Gwennap Pit -was, perhaps, Wesley’s most famous cathedral; a magnificent church, if -we may apply that term to a building of nature, among the wild moors; it -was thronged by hushed and devout worshippers. Until Wesley went among -these people, the whole immense population might have said, “No man -cared for our souls;” now they poured in to see him there: wild miners -from the immediate neighbourhood, fishermen from the coast, men who -until their conversion had pursued the wrecker’s remorseless and -criminal career, smugglers, more quiet men and their families less -savage, but not less ignorant, from their shieling, or lowly farmstead -on the distant heath. A strange throng, if we think of it, men who had -never used God’s name except in an oath, and who had never breathed a -prayer except for the special providence of a shipwreck, and who with -wicked barbarity had kindled their delusive lights along the coasts, to -fascinate unfortunate ships to the cruel cliffs! But a Divine power had -passed over them, and they were changed, with their families; and hither -they came to gladden the heart of the old patriarch in the wild glen—a -strange spot, and not unbeautiful, roofed over by the blue heavens. -Amidst the broom, the twittering birds, the heath flower, and the -scantling of trees, amidst the venerable rocks, it must have been -wonderful to hear the thirty thousand voices welling up, and singing -Wesley’s words: - - “Suffice that for the season past, - Hell’s horrid language filled our tongues; - We all Thy words behind us cast, - And loudly sang the drunkard’s songs. - But, oh, the power of grace Divine! - In hymns we now our voices raise, - Loudly in strange hosannahs join, - While blasphemies are turned to praise!” - -Such was one of the triumphs of the Great Revival. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - THE SINGERS OF THE REVIVAL. - - -Chief of all the auxiliary circumstances which aided the Great Revival, -beyond a question, was this: that it taught the people of England, for -the first time, the real power of sacred song. That man in the north of -England who, when taken, by a companion who had been converted, to a -great Methodist preaching, and being asked at the close of the service -how he had enjoyed it, replied, “Weel, I didna care sae mich aboot the -preaching, but, eh, man! yon ballants were grand,” was no doubt a -representative character. And the great and subduing power of large -bodies of people, moved as with one heart and one voice, must have -greatly aided to produce those effects which we are attempting to -realise. All great national movements have acknowledged and used the -power of song. For man is a born singer, and if he cannot sing himself -he likes to feel the power of those who can. It has been so in political -movements: there were the songs of the Roundheads and the Cavaliers. And -the greatest religious movements through all the Christian ages have -acknowledged the power of sacred song, even from the days of the -apostles, and from the time of St. Ambrose in Milan. Luther soon found -that he must teach the people to sing. That is a pleasant little story, -how once, as he was sitting at his window, he heard a blind beggar sing. -It was something about the grace of God, and Luther says the strain -brought tears into his eyes. Then, he says, the thought suddenly flashed -into his mind, “If I could only make gospel songs which people could -sing, and which would spread themselves up and down the cities!” He -directly set to work upon this inspiration, and let fly song after song, -each like a lark mounting towards heaven’s gate, full of New Testament -music. “He took care,” says one writer, in mentioning the incident, -“that each song should have some rememberable word or refrain; such as -‘Jesus,’ ‘Believe and be saved,’ ‘Come unto Me,’ ‘Gospel,’ ‘Grace,’ -‘Worthy is the Lamb,’ and so on.” - -Until Watts and Doddridge appeared, England had no popular sacred -melodies. Amongst the works of the poets, such as Sir Philip Sidney, -Milton, Sandys, George Herbert, and others, a few were scattered up and -down; but they mostly lacked the subtle element which constitutes a -hymn. For, just as a man may be a great poet, and utterly fail in the -power to write a good song, so a man may be a great sacred poet, and yet -miss the faculty which makes the hymn-writer. It is singular, it is -almost indefinable. The subtle something which catches the essential -elements of a great human experience, and gives it lyrical expression, -takes that which other men put into creeds, sermons, theological essays, -and sets it flying, as we just now said, like “the lark to heaven’s -gate.” It ought never to be forgotten that Watts was, in fact, the -creator of the English hymn. He wrote many lines which good taste can in -no case approve; but here again the old proverb holds true, “The house -that is building does not look like the house that is built.” And the -great number of following writers, while they have felt the inspiration -he gave to the Church, have moulded their lines by a more fastidious -taste, which, if it has sometimes improved the metre or the sentiment, -has possibly diminished in the strength. We will venture to say that -even now there is a greater average of majesty of thought and expression -in Watts’s hymns than in any other of our great hymn-writers; although, -in some cases, we find here and there a piece which may equal, and some -one or two which are said to surpass, the flights of the sweet singer of -Stoke Newington. But the hymns of Watts, as a whole, were not so well -fitted to a great and popular revival, to the expression of a tumultuous -and passionate experience, as some we shall notice. They were, as a -whole, especially wanting in the social element, and the finest of them -sound like notes from the harp of some solitary angel. One cannot give -to them the designation which the Wesleys gave to large sections of -their hymns, “suitable for experience meetings.” Praise rather than -experience is the characteristic of Watts, although there are noble -exceptions. Our readers will perhaps remember a well-known and pleasing -instance in a letter from Doddridge to his aged friend. Doddridge had -been preaching on a summer evening in some plain old village chapel in -Northamptonshire, when at the close of the service was “given out,” as -we say, that hymn commencing: - - “Give me the wings of faith to rise.” - -We can suppose the melody to which it was sung to have been very rude; -but it was, perhaps, new to the people, and the preacher was affected as -he saw how, over the congregation, the people were singing earnestly, -and melted to tears while they sang; and at the close of the service -many old people gathered round Doddridge, their hearts all alive with -the hymn, and they wished it were possible, only for once, to look upon -the face of the dear old Dr. Watts. Doddridge was so pleased that he -thought his old friend would be pleased also, and so he wrote the -account of the little incident in a letter to him. In many other parts -of the country, no doubt, the people were waiting and wishful for -popular sacred harmonies. And when the Great Revival came, and -congregations met by thousands, and multitudes who had been accustomed -to song, thoughtless, foolish, very often sinful and licentious, still -needed to sing (for song and human nature are inseparable, apparently, -so far as we know anything about it, in the next world as well as in -this), it was necessary that, as they had been “brought up out of the -horrible pit and miry clay,” “a new song of praise” should be put in the -mouth. John Wesley had heard much of Moravian singing. He took Count -Zinzendorf’s hymns, translated them, and immensely improved them; he was -the first who introduced into our psalmody the noble words of Paul -Gerhardt. Some of the finest of all the hymns in the Wesleyan collection -are these translations. Watts was unsparingly used. Wesley’s first -effort to meet this necessity of the Revival was the publication of his -collection in 1739.[9] And thus, most likely without knowing the -anecdote of Luther we have quoted above, Wesley and his coadjutors did -exactly what the Reformer had done. They gave effect to the Revival by -the ordinance of song, and preached the Gospel in sweet words, and often -recurring Gospel refrains. - -Footnote 9: - - See Appendix. - -The remark is true that there was no art, no splendid form of worship or -ritual; early Methodism and the entire evangelic movement were as free -from all this as Clairvaux in the Valley of Wormwood, when Bernard -ministered there with all his monks around him, or as Cluny when Bernard -de Morlaix chanted his “Jerusalem the Golden.” Like all great religious -movements which have shaken men’s souls, this was purely spiritual, or -if it had a secular expression it was not artificial. Loud amens -resounded as the preacher spoke or prayed, and then the hearty gushes -of, perhaps, not melodious song united all hearts in some litany or Te -Deum in new-born verse from some of the singers of the last revival. -Amongst infuriated mobs, we read how Wesley found a retreat in song, and -overpowered the multitude with what we, perhaps, should not regard -melody. Thus, when at Bengeworth in 1740, where Wesley was set upon by a -crowd, and it was proposed by one that they should take him away and -duck him, he broke out into singing with his redoubted friend, Thomas -Maxfield. He allowed them to carry him whither they would; at the bridge -end of the street the mob retreated and left him; but he took his stand -on the bridge, and striking up— - - “Angel of God, whate’er betide, - Thy summons I obey,” - -preached a useful and effective sermon to hundreds who remained to -listen, from the text, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” - -But the contributions of Watts and Wesley are so well known that it is -more important to notice here that as the Revival moved on, very soon -other remarkable lyrists appeared to contribute, if few, yet really -effective words. Of these none is more remarkable than the mighty -cobbler, Thomas Olivers, a “sturdy Welshman,” as Southey calls him. He -is not to be confounded with John Oliver, also one of the notabilities -of the Revival. Thomas was really an astonishing trophy of the movement; -before his conversion he was a thoroughly bad fellow, a kind of -wandering reprobate, an idle, dissipated man. He fell beneath the power -of Whitefield, whom he heard preach from the text, “Is not this a brand -plucked out of the fire?” He had made comic songs about Whitefield, and -sung them with applause in tap-rooms. As Whitefield came in his way, he -went with the purpose of obtaining fresh fuel for his ridicule. The -heart of the man was completely broken, and he felt so much compunction -for what he had done against the man for whom he now felt so deep a -reverence and awe, that he used to follow him in the streets, and though -he did not speak to him, he says he could scarcely refrain from kissing -the prints of his footsteps. And now, he says, at the beginning of his -new life, what we can well believe of an imagination so intense and -strong, “I saw God in everything: the heavens, the earth and all therein -showed me something of Him; yea, even from a drop of water, a blade of -grass, or a grain of sand, I received instruction.” He was about -seriously to enter into a settled and respectable way of business when -John Wesley heard of him; and although he was converted under -Whitefield, Wesley persuaded him to yield himself to his direction for -the work of preaching as one of his itinerant band, and sent him into -Cornwall—just the man we should think for Cornwall, fiery and -imaginative: off he went, in 1753. He was born in 1725. He testifies -that he was “unable to buy a horse, so, with my boots on my legs, my -great-coat on my back, and my bag with my books and linen across my -shoulders, I set out for Cornwall on foot.” Henceforth there were -forty-six years on earth before him, during which he witnessed a -magnificent confession before many witnesses. He became one of the -foremost controversialists when dissensions arose among the men of the -Revival. He acquired a knowledge of the languages, especially of Hebrew, -and was a great reader. Wesley appointed him as his editor and general -proofreader; but he could never be taught to punctuate properly, and the -punctilious Wesley could not tolerate his inaccuracies as they slipped -through the proof, so he did not retain this post long. But Wesley loved -him, and in 1799 he descended into Wesley’s own tomb, and his remains -lie there, in the cemetery of the City Road Chapel. He wrote more prose -than poetry; but, like St. Ambrose, he is made immortal by a single -hymn. He is the author of one of the most majestic hymns in all -hymnology. Byron and Scott wrote Hebrew melodies, but they will not bear -comparison with this one. While in London upon one occasion, he went -into the Jewish synagogue, and he heard sung there by a rabbi, Dr. -Leoni, an old air, a melody which so enchanted him and fixed itself in -his memory, that he went home, and instantly produced what he called “a -hymn to the God of Abraham,” arranged to the air he had heard. And thus -we possess that which we so frequently sing, - - “The God of Abraham praise!”[10] - -It is principally known by its first four verses; there are twelve. -“There is not,” says James Montgomery, “in our language a lyric of more -majestic style, more elevated thought, or more glorious imagery; * * * -like a stately pile of architecture, severe and simple in design; it -strikes less on the first view than after deliberate examination, * * * -the mind itself grows greater in contemplating it;” and he continues, -“On account of the peculiarity of the measure, none but a person of -equal musical and poetical taste could have produced the harmony -perceptible in the verse.” There will, perhaps, always be a doubt -whether Olivers was the author of the hymn, - - “Lo! He comes with clouds descending.” - -If Charles Wesley were the author, he undoubtedly derived the -inspiration of the piece from Olivers’ hymn, “The Last Judgment:”[11] it -is in the same metre, and probably Wesley took the thought and the -metre, and adapted it to popular service. What is undoubted is that -Olivers, who is the author of the metre, is also the author of the fine -old tune “Helmsley,” to which the hymn was usually sung until quite -recent times; the tune was originally called “Olivers.” - -Footnote 10: - - See Appendix - -Footnote 11: - - See Appendix - -It is but a natural step from Thomas Olivers to his great antagonist, -Augustus Toplady; he also is made immortal by a hymn. He wrote many fine -ones, full of melody, pathos, and affecting imagery. Toplady, as all our -readers know, was a clergyman, the Vicar of Broad Hembury, in -Devonshire. He took the strong Calvinistic side in the controversies -which arose in the course of the Great Revival; Olivers took the strong -Arminian side. They were not very civil to each other; and the scholarly -clergyman no doubt felt his dignity somewhat hurt by the rugged contact -with the cobbler; but the quarrels are forgotten now, and there is -scarcely a hymn-book in which the hymn of Olivers is not found within a -few pages of - - “Rock of Ages, cleft for me!” - -To this hymn has been given almost universally the palm as the finest -hymn in our language. Where there are so many, at once deeply expressive -in experience, and subdued and elevated in feeling, we perhaps may be -forgiven if we hesitate before praise so eminently high. Mr. Gladstone’s -translation into the Latin, in the estimation of eminent scholars, even -carries a more thrilling and penetrative awe.[12] But Toplady wrote many -other hymns quite equal in pathos and poetic merit. The characteristic -of “Rock of Ages” is its depth of penitential devotion. A volume might -be written on the history of this expressive hymn. Innumerable are the -multitudes whom these words have sustained when dying; they were among -the last which lingered on the lips of Prince Albert as he was passing -away; and to how many, through every variety of social distinction, have -they been at once the creed and consolation! It is by his hymns that -Toplady will be chiefly remembered. For years he was hovering along on -the borders of the grave, slowly dying of consumption; and he died in -1778, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. It was his especial wish -that he should be buried with more than quiet, that no announcement -should be made of the funeral, and that there should be no especial -service at his grave: it testifies, however, to the high regard in which -he was held that thousands followed him to his burial in Tottenham Court -Road Chapel; and when we know that his dear friend Rowland Hill -conducted the service, we can scarcely be surprised, or offended, that -he broke through the injunctions of his friend, and addressed the -multitude in affectionate commemoration of the sweet singer. - -Footnote 12: - - See Appendix. - -[Illustration: - - AUGUSTUS TOPLADY. -] - -Toplady we should regard as the chief singer of the Revival, after -Charles Wesley, although entirely of another order; not so social as -meditative, and reminding us, in many of his pieces, of the -characteristics we have attributed to Watts. His midnight hymn is a -piece of uncommon sublimity; portions of it seem almost unfit for -congregational singing; but for inward plaintive meditation, for reading -in the evening family prayer, when the hushed stillness of night is over -the household, and the pilgrim of life is about to commit himself to the -unconsciousness of sleep, the verses seem tenderly suggestive: - - “Thy ministering spirits descend, - And watch while Thy saints are asleep; - By day and by night they attend, - The heirs of salvation to keep. - Bright seraphs despatched from the throne, - Fly swift to their stations assigned; - And angels elect are sent down - To guard the elect of mankind. - - “Their worship no interval knows; - Their fervour is still on the wing; - And, while they protect my repose, - They chant to the praise of my King. - I, too, at the season ordained, - Their chorus forever shall join, - And love and adore without end, - Their gracious Creator and mine.” - -We have noticed in a previous chapter that when Whitefield separated -himself from Wesley, the Revival took two distinctly different routes. -We only refer to this again for the purpose of remarking that as Toplady -was intensely Calvinistic in his method of Divine grace, so his hymns, -also, reflect in all its fulness that creed; yet they are full of -tenderness, and well calculated frequently to arouse dormant devotion. -“Your harps, ye trembling saints;” “Emptied of earth I fain would be;” -“When languor and disease invade;” “Jesus, immutably the same;” “A -debtor to mercy alone,” and many another, leave nothing to be desired -either on the score of devotion, poetry, or melody. - -In a far humbler sphere, but representing the same faith and fervour as -Toplady, and also carried away young, was Cennick. In an article in the -_Christian Remembrancer_, on English hymnology, written very much for -the purpose of throwing contempt on all the hymn-writers of the Revival, -Cennick is spoken of as “a low and violent person; his hymns peculiarly -offensive, both as to matter and manner.” Some exceptions are made by -the reviewer for “Children of the Heavenly King.” We may presume, -therefore, that to this writer, “Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb,” is one -of the “peculiarly offensive.” This is not wonderful, when in the next -page we read that “the hymns of Newton are the very essence of -doggerel.” This sounds rather strange, as a verdict, to those who have -felt the particular charm of that much-loved hymn, “How sweet the name -of Jesus sounds!” It is not without a purpose that we refer to this -paper in the _Christian Remembrancer_—evidently by a very scholarly -hand—because its whole tone shows how the sacred song of the Revival -would be likely to be regarded by those who had no sympathy with its -evangelical teaching. The writer, for instance, speaking of Wesley’s -hymns, doubts whether any of them could possibly be included by any -chance in English hymnology! “Jesus, lover of my soul,” is said, “in -some _small_ degree to approximate to the model of a Church hymn!” Of -the Countess of Huntingdon’s hymn-book, the writer says, “We shall -certainly not notice the raving profanity!” It is not necessary further -either to sadden or to irritate the reader by similar expressions; but -the entire paper, and the criticisms we have cited, will show what was -likely to be the effect of the hymns of the Revival on many similar -minds of that time. In fact, the joy of the Revival work arose from -this, that no person, no priest, nor Church usage, was needed to -interpose between the soul and the Saviour. Faith in Christ, and His -immediate, personal presence with the soul seeking Him by faith, as it -was the burden of the best of the sermons, so it was, also, of all the -great hymns. - -The origin and the authors of several eminent hymns are certainly -obscure. To Edward Perronet must be assigned the authorship of the fine -coronation anthem of the Lamb that was slain: “All hail the power of -Jesus’ name!” - -Another, which has become a universal favourite, is “Beyond the -glittering starry globe.” This is a noble and inspiring hymn; only a few -verses are usually quoted in our hymn-books. Lord Selborne divides its -authorship between Fanch and Turner. We have seen it attributed to -Olivers; this is certainly a mistake. The _Quarterly Review_, in a very -able paper on hymnology, reproducing an old legend concerning it, traces -it to two brothers in a humble situation in life, one an itinerant -preacher, the other a porter. The preacher desired the porter to carry a -letter for him. “I can’t go,” said the porter, “I am writing a hymn.” -“You write a hymn, indeed! Nonsense! you go with the letter, and I will -finish the hymn.” He went, and returned, but the hymn was unfinished. -The preacher had taken it up at the third verse, and his muse had -forsaken him at the eighth. “Give me the pen,” said the porter, and he -wrote off, - - “They brought His chariot from above, - To bear Him to His throne; - Clapped their triumphant wings, and cried, - ‘The glorious work is done!’” - -Unfortunately the author of the paper in the _Quarterly Review_ appears -never to have seen the hymn in its entirety. The verse he cites is not -the eighth, but the twenty-second, and it has been mutilated almost -wherever quoted; the verse itself is part of an apostrophe to the -angels, recalling their ministrations round our Lord: - - “Tended His chariot up the sky, - And bore Him to His throne; - Then swept your golden harps and cried, - ‘The glorious work is done!’” - -Whoever wrote the hymn had the imagination of a poet, the fine pathos of -a believer, and a strong lyrical power of expression. - -Anecdotes of the origin of many of our great hymns of this period are as -interesting as they are almost innumerable; those of which we are -speaking are hymns of the Revival—to speak concisely—perhaps commenced -with the Wesleys, and closed with Cowper and Newton. It must not be -supposed that there were no singers save those whose verses found their -way into the Wesleyan or other great collections of hymns; there were -James Grant, Joseph Griggs, especially notable, Miss Steele, the author -of a great number of hymns of universal acceptance in all our churches, -and which are more like those of Doddridge than any other since his day. -Then there was John Stocker,—but we would particularly notice Job -Hupton, the author of a hymn which has never been included in any -hymn-book except _Our Hymn Book_, edited by the author of this volume, -but which is scarcely inferior to “Beyond the glittering starry sky.” - - “Come, ye saints, and raise an anthem, - Cleave the skies with shouts of praise, - Sing to Him who found a ransom, - Ancient of eternal days. - Bring your harps, and bring your odours, - Sweep the string and pour the lay; - View His works! behold His wonders! - Let hosannas crown the day!” - -The hymn is far too long for quotation. Job Hupton was a Baptist -minister in the neighbourhood of Beccles, where he died in 1849, in the -eighty-eighth year of his age, and the sixty-fifth of his ministry. - -Thus there was set free throughout the country a spirit of sacred song -which was new to the experience of the nation: it was boldly -evangelical; it was devoted, not to the eulogy of Church forms and days; -there was not a syllable of Mariolatry; but praise to Christ, earnest -meditation upon the state of man without His work, and the blessedness -of the soul which had risen to the saving apprehension of it. This forms -the whole substance of the Divine melody. It has seemed to some that the -most perfect hymn in the English language is, “Jesus! lover of my soul.” -Sentiments may differ, arising from modifications of experience, but -that hymn undoubtedly is the very essence of all the hymns which were -sung in the days of the Great Revival. For the first time there was -given to Christian experience that which met it at every turn. Watts -found such a choir, and such an audience for his devotions, as he had -never known in his life; and “Charles Wesley,” says Isaac Taylor, “has -been drawing thousands in his wake and onward, from earth to heaven.” -The hymns met and united all companies and all societies. The bridal -party returned from church, singing, - - “We kindly help each other, - Till all shall wear the starry crown.” - -If they gathered round the grave, they sang;—and what a variety of -glorious funereal hymns they had! But that was a great favourite: - - “There all the ship’s company meet, - Who sailed with their Saviour beneath; - With shoutings each other they greet, - And triumph o’er sorrow and death.” - -Few separations took place without that song, - - “Blest be the dear uniting love, - That will not let us part.” - -While others became such favourites that even almost every service had -to be hallowed by them; such as, - - “Jesus! the name high over all, - In hell, or earth, or sky;” - -while an equal favourite almost, was, - - “Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing - My great Redeemer’s praise!” - -They must soon have become very well known, for so early as 1748, when a -sad cluster of convicts, horse-stealers, highway robbers, burglars, -smugglers, and thieves, were led forth to execution, the turnkey of the -prison said he had never seen such people before. The Methodists had -been among them; they had all yielded themselves to the power of “the -truth as it is in Jesus,” and on their way to Tyburn they all sang -together, - - “Lamb of God! whose bleeding love - We now recall to mind, - Send the answer from above, - And let us mercy find; - Think on us, who think of Thee, - And every struggling soul release; - Oh! remember Calvary, - And let us go in peace!” - -The hymns found their way to sick beds. The old Earl of Derby, the -grandfather of the present peer, was dying at Knowsley. He had for his -housekeeper there a Mrs. Brass, a good and faithful Methodist; the old -Earl was fond of talking with her upon religious matters, and one day -she read to him the well-known hymn, “All ye that pass by, to Jesus draw -nigh.” When she came to the lines, - - “The Lord in the day of His anger did lay - Our sins on the Lamb, and he bore them away,” - -the Earl looked up and said, “Stop! don’t you think, Mrs. Brass, that -ought to be, ‘The Lord in the day of his _mercy_ did lay’?” - -The old lady did not admit the validity of his lordship’s theology; but -it very abundantly showed that his experience had passed through the -verse, and reached to the true meaning of the hymn. An old blind woman -was hearing Peter McOwan preach. He quoted these lines: - - “The Lord pours eyesight on the blind; - The Lord supports the fainting mind.” - -The poor old woman was not happy until she met the preacher, and she -said, “But are there really such sweet verses? Are you sure the book -contains such a hymn?” and he read the whole to her. It is one by Watts: - - “I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath.” - -Innumerable are the anecdotes of these hymns; they inaugurated really -the rise of English hymnology; and it is not too much to say that, as -compared with them, many more recent hymns are as tinsel compared with -gold. A writer truly says: “They sob, they swell, they meet the spirit -in its most hushed and plaintive mood. They roll and bear it aloft, in -its most inspired and prophetic moods, as on the surge of more than a -mighty organ swell; among the mines and quarries, and wild moors of -Cornwall, among the factories of Lancashire and Yorkshire, in chambers -of death, in the most joyous assemblages of the household, they have -relieved the hard lot, and sweetened the pleasant one; and even in other -lands soldiers and sailors, slaves and prisoners, have recited with what -joy these words have entered into their life.” - -Thus the great hymns of this period grew and became a religious power in -the land, strangely contradicting a verdict which Cardinal Wiseman -pronounced some years since, that “all Protestant devotion is dead.” -While we give all honour to the fine hymns of Denmark and Germany, many -of the best of which were translated with the movement, it may, with no -exaggeration, be said that the hymnology of England in the eighteenth -century is the finest and most complete which the history of the Church -has known. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - LAY PREACHING AND LAY PREACHERS. - - -There came with the work of the Revival a practice, without which it is -more than questionable if it would have obtained such a rapid and -abiding hold upon the various populations and districts of the country; -this was lay preaching. The designation must have a more inclusive -interpretation than we generally apply to it; we must understand by it -rather the work of those men who, in contradistinction to the great -leaders of the Revival—men of scholarship, of universities, and of -education—possessed none of these qualifications, or but in a more -slight and undisciplined degree. They were converted men, modified by -various temperaments; they one and all possessed an ardent zeal; but, in -many instances, we shall find that they were as much devoted to the work -of the ministry as those who had received a regular ordination. It is -singular that prejudices so strong should exist against lay preaching -and preachers, for the practice has surely received the sanction of the -most ancient usages of the Church, as even Dr. Southey admits, in his -notes to the _Life of Wesley_. Thus, in the history of the Church, this -phenomenon could scarcely be regarded as new. Orders of preaching -friars; “hedge-preachers,” “black, white, and grey,” with all their -company; disciples of Francis, Dominic, or Ignatius, had spread over -Europe during the dark and mediæval ages. Although this rousing element -of Church life had not found much expression in the churches of the -Reformation, yet with the impulse of the new Revival, up started these -men by multitudes. The reason of this was very simple. There is a -well-known little anecdote of some town missionary standing up in a -broad highway preaching to a multitude. He was arrested by a Roman -Catholic priest, who asked him from the edge of the crowd by what -authority he dared to stand there? and who had given him the right to -preach? The man had his New Testament in his hand; he rapidly turned to -the last chapter of it, and said, “I find it written here, ‘Let him that -heareth say, Come!’ I have heard, and I would say Come!” The anecdote -represents sufficiently the rise and progress of lay preaching in the -Revival. There first appeared, naturally, a simple set of men, who, in -their different spheres, would, perhaps, lead and direct a -prayer-meeting, and round it with some pious and gentle exhortation. We -have already pointed out the necessity soon felt for frequent and -reciprocative services; these were not the lay preachers to whom we -refer; but in this fraternal form of Church fellowship, the lay preacher -had his origin. - -Wesley imposed restrictions upon his helpers which he soon found himself -compelled to renounce. John Wesley was a strong adherent to the idea of -Church order. The first lay preacher in his communion who leapt over the -traces was Thomas Maxfield. It was at the Foundry in Moor Fields. Wesley -was in Bristol, and the intelligence was conveyed to him. He appears to -have regarded it as a serious and dangerous innovation. The good -Susannah Wesley, his mother—now past threescore years and ten—infirm and -feeble, was yet living in the Chapel House of the Foundry. To her John -hurried on his arrival in London; and after his affectionate salutations -and inquiries, he expressed such a manifest dissatisfaction and anxiety -that she inquired the cause. With some indignation and unusual -abruptness, he said, “Thomas Maxfield has turned preacher, I find;” and -then the wise and saintly woman gave him her advice. She reminded him -that, from her prejudices against lay preaching he could not suspect her -of favouring anything of the kind; “but take care,” she said, “what you -do respecting that young man, for he is as surely called of God to -preach as you are.” She advised her son to hear Maxfield for himself. He -did so, and at once buried all his prejudices. He exclaimed after the -sermon, “It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good!” and Thomas -Maxfield became the first of a host who spread all over the country. - -It may be supposed that the Countess of Huntingdon very naturally shared -all Wesley’s prejudices against lay preaching; but she heard Maxfield -preach, and she wrote of him, “God has raised one from the stones to sit -among the princes of the people. He is my astonishment; how is God’s -power shown in weakness!” and she soon set herself to the work of -supplying an order of men, of whom Maxfield was the first to lead the -way. By-and-by came another innovation: the lay evangelists at first -never went into the pulpit, but spoke from among the people, or from the -desk. The first who broke through this usage was Thomas Walsh; we will -say more of him presently. He was a man of deep humility, and his life -reveals entire and extraordinary consecration; but he believed himself -to be an ambassador for Christ, and he walked directly up into the -pulpit, never questioning, but quite disregarding the usual custom. The -majesty of his manner, his solemn, impressive, and commanding eloquence, -forbade all remark; and henceforth all the lay preachers followed his -example. There arose a band of extraordinary men. Let the reader refer -to the chronicles of their lives, and the effects of their labours, and -he will not suppose that he has seen anything in our day at all -approaching to what they were. - -Local preachers have now long been part of the great organisation of -Methodism. But in the period to which we refer, it must be remembered -that the pen had not commenced the exercise of its more popular -influence. There were few authors, few journalists, very few really -popular books; these men, then, with their various gifts of elevated -holiness, broad and rugged humour, or glowing imagination, went to and -fro among the people, rousing and instructing the dormant mind of the -country. Then it was Wesley’s great aim to sustain interest by variety. -Wesley himself said that he believed he should preach himself and his -congregation asleep if he were to confine his ministrations to one -pulpit for twelve months. We would take the liberty to say in reference -to this, that it would depend upon whether he kept his own mind fresh -and wakeful during the time. He writes, however: “We have found by long -and constant experience, that a frequent change of teachers is best; -this preacher has one talent, that another. No one whom I ever knew has -all the talents which are needful for beginning, continuing, and -perfecting the work in a whole congregation; neither,” he adds, “can he -find matter for preaching morning and evening, nor will the people come -to hear him; hence he grows cold, and so do the people; whereas if he -never stays more than a fortnight together in one place, he may find -matter enough, and the people will gladly hear him.” - -This certainly gives an idea but of a plain order of services; and, no -doubt, some of Wesley’s preachers were of the plainest. There was -Michael Fenwick, of whom Wesley says, “he was just made to travel with -me—an excellent groom, _valet de chambre_, nurse, and, upon occasion, a -tolerable preacher.” This good man was one day vain enough to complain -to Wesley, that although he was constantly travelling with him, his name -was never inserted in Wesley’s published _Journals_. In the next number -he found himself immortalised with his master there. “I left Epworth,” -writes Wesley, “with great satisfaction, and about one, preached at -Clayworth. I think none were unmoved but Michael Fenwick, who fell fast -asleep under an adjoining hayrick.” - -A higher type of man, but still of the very plain order of preachers, -was Joseph Bradford. He also was Wesley’s frequent travelling companion, -and he judged no service too servile by which he could show his -reverence for his master. But on one occasion Wesley directed him to -carry a packet of letters to the post. The occasion was very -extraordinary, and Bradford wished to hear Wesley’s sermon first. Wesley -was urgent and insisted that the letters must go. Bradford refused; he -would hear the sermon. “Then,” said Wesley, “you and I must part!” “Very -good, sir,” said Bradford. The service was over. They slept in the same -room. On rising in the morning, Wesley accosted his old friend and -companion, and asked if he had considered what had been said, that they -must part. “Yes, sir,” replied Bradford. “And must we part?” inquired -Wesley. “Please yourself, sir,” was the reply. “Will you ask my pardon?” -rejoined Wesley. “No, sir.” “You wont?” “No, sir.” “Then I will ask -yours,” replied the great man. It is said that Bradford melted under the -words, and wept like a child. But we must not convey the idea that the -early preachers were generally of this order. “In a great house there -are vessels to honour and vessels to dishonour.” “Vessels of dishonour” -assuredly were none of these men: but there were some who attained to a -greatness almost as remarkable as the greatness of the three, Whitefield -and the Wesleys. - -What a man was John Nelson! His was a life full of singular incidents. -It was truly apostolic, whether we consider its holy magnanimity, the -violence and vehemence of the cruel persecutions he encountered, or his -singular power over excited mobs; reminding us sometimes of Paul -fighting as with wild beasts at Ephesus, or standing with cunning tact, -and disarming at once captain and crowd on the steps of the Castle at -Jerusalem. Then, although he was but a poor working stonemason, he had a -high gentlemanly bearing, before which those who considered themselves -gentlemen, magistrates and others, fell back abashed and ashamed. He was -one of the prophets of Yorkshire; and many of the large Societies at -this day in Leeds, Halifax, and Bradford owe their foundation to him. It -seems wonderful to us now, that merely preaching the word of truth, and -especially as John Nelson preached it, with such a cheerful, radiant, -and even heavenly manner, should bring out mighty mobs to assault him. -The stories of his itinerancy are innumerable, and his life is really -one of the most romantic in these preaching annals. At Nottingham, while -he was preaching, the crowds threw squibs at him and round him; but, as -he was still pursuing his path of speech, a sergeant in the army pressed -up to him, with tears, saying, “In the presence of God and all this -company, I beg your pardon. I came here on purpose to mob you, but I -have been compelled to hear you; and I here declare I believe you to be -a servant of the living God!” He threw his arms round Nelson’s neck, -kissed him, and went away weeping; and we see him no more. Perhaps more -remarkable still was his reception at Grimsby. There the clergyman of -the parish hired a drummer to gather a great mob, as he said, “to defend -the rights of the Church.” The storm which raged round Nelson was wild -and ferocious; but it illustrates the power of this extraordinary man -over his rudest hearers, that after beating his drum for a long time, -the poor drummer threw it away, and stood listening, the tears running -down his cheeks. - -[Illustration: - - John Nelson at Nottingham. -] - -Nelson was a man of immense physical strength; his own trade had -fostered this, and before his conversion he had, no doubt, been feared -as a man who could hit out and hit hard. As the most effectual means of -silencing him, he was pressed for a soldier; but John was not only a -Methodist, he had adopted the Quaker notion that a Christian dare not -fight; and he seems to have been a real torment to the officers and men -of the regiment, who indeed marched him about different parts of the -country, but could not get him either to accept the king’s money or to -submit to drill. An officer put him in prison for rebuking his -profanity, and threatened to chastise him. Nelson says, “It caused a -sore temptation to arise in me; to think that a wicked, ignorant man -should thus torment me, and I able to tie his head and heels together. I -found an old man’s bone in me; but the Lord lifted up the standard -within, else should I have wrung his neck and set my foot upon him.” - -At length, after three months, the Countess of Huntingdon procured his -discharge. The regiment was in Newcastle. He preached there on the -evening of the day on which he was liberated, and it is testified that a -number of the soldiers from his regiment came to hear him, and parted -from him with tears. He was arrested as a vagrant, without any visible -means of living. A gentleman instantly stepped forward and offered five -hundred pounds bail; but the bail was refused. He was able to prove that -he was a high-charactered, industrious workman; but it availed nothing. -Crowds wept and prayed for him as he was borne through the streets. -“Fear not!” he cried, “oh, friends; God hath His way in the whirlwind, -and in the storm. Only pray that my faith fail not!” It was at Bradford. -They thrust him into a most filthy dungeon. The authorities would give -him no food. The people thrust in food, water, and candles. He shared -these with some wretched prisoners in the same cage, and he sang hymns, -and talked to them all night. He was marched off to York; but there the -excitement was so great when it was known that John Nelson was coming a -prisoner that armed troops were ordered out to guard him. He says, “Hell -from beneath was moved to meet me at my coming!” All the windows were -crowded with people—some in sympathy, but most cheering and huzzaing as -if some great political traitor had been arrested; but he says, “The -Lord made my brow like brass, so that I could look upon all the people -as grasshoppers, and pass through the city as if there had been none in -it but God and me.” - -Such was John Nelson. These anecdotes are sufficient to show the manner -of man he was. He has been truly called “the proto-martyr of Methodism.” -But it is not in a hint or two that all can be said which ought to be -said of this noble and extraordinary man. His conversion, perhaps, sank -down to deeper roots than in many instances. The thoughts of Methodism -found him perplexed with those agonizing questions which have tormented -men in all ages, until they have realized the truth as it is in Jesus. -His life was guilty of no immoralities; he had a happy, humble home, was -industrious, and receiving good wages; but as he walked to and fro among -the fields he was distressed, “for,” he said, “surely God never made man -to be such a riddle to himself, and to leave him so.” He heard Wesley -preach. “Then,” he says, “my heart beat like the pendulum of a clock, -and I thought his whole discourse was aimed at me;” and so, in short, he -became a Methodist, and a Methodist preacher; and among the noble names -in the history of the Church of Christ, in his own line and order, it -may be doubted whether a nobler name can be mentioned than that of John -Nelson. - -Quite another order of man, less human, but equally divine, was Thomas -Walsh. His parents were Romanists, and he was intended by them for the -Romish priesthood; and he appears to have been an intense Romanist -ascetic until about eighteen years of age. He had a thoughtful and -exceedingly intense nature, and his faith was no rest to him. In his -dilemma he heard a Methodist preacher speak one day from the text, “Come -unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you -rest.” It appears to have been the turning-point of a remarkable life. - -“The life of Thomas Walsh,” says Dr. Southey, “might almost convince a -Catholic that saints were to be found in other communions as well as in -the Church of Rome.” Walsh became a great biblical scholar; he was an -Irishman, he mastered the native Irish, that he might preach in it; but -Latin, Greek, and Hebrew became familiar to him; and of the Hebrew, -especially, it is said that he studied so deeply, that his memory was an -entire concordance of the whole Bible. His soul was as a flame of fire, -but it burnt out the body quickly. John Wesley says of him, “I do not -remember ever to have known a man who, in so few years as he remained -upon earth, was the instrument of converting so many sinners.” He became -mighty in his influence over the Roman Catholics. The priests said that -“Walsh had died some years ago, and that he who went about preaching, on -mountains and highways, in meadows, private houses, prisons, and ships, -was a devil who had assumed his shape.” This was the only way in which -they could account for the extraordinary influence he possessed. His -labours were greatly divided between Ireland and London, but everywhere -he bore down all before him by a kind of absorbed ecstasy of ardent -faith; but he died at the age of twenty-seven. While lying on his -death-bed he was oppressed with a sense of despair, even of his -salvation. The sufferings of his mind on this account were protracted -and intense; at last he broke out in an exclamation, “He is come! He is -come! My Beloved is mine, and I am His for ever!” and so he fell back -and died. Thomas Walsh is a great name still in the records of the lay -preachers of early Methodism. - -All orders of men rose: different from any we have mentioned was George -Story, whose quiet, but earnest and reasonable nature, seems to have -commanded the especial love of Southey. He appears never to have become -what some call an enthusiast; but he interestingly illustrates, that it -was not merely over the rugged and uninformed minds that the power of -the Revival exercised its influence. Very curiously, he appears to have -been converted by thinking about Eugene Aram, the well-known scholar, -whose name has become so celebrated in fiction and in poetry, and who -had a short time before been executed for murder at York. Story was -impressed by the importance of the acquisition of knowledge, and Aram’s -extraordinary attainments kindled in his mind a sense of admiration and -emulation; but, as he thought upon his life, he reasoned, “What did this -man’s learning profit him? It did not save him from becoming a thief and -a murderer, or even from attempting his own life.” It was an immense -suggestion to him; it led him upon another track of thinking. The -Methodists came through his village; he yielded himself to the -influence, and Dr. Southey thinks “there is not in the whole biography -of Methodism a more interesting or remarkable case than his.” He became -a great preacher, but disarmed and convinced men rather by his calm, -dispassionate elevation of manner, than by such weapons as the cheerful -_bonhomie_ of Nelson, or the fervid fire of Walsh. - -But we are, perhaps, conveying the idea that it was only beneath the -administration of John Wesley that these great lay preachers were to be -found. It was not so; but no doubt beneath that administration their -itinerancy became more systematic and organised. Whitefield does not -appear to have at all shared Wesley’s prejudices on this means of -usefulness; but those men who fell beneath the influence of Whitefield, -or the Countess, seem soon to meet us as settled ministers, in many, if -not in all instances. Among them there are few greater names in the -whole Revival than those of Captain Jonathan Scott and the renowned -Captain Toriel Joss. Captain Scott was a captain of dragoons, and one of -the heroes of Minden; he was converted by the instrumentality of William -Romaine, who, in spite of his prejudices against lay preaching, -encouraged him in his excursions, in which he spoke to immense crowds -with great effect. Fletcher, of Madeley, said, “his coat shames many a -black one.” He was a gentleman of an ancient and opulent family, and the -Countess, who, naturally, was delighted to see people of her own order -by her side, felt herself greatly strengthened by him. It was said, when -he preached at Leeds, the whole town turned out to hear him; and he was -one of the great preachers of the Tabernacle in Moorfields, during more -than twenty years. But yet a far more famous man was Toriel Joss. He was -a captain of the seas, and had led a life which somewhat reminds us of -Newton’s. He was a good and even great sailor, but he became a greater -preacher. Whitefield said of these two men, that “God, who sitteth upon -the flood, can bring a shark from the ocean, and a lion from the forest, -to show forth his praise.” Joss was a man of property, with a fair -prospect of considerable wealth, when he renounced the seas and became -one of the great lay preachers. Whitefield insisted that he should -abandon the chart, the compass, and the deck, and take to the pulpit. He -did so. In London his fame was second only to that of Whitefield -himself. He became Whitefield’s coadjutor at the Tabernacle, where, -first as associate pastor, and afterwards as pastor, he continued for -thirty years. The chapel at Tottenham Court Road was his chief field, -and John Berridge called him “Whitefield’s Archdeacon of Tottenham.” - -[Illustration: - - TABERNACLE, MOORFIELDS. -] - -We cannot particularise others: there were Sampson Staniforth, the -soldier, Alexander Mather, Christopher Hopper, John Haime, John -Parson—and these are only representative names. There were crowds of -them; they travelled to and fro, with hard fare, throughout the land. -Their excursions were not recreations or amusements. Attempt to think -what England was at that time. It is a fact that they often had to swim -through streams and wade through snows to keep their appointments; often -to sleep in summer in the open air, beneath the trees of a forest. -Sometimes a preacher was seen with a spade strapped to his back, to cut -a way for man and horse through the heavy snow-drifts. Highwaymen were -abroad, and there are many odd stories about their encounters with these -men; but, then, usually, they had nothing to lose. Rogers, in his _Lives -of the Early Preachers_, tells a characteristic story. One of these lay -preachers, as usual on horseback, was waylaid by three robbers; one of -them seized the bridle of his horse, the second put a pistol to his -head, the third began to pull him from the saddle—all, of course, -declaring that they would have his money or his life. The preacher -looked solemnly at them, and asked them “if they had prayed that -morning.” This confounded them a little, still they continued their work -of plunder. One pulled out a knife to rip the saddle-bag open; the -preacher said, “There are only some books and tracts there; as to money, -I have only twopence halfpenny in my pocket;” he took it out and gave it -them. “All that I have of value about me,” he said, “is my coat. I am a -servant of God; I am going on His errand to preach; but let me kneel -down and pray with you; that will do you more good than anything I can -give you.” One of them said, “I will have nothing to do with anything we -can get from this man!” They had taken his watch; they restored this, -and took up the bags and fastened them again on the horse. The preacher -thanked them for their great civility to him; “But now,” said he, “I -will pray!” and he fell upon his knees, and prayed with great power. Two -of the rascals, utterly frightened at this treatment, started off as -fast as their legs could carry them; the third—he who had first refused -to have anything to do with the job—continued on his knees with the -preacher; and when they parted company he promised that he would try to -lead a new life, and hoped to become a new man. - -Should the reader search the old magazines and documents in which are -enshrined the records of the early days of the Revival, he will find -many incidents showing what a romantic story is this of the -self-denials, the difficulties, and enthusiasm of these men, whose best -record is on high—most of them faithful men, like Alexander Coates, who, -after a life of singular length and usefulness in the work, went to his -rest. His talents were said to be extraordinary, both in preaching and -in conversation. Just as he was dying, one of his brethren called upon -him and said, “You don’t think you have followed a cunningly-devised -fable now?” “No, no, no!” said the dying man. “And what do you see?” -“Land ahead!” said the old man. They were his last words. Such were the -men of this Great Revival; so they lived their lives of faithful -usefulness, and so they passed away. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - A GALLERY OF REVIVALIST PORTRAITS. - - -If we were writing a sustained history of the Revival, we might devote -some pages, at this period, to notice the varied forms of satire and -ribaldry by which it was greeted. While the noble bands of preachers -were pursuing their way, instructing and awakening the popular mind of -the country, not only heartless and affected dilettanti, like Horace -Walpole, regarded it with the condescension of their supercilious -sneers, but for the more popular taste there was _The Spiritual -Quixote_, a book which even now has its readers, and in which Whitefield -and his followers were held up to ridicule; and Lackington, the great -bookseller, in his disgraceful, but entertaining autobiography, -attempted to cover the Societies of Wesley with his scurrility. It was -about the year 1750 that _The Minor_ was brought out on the stage of the -Haymarket Theatre; the author was that great comedian, but most -despicable and dissolute character, Foote. The play lies before us as we -write; we have taken it down to notice the really shameless buffoonery -and falsehood in which it indulges. Whitefield is especially libelled -and burlesqued. The Countess of Huntingdon waited personally on the Lord -Chamberlain, and besought him to suppress it; it was not much to the -credit of his lordship’s knowledge, that he declared, had he known the -evil influence of the thing before it was licensed, it should not have -been produced, but being licensed, it was beyond his control. Then the -good Countess waited on David Garrick; Garrick knew and admired -Whitefield; he received her with distinguished kindness and respect, and -it is to his honour that, through his influence, it was temporarily -suppressed. It seems a singular compensation that the author of this -piece, who permitted himself to indulge in the most disgraceful -insinuations against one of the holiest and purest of men, a few years -after was charged with a great crime, of which he was, no doubt, quite -innocent, and died a broken-hearted and beggared man. - -Another of these disgraceful stage libels, _The Hypocrite_, appeared at -Drury Lane in 1768; in it are the well-known characters of Dr. Cantwell, -and Mawworm, and old Lady Lambert. There is more of a kind of genius in -it than in _The Minor_, but it was all stolen property, and little more -than an appropriation from Molière’s _Tartuffe_ and Cibber’s _Nonjuror_. -All these things are forgotten now; but they are worthy of notice as -entering into the history of the Revival, and showing the malice which -was stirred in multitudes of minds against men and designs, on the -whole, so innocent and holy. Was it not written from of old, “The carnal -mind is enmity against God”? - -But as to the movement itself, companions-in-arms, and of a very high -order alike for valour and character, crowded to the field; we have -referred to several distinguished laymen; it is at least equally -important to notice that while the leaders of the Church were, as a -body, set in array against it—while archbishops and bishops of that day -frowned, or scoffed and scorned, there were a number of clergymen whose -piety, whose wit and eloquence, whose affluent humour, whose learning, -whose intrepidity and sleepless variety of labour, surround their names, -even now as then, with a charm of interest, making every life as it -comes before us a readable and delightful recreation. Some of them were -assuredly oddities; it is not long since we made a pilgrimage to -Everton, in Bedfordshire, to read the singular epitaph, on the tomb in -the churchyard, of one of the oddest and most extraordinary of all these -men. Even if our readers have read that epitaph, it will do them no harm -to read it again: - - - Here lie - The earthly remains of - JOHN BERRIDGE, - Late Vicar of Everton, - And an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ, - Who loved his Master, and His work, - And after running on His errands many years, - Was called up to wait on Him above. - Reader, - Art thou born again? - No salvation without a New Birth! - I was born in sin, February, 1716, - Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730, - Lived proudly on Faith and Works for Salvation - Till 1751. - Was admitted to Everton Vicarage, 1755. - Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756. - Fell asleep in Christ Jesus, January 22, 1793. - - -With the exception of the date of his death, it was written by the hand -that moulders beneath the stone; it is characteristic that its writer -caused himself to be buried in that part of the churchyard where, up to -that time, only those had been interred who had destroyed themselves, or -come to an ignominious end. Before his death he had often said that he -would take this effectual means of consecrating that unhallowed spot. - -This epitaph sufficiently shows that John Berridge was an original -character. Southey says of him that he was a buffoon and a fanatic. -Southey’s judgments about the men of the Revival were frequently as -shallow as they were unjust; he must have felt a sharp sting when, as -doubtless was the case, he heard the well-known anecdote of George IV., -who, on reading Richard Watson’s calm reply to Southey’s attacks on the -Methodist leaders, exclaimed, as he laid down the book, “Oh, my poor -Poet Laureate!” He deserved all that and a good deal more, if only for -the verdict we have quoted on Berridge. So far as scholarship may test a -man, John Berridge was most likely a far deeper scholar than Dr. -Southey; he was a distinguished member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and for -many years read and studied fourteen hours a day; but he was an -uncontrollable droll and humourist; pithy proverbs fell spontaneously -along all his speech. As one critic says of his style, “It was like -granulated salt.” As a preacher, he was equal to any multitudes; he -lived among farmers and graziers, and the twinkling of his eye, all -alive with shrewd cheerfulness, compelled attention even before he -opened his lips. The late Dr. Guthrie, not long before his death, -thought it worth his while to republish _The Christian World Unmasked; -pray Come and Peep_; and it is characteristic of Berridge throughout. - -After his conversion, his Bishop called him up and threatened to send -him to gaol for preaching out of his parish. Our readers may imagine -with such a man what sort of conference it was, and which of the two -would be likely to get the worst of it: “I tell you,” said the Bishop, -“if you continue preaching where you have no right, you are very likely -to be sent to Huntingdon Gaol.” “I have no more regard for a gaol than -other folks,” said he; “but I would rather go there with a good -conscience than be at liberty without one.” The conference is too long -for quotation, but Berridge held on his way; he became one of the most -beloved and intimate friends of the Countess of Huntingdon; and if he -shocked his bishop by preaching out of his own parish, he must have -roused his wrath by preaching in her ladyship’s chapel in London, and -throughout the country. His letters to the Countess are as -characteristic as his speech, or any other of his writings. Thus he -writes to her about young Rowland Hill, “I find you have got honest -Rowland down to Bath; he is a pretty young spaniel, fit for land or -water, and he has a wonderful yelp; he forsakes father and mother and -brethren, and gives up all for Jesus, and I believe he will prove a -useful labourer if he keeps clear of petticoat snares.” No doubt, -Berridge sometimes seemed not only racy, but rude; but his words were -wonderfully calculated to meet the average and level of an immense -congregation. While he lived on terms of fellowship with all the great -leaders of the movement, he was faithful as the vicar of his own parish, -and was the apostle of the whole region of Bedfordshire. - -With all his shrewd worldly wisdom, Berridge had a most benevolent hand; -he was rich, and devoted far more than the income of his vicarage to -helping his poor neighbours, supporting itinerant ministers, renting -houses and barns for preaching the Gospel, and, however far he travelled -to preach, always disbursing his expenses from his own pocket. How he -would have loved John Bunyan, and how John Bunyan would have loved him! -It is curious that within a few miles of the place where the illustrious -dreamer was so long imprisoned, one should arise out of the very Church -which persecuted Bunyan, to do for a long succession of years, on the -same ground, the work for which he was persecuted. - -[Illustration: - - Haworth Church. -] - -From the low Bedford level, what a flight to the wildest spot in wild -Yorkshire, Haworth, and its venerable old parish church, celebrated now -as a classic region, haunted by the memory of the author of _Jane Eyre_, -and all the Brontë family; but in the times of which we are writing, the -vicar, William Grimshaw, was quite as queer and quaint a creature as -Berridge. A wild spot now—a stern, grand place; desolate moors still -seeming to stretch all round it; though more easily reached in this day, -it must indeed have been a rough solitude when William Grimshaw became -its vicar, in 1742. He was born in 1708; he died in 1763. He was a man -something of the nature of the wild moors around him. When he became the -pastor of the parish, the people all round him were plunged in the most -sottish heathenism. The pastor was a kind of son of the desert, and he -became such an one as the Baptist, crying in the wilderness. The people -were rough, they perhaps needed a rough shepherd; they had one. The -character of Grimshaw is that of a rough, faithful, and not less -beautiful shepherd’s dog. On the Sabbath morning he would commence his -service, giving out the psalm, and having taken note of the absentees -from the congregation, would start off, while the psalm was being sung, -to drive in the loiterers, visiting the ale-houses, routing out the -drinkers, and literally compelling them to come into the parish church. -One Sabbath morning, a stranger riding through Haworth, seeing some men -scrambling over a garden wall, and some others leaping through a low -window, imagined the house was on fire. He inquired what was the matter. -One of them cried out, “The parson’s a coming!” and that explained the -riddle. Upon another occasion, as a man was passing through the village, -on the Sabbath day, on his way to call a doctor, his horse lost a shoe. -He found his way to the village smithy to have his loss repaired. The -blacksmith told him that it was the Lord’s day, and the work could not -be done unless the minister gave his permission. So they went to the -parson, who, of course, as the case was urgent and necessary, gave his -consent. But the story illustrates the mastery the vicar attained over -the rough minds around him. He was a man of a hardy mould. He was -intensely earnest. He not only effected a mighty moral change in his own -parish, but Haworth was visited every Sabbath by pilgrims from miles -round to listen to this singular, strong, mountain voice; so that the -church became unequal to the great congregations, and he often had to -preach in the churchyard, a desolate looking spot now, but alive with -mighty concourses then. It is said that his strong, pithy words haunted -men long after they were spoken, as the infidel nobleman, who, in an -affected manner, told him he was unable to see the truth of -Christianity. “The fault,” said the rough vicar, “is not so much in your -lordship’s head as in your heart.” - -[Illustration: - - GRIMSHAW’S HOUSE. -] - -Grimshaw was the first who kindled in the wild heights of Yorkshire the -flames of the Revival. His mind was stirred simultaneously with others, -but he does not appear to have received either from Whitefield or Wesley -the impulses which created his extraordinary character, though he, of -course, entered heartily into all their work. They visited Haworth, and -preached to immense concourses there. As to Grimshaw himself, in the -most irregular manner, he preached in the Methodist conventicles and -dissenting chapels in all the country round. He effected an entire -change in his own neighbourhood. He put down the races; he reformed the -village feasts, wakes, and fairs. He was often expecting suspension, and -at last he was cited before the Archbishop, who inquired of him as to -the number of his communicants. “How many,” said his grace, “had you -when you first went to Haworth?” “Twelve.” “And how many now?” “In the -summer, about twelve hundred.” The astonished Archbishop turned to his -assistants in the examination, and said, “I really cannot find fault -with Mr. Grimshaw when he brings so many people to the Lord’s Table.” -Southey is also complimentary, in his own way, to this singular -clergyman, and says, “He was certainly mad!” - -[Illustration: - - William Grimshaw. -] - -It was what Festus said to Paul; but the madness of the pastor of -Haworth was a blessing to the farms and cottages of those wild -moorlands. He was a child of nature in her most beautiful moods, -glorified by Divine grace. The freshness and buoyancy of the heath his -foot so lightly pressed, and the torrents which sung around him, were -but typical of his hardy naturalness and beauty of character. Truly it -has been said, it was not more natural that the gentle lover of nature -should lie at the foot of Helvellyn, than that this watchman of the -mountains should sleep at the foot of the hills amongst which he had so -faithfully laboured. He died comparatively young. His last words were -very characteristic. Robert Shaw, an old Methodist preacher, called upon -him; he said, “I will pray for you as long as I live, and if there is -praying in heaven, I will pray for you there; I am as happy as I can be -on earth, and as sure of glory as if I were in it.” His last words were, -“Here goes an unprofitable servant!” - -The wild Yorkshire of that day took up the Revival with a will; and -Henry Venn, of Huddersfield, we suppose, has even transcended by his -usefulness the fame of either Berridge or Grimshaw; he was born in 1724, -and died in 1797. His life was genial and fruitful, and to his church in -Huddersfield the people poured in droves to listen to him. It has been -said his life was like a field of wheat, or a fine summer day. And how -are these to be painted or put upon the canvas? He could scarcely be -called eccentric, excepting in the sense in which earnestness, holiness, -and usefulness are always eccentric. His influence may be said, in some -directions, to continue still. He was one of the indefatigable -coadjutors of the Countess in all her work, and towards the close of his -life he came to London to throw his influence round young Rowland Hill, -by preaching for some time in Surrey Chapel. - -In another district of Yorkshire, a mighty movement was going on, -commencing about 1734. Benjamin Ingham, whom we met some time since at -Oxford, as a member of the Holy Club, was living at Ossett, near -Dewsbury. He had married Lady Margaret Hastings, a younger sister of the -Countess of Huntingdon. He had received ordination in the Church of -England, but his irregularities had forced him out. Like the Wesleys, in -the earlier part of his history, he became enchanted with the devotional -life of the Moravians, and at this period he introduced with marvellous -results a modified Moravianism into the West Riding of Yorkshire. He -founded as many as eighty Societies; but he appears to have attempted to -carry out an impossible scheme, the union of the Moravian discipline and -doctrine with his idea of Congregationalism. His influence over the West -Riding for a long time was immense; but, most naturally, divisions -arose, and the purely Moravian element separated itself into its own -order of Church life, while the Methodist element was absorbed in the -great and growing Wesleyan Societies. He was a friend of Count -Zinzendorf, who was his guest for a long time at Ledstone House. The -shock which his Society sustained, and the death of Lady Margaret, his -admirable and beloved wife, were blows from which the good man never -recovered; but the effects of his usefulness continued, although he -passed; and if the reader ever visits the little Moravian Colony and -Institution of Fulneck, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, he may be pleased to -remember that this is also one of the offshoots of the Great Revival. - -It is a sudden leap from the West Riding of Yorkshire to Truro, the -charming little capital of Western Cornwall. We are here met by an -imperishable and beautiful name, that of Samuel Walker, the minister; he -was born in 1714, and died in 1761. His influence over his town was -great and abiding, and Walker of Truro is a name which to this day -retains its fragrance, as associated with the restoration of his town -from wild depravity to purity and exemplary piety. - -How impossible it is to do more than merely mention the names of men, -every action of whose lives was consecrated, and every breath an ardent -flame, all helping on and urging forward the great work of rousing a -careless world and a careless Church. What an influence had William -Romaine, who for a long time, it has been said, was one of the sights of -London; it was rather drolly put when it was said, “People came from the -country to see Garrick act and to hear Romaine preach!” Nor let our -readers suppose that he was a mere sensational orator; he was a great -scholar. We hear of him first as the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and -the editor of the four volumes of Calasio’s _Hebrew Concordance_; then -he caught the evangelic fire; he became one of the chaplains of the -Countess of Huntingdon, and, so far as the Church of the Establishment -was concerned, he was the most considerable light of London for a period -of nearly fifty years; and very singular was his history in this -relation, especially in some of the churches whose pulpits he filled. It -seems singular to us now how even his great talents could obtain for him -the place of morning lecturer at St. George’s, Hanover Square; but the -charge was soon urged against him that he vulgarised that most -fashionable of congregations, and most uncomfortably crowded the church. -He was appointed evening lecturer at St. Dunstan’s in Fleet Street; but -the rector barred his entrance into the pulpit, seating himself there -during the time of prayers, so that the preacher might be unable to -enter. Lord Mansfield decided that, after seven in the evening, the -church was not the rector’s, but that Mr. Romaine was entitled to the -use of it; then, at seven in the evening, the churchwardens closed the -church doors, and kept the congregation outside, wearying them in the -rain or in the cold. At length, the patience of the churchwardens gave -way before the persistency of the people and the preacher; but it was an -age of candles, and they refused to light the church, and Mr. Romaine -often preached in a crowded church by the light of one candle. They paid -him the merest minimum which he could demand, or which they were -compelled to pay; sometimes only eighteen pounds a year. But he was a -hardy man, and he lived on the plainest fare, and dressed in homespun -cloth. He was dragged repeatedly before courts of law, but he was as -difficult to manage here as in the church; he brought his judges to the -statutes, none of which he had broken. Every effort was made to expel -him from the Church, but he would not be cast out; and at last he -appears to have settled himself, as such men generally do, into an -irresistible fact. He became the Rector of St. Ann’s, Blackfriars. There -he preached those sermons which were shaped afterwards into the -favourite book of our forefathers, _The Life, Walk, and Triumph of -Faith_. Born in 1714, he died in 1795. His last years were clothed with -a pleasant serenity, although, perhaps, some have detected in his -character marks of a severity, probably the result of those conflicts -which, through so many years, he had with such remarkable consistency -sustained. - -[Illustration: - - ST. ANN’S, BLACKFRIARS. -] - -And surely we ought to mention, in this right noble band, John Newton; -but he brings us near to the time when the passion of the Revival was -settling itself into organisation and calm; when the fury of persecution -was ceasing; Methodism was becoming even a respectable and acknowledged -fact. John Newton was born in 1725, and died in 1807. All his sympathies -were with the theology and the activities of the revivalists; but before -he most singularly found himself the Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, and -St. Mary Woolchurch, he had led a life which, for its marvellous variety -of incident, reads like one of Defoe’s fictions. - -[Illustration: - - St. Mary Woolnoth. - John Newton. -] - -But his parlour in No. 8 Coleman Street Buildings, on a Friday evening, -was thronged by all the dignitaries of the evangelical movement of his -day. As he said, “I was a wild beast on the coast of Africa, but the -Lord caught me and tamed me; and now you come to see me as people go to -see the lions in the Tower.” A grand old man was John Newton, the young -sailor transformed into the saintly old rector; there he sat with few -traces of the parson about him, in his blue pea-jacket, and his black -neckerchief, liking still to retain something of the freedom of his old -blue seas; full of quaint wisdom, which never, like that of his friend -Berridge, became rude or droll; quietly sitting there and meditating; -his enthusiastic life apparently having subsided into stillness, while -the Hannah Mores, Wilberforces, Claudius Buchanans, and John Campbells, -went to him to find their enthusiasm confirmed. The friend of Cowper, -who surely deserves to be called the Poet Laureate of the -Revival—himself the author of some of the sweetest hymns we still sing; -the biographer of his own wonderful career, and of the life of his -friend and brother-in-arms, William Grimshaw; one of the finest of our -religious letter-writers; with capacities within him for almost -everything he might have thought it wise to undertake, he now seems to -us appropriately to close this small gallery we have attempted to -present. When the spirit of the Revival was either settling into -firmness and consolidation, or striking out into those new and -marvellous fields of labour—its natural outgrowth—which another chapter -may present succinctly to the eye, John Newton, by his great experience -of men, his profound faith, his steady hand and clear eye, became the -wise adviser and fosterer of schemes whose gigantic enterprise would -certainly have astonished even his capacious intelligence. - -In closing this chapter it is quite worth while to notice that, various -as were the characters of these men, and of their innumerable comrades, -to whom we do homage, although we have no space even to mention their -names, their strength arose from the certainty and the confidence with -which they spoke; there was nothing tentative about their teaching. That -great scholar, Sir William Hamilton, says that “assurance is the -_punctum saliens_, that is the strong point of Luther’s system;” so it -was with all these men, “We speak that we do know, and testify that we -have seen;” it was the full assurance of knowledge; and it gave them -authority over the men with whom they wrestled, whether in public or -private. Whitefield and Wesley alike, and all their followers, had -strong faith in God. They were believers in the personal regard of God -for the souls of men; and every idea of prayer supposes some such -personal regard, whether offered by the highest of high Calvinists, or -the simplest primitive Methodist; the whole spirit of the Revival turned -on this; these men, as they strongly believed, were able, by the strong -attractive force of their own nature, to compel other minds to their -convictions. Their history strongly illustrates that that teaching which -oscillates to and fro in a pendulous uncertainty is powerless to reform -character or influence mind. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - BLOSSOMS IN THE WILDERNESS. - - -The preceding chapters have shown that the Great Revival was creating -over the wild moral wastes of England a pure and spiritual atmosphere, -and its movements and organisations were taking root in every direction. -Voltaire, and that pedantic cluster of conceited infidels, the -Bolingbrokes, Middletons, and Mandevilles, Chubbs, Woolstons, and -Collinses, who prophesied that Christian faith was fast vanishing from -the earth, were slightly premature. It is, indeed, interesting to notice -the contrast in this period between England and the then most unhappy -sister-kingdom of France: there, indeed, Christian faith did seem to be -trodden underfoot of men. While a great silent, hallowed revolution was -going on in one, all things were preparing for a tremendous revolution -in the other. It was just about the time that the Revival was leavening -English society that Lord Chesterfield summed up what he had noticed in -France, in the following words: “In short, all the symptoms which I have -ever met with in history previous to great changes and revolutions in -government, now exist and daily increase in France.” The words were -spoken several years before that terrible Revolution came, which -conducted the King, the Queen, and almost all the aristocracy, -respectability, and lingering piety of the nation to the scaffold. It -was a wonderful compensation. A few years before, a sovereign had cast -away from his nation, and from around his throne, all the social -elements which could guard and give dignity to it; how natural, then, -that the whole _canaille_ of the kingdom should rush upon the throne of -his successor, and cast it and its occupant into the bonfire of the -Reign of Terror! - -In Britain, from some cause, all was different. This period of the -Revival has been truly called the starting-point of the modern religious -history of that land; and, somehow, all things were singularly combining -to give to the nation a new-born happiness, to create new facilities for -mental growth and culture, and to enlarge and to fill their cup of -national joy. It will be noticed that these things did not descend to -the nation generally from the highest places of the land. With the -exception of the sovereign, we cannot see many instances of a lively -interest in the moral well-being of the people. Other exceptions there -were, but they were very few. From the people themselves, and from the -causes we have described, originated and spread those means which, -amidst the wild agitations of revolution, as they came foaming over the -Channel, and which were rather aided than repressed by the unwisdom of -many of the governments and magistrates, calmed and enlightened the -public mind, and secured the order of society, and the stability of the -throne. - -The historians of Wesleyanism—we will say it respectfully, but still -very firmly—have been too uniformly disposed to see in their own society -the centre and the spring of all those amazing means of social -regeneration to which the period of the Revival gave birth. Dr. Abel -Stevens specially seems to regard Methodism and Wesleyanism as -conterminous. It would seem from him that the work of the -printing-office, the book or the tract society, schools and missions, -and the various means of social amelioration or redemption, all have -their origin in Wesleyanism. We may give the largest honour to the -venerable name of Wesley, and accept this history by Dr. Stevens as the -best, yet as an American he did not fully know what had been done by -others not in the Connexion. There was an immense field of Methodism -which did not fall beneath the dominion of Wesley, and had no relation -to the Wesleyan Conference. The same spirit touched simultaneously many -minds, quite separated by ecclesiastical and social relations, but all -wrought up to the same end. These pages have been greatly devoted to -reminiscences of the great preachers, and illustrations of the preaching -power of the Revival, but our readers know that the Revival did not end -in preaching. These voices stirred the slumbering mind of the nation -like a thunder-peal, but they roused to work and practical effort. The -great characteristic of all that came out of the movement may be summed -up in the often-quoted expression, “A single eye to the glory of God.” -As one of the clergymen of Yorkshire, earnest and active in those times, -was wont to say, “I do love those one-eyed Christians.” - -We shall have occasion to mention the name of Robert Raikes, and that -name reminds us not only of Gloucester, but of Gloucestershire; many -circumstances gave to that most charming county a conspicuous place. -Lying in the immediate neighbourhood of Bath, it attracted the attention -of the Countess of Huntingdon. “As sure as God is in Gloucestershire,” -was an old proverb, first used in monastic days, then applied to the -Reformation time, when Tyndale, the first translator of the English New -Testament, had his home in the lovely village of North Nibley; but it -became yet more true when Whitefield preached to the immense concourses -on Stinchcombe Hill; when Rodborough and Ebley, and the valley of the -Stroud Water were lit up with Revival beacons, and when Rowland Hill -established his vicarage at Wotton-under-Edge; then, in its immediate -neighbourhood, arose that beautiful Christian worker, the close friend -of George Whitefield, Cornelius Winter; and from his labours came forth -his most eminent pupil, and great preacher, William Jay. - -And the Revival took effect on distinct circles which certainly seemed -outside of the Methodist movement, but which yet, assuredly, belonged to -it; the Clapham Sect, for instance. “The Clapham Sect” is a designation -originating in the facetious and satiric brain of Sydney Smith, than -whom the Revival never had a more unjust, ungenerous, or ungracious -critic; but the pages of the _Edinburgh Review_, in which the flippant -sting of speech first appeared, years afterwards consecrated the term -and made it historical in the elegant essay of Sir James Stephen. By his -pen the sect, with all its leaders, acts, and consequences, are -pleasantly described in the _Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography_; and -surely this was as much the result of the Great Revival as the -“evangelical succession” which calls forth the exercise in previous -pages of the same interesting pen; it was all a natural evangelical -succession, that of which we have spoken before, as enthusiasm for -humanity growing out of enthusiasm for Divine truth. Men who have become -fairly impressed by a sense of their own immortality and its redemption -in Christ, become interested in the temporal well-being and the eternal -welfare of others. It has always been so, and is so still, that men who -have not a sense of man’s immortal welfare have usually cared but little -about his temporal interests. Hospitals and churches, orphanages and -missionary societies, usually grow out of the same spiritual root. - -We scarcely need ask our readers to accompany us to the pleasant little -village of Clapham, and its sweet sequestered Common, then so far -removed from the great metropolis; surrounded by the homes of wealthy -men, merchants, statesmen, eminent preachers, all of them infected with -the spirit of the Revival, and all of them noteworthy in the story of -those means which were to shiver the chains of the slave, to carry light -to dark heathen minds, and to hand out the Bible to English villages and -far-off nations. We have been desirous of conveying the impression that -those were times of a singular and almost simultaneous spiritual -upheaval; it was as if, in different regions of the great lake of -humanity, submerged islands suddenly appeared from beneath the waves; -and it is not too much to say that all those various means which have so -tended to beautify and bless the world, schemes of education, schemes -for the improvement of prison discipline, schemes of missionary -enterprise for the extension of Christian influence in the East Indies, -the destruction of slavery in the West Indies, and the abolition of the -slave trade throughout the British Empire; Bible societies and Tract -societies, and, in fact, the whole munificent machinery and organisation -of our day, sprang forth from that revival of the last century. It seems -now like a magnificent burst of enthusiasm; yet, ultimately it was based -upon only two or three great elements of faith: the spiritual world was -an intense reality; the soul of every man, woman, and child on the face -of the earth had an endowment of immortality; they were precious to the -Redeemer, they ought, therefore, to be precious to all the followers of -the Redeemer. Charged with these truths, their spirits inflamed to a -holy enthusiasm by them, from parlours and drawing-rooms, from the lowly -homes and cottages of England, all these new professors appeared to be -in search of occasions for doing good; the schemes worked themselves -through all the varieties of human temperament and imperfection; but, -looking back, it must surely be admitted that they achieved glorious -results. - -[Illustration: - - John Thornton. -] - -If the reader, impressed by veneration, should make a pilgrimage to -Clapham Common, and inquire from some one of the oldest inhabitants -which was the house in which John Shore, the great Lord Teignmouth, the -first President of the Bible Society, lived, his soul within him might -be a little vexed to be informed that yonder large building at the -extreme corner of the common, the great Roman Catholic Redemptionist -College, is the house. There, were canvassed and brooded over a number -of the schemes to which we have referred. Thither from his own house, -close to the well-known “Plough”—its site now covered by suburban -shops—went the great Zachary Macaulay, sometimes accompanied by his son, -a bright, intelligent lad, afterwards known as Thomas Babington -Macaulay. John Shore had been Governor of India, at Calcutta. On the -common resided also, for some time, William Wilberforce. These were the -great statesmen who were desirous of organising great plans, from which -the consummating prayer of David in the 72nd Psalm should be realised. -Then there was another house on the common, the mansion of John -Thornton, which seemed to share with that of Lord Teignmouth the honours -of these Divine committees of ways and means. Before the establishment -of the Bible Society, Mr. Thornton had been in the habit of spending two -thousand pounds a year in the distribution of Bibles and Testaments—a -very Bible Society in himself. It is, perhaps, not too much to say, -there was scarcely a thought which had for its object the well-being of -the human family but it found its representation and discussion in those -palatial abodes on Clapham Common. There were Granville Sharp and Thomas -Clarkson; thither, how often went cheery old John Newton, to whom, first -of all, on arriving in London, went every holy wayfarer from the -provinces, wayfarers who soon found their entrance beneath his -protecting wing, and cheery introduction to these pleasant circles. -Beneath the incentives of his animating words, the fervid earnestness of -Claudius Buchanan found its pathway of power, and _The Star of the -East_—his great sermon on “Missions to India,”—was first seen shining -over Clapham Common; and it was the same genial tongue which encouraged -that fine, but almost forgotten man, John Campbell, in the enterprise of -his spirit, to pierce into the deserts of Africa. We may notice how -great ideas perpetuate themselves into generations, when we remember -that it was John Campbell who first took out Robert Moffat, and settled -him down in the field of his wonderful labours. - -Sir James Stephen, in his admirable paper, is far from exhausting all -the memories of that Clapham Sect. There was another house, not in -Clapham, but not far removed—Hatcham House, as we remember it—a noble -mansion, standing in its park, opposite where the old lane turned off -from the main road to Peckham. There lived Joseph Hardcastle—certainly -one of the Clapham Sect—Wilberforce’s close and intimate friend, a -munificent merchant prince, in whose offices in the City were held for a -long time all the earliest committee meetings of the Bible Society, the -Religious Tract Society, and the London Missionary Society, and from -whom appear to have emanated the first suggestions for the limitation of -the powers of the East India Company in supporting and sanctioning, by -the English Government, Hindoo infanticide and idolatry. Among all the -glorious names of the Clapham Sect, not one shines out more beautifully -than that of this noble Christian gentleman. - -Perhaps a natural delicacy withheld Sir James Stephen from chronicling -the story of his own father, Sir George Stephen; and there was Thomas -Gisborne, most charming of English preachers of the Church of England -evangelical school; and Sir Robert Grant, whose hymns are still among -the sweetest in our national psalmody. But we can do no more than thus -say that it was from hence that the spirit of the Revival rose in new -strength, and taking to itself the wings of the morning, spread to the -uttermost parts of the earth. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER X - - THE REVIVAL BECOMES EDUCATIONAL.—ROBERT RAIKES. - - -In the year 1880 was celebrated in England and America the centenary of -Sunday-schools. The life and labours of Robert Raikes, whose name has -long been familiar as “a household word” in connection with such -institutions, were reviewed, and fresh interest added to that early work -for the young. - -[Illustration: - - ROBERT RAIKES AND HIS SCHOLARS. -] - -Gloucestershire, if not one of the largest, is certainly one of the -fairest—as, indeed, its name is said to imply: from _Glaw_, an old -British word signifying “fair”—it is one of the fairest, and it ought to -be one of the most famous, counties of England. Many are its -distinguished worthies: John de Trevisa was Vicar of Berkeley, in -Gloucestershire, and a contemporary with John Wyclif, and, like him, he -had a strong aversion to the practices of the Church of Rome, and an -earnest desire to make the Scriptures known to his parishioners; and in -Nibley, in Gloucestershire, was born, and lived, William Tyndale, in -whose noble heart the great idea sprang up that Christian Englishmen -should read the New Testament in their own mother-tongue, and who said -to a celebrated priest, “If God spares my life, I will take care that a -plough-boy shall know more of the Scriptures than you do.” The story of -the great translator and martyr is most interesting. Gloucestershire has -been famous, too, for its contributions to the noble army of martyrs, -notably, not only James Baynham, but, in Gloucester, its bishop, John -Hooper, was in 1555 burnt to death. In Berkeley the very distinguished -physician, and first promulgator of the doctrine of vaccination, Dr. -Edward Jenner, the son of the vicar, was born; and from the Old Bell, in -Gloucester, went forth the wonderful preacher George Whitefield, to -arouse the sleeping Church in England and America from its lethargy. The -quaint old proverb to which we have already alluded—“As sure as God is -in Gloucestershire”—was very complimentary, but not very correct; it -arose from the amazing ecclesiastical wealth of the county, which was so -rich that it attracted the notice of the papal court, and four Italian -bishops held it in succession for fifty years; one of these, Giulio de -Medici, became Pope Clement VII., succeeding Pope Leo X. in the papacy -in 1523. This eminent ecclesiastical fame no doubt originated the -proverb; but it acquired a tone of reality and truth rather from the -martyrdom of its bishop than from the elevation of his predecessor to -the papal tiara; rather from Tyndale, William Sarton, and his brother -weaver-martyrs, than from its costly and magnificent endowments; from -Whitefield and Jenner rather than from its crowd of priests and friars. - -Thus Gloucestershire has certainly considerable eminence among English -counties. To other distinguished names must be added that of Robert -Raikes, who must ever be regarded as the founder of Sabbath-schools. It -is not intended by this that there had never been any attempts made to -gather the children on the Sabbath for some kind of religious -instruction—although such attempts were very few, and a diligent search -has probably brought them all [?] under our knowledge; but the example -and the influence of Raikes gave to the idea the character of a -movement; it stirred the whole country, from the throne itself, the King -and Queen, the bishops, and the clergy; all classes of ministers and -laymen became interested in what was evidently an easy and happy method -of seizing upon the multitudes of lost children who in that day were -“perishing for lack of knowledge.” - -Mr. Joseph Stratford, in his _Biographical Sketches of the Great and -Good Men in Gloucestershire_, and Mr. Alfred Gregory, in his _Life of -Robert Raikes_—to which works we must confess our obligation for much of -the information contained in this chapter—have both done honour to the -several humbler and more obscure labourers whose hearts were moved to -attempt the work to which Raikes gave a national importance, and which -from his hands, and from his time, became henceforth a perpetual -institution in the Church work of every denomination of Christian -believers and labourers. The Rev. Joseph Alleine, the author of _The -Alarm to the Unconverted_, an eminent Nonconformist minister of Taunton, -adopted the plan of gathering the young people together for instruction -on the Lord’s day. Even in Gloucestershire, before Raikes was born, in -the village of Flaxley, on the borders of the Forest of Dean—Flaxley, of -which the poet Bloomfield sings: - - “’Mid depths of shade gay sunbeams broke - Through noble Flaxley’s bowers of oak; - Where many a cottage, trim and gay, - Whispered delight through all the way:” - -in the old Cistercian Abbey, Mrs. Catharine Boevey, the lady of the -abbey, had one of the earliest and pleasantest Sabbath-schools. Her -monument in Flaxley Church, erected after her death in 1726, records her -“clothing and feeding her indigent neighbours, and teaching their -children, some of whom she entertained at her house, and examined them -herself.” Six of the poor children, it is elsewhere stated, “by turns -dined at her residence on Sundays, and were afterwards heard say the -Catechism.” - -We read of a humbler labourer, realising, perhaps, more the idea of a -Sabbath-school teacher, in Bolton, in Lancashire, James Hey, or “Old -Jemmy o’ th’ Hey.” Old Jemmy, Mr. Gregory tells us, employed the working -days of the week in winding bobbins for weavers, and on Sundays he -taught the boys and girls of the neighbourhood to read. His school -assembled twice each Sunday, in the cottage of a neighbour, and the time -of commencing was announced, not by the ringing of a bell, but by an -excellent substitute, an old brass pestle and mortar. After a while, Mr. -Adam Compton, a paper manufacturer in the neighbourhood, began to supply -Jemmy with books, and subscriptions in money were given him; he was thus -enabled to form three branch establishments, the teachers of which were -paid one shilling each Sunday for their services. Besides these there -are several other instances: in 1763 the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey -established something like a Sunday-school at Catterick, in Yorkshire; -at High Wycombe, in 1769, Miss Hannah Ball, a young Methodist lady, -formed a Sunday-school in her town; and at Macclesfield that admirable -and excellent man, the Rev. David Simpson, originated a similar plan of -usefulness; and, contemporary with Mr. Raikes, in the old Whitefield -Tabernacle, at Dursley, in Gloucestershire, we find Mr. William King, a -woollen card-maker, attempting the work of teaching on a Sunday, and -coming into Gloucester to take counsel with Mr. Raikes as to the best -way of carrying it forward. Such, scattered over the face of the -country, at great distances, and in no way representing a general plan -of useful labour, were the hints and efforts before the idea took what -may be called an apostolic shape in the person of Robert Raikes. - -Notwithstanding the instances we have given, Mr. Raikes must really be -regarded as the founder of Sunday-schools as an extended organisation. -With him they became more than a notion, or a mere piece of local -effort; and his position and profession, and the high respect in which -he was held in the city in which he lived, all alike enabled him to give -publicity to the plan: and before he commenced this movement, he was -known as a philanthropist; indeed, John Howard himself bears something -like the same relation to prison philanthropy which Raikes bears to -Sunday-schools. No one doubts that Howard was the great apostle of -prisons; but it seems that before he commenced his great prison crusade, -Raikes had laboured diligently to reform the Gloucester gaol. The -condition of the prisoners was most pitiable, and Raikes, nearly twenty -years before he commenced the Sunday-school system, had been working -among them, attempting their material, moral, and spiritual improvement, -by which he had earned for himself the designation of the “Teacher of -the Poor.” Howard visited Raikes in Gloucester, and bears his testimony -to the blessedness and benevolence of his labours in the prison there; -and the gaol appears not unnaturally to have suggested the idea of the -Sunday-school to the benevolent-hearted man. It was a dreadful state of -society. Some idea may be formed of it from a paragraph in the -_Gloucester Journal_ for June, 1783, the paper of which Raikes was the -editor and proprietor: it is mentioned that no less than sixty-six -persons were committed to the Castle in one week, and Mr. Raikes adds, -“The prison is already so full that all the gaoler’s stock of fetters is -occupied, and the smiths are hard at work casting new ones.” He goes on -to say: “The people sent in are neither disappointed soldiers nor -sailors, but chiefly frequenters of ale-houses and skittle-alleys.” -Then, in another paragraph, he goes on to remark, “The ships about to -sail for Botany Bay will carry about one thousand miserable creatures, -who might have lived perfectly happy in this country had they been early -taught good principles, and to avoid the danger of associating with -those who make sobriety and industry the objects of their ridicule.” - -From sentences like these it is easy to see the direction in which the -mind of the good man was moving, before he commenced the work which has -given such a happy and abiding perpetuity to his name. He gathered the -children; the streets were full of noise and disturbances every Sunday. -In a little while, says the Rev. Dr. Glass, Mr. Raikes found himself -surrounded by such a set of little ragamuffins as would have disgusted -other men less zealous to do good, and less earnest to disseminate -comfort, exhortation, and benefit to all around him, than the founder of -Sunday-schools. He prevented their running about in wild disorder -through the streets. By and by, he arranged that a number of them should -meet him at seven o’clock on the Sunday morning in the cathedral close, -when he and they all went into the cathedral together to an early -service. The increase of the numbers was rapid; Mr. Raikes was looked up -to as the commander-in-chief of this ragged regiment. It is testified -that a change took place and passed over the streets of the old -Gloucester city on the Sunday. A glance at the features of Mr. Raikes -will assure the reader that he was an amiable and gentle man, but that -by no means implies always a weak one. He appears to have had plenty of -strength, self-possession, and knowledge of the world. He also belonged -to, and moved in, good society; and this is not without its influence. -As he told the King, in the course of a long interview, when the King -and Queen sent for him to Windsor, to talk over his system with him, in -order that they might, in some sense, be his disciples, and adopt and -recommend his plan: it was “botanising in human nature.” “All that I -require,” said Raikes, to the parents of the children, “are clean hands, -clean faces, and their hair combed.” To many who were barefooted, after -they had shown some regularity of attendance, he gave shoes, and others -he clothed. Yes, it was “botanising in human nature;” and very many -anecdotes show what flowers sprang up out of the black soil in the path -of the good man. - -All the stories told of Raikes show that the law of kindness was usually -on his lips. A sulky, stubborn girl had resisted all reproofs and -correction, and had refused to ask forgiveness of her mother. In the -presence of the mother, Raikes said to the girl, “Well, if you have no -regard for yourself, I have much for you. You will be ruined and lost if -you do not become a good girl; and if you will not humble yourself, I -must humble myself on your behalf and make a beginning for you;” and -then, with great solemnity, he entreated the mother to forgive the girl, -using such words that he overcame the girl’s pride. The stubborn -creature actually fell on her knees, and begged her mother’s -forgiveness, and never gave Mr. Raikes or her mother trouble afterwards. -It is a very simple anecdote; but it shows the Divine spirit in the -method of the man; and the more closely we come into a personal -knowledge of his character, the more admirable and lovable it seems. -Thus literally true and beautiful are the words of the hymn: - - “Like a lone husbandman, forlorn, - The man of Gloucester went, - Bearing his seeds of precious corn; - And God the blessing sent. - - Now, watered long by faith and prayer, - From year to year it grows, - Till heath, and hill, and desert bare, - Do blossom as the rose.” - -Mr. Raikes was a Churchman; he was so happy as to have, near to his own -parish of St. Mary-le-Crypt, in Gloucester, an intimate friend, the -Rector of St. Aldate’s—a neighbouring parish in the same city—the Rev. -Thomas Stock, whose monument in the church truly testifies that “to him, -in conjunction with Robert Raikes, Esquire, is justly attributed the -honour of having planned and instituted the first Sunday-school in the -kingdom.” Mr. Stock was but a young man in 1780, for he died in 1803, -then only fifty-four years of age; he must have been, at the time of the -first institution of Sunday-schools, a young man of fine and tender -instincts. He appears, simultaneously with Mr. Raikes’s movement, to -have formed a Sunday-school in his own parish, taking upon himself the -superintendence of it, and the responsibility of such expenses as it -involved. But Mr. Stock says, in a letter written in 1788, “The progress -of the institution through the kingdom is justly attributed to the -constant representations which Mr. Raikes made in his own paper of the -benefits which he saw would probably arise from it.” At the time Mr. -Raikes began the work, he was about forty-four years of age; it was a -great thing in that day to possess a respectable journal, a newspaper of -acknowledged character and influence; to this, very likely, we owe it, -in some considerable measure, that the work in Gloucester became -extensively known and spread, and expanded into a great movement. But he -does not appear to have used the columns of his newspaper for the -purpose of calling attention to the usefulness and desirability of the -work until after it had been in operation about three years; in 1783 and -1784, very modestly he commends the system to general adoption. - -[Illustration: - - Robert Raikes. -] - -It is remarkable that in the course of two or three years, several -bishops—the Bishop of Gloucester, in the cathedral, the Bishops of -Chester and Salisbury, in their charges to the clergy of their -dioceses—strongly commended the plan. All orders of mind poured around -the movement their commendation; even Adam Smith, whom no one will think -likely to have fallen into exaggerated expressions where Christian -activity is concerned, said, “No plan has promised to effect a change of -manners with equal ease and simplicity, since the days of the apostles.” -The poet Cowper declared that he knew of no nobler means by which a -reformation of the lower classes could be effected. Some attempts have -been made to claim for John Wesley the honour of inaugurating the -Sunday-school system; considering the intensely practical character of -that venerated man, and how much he was in advance of his times in most -of his activities, it is a wonder that he did not; but his venerable -memory has honours, certainly, in all sufficiency. He wrote his first -commendation of Sunday-schools in the _Arminian Magazine_ of 1784. He -says, “I find these schools spring up wherever I go; perhaps God may -have a deeper end therein than men are aware of; who knows but that some -of these schools may become nurseries for Christians?” Prophetic as -these words are, this is fainter and tardier praise than we should have -expected from him; but in 1787 he writes more warmly, expresses his -belief that these schools will be one great means of reviving religion -throughout the kingdom, and expresses “wonder that Satan has not sent -out some able champion against them.” In 1788 he says: “I verily think -that these schools are one of the noblest specimens of charity which -have been set on foot in England since the days of William the -Conqueror.” - -Some estimate may be formed of the rapidity with which the movement -spread, when we find that in this year, 1787, the number of children -taught in Sunday-schools in Manchester alone, on the testimony of the -very eminent John Nichols, the great printer and anecdotist, was no -fewer than five thousand. It was in this year also, 1787, that Mr. -Raikes was visiting some relatives in the neighbourhood of Windsor. He -must have attained to the dignity of a celebrity; nor is this wonderful, -when we remember the universal acceptance with which his great idea of -Sunday-schools had been honoured. The Queen invited him to visit her, -and inquired of him, he says, “by what accident a thought which promised -so much benefit to the lower order of people as the institution of -Sunday-schools, was suggested to his mind?” The visit was a long one; he -spent two hours with the Queen—the King also, we believe, being present -most of the time—not so much in expounding the system, for that was -simple enough, but they were curious as to what he had observed in the -change and improvement of the characters among whom he worked; and we -believe that it was then he told the King, in the words we have already -quoted, that he regarded his work as a kind of “botanising in human -nature;” this was a favourite phrase of his in describing the work. The -result of this visit was, that the Queen established a Sunday-school in -Windsor, and also a school of industry at Brentford, which the King and -Queen occasionally visited. It may be taken as an illustration of the -native modesty of Mr. Raikes’s own character that he never referred in -his paper to this distinguished notice of royalty. - -Do our readers know anything of Mrs. Sarah Trimmer? A hundred years ago, -there was, probably, not a better-known woman in England; and although -her works have long ceased to exercise any influence, we suppose none, -in her time, were more eminently useful. Pious, devoted, earnestly -evangelical, if we speak of her as a kind of lesser Hannah More, the -remark must apply to her intellectual character rather than to her -reputation or her usefulness. Almost as soon as the Sunday-school idea -was announced, she stepped forward as its most able and intrepid -advocate; her _Economy of Charity_ exercised a large influence, and she -published a number of books, which, at that time, were admirably suited -to the level of the capacity which the Sunday-school teacher desired to -reach; she was also a great favourite with the King and Queen, and -appears to have visited them on the easy terms of friendship. The -intense interest she felt in Sunday-schools is manifest in innumerable -pages of the two volumes which record her life; certainly, she was often -at the ear of the royal pair, to whisper any good and pleasant thing -connected with the progress of her favourite thought. She repeatedly -expresses her obligation to Mr. Raikes; but her biographer only -expresses the simple truth when he says: “To Mr. Raikes, of Gloucester, -the nation is, in the first place, indebted for the happy idea of -collecting the children of the poor together on the Sabbath, and giving -them instruction suited to the sacredness of the day; but, perhaps, no -publication on this subject was of more utility than the _Economy of -Charity_. The influence of the work was very visible when it first made -its appearance, and proved a source of unspeakable gratification to the -author.” - -It is not consistent with the aim of this book to enter at greater -length into the life of Robert Raikes; we have said sufficient to show -that the term which has been applied to him of “founder of -Sunday-schools,” is not misapplied. He was a simple and good man, on -whose heart, as into a fruitful soil, an idea fell, and it became a -realised conviction. Look at his portrait, and instantly there comes to -your mind Cowper’s well-known description of one of his friends, - - “An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin, - Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.” - -No words can better describe him—not a tint of fanaticism seems to shade -his character; he had a warm enthusiasm for ends and aims which -commended themselves to his judgment. It is pleasant to know that, as he -lived when the agitation for the abolition of the slave trade was -commencing, he gave to the movement his hearty blessings and best -wishes. At sixty-seven years of age he retired from business; no doubt a -very well-to-do man, for he was the owner of two freehold estates near -Gloucester, and he received an annuity of three hundred pounds from the -_Gloucester Journal_. He died at his house in Bell Lane, in the city of -Gloucester, where he had taken up his residence when he retired from -active life; he died suddenly, in his seventy-sixth year, in 1811. Then -the family vault in St. Mary-le-Crypt, which sixty years before had -received his father’s ashes, received the body of the gentle -philanthropist. He had kept up his Sunday-school work and interest to -the close; and he left instructions that his Sunday-school children -should be invited to follow him to the grave, and that each of them -should receive a shilling and a plum cake. On the tablet over the place -where he sleeps an appropriate verse of Scripture well describes him: -“When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it -gave witness to me: because I delivered the poor that cried, and the -fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that -was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow’s heart to sing -for joy.” - -It seems very questionable whether the slightest shade can cross the -memory of this plain, simply useful, and unostentatious man. And it -ought to be said that Anne Raikes, who rests in the same grave, appears -to have been every way the worthy companion of her husband. She was the -daughter of Thomas Trigg, Esq., of Newnham, in Gloucestershire; the -sister of Sir Thomas Trigg and Admiral John Trigg. They were married in -1767. She shared in all her husband’s large and charitable intentions, -and when he died he left the whole of his property to her. She survived -him seventeen years, and died in 1828, at the age of eighty-five. - -[Illustration: - - RAIKES’S HOUSE, GLOUCESTER. -] - -The visitor to Gloucester will be surely struck by a quaint old house in -Southgate Street—still standing almost unaltered, save that the basement -is now divided into two shops. A few years since the old oak timbers -were braced, stained, and varnished. It is a fine specimen of the better -class of English residences of a hundred and fifty years since, and is -still remarkable in the old city, owing very much to the good taste -which governed their renovation. This was the printing-office of Robert -Raikes, a notice in the _Gloucester Journal_, dated August 19, 1758, -announcing his removal from Blackfriars Square to this house in -Southgate Street. The house now is in the occupation of Mrs. Watson. The -house where Raikes lived and died is nearly opposite. It will not be -difficult for the spectator to realise the pleasant image of the old -gentleman, dressed, after the fashion of the day, in his blue coat with -gold buttons, buff waistcoat, drab kerseymere breeches, white stockings, -and low shoes, passing beneath those ancient gables, and engaged in -those various public and private duties which we have attempted to -record. A century has passed away since then, and the simple lessons the -philanthropist attempted to impart to the young waifs and strays he -gathered about him have expanded into more comprehensive departments of -knowledge. The originator of Sunday-schools would be astonished were he -to step into almost any of those which have branched out from his -leading idea. It is still expanding; it is one of the most real and -intense activities of the Universal Church; but among the immense crowds -of those who, in England and America, are conducting Sunday-school -classes, it is, perhaps, not too much to say, that in not one is there a -more simple and earnest desire to do good than that which illuminated -the life, and lends a sweet and charming interest to the memory, of -Robert Raikes. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - THE ROMANTIC STORY OF SILAS TOLD. - - -Dr. Abel Stevens, in his _History of Methodism_, says, “I congratulate -myself on the opportunity of reviving the memory of Silas Told;” and -speaks of the little biography in which Silas himself records his -adventures as “a record told with frank and affecting simplicity, in a -style of terse and flowing English Defoe might have envied.” - -Such a testimony is well calculated to excite the curiosity of an -interested reader, especially as the two or three incidents mentioned -only serve to whet the appetite for more of the like description. The -little volume to which he refers has been for some years in the -possession of the author of this volume. It is indeed an astonishing -book; its alleged likeness to Defoe’s charmingly various style of -recital of adventures by sea and by land is no exaggeration, whilst as a -piece of real biography it may claim, and quite sustain, a place side by -side with the romantic and adventurous career of John Newton; but the -wild wonderfulness of the story of Silas seems to leave Newton’s in the -shade. Like Newton, Told was also a seer of visions and a dreamer of -dreams, and a believer, in special providences; and well might he -believe in such who was led certainly along as singular a path as any -mortal could tread. The only other memorial besides his own which has, -we believe, been penned of him—a brief recapitulations-well describes -him as honest, simple, and tender. Silas Told accompanied, in that awful -day, numbers of persons to the gallows, and attempted to console -sufferers and victims in circumstances of most harrowing and tragic -solemnity: he certainly furnished comfortable help and light when no -others were willing or able to sympathise or to help. John Wesley loved -him, and when Silas died he buried him, and says of him in his -_Journal_: “On the 20th of December, 1778, I buried what was mortal of -honest Silas Told. For many years he attended the malefactors in Newgate -without fee or reward; and I suppose no man, for this hundred years, has -been so successful in that melancholy office. God had given him peculiar -talents for it, and he had amazing success therein; the greatest part of -those whom he attended died in peace, and many of them in the triumph of -faith.” Such was Silas Told. - -But before we come to those characteristic circumstances to which Wesley -refers, we must follow him through some of the wild scenes of his sailor -life. He was born in Bristol in 1711; his parents were respectable and -creditable people, but of somewhat faded families. His grandfather had -been an eminent physician in Bunhill Row, London; his mother was from -Exeter. * * * - -Silas was educated in the noble foundation school of Edward Colston in -Bristol. The life of this excellent philanthropist was so remarkable, -and in many particulars so like his own, that we cannot wonder that he -stops for some pages in his early story to recite some of the remarkable -phenomena in Colston’s life. Silas’s childhood was singular, and the -stories he tells are especially noticeable, because in after-life the -turn of his character seems to have been especially real and practical. -Thus he tells how, when a child, wandering with his sister in the King’s -Wood, near Bristol, they lost their way, and were filled with the utmost -consternation, when suddenly, although no house was in view, nor, as -they thought, near, a dog came up behind them, and drove them clear out -of the wood into a path with which they were acquainted; especially it -was remarkable that the dog never barked at them, but when they looked -round about for the dog he was nowhere to be seen. Careless children out -for their own pleasure, they sauntered on their way again, and again -lost their way in the wood—were again bewildered, and in greater -perplexity than before, when, on a sudden looking up, they saw the same -dog making towards them; they ran from him in fright, but he followed -them, drove them out of the labyrinths, and did not leave them until -they could not possibly lose their way again. Simple Silas says, “I then -turned about to look for the dog, but saw no more of him, although we -were now upon an open common. This was the Lord’s doings, and marvellous -in our eyes.” - -When he was twelve years of age, he appears to have been quite -singularly influenced by the reading of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_; and -late in life, when writing his biography, he briefly, but significantly, -attempts to reproduce the intense enjoyment he received—the book -evidently caught and coloured his whole imagination. At this time, too, -he was very nearly drowned, and while drowning, so far from having any -sense of terror, he had no sense nor idea of the things of this world, -but that it appeared to him he rushingly emerged out of thick darkness -into what appeared to him a glorious city, lustrous and brilliant, the -light of which seemed to illuminate the darkness through which he had -urged his way. It was as if the city had a floor like glass, and yet he -was sure that neither city nor floor had any substance; also he saw -people there; the inhabitants arrayed in robes of what seemed the finest -substance, but flowing from their necks to their feet; and yet he was -sensible too that they had no material substance; they moved, but did -not labour as in walking, but glided as if carried along by the wind; -and he testifies how he felt a wonderful joy and peace, and he never -forgot the impression through life, although soon recalled to the world -in which he was to sorrow and suffer so much. It is quite easy to see -John Bunyan in all this; but while he was thus pleasantly happy in his -visionary or intro-visionary state, a benevolent and tender-hearted -Dutchman, who had been among some haymakers in a field on the banks of -the river, was striking out after him among the willow-bushes and sedges -of the stream, from whence he was brought, body and soul, back to the -world again. Such are the glimpses of the childhood of Silas. - -Then shortly comes a dismal transition from strange providences in the -wood, and enchanting visions beneath the waves, to the singularly severe -sufferings of a seafaring life. The ships in that day have left a grim -and ugly reputation surviving still. The term “sea-devil” has often been -used as descriptive of the masters of ships in that time. Silas seems to -have sailed under some of the worst specimens of this order. About the -age of fourteen he was bound apprentice to Captain Moses Lilly, and -started for his first voyage from Bristol to Jamaica. “Here,” he says, -“I may date my first sufferings.” He says the first of his afflictions -“was sea-sickness, which held me till my arrival in Jamaica;” and -considering that it was a voyage of fourteen weeks, it was a fair spell -of entertainment from that pleasant companion. They were short of water, -they were put on short allowance of food, and when having obtained their -freight, while lying in Kingston harbour, their vessel, and seventy-six -sail of ships, many of them very large, but all riding with three -anchors ahead, were all scattered by an astonishing hurricane, and all -the vessels in Port Royal shared the same fate. He tells how the corpses -of the drowned sailors strewed the shores, and how, immediately after -the subsidence of the hurricane, a pestilential sickness swept away -thousands of the natives. “Every morning,” he says, “I have observed -between thirty and forty corpses carried past my window; being very near -death myself, I expected every day to approach with the messenger of my -dissolution.” - -During this time he appears to have been lying in a warehouse, with no -person to take care of him except a negro, who every day brought to him, -where he was laid in his hammock, Jesuit’s bark. - -“At length,” he says, “my master gave me up, and I wandered up and down -the town, almost parched with the insufferable blaze of the sun, till I -resolved to lay me down and die, as I had neither money nor friend; -accordingly, I fixed upon a dunghill in the east end of the town of -Kingston, and being in such a weak condition, I pondered much upon Job’s -case, and considered mine similar to that of his; however, I was fully -resigned to death, nor had I the slightest expectation of relief from -any quarter; yet the kind providence of God was over me, and raised me -up a friend in an entire stranger. A London captain coming by was struck -with the sordid object, came up to me, and, in a very compassionate -manner, asked me if I was sensible of any friend upon the island from -whom I could obtain relief; he likewise asked me to whom I belonged. I -answered, to Captain Moses Lilly, and had been cast away in the late -hurricane. This captain appeared to have some knowledge of my master, -and, cursing him for a barbarous villain, told me he would compel him to -take proper care of me. About a quarter of an hour after this, my master -arrived, whom I had not seen before for six weeks, and took me to a -public-house kept by, a Mrs. Hutchinson, and there ordered me to be -taken proper care of. However, he soon quitted the island, and directed -his course for England, leaving me behind at his sick quarters; and, if -it should please God to permit my recovery, I was commanded to take my -passage to England in the _Montserrat_, Captain David Jones, a very -fatherly, tender-hearted man: this was the first alleviation of my -misery. Now the captain sent his son on shore, in order to receive me on -board. When I came alongside, Captain Jones, standing on the ship’s -gunwale, addressed me after a very humane and compassionate manner, with -expressions to the following effect: ‘Come, poor child, into the cabin, -and you shall want nothing that the ship affords; go, and my son shall -prepare for you, in the first place, a basin of good egg-flip, and -anything else that maybe conducive to your relief.’ But I, being very -bad with my fever and ague, could neither eat nor drink.” - -A very pleasant captain, this seems, to have sailed with; but poor Silas -had very little of his company. However, the good captain and his -boatswain put their experiences together, and the poor boy was restored -to health, and after some singular adventures he reached Bristol. -Arriving there, however, Captain Lilly transferred him to a Captain -Timothy Tucker, of whom Silas bears the pleasing testimony, “A greater -villain, I firmly believe, never existed, although at home he assumed -the character and temper of a saint.” The wretch actually stole a white -woman from her own country to sell her to the black prince of Bonny, on -the African coast. They had not been long at sea before this delightful -person gave Silas a taste of his temper. Thinking the boy had taken too -much bread from the cask, he went to the cabin and brought back with him -his large horsewhip, “and exercised it,” says Silas, “about my body in -so unmerciful a manner, that not only the clothes on my back were cut to -pieces, but every sailor declared they could see my bones; and then he -threw me all along the deck, and jumped many times upon the pit of my -stomach, in order to endanger my life; and had not the people laid hold -of my two legs, and thrown me under the windlass, after the manner they -throw dead cats or dogs, he would have ended his despotic cruelty in -murder.” This free and easy mode of recreation was much indulged in by -seafaring officers in that time, but this Tucker appears to have been -really what Silas calls him, “a blood-thirsty devil;” and stories of -murder, and the incredible cruelties of the slave-trade lend their -horrible fascination to the narrative of Silas Told. How would it be -possible to work the commerce of the slave-trade without such characters -as this Tucker, who presents much more the appearance of a lawless -pirate than of the noble character we call a sailor? - -Those readers who would like to follow poor Silas through the entire -details of his miseries on ship-board, his hairbreadth escapes from -peril and shipwreck, must read them in Silas’s own book, if they can -find it; but we may attempt to give some little account of his wreck -upon the American coast, in New England. Few stories can be more -charming than the picture he gives of his wanderings with his companions -after their escape from the wreck, not because he and they were -destitute, and all but naked, but because of the pleasant glimpses we -have of the simple, hospitable, home life in those beautiful old New -England days—hospitality of the most romantic and free-handed -description. - -We will select two pictures, as illustrating something of the character -of New England settlements in those very early days of their history. -Silas and his companions were cast on shore, and had found refuge in a -tavern seven miles from the beach; he had no clothing; but the landlord -of the tavern gave him a pair of red breeches, the last he had after -supplying the rest. Silas goes on: “Ebenezer Allen, Governor of the -island, and who dwelt about six miles from the tavern, hearing of our -distress, made all possible haste to relieve us; and when he arrived at -the tavern, accompanied by his two eldest sons, he took Captain Seaborn, -his black servant, Joseph and myself through partiality, and escorted us -home to his own house. Between eleven and twelve at night we reached the -Governor’s mansion, all of us ashamed to be seen; we would fain have hid -ourselves in any dark hole or corner, as it was a truly magnificent -building, with wings on each side thereof, but, to our astonishment, we -were received into the great parlour, where were sitting by the fireside -two fine, portly ladies, attending the spit, which was burdened with a -very heavy quarter of house-lamb. Observing a large mahogany table to be -spread with a fine damask cloth, and every knife, fork, and plate to be -laid in a genteel mode, I was apprehensive that it was intended for the -entertainment of some persons of note or distinction, or, at least, for -a family supper. In a short time the joint was taken up, and laid on the -table, yet nobody sat down to eat; and as we were almost hid in one -corner of the room, the ladies turned round and said, ‘Poor men, why -don’t you come to supper?’ I replied, ‘Madam, we had no idea it was -prepared for us.’ The ladies then entreated us to eat without any fear -of them, assuring us that it was prepared for none others; and none of -us having eaten anything for near six and thirty hours before, we picked -the bones of the whole quarter, to which we had plenty of rich old cider -to drink: after supper we went to bed, and enjoyed so profound a sleep -that the next morning it was difficult for the old gentleman to awake -us. The following day I became the partaker of several second-hand -garments, and, as I was happily possessed of a little learning, it -caused me to be more abundantly caressed by the whole family, and -therefore I fared sumptuously every day. - -“This unexpected change of circumstances and diet I undoubtedly -experienced in a very uncommon manner; but as I was strictly trained up -a Churchman, I could not support the idea of a Dissenter, although, God -knows, I had well-nigh by this time dissented from all that is truly -good. This proved a bar to my promotion, and my strong propensity to -sail for England to see my mother prevented my acceptance of the -greatest offer I ever received in my life before; for when the day came -that we were to quit the island, and to cross the sound over to a town -called Sandwich, on the main continent, the young esquire took me apart -from my associates, and earnestly entreated me to tarry with them, -saying that if I would accede to their proposals nothing should be -lacking to render my situation equivalent to the rest of the family. As -there were very few white men on the island, I was fixed upon, if -willing, to espouse one of the Governor’s daughters. I had been informed -that the Governor was immensely rich, having on the island two thousand -head of cattle and twenty thousand sheep, and every acre of land thereon -belonging to himself. However, I could not be prevailed upon to accept -the offer; therefore the Governor furnished us with forty shillings -each, and gave us a pass over to the town of Sandwich.” - -Such passages as this show the severe experiences through which Silas -passed; they illustrate the education he was receiving for that life of -singular earnestness and tenderness which was to close and crown his -career; but we have made the extract here for the purpose of giving some -idea of that cheerful, hospitable, home life of New England in those -then almost wild regions which are now covered with the population of -towns. - -Here is another instance, which occurred at Hanover, in the United -States, through which district Silas and his companions appear to have -been wending their way, seeking a return to England. “One Sunday, as my -companions and self were crossing the churchyard at the time of Divine -service, a well-dressed gentleman came out of the church and said, -‘Gentlemen, we do not suffer any person in this country to travel on the -Lord’s day.’ We gave him to understand that it was necessity which -constrained us to walk that way, as we had all been shipwrecked on St. -Martin’s [Martha’s (?)] Vineyard, and were journeying to Boston. The -gentleman was still dissatisfied, but quitted our company and went into -church. When we had gone a little farther, a large white house proved -the object of our attention. The door being wide open, we reasonably -imagined it was not in an unguarded state, without servants or others; -but as we all went into the kitchen, nobody appeared to be within, nor -was there an individual either above or below. However, I advised my -companions to tarry in the house until some person or other should -arrive. They did so, and in a short time afterwards two ladies, richly -dressed, with a footman following them, came in through the kitchen; -and, notwithstanding they turned round and saw us, who in so dirty and -disagreeable a garb and appearance might have terrified them -exceedingly, yet neither of them was observed to take any notice of us, -nor did either of them ask us any questions touching the cause of so -great an intrusion. - -“About a quarter of an hour afterwards, a footman entered the kitchen -with a cloth and a large two-quart silver tankard full of rich cider, -also a loaf and cheese; but we, not knowing it was prepared for us, did -not attempt to partake thereof. At length the ladies coming into the -kitchen, and viewing us in our former position, desired to know the -reason of our malady, seeing we were not refreshing ourselves; whereupon -I urged the others to join with me in the acceptance of so hospitable a -proposal. After this the ladies commenced a similar inquiry into our -situation. I gave them as particular an account of every recent -vicissitude that befell us as I was capable of, with a genuine, relation -of our being shipwrecked, and the sole reasons of our travelling into -that country; likewise begged that they would excuse our impertinence, -as they were already informed of the cause; we were then emboldened to -ask the ladies if they could furnish us with a lodging that evening. -They replied it was uncertain whether our wishes could be accomplished -there, but that if we proceeded somewhat farther we should doubtless be -entertained and genteelly accommodated by their brother—a Quaker—whose -house was not more than a distance of seven miles. We thanked the -ladies, and set forward, and at about eight o’clock arrived at their -brother’s house. Fatigued with our journey, we hastened into the parlour -and delivered our message; whereupon a gentleman gave us to understand, -by his free and liberal conduct, that he was the Quaker referred to by -the aforesaid ladies, who, total strangers as we were, used us with a -degree of hospitality impossible to be exceeded; indeed, I could venture -to say that the accommodations we met with at the Quaker’s house, seeing -they were imparted to us with such affectionate sympathy, greatly -outweighed those we formerly experienced. - -“After our banquet, the gentleman took us up into a fine spacious -bed-chamber, with desirable bedding and very costly chintz curtains. We -enjoyed a sound night’s rest, and arose between seven and eight the next -morning, and were entertained with a good breakfast; returned many -thanks for the unrestrained friendship and liberality, and departed -therefrom, fully purposed to direct our course for Boston, which was not -more than seven miles farther. Here all the land was strewed with -plenty, the orchards were replete with apple-trees and pears; they had -cider-presses in the centre of their orchards, and great quantities of -fine cider, and any person might become a partaker thereof for the mere -trouble of asking. We soon entered Boston, a commodious, beautiful city, -with seventeen spired meetings, the dissenting religion being then -established in that part of the world. I resided here for the space of -four months, and lodged with Captain Seaborn at Deacon Townshend’s; -deacon of the North Meeting, and by trade a blacksmith.” He gives a -glowing and beautiful description of the high moral and religious -character of Boston; here also he met with a stroke of good fortune in -receiving some arrears of salvage for a vessel he had assisted in saving -before his last wreck. Such are specimens of the interest and -entertainment afforded in the earlier parts of this pleasant piece of -autobiography. But we must hasten past his adventures, both in the -island of Antigua and among the islands of the Mediterranean. - -It is not wonderful that the great sufferings and toils of Silas should, -even at a very early period of life, prostrate his health, and subject -him to repeated vehement attacks of illness. He was but twenty-three -when he married; still, however, a sailor, and destined yet for some -wild experiences on the seas. Not long, however. A married life disposed -him for a home life, and he accepted, while still a very young man, the -position of a schoolmaster, beneath the patronage of a Lady Luther, in -the county of Essex. He was not in this position very long. Silas, -although an unconverted man, must have had strong religious feelings; -and the clergyman of the parish, fond of smoking and drinking with -him—and it may well be conceived what an entertaining companion Silas -must have been in those days, with his budget of adventures—ridiculed -him for his faith in the Scriptures and his belief in Bible theology. -This so shocked Silas, that, making no special profession of religion, -he yet separated himself from the clergyman’s company, and shortly after -he left that neighbourhood, and again sought his fortune, but without -any very cheerful prospects, in London. - -It was in 1740 that a young blacksmith introduced him to the people whom -he had hitherto hated and despised—the Methodists. He heard John Wesley -preach at the Foundry in the Moor Fields from the text, “I write unto -you, little children, for your sins are forgiven you.” This set his soul -on fire; he became a Methodist, notwithstanding the very vehement -opposition of his wife, to whom he appears to have been very tenderly -attached, and who herself was a very motherly and virtuous woman, but -altogether indisposed to the new notions, as many people considered -them. He improved in circumstances, and became a responsible managing -clerk on a wharf at Wapping. While there Mr. Wesley repeatedly and -earnestly pressed him to take charge of the charity school he had -established at the Foundry. After long hesitation he did so; and it was -here that while attending a service at five o’clock in the morning, he -heard Mr. Wesley preach from the text, “I was sick, and in prison, and -ye visited me not.” By a most remarkable application of this charge to -himself, Silas testifies that his mind was stirred with a strange -compunction, as he thought that he had never cared for, or attempted to -ameliorate the condition, or to minister to the souls of the crowds of -those unhappy malefactors who then almost weekly expiated their -offences, very often of the most trivial description, on the gallows. It -seems that the hearing that sermon proved to be a most remarkable -turning-point in the life of Silas. Through it he became most eminently -useful during a very remarkable and painful career; and his after-life -is surrounded by such a succession of romantic incidents that they at -once equal, if they do not transcend, and strangely contrast with his -wild adventures on the seas. - -And here we may pause a moment to reflect how every man’s work derives -its character from what he was before. What thousands of sailors, in -that day, passed through all the trials which Silas passed, leaving them -still only rough sailor men! In him all the roughness seemed only to -strike down to depths of wonderful compassion and tenderness. Singular -was the university in which he graduated to become so great and powerful -a preacher! How he preached we do not know, but his words must have been -warm and touching, faithful and loving, judging from their results; and -as to his pulpit, we do not hear that it was in chapels or churches—his -audience was very much confined to the condemned cell, and to the cart -from whence the poor victims were “turned off,” as it was called in -those days. In this work he found his singular niche. How long it often -takes for a man to find his place in the work that is given him to do; -and when the place is found, sometimes, how long it takes to fit nicely -and admirably into the work itself! what sharp angles have, to be rubbed -away, what difficulties to be overcome! It is wonderful, with all the -horrible experiences through which this man had passed, and spectacles -of cruelty so revolting that they seem almost to shake our faith, not -merely in man, but even in a just and overruling God, that every -sentiment of religion and tenderness had not been eradicated from his -nature; but it would appear that the old gracious influences of -childhood—the days of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and the wonderful vision -when drowning beneath the waters, had never been effaced through all his -strange and chequered career, although certainly not untainted by the -sins of the ordinary sailor’s life. The work in which he was now to be -engaged needed a very tender and affectionate nature; but ordinary -tenderness starts back and is repelled by cruel and repulsive scenes. -Told’s education on the seas, like that of a surgeon in a hospital, -enabled him to look on harrowing sights of suffering without wincing, or -losing in his tender interest his own self-possession. - -It ought not to be forgotten that John Howard, the great prison -philanthropist, belongs to the epoch of the Great Revival. Of him Edmund -Burke said, “He had visited all Europe in a circumnavigation of charity, -not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of -temples; not to collect medals or to collate manuscripts, but to dive -into the depths of dungeons and to plunge into the infections of -hospitals.” About the year 1760,[13] when he began his consecrated work, -Silas Told, as a prison philanthropist upon a smaller, but equally -earnest scale, attempted to console the prisoners of Newgate. - -Footnote 13: - - See Appendix. - -Shortly after hearing that sermon to which we have alluded, a messenger -came to him at the school to tell him that there were ten malefactors -lying under sentence of death in Newgate, some of them in a state of -considerable terror and alarm, and imploring him to find some one to -visit them. Here was the call to the work. The coincidences were -remarkable: John Wesley’s sermon, his own aroused and tender state of -mind produced by the sermon, and the occasion for the active and -practical exercise of his feeling. So opportunities would meet us of -turning suggestions into usefulness, if we watched for them. - -The English laws were barbarous in those days; truly it has been said -that a fearfully heavyweight of blood rests upon the conscience of -England for the state of the law in those times. Few of those who have -given such honour to the noble labours of John Howard and the loving -ministrations of Elizabeth Fry ever heard of Silas Told. In a smaller -sphere than the first of these, and in a much more intensely painful -manner than the second, he anticipated the labours of both. He instantly -responded to this first call to Newgate. Two of the ten malefactors were -reprieved; he attended the remaining eight to the gallows. He had so -influenced the hearts of all of them in their cell that their obduracy -was broken down and softened—so great had been his power over them, that -locked up together in one cell the night before their execution, they -had spent it in prayer and solemn conversation. “At length they were -ordered into the cart, and I was prevailed upon to go with them. When we -were in the cart I addressed myself to each of them separately. The -first was Mr. Atkins, the son of a glazier in the city, a youth nineteen -years of age. I said to him, ‘My dear, are you afraid to die?’ He said, -‘No, sir; really I am not.’ I asked him wherefore he was not afraid to -die? and he said, ‘I have laid my soul at the feet of Jesus, therefore I -am not afraid to die.’ I then spake to Mr. Gardner, a journeyman -carpenter; he made a very comfortable report of the true peace of God -which he found reigning in his heart. The last person to whom I spoke -was one Thompson, a very illiterate young man; but he assured me he was -perfectly happy in his Saviour, and continued so until his last moments. -This was the first time of my visiting the malefactors in Newgate, and -then it was not without much shame and fear, because I clearly perceived -the greater part of the populace considered me as one of the sufferers.” - -The most remarkable of this cluster was one John Lancaster—for what -offence he was sentenced to death does not appear; but the entire -account Silas gives of him, both in the prison and at the place of -execution, exhibits a fine, tender, and really holy character. The -attendant sheriff himself burst into tears before the beautiful -demeanour of this young man. However, so it was, that he was without any -friend in London to procure for his body a proper interment; and the -story of Silas admits us into a pretty spectacle of the times. After the -poor bodies were cut down, Lancaster’s was seized by a surgeons’ mob, -who intended to carry it over to Paddington. It was Silas’s first -experience, as we have seen; and he describes the whole scene as rather -like a great fair than an awful execution. In this confusion the body of -Lancaster had been seized, the crowd dispersed—all save some old woman, -who sold gin, and Silas himself, very likely smitten into extraordinary -meditation by a spectacle so new to him—when a company of eight sailors -appeared on the scene, with truncheons in their hands, who said they had -come to see the execution, and gazed with very menacing faces on the -vacated gallows from whence the bodies had been cut down. “Gentlemen,” -said the old woman, “I suppose you want the man that the surgeons have -got?” “Ay,” said the sailors, “where is he?” The old woman gave them to -understand that the body had been carried away to Paddington, and she -pointed them to the direct road. Away the sailors hastened—it may be -presumed that Lancaster was a sailor, and some old comrade of these men. -They demanded his body from the surgeons’ mob, and obtained it. What -they intended to do with it scarcely transpires; it is most likely that -they had intended a rescue at the foot of the gallows, and arrived too -late. However, hoisting it on their shoulders, away they marched with it -off to Islington, and thence round to Shoreditch; thence to a place -called Coventry’s Fields. By this time they were getting fairly wearied -out with their burden, and by unanimous consent they agreed to lay it on -the step of the first door they came to: this done, they started off. It -created some stir in the street, which brought down an old woman who -lived in the house to the step of the door, and who exclaimed, as she -saw the body, in a loud, agitated voice, “Lord! this is my son John -Lancaster!” It is probable that the old woman was a Methodist, for to -Silas Told and the Methodists she was indebted for a decent and -respectable burial for her son in a good strong coffin and decent -shroud. Silas and his wife went to see him whilst he was lying so, -previous to his burial. There was no alteration of his visage, no marks -of violence, and says Told, “A pleasant smile appeared on his -countenance, and he lay as in sweet sleep.” A singularly romantic story, -for it seems the sailors did not know at all to whom he belonged; and -what an insight into the social condition of London at that time! - -Told did not give up his connection with his school at the Foundry, but -he devoted himself, sanctioned by John Wesley and his Church fellowship, -to the preaching and ministering to all the poor felons and malefactors -in London, including also, in this exercise of love, the work-houses for -twelve miles round London; he believed he had a message of tender -sympathy for those who were of this order, “sick and in prison.” It -seems strange to us, who know how much he had suffered himself, that the -old sailor possessed such a loving, tender, and affectionate heart; and -yet he tells how, in the earlier part of these very years, he was -haunted by irritating doubts and alarms: then came to him old mystical -revelations, such as those he had known when drowning, reminding us of -similar instances in the lives of John Howe and John Flavel; and the -noble man was strengthened. - -He went on for twenty years in the way we have described; and the -interest of his autobiography compels the wish that it were much longer; -for, of course, the largest amount of his precious life of labour was -not set down, and cannot be recalled; and readers who are fond of -romance will find his name in connection with some of the most -remarkable executions of his time. - -A singular circumstance was this: Four gentlemen—Mr. Brett, the son of -an eminent divine in Dublin; Whalley, a gentleman of considerable -fortune, possessed of three country-seats of his own; Dupree, “in every -particular,” says Silas, “a complete gentleman;” and Morgan, an officer -on board one of His Majesty’s ships of war—after dinner, upon the -occasion of their being at an election for the members for Chelmsford, -proposed to start forth, and, by way of recreation, rob somebody on the -highway. Away they went, and chanced upon a farmer, whom they eased of a -considerable sum of money. The farmer followed them into Chelmsford; -they were all secured, and next day removed to London; they took their -trials, and were sentenced, and left for execution. Told visited them -all in prison. Morgan was engaged to be married to Lady Elizabeth -Hamilton, the sister of the Duke of Hamilton. She repeatedly visited her -affianced husband in the cell, and Told was with them at most of their -interviews. It was supposed that, from the rank of the prisoners, and -the character of their offence, there would be no difficulty in -obtaining a reprieve; but the King was quite inexorable; he said, “his -subjects were not to be in bodily fear in order that men might gratify -their drunken whims.” Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, however, thrust herself -several times before the King; wept, threw herself on her knees, and -behaved altogether in such a manner that the King said, “Lady Betsy, -there is no standing your importunity any further; I will spare his -life, but on one condition—that he is not acquainted therewith until he -arrives at the place of execution;” and it was so. The other three -unfortunates were executed, and Lady Elizabeth, in her coach, received -her lover into it as he stepped from the cart. It is a sad story, but it -must have been a sweet satisfaction to the lady. - -Far more dreadful were some cases which engaged the tender heart of -Silas. A young man, named Coleman, was tried for an aggravated assault -on a young woman. The young woman herself declared that Coleman was not -the man; but he had enemies who pressed apparent circumstances against -him, and urged them on the young woman, to induce her to change her -opinion. She never wavered; yet, singular to say, he was convicted and -executed. A short time after the real criminal was discovered, by his -own confession; he was also tried, condemned, and executed, and the -perjured witnesses against poor Coleman sentenced to stand in the -pillory. - -But one of the most pitiful and dreadful cases in Silas Told’s -experience was that of Mary Edmondson, a sweet young girl, tried upon -mere circumstantial evidence, and executed on Kennington Common, for the -supposed murder of her aunt at Rotherhithe. She appears to have been -most brutally treated; the mob believed her to be guilty, and received -her with shocking execrations. Whether Silas had a prejudice against her -or not, we cannot say; it is not likely that he had a prejudice against -any suffering soul; but it so happened, he says, as he had not visited -her in her imprisonment, so he entertained no idea of seeing her suffer. -But as he was passing through the Borough, a pious cheesemonger, named -Skinner, called him into his shop, tenderly expressed deep interest in -her present and future state, and besought him to see her; so his first -interview with her was only just as she was going forth to her sad end. - -Silas shall tell the story himself: “When she was brought into the room, -she stood with her back against the wainscot, but appeared perfectly -resigned to the will of God. I then addressed myself to her, saying, ‘My -dear, for God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, for the sake of your own -precious soul, do not die with a lie in your mouth; you are, in a few -moments, to appear in the presence of the holy God, who is of purer eyes -than to behold iniquity. Oh, consider what an eternity of misery must be -the position of all who die in their sins!’ She heard me with much -meekness and simplicity, but answered that she had already advanced the -truth, and must persevere in the same spirit to her last moments.” -Efforts were made to prevent Told from accompanying her any farther, and -the rioters were so exasperated against her that Told seems only to have -been safe by keeping near to the sheriff along the whole way. The -sheriff also told him that he would be giving a great satisfaction to -the whole nation, could he only bring her to a confession. “Now, as we -were proceeding on the road, the sheriff’s horse being close to the -cart, I looked up at her from under the horse’s bridle, and I said, ‘My -dear, look to Jesus.’ This quickened her spirit, insomuch that although -she had not looked about her before, she turned herself round to me, and -said, ‘Sir, I bless God I can look to Jesus—to my comfort.’” - -Arrived at the place of execution, he spoke to her again solemnly, “Did -you not commit the act? Had you no concern therein? Were you not -interested in the murder?” She said, “I am as clear of the whole affair -as I was the day my mother brought me into the world.” She was very -young, she had all the aspects of innocence about her. The sheriff burst -into tears, and turned his head away, exclaiming, “Good God! it is a -second Coleman’s case!” - -At this moment her cousin stepped up into the cart, and sought to kiss -her. She turned her face away, and pushed him off. She had before -charged him with being the murderer—and he was. When subsequently taken -up for another crime, he confessed the committal of this. Her aunt had -left to Mary, in the event of her death, more money than to this wretch. -The executioner drew the cart away, and Mary’s body—leaning the poor -head, in her last moments, on Silas’s shoulder—dear old Silas, her only -comfort in that terrible hour—fell into the arms of death. But he tells -how she was cold and still before the cart was drawn away. - -But perhaps a still more pitiful case was that of poor Anderson, who was -hanged for stealing sixpence: he was a labouring man, and had been of -irreproachable character. He and his wife—far gone with child—were -destitute of money, clothes, and food. He said to his wife, “My dear, I -will go out, down to the quays; it may be that the Lord will provide me -with a loaf of bread.” All his efforts were fruitless, but passing -through Hoxton Fields, he met two washerwomen. He did not bid them stop, -but he said to one, “Mistress, I want money.” She gave him twopence. He -said to the other, “You have money, I know you have.” She said, “I have -fourpence.” He took that. Insensible of what might follow, as of what he -had done, he walked down into Old Street: there, the two women having -followed him gave him in charge of a constable. He was tried, sentenced -to death, and for this he died. “Never,” says Told, “through the years I -have attended the prisoners, have I seen such meek, loving, patient -spirits as this man and his wife.” Told attended him to execution, and -sought to comfort the poor fellow by promising him to look after his -wife; and most tenderly did Told and his wife redeem the promise, for -they took her for a short time into their own home. Told obtained a -housekeeper’s situation for her, and she became a creditable and -respected woman. He bound her daughter apprentice to a weaver, and she, -probably, turned out well, although he says, “I have never seen her but -twice since, which is many years ago.” - -Our readers will, perhaps, think that it is time we drew these harrowing -stories to a close; but there are many more of them in this brief, but -most interesting, although forgotten autobiography. They are recited -with much pathos. We have the story of Harris, the flying highwayman; of -Bolland, a sheriff’s officer, who was executed for forging a note, -although he had refunded the money, and twice afterwards paid the sum of -the bill to secure himself. A young gentleman, named Slocomb, defrauded -his father of three hundred pounds; his father would not in any way -stir, or remit his claim, to save him. Told attended him and thought -highly of him, not only because he expressed himself with so much -resignation, but because he never indulged a complaint against him whom -Told calls “that lump of adamant, his father.” With him was executed -another young gentleman, named Powell, for forgery. Silas Told also -attended that cruel woman, Elizabeth Brownrigg, who was executed for the -atrocious murder of her apprentices. And of all the malefactors whom he -attended she seems to us the most unsatisfactory. - -We trust our readers will not be displeased to receive these items from -the biography of a very remarkable, a singularly romantic and chequered, -as well as singularly useful career. References to Silas Told will be -found in most of the biographies of Wesley. Southey passes him by with a -very slight allusion. Tyerman dwells on his memory with a little more -tenderness; but, with the exception of Stevens, none has touched with -real interest upon this extraordinary though obscure man, and his -romantic life and labours in a very strange path of Christian -benevolence and usefulness. He was known, far and near, as the -“prisoners’ chaplain,” although an unpaid one. He closed his life in -1778, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. As we have seen, John Wesley -appropriately officiated at his funeral, and pronounced an affectionate -encomium over the remains of his honoured old friend and -fellow-labourer. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. - - -Illustrating what we have said before, it remains to be noticed, that -nearly all the great societies sprang into existence almost -simultaneously. The foremost among these,[14] founded in 1792, was the -Baptist Missionary Society. It appears to have arisen from a suggestion -of William Carey, the celebrated Northamptonshire shoemaker, who -proposed as an inquiry to an association of Northamptonshire ministers, -“whether it were not practicable and obligatory to attempt the -conversion of the heathen.” It is certainly still a moot question -whether Le Verrier or Adams first laid the hand of science on the planet -Neptune; but it seems quite certain that, when one of God’s great -thoughts is throbbing in the heart of one of His apostles, the same -impulse and passion is stirring another, perhaps others, in remote and -faraway scenes. Altogether unknown to William Carey, that same year the -great Claudius Buchanan was dreaming his divine dreams about the -conquest of India for Christ, in St. Mary’s College, Cambridge.[15] -Undoubtedly the honour of the first consolidation of the thought into a -missionary enterprise must be given to William Carey and his little band -of obscure believers. - -Footnote 14: - - It is not implied that these were the first modern missionary - agencies. The Moravians had already sent the Gospel into many regions. - There were Swedish and Danish Missionary Societies also at work. In - 1649 a Society for Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus - Christ in New England had been formed, and about 1697 the “Society for - Promoting Christian Knowledge” and the “Society for the Propagation of - the Gospel in Foreign Parts” were established. See page 256 and foot - note. - -Footnote 15: - - See Appendix. - -[Illustration: - - William Carey. -] - -At the close of Carey’s address, to which we have referred, a collection -was made for the purpose of attempting a missionary crusade upon -Hindostan, amounting to £13 2s. 6d. = $65.60. The wits made fine work of -this: the reader may still turn to Sydney Smith’s paper in the -_Edinburgh Review_, in which the idea and the effort are satirised as -that of “an army of maniacs setting forth to the conquest of India.” But -this humble effort resulted in magnificent achievements; Carey and his -illustrious coadjutors, Ward and Marshman, set forth, and became -stupendous Oriental scholars, translating the Word of Life into many -Indian dialects. Then came tempests of abuse and scurrility at home from -eminent pens. We experience a shame in reading them; but it shows the -catholicity of spirit pervading the minds of Christ’s real followers, -that Lord Teignmouth, and William Wilberforce, and Dr. Buchanan, were -amongst the ablest and most earnest defenders of the noble Baptist -missionaries. We are able to see now that this mission may be said to -have saved India to the British Empire. It not only created the scholars -to whom we have referred, and the bands of holy labourers, but also the -sagacity of Lord Lawrence, and the consecrated courage of Sir Henry -Havelock. We are prepared, therefore, to maintain that England is -indebted more to William Carey and his £13 2s 6d. than to the cunning of -Clive and the rapacity of Warren Hastings. - -Another child of the Revival was born in 1795—the London Missionary -Society. But it would be idle to attempt to enumerate the names either -of its founders, its missionaries, or their fields of labour; let the -reader turn to the names of the founders, and he will find they were -nearly all enthusiasts who had been baptised into the spirit of the -Revival—Rowland Hill, Matthew Wilks, Alexander Waugh, William Kingsbury, -and, notably, Thomas Haweis, the Rector of Aldwinckle and chaplain to -the Countess of Huntingdon. Nor must we omit the name of David -Bogue,[16] that strong and eloquent intelligence, whose admirable and -suggestive work on _The Divine Authority of the_ _New Testament_, sent -to Napoleon in his exile at St. Helena by the Viscountess Duncan, was, -after the Emperor’s death, returned to the author full of annotations, -thus seeming to give some clue to those religious conversations, in -which the illustrious exile certainly astonishes us, not long before his -departure. - -Footnote 16: - - See Appendix. - -It is the London Missionary Society which has covered the largest -surface of the earth with its missions, and it is not invidious to say -that its records register a larger range of conquests over heathenism -and idolatry than could be chronicled in any age since the first -apostles went upon their way. We have only to remember the Sandwich -Islands,[17] and the crowds of islands in the Southern Seas, with their -chief civiliser, the martyr of Erromanga; Africa, from the Cape along -through the deep interior, with Moffatt and Livingstone, whose -celebrated motto was, “The end of the geographical feat is the beginning -of the missionary enterprise;” China and Robert Morison; Madagascar and -William Ellis, and many other regions and names to justify our verdict. - -Footnote 17: - - (The civilisation and Christian character of these Islands is largely, - due to the labours of the missionaries of the American Board of - Commissioners for Foreign Missions.—ED.) - -In 1799 the Church Missionary Society came into existence. “What!” said -the passionate and earnest Rev. Melville Horne, in attempting to arouse -the clergy to missionary enthusiasm; “have Carey and the Baptists had -more forgiven than we, that they should love more? Have the fervent -Methodists and patient Moravians been extortionate publicans, that they -should expend their all in a cause which we decline? Have our -Independent brethren persecuted the Church more, that they should now be -more zealous in propagating the faith which it once destroyed?” And so -the Church Missionary Society arose;[18] and in 1804, the Bible Society; -in 1805, the British and Foreign School Society; in 1799, the Religious -Tract Society, which, since its foundation, has probably circulated not -less than five hundred millions of publications. The Wesleyan Missionary -Society—which claims in date to take precedence of all in its foundation -in the year 1769—was not formally constituted till 1817.[19] - -Footnote 18: - - See Appendix - -Footnote 19: - - (The great missionary organizations of America belong to the early - part of this century. The First day or Sunday-school Society was - formed in 1791; the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign - Missions in 1810; the American Baptist Missionary Union in 1814; - Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society in 1819; the Philadelphia Adult - and Sunday-school Union (which, in 1824, was merged in the American - Sunday-school Union) in 1817; the Protestant Episcopal Board of - Missions in 1821. Of Continental Societies, the Moravian Missionary - Society was formed in 1732; the Netherlands Missionary Society in - 1797; the Basle Evangelical Mission in 1816. Appendix.—ED.) - -Every one of these, and many other such associations, alike show the -vivid and vigorous spirit which was abroad seeking to secure the empire -of the world to the cause of Divine truth and love. - -And, meantime, what works were going on at home? Education and -intelligence were widely spreading; simple academies were forming, like -that founded by the Countess of Huntingdon at Trevecca, where the minds -of young men were being moulded and informed to become the intelligent -vehicles of the Gospel message—eminently that of the great and good -Cornelius Winter, in Gloucestershire; and that of David Bogue at -Gosport; while, in the north of England, arose the small but very -effective colleges of Bradford and Rotherham; and the now handsome -Lancashire Independent College had its origin in the vestry of Mosley -Street Chapel, where the sainted William Roby, as tutor, gathered around -him a number of young men, and armed them with intellectual appliances -for the work of the ministry. - -Some of the earliest efforts of Methodism, and some of the most -successful, had been in the gaols, and among the malefactors of the -country—notably in the wonderful labours of Silas Told, whose -extraordinary story has been recited in these pages. Silas passed away, -but an angel of light moved through the cells of Newgate in the person -of Elizabeth Fry, as beautiful and commanding in her presence as she was -holy in her sweet and fervid zeal. Now began thoughts too about the -waifs and strays of the population—the helpless and forgotten; and John -Townshend, an Independent minister, laid the foundation of the first -Deaf and Dumb Asylum, the noble institution of London. - -In the world of politics, also, the men of the Revival were exercising -their influence, and procuring charters of freedom for the mind of the -nation. Has it not been ever true that civil and religious liberty have -flourished side by side? A blight cannot pass over one without withering -the other. The honour of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts is -due to the Great Revival: the Toleration Act of those days was really -more oppressive on pious members of the Church of England than on -Dissenters; they could not obtain, as Dissenters could, a licence for -holding religious services in their houses, because they were members of -the Church of England. - -William Wilberforce owed his first religious impressions to the -preaching of Whitefield; with all his fine liberality of heart, he -became an ardent member of the communion of the Church of England. It -seems incredible to us now that he lived constantly in the -expectation—we will not say fear—of indictments against him, for holding -prayer-meetings and religious services at his house in Kensington Gore. -Lord Barham, the father of the late amiable and excellent Baptist Noel, -was fined forty pounds, on two informations of his neighbour, the Earl -of Romney, for a breach of the statute in like services. That such a -state of things as this was changed to the free and happy ordinances now -in force, was owing to the spirit which was abroad, giving not only -freedom to the soul of the man, but dignity and independence to the -social life of the citizen. Everywhere, and in every department of life, -the spirit of the Revival moved over the face of the waters, dividing -the light from the darkness, and thus God said, “Let there be light, and -there was light.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - AFTERMATH. - - -The effects of that great awakening which we have thus attempted -concisely, but fairly, to delineate, are with us still; the strength is -diffused, the tone and colour are modified. One chief purpose has guided -the pen of the writer throughout: it has been to show that the immense -regeneration effected in English manners and society during the later -years of the last century and the first of the present, was the result -of a secret, silent, most subtle spiritual force, awakening the minds -and hearts of men in most opposite parts of the nation, and in widely -different social circumstances. We would give all honour where honour is -due, remembering that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from -above.” There are writers whose special admiration is given to some -favourite sect, some effective movement, or some especially beloved -name; but a dispassionate view, an entrance—if we may be permitted so to -speak of it—into the camera, the chamber of the times, presents to the -eye a long succession of actors, and brings out into the clear light a -wonderful variety of influences all simultaneously at work to redeem -society from its darkness, and to give it a higher degree of spiritual -purity and mental and moral dignity. - -The first great workers were passing away, most of them, as is usually -the case, dying on Pisgah, seeing most distinctly the future results of -their work, but scarcely permitted to enter upon the full realisation of -it. In 1791, in the eighty-fourth year of her age, died the revered -Countess of Huntingdon; her last words, “My work is done; I have nothing -to do but to go to my Father!” No chronicle of convent or of -canonisation, nor any story of biography, can record, a more simple, -saintly, and utterly unselfish life. To the last unwearied, she was -daily occupied in writing long letters, arranging for her many -ministers, disposing of her chapel trusts; sometimes feeling that her -rank, and certain suppositions as to the extent of her wealth, made her -an object upon which men were not indisposed to exercise their rapacity. -Still, as compared with the state of society when she commenced her -work, in this her closing year, she must have looked over a hopeful and -promising future, as sweet and enchanting as the ineffably lovely -scenery upon which her eyes opened at Castle Doddington, and the -neighbouring beauties of her first wedded home. - -[Illustration: - - JOHN WESLEY’S TOMB, CITY ROAD, LONDON. -] - -In 1791, John Wesley, in his eighty-eighth year, entered into his rest, -faithfully murmuring, as well as weakness and stammering lips could -articulate, “The best of all is, God is with us!” Abel Stevens says, -“His life stands out in the history of the world, unquestionably -pre-eminent in religious labours above that of any other man since the -apostolic age.” It is not necessary, in order to do Wesley sufficient -honour, to indulge in such invidious comparisons. It is significant, -however, that the last straggling syllables which ever fell from the pen -in his beloved hand, were in a letter to William Wilberforce, cheering -him on in his efforts for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. -Charles Wesley had preceded his brother to his rest in 1788, in the -eightieth year of his age. - -[Illustration: - - JOHN WESLEY. M.A. - BORN JUNE 17, 1703; DIED MARCH 2, 1791. - CHARLES WESLEY. M.A. - BORN DECEMBER 18, 1708; DIED MARCH 29, 1788. - “THE BEST OF ALL IS, GOD IS WITH US.” - “I LOOK UPON ALL THE WORLD AS MY PARISH.” - The Wesley Monument. -] - -Thus the earlier labourers were passing away, and the work of the -Revival was passing into other forms, illustrating how not only “one -generation passeth away, and another cometh,” but also how, as the -workers pass, the work abides. It would be very pleasant to spend some -time in noticing the interior of many old halls, which were now opening, -at once for the entertainment of evangelists, and for Divine service; -prejudices were dying out, and so far from the new religious life -proving inimical to the repose of the country, it was found to be -probably its surest security and friend; and while the efforts were -growing for carrying to far-distant regions the truth which enlightens -and saves, anecdotes are not wanting to show that it was this very -spirit which created a tender interest in maintaining and devising means -to make more secure the minister’s happiness at home. - -From many points of view William Wilberforce maybe regarded as the -central man of the Revival in its new and crowning aspect; as he bore -the standard of England at that great funeral which did honour to all -that was mortal of his friend William Pitt, on its way to the vaults of -the old Abbey, so, as his predecessors departed, it devolved on him to -bear the standard of those truths and principles which had effected the -great change, and which were to effect, if possible, yet greater -changes. By his sweet, winning, and if silvery, yet enchaining and -overwhelming eloquence, by his conversation, which cannot have been, -from the traditions which are preserved of it, less than wonderful, and -by his lucid and practical pen, he continued to give eminent effect to -the Revival, and to procure for its doctrines acceptance in the highest -circles of society. It is perhaps difficult now to understand the cause -of the wonderful influence produced by his _Practical View of -Christianity_; that book itself illustrates how the seeds of things are -transmitted through many generations. It is a long way to look back to -the poor pedlar who called at the farm door of Richard Baxter’s father -in Eaton-Constantine, and sold there Richard Sibbs’s _Bruised Reed_, but -that was the birth-hour of that great and transcendently glorious book, -_The Saint’s Everlasting Rest_. _The Saint’s Everlasting Rest_ was the -inspiration of Philip Doddridge, and to it we owe his _Rise and Progress -of Religion in the Soul_. Wilberforce read that book, and it moved him -to the desire to speak out its earnestness, pathos, and solemnity in -tones suitable to the spirit of the Great Revival which had been going -on around him. A young clergyman read the result of Wilberforce’s wish -in his _Practical View of Christianity_, and he testifies, “To that book -I owe a debt of gratitude; to my unsought and unexpected introduction to -it, I owe the first sacred impressions which I ever received as to the -spiritual nature of the Gospel system, the vital character of personal -religion, the corruption of the human heart, and the way of salvation by -Jesus Christ.” And all this was very shortly given to the world in those -beautiful pieces, which it surely must be ever a pleasure to read, -whether, for their tender delineation of the most important truths, or -the exquisite language, and the delightful charm of natural scenery and -pathetic reflection in which the experiences of _The Young Cottager_, -_The Dairyman’s Daughter_, and other “short and simple annals of the -poor,” are conveyed through the fascinating pen of Legh Richmond. - -In this eminently lovely and lovable life we meet with one on whom, -assuredly, the mantle of the old clerical fathers of the Revival had -fallen. He was a Churchman and a clergyman, he loved and honoured his -Church and its services exceedingly; but it seems impossible to detect, -in any single act of his life or word of his writings, a tinge of -acerbity or bitterness. The quiet and mellowed charm of his tracts—which -are certainly among the finest pieces of writing in that way which we -possess—appear to have pervaded his whole life. Brading, in the Isle of -Wight, has been marvellously transformed since he was the vicar of its -simple little church; the old parsonage, where little Jane talked with -her pastor, is now only a memory, and no longer, as we saw it first many -years since, a feature in the charming landscape; and the little -epitaphs which the vicar himself wrote for the stones, or wooden -memorials over the graves of his parishioners, are all obliterated by -time. Several years since we sought in vain for the sweet verse on his -own infant daughter, although about thirty-five years since we read it -there: - - “This early bud, so young and fair, - Called hence by early doom, - Just came to show how sweet a flower - In Paradise should bloom.” - -But these little papers of this excellent man circulated wherever the -English language was spoken or read, and the spirit of their pages -penetrated farther than the pages themselves; while they seem to present -in a more pleasant, winning and portable form the spirit of the Revival, -divested of much of the ruggedness which had, naturally, characterized -its earlier pens. - -Indeed, if some generalisation were needed to express the phase into -which the Revival was passing, at this, the earlier part of the present -century, it should be called the “literary.” Eminent names were -appearing, and eminent pens, to gather up the elements of faith which -had moved the minds and tongues of men in past years, and to arrest the -conscience through the eye. This opens up a field so large that we -cannot do justice to it in these brief sketches. To name here only one -other writer;—Thomas Scott, the commentator on the Bible, and author of -_The Force of Truth_, is acknowledged to have exerted an influence the -greatness of which has been described in glowing terms by men such as -Sir. James Stephen and John Henry Newman. - -[Illustration: - - CHARLES SIMEON. -] - -No idea can be formed by those of the present generation of the immense -influence Charles Simeon exercised over the mind of the Church of -England. He was the leader of the growing evangelical party in the -Church; his doctrines were exactly those which had been the favourite on -the lips of Whitefield, Berridge, Grimshaw, and Newton. His family was -ancient and respectable, he was the son of a Berkshire squire. He had -been educated at Eton, and afterwards at King’s College, Cambridge; he -became very wealthy. His accession to the life of the Revival seemed -like an immense addition of natural influence: he was faithful and -earnest, and, in the habits of his mind and character, exactly what we -understand by the thorough English gentleman; almost may it be said that -he made the Revival “gentlemanly” in clergymen. He opened the course of -his fifty-six years’ ministry in Cambridge amidst a storm of -persecution; the church wardens attempted to crush him, the pews of his -church were locked up, and he was even locked out of the building. -Through all this he passed, and he became, for the greater part of the -long period we have mentioned, the most noted preacher of his town and -university; and he published, certainly, in his _Horæ Homileticæ_ a -greater number of attempts at opening texts in the form of sermons, than -had ever been given to the world. Simeon devoted his own fortune and -means for the purchase of advowsons, in order that the pulpits of -churches might be filled by the representatives of his own opinions. No -history of the Revival can be complete without noticing this phase, -which scattered over England, far more extensively than can be here -described, a new order of clergyman, who have maintained in their -circles evangelical truth, and have held no inconsiderable sway over the -mind of the country. - -We only know history through men; events are only possible through men, -of whose mind and activity they are the manifestation. This brief -succession of sketches has been very greatly a series of portraits -standing out prominently from the scenery to which the character gave -effect; but of this singular, almost simultaneous movement, how much has -been left unrecorded! It remains unquestionably true that no adequate -and perfectly impartial review of the Revival has ever yet been written. - -[Illustration: - - Boston Elm. -] - -The story of the Revival in Wales, what it found there, and what it -effected, is one of its most interesting chapters. How deep was the -slumber when, about 1735-37, Howell Harris began to traverse the -Principality, exhorting his neighbours concerning the interests of their -souls! another illustration that it was not from one single spring that -the streams of the Revival poured over the land. It was rather like some -great mountain, such as Plinlimmon, from whose high centre, elevated -among the clouds, leap forth five rivers, meandering among the rocks in -their brook-like way, until at last they pour themselves along the -lowlands in broad and even magnificent streams, either uniting as the -Severn and the Wye, or finding their separate way to the ocean. -Whitefield found his way to Wales, but Howell Harris was already pouring -out his consecrated life there; to his assistance came the voice of -Rowlands, “the thunderer,” as he was called. Scientific sermon-makers -would say that Harris was no great preacher; but he has been described -as the most successful and wonderful one who ever ascended pulpit or -platform in the Principality. By the mingling of his tears and his -terrors, in seven years he roused the whole country from one end to the -other, north and south; communicating the impulse of his zeal to many -like-minded men, by whose impassioned words and indefatigable labours -the work was continued with signal and lasting results.[20] - -Footnote 20: - - See a series of papers on “Welsh Preaching and Preachers” in the - _Sunday at Home_, for 1876. - -If the first throbbings of the coming Revival were felt in Northampton, -in America, in 1734, beneath the truly awful words of the great Jonathan -Edwards, it was from England it derived its sustenance, and assumed -organisation and shape. The Boston Elm, a venerable tree near the centre -of Boston Park, or common, whose decayed limbs are still held together -by clamps or rivets of iron, while a railing defends it from rude hands, -is an object as sacred to the traditions of Methodism in the United -States, as is Gwennap Pit to those of Methodism in Western England. -There Jesse Lee, the first founder of Methodism in New England, -commenced the work in 1790, which has issued in an organisation even -more extensive and gigantic than that which is associated with the -Conference in England. As the United States have inherited from the -mother country their language, their literature, and their principles of -law, so also those great agitations of spiritual life to which we have -concisely referred, crossed the Atlantic, and spread themselves with -power there.[21] - -Footnote 21: - - See Chapter XIV., The Revival in the New World. - -It is not within our province to attempt to enumerate all the sects, -each with its larger or lesser proportion of spiritual power, religious -activity, and general acceptance among the people, to which the Revival -gave birth;—such as the large body of the Bible Christians of the West -of England; the Primitive Methodists of the North, those who called -themselves the New Connection Methodists, or the United Free Church -Association. All these, and others, are branches from the great central -stem. Neither is it in our province to notice how the same universal -agitation of religious feeling, at exactly the same time, gave birth to -other forms, not regarded with so much complacency;—such as the rugged -and faulty faith and following of that curious creature, William -Huntington, who, singular to say, found also his best biographer in -Robert Southey; or the strangely multifarious works and rationalistic -development of Baron Swedenborg, which have, at least, the merit of -giving a more spiritual rendering to the Christian system than that -which was found in the prevalent Arianism of the period of their -publication. Turn wherever we may, it is the same. There was a deeper -upheaving of the religious life, and far more widely spread, than -perhaps any age of the world since the time of the apostles had known -before. - -A change passed over the whole of English society. That social state -which we find described in the pages of Fielding and Smollett, and less -respectable writers, passed away, and passed away, we trust, for ever. -The language of impurity indulged with freedom by the dramatists of the -period when the Revival arose, and read, and read aloud, by ladies and -young girls in drawing-rooms, or by parlour firesides, became shameful -and dishonoured. In the course of fifty years, society, if not entirely -purged—for when may we hope for that blessedness?—was purified. A sense -of religious decorum, and some idea of religious duty, took possession -of homes and minds which were not at all impressed, either by the -doctrines or the discipline of Methodism. All this arose from the new -life which had been created. - -It was a fruitful soil upon which the revivalists worked. There was a -reverence for the Bible as the word of God, a faith often held very -ignorantly, but it pervaded the land. The Book was there in every parish -church, and in every hamlet; it became a kind of nexus of union for true -minds when they felt the power of Divine principles. Thus, when, as the -Revival strengthened itself, the great Evangelic party—a term which -seems to us less open to exception than “the Methodist party,” because -far more inclusive—met with the members of the Society of Friends, they -found that, with some substantial differences, they had principles in -common. The Quakers had been long in the land, but excepting in their -own persons—and they were few in number—they had not given much effect -to their principles. Methodism roused the country; Quakerism, with its -more quiet thought, gave suggestions, plans, largely supplied money. The -great works which these two have since unitedly accomplished of -educating the nation, and shaking off the chain of the slave abroad, -neither could have accomplished singly; the conscience of the country -was prepared by Evangelic sentiment. In taking up and working out the -great ideas of the Revival, we have never been indifferent to the share -due to members of the Society of Friends. We have already spoken of -Elizabeth Fry, to whom many of the princes of Europe in turn paid -honour, to whom with singular simplicity they listened as they heard her -preach. There are many names on which we should like a little to dwell; -missionaries as arduous and earnest as any we have mentioned, such as -Stephen Grellet, Thomas Shillitoe, and Thomas Chalkley. But this would -enter into a larger plan than we dare to entertain. Our object now is -only to say, how greatly other nations, and the world at large, have -benefited by the awakening the conscience, the setting free the mind, -the education of the character, by bringing all into immediate contact -with the Word of God and the truth which it unveils. - -Situated as we are now, amidst the movements and agitations of uncertain -seas of thought, wondering as to the future, with strong adjurations on -every hand to renounce the Word of Life, and to trust ourselves to the -filmy rationalism of modern speculation; while we feel that for the -future, and for those seas over which we look there are no tide-tables, -we may, at least, safely affirm this, that the Bible carries us beyond -the highest water-mark; that, as societies have constructed themselves -out of its principles they have built safely, not only for eternal hope, -but for human and social happiness also; and we may safely ask human -thought—which, unaided and unenlightened by revelation, has had a pretty -fair field for the exercise and display of its power in the history of -the world—to show to us a single chapter in all the ages of its history, -which has effected so much for human, spiritual, intellectual, and -social well-being, as that which records the results of the Great -Revival of the Last Century. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - THE REVIVAL IN THE NEW WORLD. - - [BY THE EDITOR.] - - -The labours of Whitefield had a remarkable influence upon the extension -of the Great Revival in the colonies of America. In these days of -mammoth steamships and rapid railways, equipped with drawing-room -coaches, travelling has become a pleasant pastime; but a century and a -half ago, when the sailing vessel and the old lumbering stage-coach were -the most rapid and the chief means of public conveyance, and when these -were often uncertain and irregular, subjecting the traveller to frequent -and annoying delays, if not disappointments, it must have been a -formidable undertaking to cross the Atlantic and to journey through a -new country, almost a wilderness, such long distances as from Georgia to -Massachusetts. Yet Whitefield, with a zeal and a holy desire in “hunting -for souls,” made seven visits to America, crossing the ocean in -sailing-vessels thirteen times (“one voyage lasting eleven weeks”), and -travelled on his preaching tours almost constantly. In one of these -visits he went upwards of 1,100 miles through this then sparsely settled -country, and endured hardships and exposures from which a far stronger -and more vigorous constitution might well shrink. - -As in England, so in the American colonies, the decay of vital godliness -which preceded the great awakening had been long and deep. It began in -the latter part of the 17th century, and its progress was observed with -alarm by many of the notable and godly men of the day. Governor -Stoughton, previous to resigning the pulpit for the bench, proclaimed, -at Boston, that “many had become like Joash after the death of -Jehoiada—rotten, hypocritical, and a lie!” The venerable Torrey of -Weymouth, in a sermon before the legislature, exclaimed, “There is -already a great death upon religion; little more left than a name to -live. It is dying as to the being of it, by the general failure of the -work of conversion.” - -Mather, in 1700, asserts: “If the begun apostasy should proceed as fast -the next thirty years as it has done these last, it will come to that in -New England (except the gospel itself depart with the order of it) that -churches must be gathered out of churches.” President Willard also -published a sermon in the same year on “The Perils of the Times -Displayed,” in which he asks, “Whence is there such a prevalency of so -many immoralities amongst professors? Why so little success of the -gospel? How few thorough conversions to be observed; how scarce and -seldom! * * * It has been a frequent observation that if one generation -begins to decline, the next that follows usually grows worse; and so on, -until God pours out his spirit again upon them.” - -It was thirty years before the dawn of the great awakening began to -appear, even in the colony of Massachusetts; but there were many godly -men in various portions of the American colonies who had not yet bowed -the knee to the Baal of worldliness, and who earnestly sought, by great -fidelity in the presentation of the truth, to arrest the evil tendency -of the times. Among them was that greatest of American theologians, -Jonathan Edwards. Beholding the melancholy state of religion, not only -at Northampton, but in the surrounding regions, and that this evil -tendency was corrupting the Church, he began to preach with greater -boldness, more especially with the purpose of keeping error out of the -Church than with the design of awakening sinners. He was a man, however, -whose convictions were exceedingly strong, and who preached the truth, -not simply for the purpose of gaining a worldly victory, but because he -loved the truth and the Spirit wrought mightily by it. A surprising work -of grace attended his preaching. There was a melting down of all classes -and ages, in an overwhelming solicitude about salvation; an absorbing -sense of eternal realities and self-abasement and self-condemnation; a -spirit of secret and social prayer, followed by a concern for the souls -of others; and this awakening was so sudden and solemn, that in many -instances it produced loud outcries, and in some cases convulsions. -Doubtless this great awakening was as much a surprise to Edwards as to -those to whom he ministered. Naturally, such a wonderful work could not -be confined to Northampton alone; it began to extend to other places in -the colony. Remarkable and widespread as this work of grace was, -however, it does not seem to have penetrated through New England -generally, until after the arrival of Whitefield. The effect of -Whitefield’s preaching in Boston, says his biographer, was amazing. Old -Mr. Walter, the successor of Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, declared -it was Puritanism revived. So great was the interest that his farewell -sermon was attended by twenty thousand persons. “Such a power and -presence of God with a preacher, and in religious assemblies,” says Dr. -Colman, “I never saw before. Every day gives me fresh proofs of Christ -speaking in him.” And this interest, great as it was, seemed, if -possible, exceeded at Northampton when Whitefield met Edwards and -reminded his people of the days of old. A like success attended -Whitefield’s ministry in the town and college of New Haven, and at -Harvard College the effect was remarkable. Secretary Willard, writing to -Whitefield, says: “That which forebodes the most lasting advantage is -the new state of things in the college, where the impressions of -religion have been and still are very general, and many in a judgment of -charity brought home to Christ. Divers gentlemen’s sons that were sent -there only for a more polite education, are now so full of zeal for the -cause of Christ and the love of souls as to devote themselves entirely -to the study of divinity.” And Dr. Colman wrote Whitefield, of -Cambridge: “The college is entirely changed; the students are full of -God, and will, I hope, come out blessings in their generation, and I -trust are so now to each other. The voice of prayer and praise fills -their chambers, and sincerity, fervency, and joy, with seriousness of -heart, sit visible on their faces.” - -On his return to Boston, in 1745, Whitefield himself gives a similar -testimony in regard to the remarkable results of the Revival. He was -followed in his labours there by Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian from -New Jersey. That this was not an overdrawn picture of the work may be -inferred from a public testimony given by three of the leading ministers -in Boston, the Rev. Messrs. Prince, Webb, and Cooper. Among other -things, they said, “The wondrous work of God at this day making its -triumphant progress through the land has forced many men of clear minds, -strong powers, considerable knowledge, and firmly riveted in * * * * -Socinian tenets, to give them all up at once and yield to the adorable -sovereignty and irresistibility of the Divine Spirit in His saving -operations on the souls of men. For to see such men as these, some of -them of licentious lives, long inured in a course of vice and of high -spirits, coming to the preaching of the Word, some only out of -curiosity, and mere design to get matter of cavilling and banter, all at -once, in opposition to their inward resolutions and resistances, to fall -under an unexpected and hated power, to have all the strength of their -resolution and resistance taken away, to have such inward views of the -horrid wickedness not only of their lives but of their hearts, with -their exceeding great and immediate danger of eternal misery as has -amazed their souls and thrown them into distress unutterable, yea, -forced them to cry out in the assemblies with the greatest agonies, and -then, in two or three days, and sometimes sooner, to have such -unexpected and raised views of the infinite grace and love of God in -Christ, as have enabled them to believe in Him; lifted them at once out -of their distress; filled their hearts with admiration and joy -unspeakable and full of glory, breaking forth in their shining -countenances and transporting voices to the surprise of those about -them, kindling up at once into a flame of love to God in utter -detestation of their former courses and vicious habits,” fairly -characterises this wonderful work of God. - -Gilbert Tennent, who was pressed into the field by Whitefield, was born -in Ireland, and brought to this country by his father, and was educated -for the ministry. As a preacher he was, in his vigorous days, equalled -by few. His reasoning powers were strong, his language was forcible and -often sublime, and his manner of address warm and earnest. His eloquence -was, however, rather bold and awful than soft and persuasive, he was -most pungent in his address to the conscience. When he wished to alarm -the sinner, he could represent in the most awful manner the terrors of -the Lord. With admirable dexterity he exposed the false hope of the -hypocrite, and searched the corrupt heart to the bottom. Such were some -of the qualifications of the man whom Whitefield chose to continue his -work in America. He entered on his new labours with almost rustic -simplicity, wearing his hair undressed and a large great-coat girt with -a leathern girdle. He was of lofty stature and dignified and grave -aspect. His career as a preacher in New Jersey had been remarkable, and -now in New England his ministry was hardly less successful than that of -Whitefield. He actually shook the country as with an earthquake. -Wherever he came hypocrisy and Pharisaism either fell before him or -gnashed their teeth against him. Cold orthodoxy also started from her -downy cushion to imitate or to denounce him. So testifies the author of -the “_Life and Times of Whitefield_.” - -Whitefield’s first reception in New York was not particularly -flattering. He was refused the use of both the church and the -court-house. “The commissary of the Bishop,” he says, “was full of anger -and resentment, and denied me the use of his pulpit before I asked him -for it.” He replied, “I will preach in the fields, for all places are -alike to me.” At a subsequent visit he preached there seven weeks with -great acceptableness and success. Even his first labours were not wholly -in vain. Dr. Pemberton wrote to him that many were deeply affected, and -some who had been loose and profligate were ashamed and set upon -thorough reformation. The printers also at New York, as at Philadelphia, -applied to him for sermons to publish, assuring him “that hundreds had -called for them, and that thousands would purchase them.” Of his later -visit he says, “Such flocking of all ranks I never saw before.” At New -York many of the most respectable gentlemen and merchants went home with -him after his sermons to hear something more of the kingdom of Christ. - -“At Philadelphia,” says Philip, in his Life and Times of Whitefield, -“his welcome was cordial. Ministers and laymen of all denominations -visited him, inviting him to preach. He was especially pleased to find -that they preferred sermons when not delivered within church walls. It -was well they did, for his fame had reached the city before he arrived -and this collected crowds which no church could contain. The court-house -steps became his pulpit, and neither he nor the people wearied, although -the cold winds of November blew upon them night after night.” Previous -to one of his visits in Philadelphia, a place was erected in which -Whitefield could preach, and its managers offered him £800 annually, -with liberty to travel six months in a year wherever he chose, if he -would become their pastor. Though pleased with the offer he promptly -declined it. He was more pleased to learn that in consequence of a -former visit there were so many under soul-sickness that even Gilbert -Tennent’s feet were blistered with walking from place to place to see -them. - -Of his work in Maryland he writes, that he found those who had never -heard of redeeming grace. The harvest is promising. “Have Marylanders -also received the grace of God? Amazing love. Maryland is yielding -converts to Jesus; the Gospel is moving southwards.” - -He frequently visited New Jersey (Princeton) College, and there won many -young and bright witnesses for Christ. Hearing that sixteen students had -been converted at a former visit, he again went thither to fan the flame -he had kindled among the students, and says that he had four sweet -seasons which resembled old times. His spirits rose at the sight of the -young soldiers who were to fight when he fell. - -Although at times prejudice ran high against the Indians, Whitefield -espoused their cause as a philanthropist, and preached to them through -interpreters at the Indian school of Lebanon, under Dr. Wheelock, where -the sight of a promising nursery for future missionaries greatly -inspired him. And at one of the stations maintained by the sainted -Brainerd, he preached, found converted Indians, and saw nearly fifty -young ones in one school learning a Bible catechism. In the Indian -school at Lebanon he became so interested that he appealed to the public -and collected £120 at one meeting for its maintenance. Wherever he went -he saw the Redeemer’s stately steps in the great congregations which he -addressed. - -If there was any one point about which Whitefield’s interest centered in -America, it was in the orphan asylum which he aided in establishing in -Georgia. This was his “Bethesda.” The prosperity of the orphan home was -engraved upon his heart as with the point of a diamond, and it was ever -vividly present to him wherever he went. At one of his visits on parting -with the inmates he says: “Oh, what a sweet meeting I had with my dear -friends! What God has prepared for me I know not; but surely I cannot -expect a greater happiness until I embrace the saints in glory! When I -parted my heart was ready to break with sorrow, but now it almost bursts -with joy. Oh, how did each in turn hang upon my neck, kiss and weep over -me with tears of joy! And my own soul was so full of the sense of God’s -love, when I embraced one friend in particular, that I thought I should -have expired in the place. I felt my soul so full of the sense of Divine -goodness that I wanted words to express myself. When we came to public -worship, young and old were all dissolved in tears. After service -several of my parishioners, all of my family, and the little children -returned home crying along the street, and some could not avoid praying -very loud. Being very weak in body I laid myself upon a bed, but finding -so many in a weeping condition I rose and betook myself to prayer again, -but had I not lifted up my voice very high the groans and cries of the -children would have prevented me from being heard. This continued for -near an hour, till at last, finding their concern rather to increase -than to abate, I desired all to retire. Then some or other might be -heard praying earnestly in every corner of the house. It happened at -this time to thunder and lighten, which added very much to the solemnity -of the night. * * * I mention the orphans in particular, that their -benefactors may rejoice at what God is doing for their souls.” - -It is evident that Whitefield had a very tender heart towards all -children. One of his most effective sermons at Webb’s Chapel, Boston, -was occasioned by the touching remark of a dying boy, who had heard him -the day before. The boy was taken ill after the sermon, and said, “I -want to go to Mr. Whitefield’s God”—and expired. This touched the secret -place of both the thunder and the tears of Whitefield. He says, “It -encouraged me to speak to the little ones, but oh, how were the old -people affected when I said, ‘Little children, if your parents will not -come to Christ, do you come and go to heaven without them.’” After this -awful appeal no wonder that there were but few dry eyes. - -Another remarkable evidence of the extent and power of the Revival, and -of the versatility of Mr. Whitefield’s talents, is shown in the effect -produced upon the negro mind. The intensest interest prevailed among -even the poorest slaves. Upon one occasion Whitefield was very ill, and -in the hands of the physician to the time when he was expected to -preach. Suddenly he exclaimed, “My pains are suspended; by the help of -God I will go and preach, and then come home and die!” With some -difficulty he reached the pulpit. All were surprised, and looked as -though they saw one risen from the dead. He says of himself, “I was as -pale as death, and told them they must look upon me as a dying man come -to bear my dying testimony to the truths I had formerly preached to -them. All seemed melted, and were drowned in tears. The cry after me -when I left the pulpit was like the cry of sincere mourners when -attending the funeral of a dear departed friend. Upon my coming home, I -was laid upon a bed upon the ground near the fire, and I heard them say, -‘He is gone!’ but God was pleased to order it otherwise. I gradually -recovered. At this time a poor negro woman insisted upon seeing him when -he began to recover. She came in and sat on the ground, and looked -earnestly into his face; then she said, in broken accents: “Massa, you -jest go to hebben’s gate; but Jesus Christ said, ‘Get you down, get you -down; you musn’t come here yet; go first and call some more poor -negroes.’” Many colored people came to him asking, “Have I a soul?” Many -societies for prayer and mutual instruction were set up. Mr. Seward, a -travelling companion of Whitefield,; relates that a drinking club, -whereof a clergyman was a member, had a negro boy attending them, who -used to mimic people for their diversion. They called on him to mimic -Whitefield, which he was very unwilling to do; but they insisted upon -it. He stood up and said:—“I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, -unless you repent you will all be damned.” Seward adds, “This unexpected -speech broke up the club, which has never met since.” - -At Savannah, Charleston, and other southern cities, the Great Revival -had a remarkable success. Josiah Smith, an Independent minister of -Charleston, published a sermon on the character and preaching of -Whitefield, defending his doctrines, his personal character, and -describing his manner of preaching. Of Whitefield’s power he says: “He -is certainly a finished preacher; a noble negligence ran through his -style; the passion and flame of his inspiration will, I trust, be long -felt by many. How was his tongue like the pen of a ready writer, touched -as with a coal from the altar! With what a flow of words, what a ready -profusion of language did he speak to us upon the concerns of our souls! -In what a flaming light did he set _our_ eternity before us! How -earnestly he pressed Christ upon us! The awe, the silence, the -attention, which sat upon the faces of the great audience was an -argument, how he could reign over all their powers. Many thought he -spake as never man spake before him. So charmed were the people with the -manner of his address that they shut up their shops, forgot their -secular business, and the oftener he preached the keener edge he seemed -to put upon their desires to hear him again. How awfully—with what -thunder and sound—did he discharge the artillery of heaven upon us! -Eternal themes, the tremendous solemnities of our religion were all -alive upon his tongue. He struck at the politest and most modish of our -vices, and at the most fashionable entertainments, regardless of every -one’s presence but His in whose name he spake with this authority. And I -dare warrant if none should go to these diversions until they had -answered the solemn questions he put to their consciences, our theatres -would soon sink and perish.” Mr. Smith adds that £600 were contributed -in Charleston to the orphan house. - -The wonderful quickening which the Great Revival gave to benevolent and -charitable enterprises deserves at least a passing allusion. Besides -sending forth into mission work such men as David Brainerd, and even -Jonathan Edwards himself, it also laid the foundation more securely of -many of our Christian colleges, and of not a few of our orphan asylums. -Whitefield founded his Bethesda upon a tract of land covering about 500 -acres, ten miles from Savannah, and laid out the plan of the building, -employed workmen, hired a large house, took in 24 orphans, incurred at -once the heavy responsibilities of a large family and a larger -institution, encouraged, as he says, by the example of Professor -Francke. Yet on looking back to this first undertaking he said: “I -forgot that Professor Francke built in a populous country and that I was -building at the very tail end of the world, which rendered it by far the -most expensive part of all his Majesty’s dominions; but had I received -more and ventured less, I should have suffered less and others more.” He -undertook to provide for his 40 orphans and 60 servants and workmen with -no fears nor misgivings of heart. “Near a hundred mouths,” he writes, -“are daily to be supplied with food. The expense is great, but our great -and good God, I am persuaded, will enable me to defray it.” He spent a -winter at Bethesda in 1764, and of the success of his orphanage he says, -“Peace and plenty reign at Bethesda; all things go on successfully. God -has given me great favour in the sight of the governor, council, and -assembly. A memorial was presented for an additional grant of land -consisting of about 2,000 acres, and was immediately complied with. -Every heart seems to leap for joy at the prospect of its future utility -to this and the neighbouring colonies.” - -This great religious movement did not progress without stirring up much -bitterness. It was even asserted by President Clap, of New Haven, that -he came into New England to turn out the generality of their ministers, -and to replace them with ministers from England, Ireland, and Scotland. -“Such a thought,” replies Whitefield, “never entered my heart, neither -has, as I know of, my preaching any such tendency.” It is said of one -minister that he went merely to pick a hole in Whitefield’s coat, but -confessed that God picked a hole in his heart, and afterward healed it -by the blood of Christ. After one of his visits not less than twenty -ministers in the neighbourhood of Boston did not hesitate to call -Whitefield their spiritual father, tracing their conversion to his -preaching. These men immediately entered upon a similar work, spreading -the great awakening throughout that colony. - -In the progress of this work under Whitefield and others, there were -frequent outbursts of wit and grim humor. Thus when pastors were shy of -giving Whitefield and his associates a place in their pulpits and the -people voted to allow them to preach in their churches, Whitefield said, -“The _lord_-brethren of New England could tyrannize as well as the -_lord_-bishops of Old England.” The caricatures issued from Boston in -regard to the work were designated as half-penny squibs; and a good old -Puritan of the city said, “they did not weigh much.” - -Of the religion of America Whitefield writes: “I am more and more in -love with the good old Puritans. I am pleased at the thought of sitting -down hereafter with the venerable Cotton, Norton, Eliot, and that great -cloud of witnesses who first crossed the western ocean for the sake of -the sacred gospel and the faith once delivered to the saints. At present -my soul is so filled that I can scarce proceed.” Again he writes: “It is -too much for one man to be received as I have been by thousands. The -thoughts of it lay me low but I cannot get low enough. I would willingly -sink into nothing before the blessed Jesus—my all in all.” And again, “I -love those that thunder out the Word. The Christian world is in a deep -sleep, nothing but a loud voice can awaken them out of it. Had we a -thousand hands and tongues there is employment enough for them all. -People are everywhere ready to perish for lack of knowledge.” To an aged -veteran he writes from North Carolina, “I am here hunting in the -woods—these ungospelized wilds—for sinners. It is pleasant work, though -my body is weak and crazy. But after a short fermentation in the grave, -it will be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body. The thought of -this rejoices my soul and makes me long to leap my seventy years. I -sometimes think all will go to heaven before me. Pray for me as a dying -man, but, oh, pray that I may not go off as a snuff. I would fain die -blazing—not with human glory, but with the love of Jesus.” Such was the -spirit filling the great souls of those who were God’s instruments in -spreading the revival in America. Mr. Whitefield died at Newburyport, -Massachusetts, Sept. 30, 1770, having preached the day before at Exeter, -and his body rests in a crypt or tomb beneath the Presbyterian church at -that place. - -Of the effects of the Great Revival in America, Dr. Abel Stevens says, -“The Congregational churches of New England, the Presbyterians and -Baptists of the Middle States, and the mixed colonies of the South, owe -their late religious life and energy mostly to the impulse given by his -[Whitefield’s] powerful ministrations.” * * * In Pennsylvania and New -Jersey, where Frelinghuysen, Blair, Rowland, and the two Tennents had -been labouring with evangelistic zeal, he was received as a prophet of -God, and it was then that the Presbyterian Church took that attitude of -evangelical power and aggression which has ever since characterized it. - -A single incident will illustrate the effect of the Revival upon -unbelievers and skeptics. A noted officer of Philadelphia, who had long -been almost an atheist, crept into the crowd one night to hear a sermon -on the visit of Nicodemus to Christ. When he came home, his wife not -knowing where he had been, wished he had heard what she had been -hearing. He said nothing. Another and another of his family came in and -made a similar remark till he burst into tears and said, “I have been -hearing him and approve of his sermon.” He afterwards became a sincere -Christian with the spirit of a martyr. - -These etchings of a few scenes and fewer facts indicate the scope, the -depth, and the sweep of the Great Revival of the 18th century in -America. No attempt has been made to sum up its results, nor has it come -within the purpose of this work to give an inward history of the -movement, nor to explain the philosophy of it. These intricate questions -may be left to philosophers; the Christian delights to know the facts; -he will cheerfully wait for the future life to unfold all the mystery -and philosophy of the plan and work of salvation. Then, as Whitefield -exclaims, “What amazing mysteries will be unfolded when each link in the -golden chain of providence and grace shall be seen and scanned by -beatified spirits in the kingdom of heaven! Then all will appear -symmetry and harmony, and even the most intricate and seemingly most -contrary dispensations, will be evidenced to be the result of infinite -and consummate wisdom, power, and love. Above all, there the believer -will see the infinite depths of that mystery of godliness, ‘God -manifested in the flesh,’ and join with that blessed choir, who, with a -restless unweariedness, are ever singing the song of Moses and the -Lamb.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - -------------- - - - APPENDIX A (PAGES 9 AND 97). - -The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from -the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not -content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, -they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for -whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too -minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was, with them, the -great end of existence. They rejected, with contempt, the ceremonious -homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. -Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an -obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, -and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt -for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and -the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the -boundless interval which separated the whole race from Him on whom their -own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority -but His favor; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the -accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were -unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply -read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the -registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their -steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of -ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not -made with hands; their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade -away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles or priests they looked -down with contempt, for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious -measure, and eloquent in a more sublime language—nobles by right of an -earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The -very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible -importance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of light and -darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before -Heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue -when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which -short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained -on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and -decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed His will by the pen of -the Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no -common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed -by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. -It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been -rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the -sufferings of her expiring God. - -Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men: the one all -self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, -inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his -Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional -retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans and tears. He was -half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of -angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the -Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like -Vane, he thought himself entrusted with the sceptre of the millennial -year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God -had hid His face from him. But when he took his seat in the council, or -girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had -left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the -godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their -groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had -little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate, or on -the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military -affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some -writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which -were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their -feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One -overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition -and fear. Death had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. They had -their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not -for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had -cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised -them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might -lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They -went through the world, like Sir Artegal’s iron man Talus with his -flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human -beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible -to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, -not to be withstood by any barrier.—_Macaulay’s Essay on Milton._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX B (PAGE 21). - -“‘The Vicar of Wakefield’ is a domestic epic. Its hero is a country -parson—simple, pious and pure-hearted—a humourist in his way, a little -vain of his learning, a little proud of his fine family—sometimes rather -sententious, never pedantic, and a dogmatist only on the one favorite -topic of monogamy, which crops out now and then above the surface of his -character, only to give it a new charm. Its world is a rural district, -beyond whose limits the action rarely passes, and that only on great -occasions. Domestic affections and joys, relieved by its cares, its -foibles, and its little failings, cluster around the parsonage, till the -storms from the outward world invade its holiness and trouble its peace. -Then comes sorrow and suffering; and we have the hero, like the -patriarchal prince of the land of Uz, when the Lord ‘put forth His hand -and touched all that He had,’ meeting each new affliction with meekness -and with patience—rising from each new trial with renewed reliance upon -God, till the lowest depth of his earthly suffering becomes the highest -elevation of his moral strength.” - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX C (PAGE 28). - -The most interesting phases which the Reformation anywhere assumes, -especially for us English, is that of Puritanism. In Luther’s own -country, Protestantism soon dwindled into a rather barren affair, not a -religion or faith, but rather now a theological jangling of argument, -the proper seat of it not the heart; the essence of it skeptical -contention; which, indeed, has jangled more and more, down to Voltairism -itself; through Gustavus Adolphus contentions onward to -French-Revolution cries! But on our island there arose a Puritanism, -which even got itself established as a Presbyterianism and national -church among the Scotch; which came forth as a real business of the -heart; and has produced in the world very notable fruit. In some senses -one may say it is the only phase of Protestantism that ever got to the -rank of being a faith, a true communication with Heaven, and of -exhibiting itself in history as such. We must spare a few words for -Knox; himself a brave and remarkable man; but still more important as -chief priest and founder, which one may consider him to be, of the faith -that became Scotland’s, New England’s, Oliver Cromwell’s. History will -have something to say about this for some time to come! - -We may censure Puritanism as we please; and no one of us, I suppose, but -would find it a very rough, defective thing; but we, and all men, may -understand that it was a genuine thing; for nature has adopted it, and -it has grown and grows. I say sometimes that all goes by wager of battle -in this world; that _strength_, well understood, is the measure of all -worth. Give a thing time; if it can succeed, it is a right thing. Look -now at American Saxondom; and at that little fact of the sailing of the -Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft Haven, in Holland! Were we -of open sense, as the Greeks were, we had found a poem here; one of -nature’s own poems, such as she writes in broad facts over great -continents. For it was properly the beginning of America: there were -straggling settlers in America before, some material as of a body was -there; but the soul of it was first this. These poor men, driven out of -their own country, not able well to live in Holland, determined on -settling in the New World. Black, untamed forests are there, and wild, -savage creatures; but not so cruel as star-chamber hangmen. They thought -the earth would yield them food, if they tilled honestly; the -everlasting Heaven would stretch there, too, overhead; they should be -left in peace, to prepare for Eternity by living well in this world of -time; worshipping in what they thought the true, not the idolatrous way. -They clubbed their small means together; hired a ship, the little ship -Mayflower, and made ready to set sail. In _Neal’s History of the -Puritans_ is an account of the ceremony of their departure; solemnity, -we might call it, rather, for it was a real act of worship. Their -minister went down with them to the beach, and their brethren, whom they -were to leave behind; all joined in solemn prayer that God would have -pity on His poor children, and go with them into that waste wilderness, -for He also had made that, He was there also as well as here. Hah! These -men, I think, had a work! The weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes -strong one day, if it be a true thing. Puritanism was only despicable, -laughable then; but nobody can manage to laugh at it now. Puritanism has -got weapons and sinews; it has fire-arms, war navies; it has cunning in -its ten fingers, strength in its right arm: it can steer ships, fell -forests, remove mountains; it is one of the strongest things under this -sun at present!—_Carlyle on Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in -History._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX D (PAGE 36). - -It has been said of Lady Huntingdon that “almost from infancy an -uncommon seriousness shaded the natural gladness of her childhood,” and -that, without any positive religious instruction, for none knew her -“inward sorrows,” when she was a “little girl, nor were there any around -her who could have led her to the balm there is in Gilead,” she devoutly -and diligently searched the Scriptures, if haply she might find that -precious something which her soul craved. - -During the first years of her married life (she was married at the age -of 21 and in the year 1728), “her chief endeavor * * * was to maintain a -conscience void of offense. She strove to fulfill the various duties of -her position with scrupulous exactness; she was sincere, just and -upright; she prayed, fasted and gave alms; she was courteous, -considerate and charitable.” - -Her husband, Lord Huntingdon, had a sister, Lady Margaret Hastings, who, -under the preaching of Mr. Ingham, in Ledstone Church in Yorkshire, was -converted. Afterwards, when visiting her brother, these words were -uttered by her: “Since I have known and believed in the Lord Jesus for -salvation, I have been as happy as an angel.” The expression was strange -to Lady Huntingdon—it alarmed her—she sought to work out a righteousness -of her own, but the effort only widened the breach between herself and -God. “Thus harassed by inward conflicts, Lady Huntingdon was thrown upon -a sick bed, and after many days and nights seemed hastening to the -grave. The fear of death fell terribly upon her.” - -In that condition the words of Lady Margaret recurred with a new -meaning. “I too will wholly cast myself on Jesus Christ for life and -salvation,” was her last refuge; and from her bed she lifted up her -heart to God for pardon and mercy through the blood of His Son. “Lord, I -believe; help Thou mine unbelief,” was her prayer. Doubt and distress -vanished and joy and peace filled her bosom.—_From “Lady Huntingdon and -her Friends.” Compiled by Mrs. Helen C. Knight._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX E (PAGE 71). - -“It is easier to justify the heads of the restored Clergy upon this -point [want of uniformity or unity in the Church of England], than to -excuse them for appropriating to themselves the wealth which, in -consequence of the long protracted calamities of the nation, was placed -at their disposal. The leases of the church lands had almost all fallen -in; there had been no renewal for twenty years, and the fines which were -now raised amounted to about a million and a half. Some of this money -was expended in repairing, as far as was reparable, that havoc in -churches and cathedrals which the fanatics had made in their abominable -reign; some also was disposed of in ransoming English slaves from the -Barbary pirates; but the greater part went to enrich individuals and -build up families, instead of being employed, as it ought to have been, -in improving the condition of the inferior clergy. Queen Anne applied -the tenths and first fruits to this most desirable object; but the -effect of her augmentation was slow and imperceptible: they continued in -a state of degrading poverty, and that poverty was another cause of the -declining influence of the Church, and the increasing irreligion of the -people. - -A further cause is to be found in the relaxation of discipline. In the -Romish days it had been grossly abused; and latterly also it had been -brought into general abhorrence and contempt by the tyrannical measures -of Laud on one side, and the absurd vigor of Puritanism on the other. -The clergy had lost that authority which may always command at least the -appearance of respect; and they had lost that respect also by which the -place of authority may sometimes so much more worthily be supplied. For -the loss of power they were not censurable; but if they possessed little -of that influence which the minister who diligently and conscientiously -discharges his duty will certainly acquire, it is manifest that, as a -body, they must have been culpably remiss. From the Restoration to the -accession of the House of Hanover, the English Church could boast of -some of its brightest ornaments and ablest defenders; men who have -neither been surpassed in piety, nor in erudition, nor in industry, nor -in eloquence, nor in strength and subtlety of mind: and when the design -for re-establishing popery in these kingdoms was systematically pursued, -to them we are indebted for that calm and steady resistance, by which -our liberties, civil as well as religious, were preserved. But in the -great majority of the clergy zeal was awanting. The excellent Leighton -spoke of the Church as a fair carcass without a spirit; in doctrine, in -worship, and in the main part of its government, he thought it the best -constituted in the world, but one of the most corrupt in its -administration. And Burnet observes, that in his time our clergy had -less authority, and were under more contempt, than those of any other -church in Europe; for they were much the most remiss in their labors, -and the least severe in their lives. It was not that their lives were -scandalous; he entirely acquitted them of any such imputation; but they -were not exemplary as it became them to be: and in the sincerity and -grief of a pious and reflecting mind, he pronounced that they should -never regain the influence which they had lost, till they lived better -and labored more.”—_Southey’s Life of Wesley._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX F (PAGES 73 AND 98). - -“The observant Frenchman to whom we have several times referred, M. -Grosley, says of the ‘sect of the Methodists,’ ‘this establishment has -borne all the persecutions that it could possibly apprehend in a country -as much disposed to persecution as England is the reverse.’ The light -literature of forty years overflows with ridicule of Methodism. The -preachers are pelted by the mob; the converts are held up to execration -as fanatics or hypocrites. Yet Methodism held the ground it had gained. -It had gone forth to utter the words of truth to men little above the -beasts that perish, and it had brought them to regard themselves, as -akin to humanity. The time would come when its earnestness would awaken -the Church itself from its somnolency, and the educated classes would -not be ashamed to be religious. There was wild enthusiasm enough in some -of the followers of Whitefield and Wesley; much self seeking; zeal -verging upon profaneness; moral conduct, strongly opposed to pious -profession. But these earnest men left a mark upon their time which can -never be effaced. The obscure young students at Oxford in 1736, who were -first called ‘Sacramentarians,’ then ‘Bible moths,’ and finally -‘Methodists, to whom the regular pulpits were closed, and who went forth -to preach in the fields—who separated from the Church more in form than -in reality—produced a moral revolution in England which probably saved -us from the fate of nations wholly abandoned to their own -devices.”—_From Knight’s History of England._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGES 97 AND 98). - (_See Appendix A and F._) - - -------------- - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 114). - -“The ‘two brothers in song’ (John and Charles Wesley) began their issue -of ‘Hymns and Sacred Songs’ in 1739, and continued at intervals to -supply Christian singers for half a century. Thirty-eight publications -appeared one after the other: now under the name of one brother, now -under that of the other; some with both names, and others nameless. The -two hymnists appear to have agreed that, in the volumes which bore their -joint names, they would not distinguish their hymns.”—_The Epworth -Singers and other poets of Methodism, by the Rev. S. W. Christophers, -Redruth, Cornwall._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (NOTE, PAGE 118). - - The God of Abraham praise, - Who reigns enthron’d above; - Ancient of everlasting days, - And God of love: - Jehovah—great I Am— - By earth and Heavens confest; - I bow and bless the sacred name, - For ever bless’d. - - The God of Abraham praise, - At whose supreme command - From earth I rise, and seek the joys - At His right hand: - I all on earth forsake, - Its wisdom, fame and power, - And Him my only portion make, - My Shield and Tower. - - The God of Abraham praise, - Whose all-sufficient grace - Shall guide me all my happy days, - In all my ways: - He calls a worm His friend! - He calls Himself my God! - And He shall save me to the end, - Thro’ Jesus’ blood. - - He by Himself hath sworn! - I on His oath depend, - I shall, on eagle’s wings up-borne, - To Heaven ascend; - I shall behold His face, - I shall His power adore, - And sing the wonders of His grace - For evermore. - - Tho’ nature’s strength decay, - And earth and hell withstand, - To Canaan’s bounds I urge my way - At His command: - The wat’ry deep I pass, - With Jesus in my view; - And thro’ the howling wilderness - My way pursue. - - The goodly land I see, - With peace and plenty bless’d; - A land of sacred liberty, - And endless rest. - There milk and honey flow, - And oil and wine abound, - And trees of life forever grow, - With mercy crown’d. - - There dwells the Lord our King, - The Lord our Righteousness, - Triumphant o’er the world and sin, - The Prince of Peace; - On Sion’s sacred heights - His Kingdom still maintains; - And glorious with the saints in light, - Forever reigns. - - He keeps His own secure, - He guards them by His side, - Arrays in garments white and pure - His spotless bride. - With streams of sacred bliss, - With groves of living joys, - With all the fruits of Paradise - He still supplies. - - Before the great Three—One - They all exulting stand; - And tell the wonders He hath done, - Thro’ all their land: - The list’ning spheres attend, - And swell the growing fame; - And sing, in songs which never end, - The wondrous name. - - The God who reigns on high, - The great Archangels sing, - And “Holy, holy, holy,” cry, - Almighty King! - Who was, and is, the same! - And evermore shall be; - Jehovah—Father—great I Am! - We worship Thee. - - Before the Saviour’s face - The ransom’d nations bow; - O’erwhelmed at His Almighty grace, - Forever new: - He shows His prints of love— - They kindle—to a flame! - And sound through all the worlds above, - The slaughter’d Lamb. - - The whole triumphant host - Give thanks to God on high; - “Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!” - They ever cry: - Hail, Abraham’s God—and _mine_! - I join the heavenly lays, - All might and majesty are Thine, - And endless praise. - -Thomas Olivers, the author of the above hymn, lived to see the issue of -at least thirty editions of it. - - - -------------- - - - APPENDIX (PAGE 118). - THE LAST JUDGMENT. - BY THOMAS OLIVERS. - - Come, immortal King of Glory, - Now in Majesty appear, - Bid the nations stand before Thee, - Each his final doom to hear, - - Come to judgment, - Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come. - - Speak the word, and lo! all nature - Flies before Thy glorious face, - Angels sing your great Creator, - Saints proclaim His sovereign grace, - While ye praise Him, - Lift your heads and see Him come. - - See His beauty all resplendent, - View Him in His glory shine, - See His majesty transcendent, - Seated on His throne sublime: - Angels praise Him, - Saints and angels praise the Lamb. - - Shout aloud, ye heavenly choirs, - Trumpet forth Jehovah’s praise; - Trumpets, voices, hearts and lyres! - Speak the wonders of His grace! - Sound before Him - Endless praises to His name. - - Ransom’d sinners, see His ensign - Waving thro’ the purpled air! - ‘Midst ten thousand lightnings daring, - Jesus’ praises to declare; - How tremendous - Is this dreadful, joyful day. - - Crowns and sceptres fall before Him, - Kings and conquerors own His sway, - Fearless potentates are trembling, - While they see His lightnings play: - How triumphant - Is the world’s Redeemer now. - - Noon-day beauty in its lustre - Doth in Jesus’ aspect shine, - Blazing comets are not fiercer - Than the flaming eyes Divine: - O, how dreadful - Doth the Crucified appear. - - Hear His voice as mighty thunder, - Sounding in eternal roar! - Far surpassing many waters - Echoing wide from shore to shore: - Hear His accents - Through th’ unfathom’d deep resound: - - “Come,” He saith, “ye heirs of glory, - Come, the purchase of my blood; - Bless’d ye are, and bless’d ye shall be, - Now ascend the mount of God; - Angels guard them - To the realms of endless day.” - - See ten thousand flaming seraphs - From their thrones as lightnings fly; - “Take,” they cry, “your seats above us, - Nearest Him who rules the sky: - Favorite sinners, - How rewarded are you now!” - - Haste and taste celestial pleasure; - Haste and reap immortal joys; - Haste and drink the crystal river; - Lift on high your choral voice, - While archangels - Shout aloud the great Amen. - - But the angry Lamb’s determin’d - Every evil to descry; - They who have His love rejected - Shall before His vengeance fly, - When He drives them - To their everlasting doom. - - Now, in awful expectation, - See the countless millions stand; - Dread, dismay, and sore vexation, - Seize the helpless, hopeless band; - Baleful thunders, - Stop and hear Jehovah’s voice! - - “Go from me,” He saith, “ye cursed— - Ye for whom I bled in vain— - Ye who have my grace refused— - Hasten to eternal pain!” - How victorious - Is the conquering _Son of Man_! - - See, in solemn pomp ascending, - Jesus and His glorious train; - Countless myriads now attend Him, - Rising to th’ imperial plain; - Hallelujah! - To the bless’d Immanuel’s name! - - In full triumph see them marching - Through the gates of massy light; - While the city walls are sparkling - With meridian’s glory bright; - How stupendous - Are the glories of the Lamb! - - On His throne of radiant azure, - High above all heights He reigns— - Reigns amidst immortal pleasure, - While refulgent glory flames; - How diffusive - Shines the golden blaze around! - - All the heavenly powers adore Him, - Circling round his orient seat; - Ransom’d saints with angels vying, - Loudest praises to repeat; - How exalted - Is His praise, and how profound! - - Every throne and every mansion, - All ye heavenly arches ring; - Echo to the Lord salvation, - Glory to our glorious King! - Boundless praises - All ye heavenly orbs resound. - - Praise be to the Father given, - Praise to the Incarnate Son, - Praise the Spirit, one and Seven, - Praise the mystic Three in One; - Hallelujah! - Everlasting praise be Thine! - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 120). - ROCK OF AGES—IN LATIN. - BY W. E. GLADSTONE. - - Jesus, pro me perforatus, - Condar intra Tuum latus, - Tu per lympham profluentem, - Tu per sanguinem tepentem, - In peccata me redunda, - Tolle culpam, sordes munda. - - Coram Te, nec justus forem - Quamvis totâ si laborem, - Nec si fide nunquam cesso, - Fletu stillans indefesso: - Tibi soli tantum munus; - Salva me, Salvator unus! - - Nil in manu mecum fero, - Sed me versus crucem gero; - Vestimenta nudus oro, - Opem debilis imploro; - Fontem Christi quæro immundus - Nisi laves, moribundus. - - Dum hos artus vita regit; - Quando nox sepulchro tegit; - Mortuos cum stare jubes, - Sedens Judex inter nubes; - Jesus, pro me perforatus, - Condar intra Tuum latus. - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 236). - -From the “Memoirs of Howard, compiled from his diary, his confidential -letters, and other authentic documents, by James Baldwin Brown,” it -appears that in the year 1755, on a voyage to Portugal, the vessel in -which he was, was captured by a French privateer, and carried into -Brest, where he and the other passengers, along with the crew, were cast -into a filthy dungeon, and there kept a considerable time without -nourishment. There they lay for six days and nights. The floor, with -nothing but straw upon it, was their sleeping place. He was afterwards -removed to Morlaix, and thence to Carpaix, where he was two months upon -parole. At the latter place “he corresponded with the English prisoners -at Brest, Morlaix and Dinnan; and had sufficient evidence of their being -treated with such barbarity that many hundreds had perished; and that -thirty-six were buried in a hole at Dinnan in one day.” - -Through his benevolent and timely interference on their behalf, when he -himself had regained his freedom, the prisoners of war in these three -prisons were released and sent home to England in the first cartel -ships. - -Till the year 1773 it does not appear that he was actively engaged in -any philanthropic work on behalf of prisoners. In the year 1730 there -had been a commission of enquiry in the House of Commons on the state of -prisons, and condition of their inmates, but nothing seems to have -followed from it, and it was not till March, 1774, when Howard received -the thanks of the House for the information which, he communicated to -them on the subject, that the great work assumed shape. In 1773, having -been appointed sheriff of Bedford, the distress of prisoners came under -his notice. He engaged himself in a most minute inspection, and the -consequence was the devotion of every faculty of his existence to the -correction of the abuses existing in similar institutions as the friend -of those who had no friend. - -In that Christlike work he continued till his death, on 20th January, -1790, at Cherson, Russian Tartary, having in the meantime inspected -prisons in England, Scotland and Ireland, France, Holland, Flanders, -Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the -Netherlands, Malta, Turkey, Prussia and Russia. - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 253). - -At Michaelmas time, 1791, Mr. Buchanan was admitted a member of Queen’s -College, Cambridge, having left London on the 24th October. He was then -25 years of age. In consequence of a letter from his mother he attended -the preaching of John Newton, with whom he kept up a correspondence when -at college. In one of his replies to Mr. Newton he wrote: “You ask me -whether I would prefer preaching the Gospel to the fame of learning? Ay, -that would I, gladly, were I convinced it was the will of God, that I -should depart this night for Nova Zembla, or the Antipodes, to testify -of Him. I would not wait for an admit or a college exit.” Some time in -the year 1794, the first proposal appears to have been made to him to go -out to India, and on this occasion he wrote Mr. Newton, saying, “I have -only time to say, that with respect to my going to India, I must decline -giving an opinion. * * * It is with great pleasure I submit this matter -to the determination of yourself and Mr. Thornton and Mr. Grant. All I -wish to ascertain is the will of God.” In a subsequent letter he wrote, -“I am equally ready to preach the Gospel in the next village, or at the -end of the earth.” - -After taking his degree of B.A., he was ordained a deacon by the Bishop -of London on 20th September, 1795, when he became Mr. Newton’s curate, -which he held till March, 1796, when he was appointed one of the -chaplains to the East India Company. Soon after, he received priest’s -orders, and on 11th August, 1796, sailed from Portsmouth, England, for -Calcutta, where he landed 10th March, 1797. In May following he -proceeded to the military station of Barackpore. But it was not till the -beginning of the present century that he fairly developed his plans for -the extension of the Redeemer’s Kingdom in India.—_From Memoirs of Rev. -Claudius Buchanan._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 254). - -In the month of September, 1794, a paper was published in the -_Evangelical Magazine_, urging the formation of a mission to the heathen -on the broadest possible basis. The writer of that paper was the Rev. -David Bogue, D.D., of Gosport, Hampshire, and two months after its -appearance a conference, attended by representatives from several -Evangelical bodies, was held to take action in the matter. The result -was an address to ministers and members of various churches, and the -appointment of a committee to diffuse information upon the subject. -Thereafter, and in September, 1795, a large and influential meeting, -extending over three days, at which the Rev. Dr. Harris preached from -Mark xv: 16, and the Rev. J. Burder and the Rev. Rowland Hill and many -others took part. At that meeting the society was formed, and it was -resolved, with reference to its agents and their converts, “That it -should be entirely left with those whom God might call into the -fellowship of His Son among them, to assume for themselves such a form -of church government as to them shall appear most agreeable to the Word -of God.” - -The Rev. David Bogue, D.D., has therefore well been styled “the father -and founder” of the institution. - - - -------------- - - - - - APPENDIX (PAGE 256). - -At a meeting held in Leeds, 5th October, 1813, it was resolved to -constitute a society to be called “The Methodist Missionary Society for -the Leeds District,” of which branches were to be formed in the several -circuits, whose duty it should be to collect subscriptions in behalf of -missions and to remit them to an already existing committee in London. -It was from this point that, by general consent, the origin of the -Wesleyan Missionary Society is reckoned. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - INDEX. - - - Academy, Doddridge’s, 29 - Lady Huntingdon’s, 257 - - Aftermath, 260 - - Age before the Revival, The 32 - - Albert, Prince, 120 - - Alleine, Rev. Joseph, 197 - - Allen, Ebenezer, Governor of Martha’s Vineyard, 226 - - America, Awakening in, 28, 73, 85, 281 - - American Baptist Missionary Union, 256 - - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 255, 256 - - American Revival, 28, 73, 85, 281 - Sunday-school Union, 256 - - Amusements, 15 - - Anabaptists, 52 - - Ancaster, Duchess of 37, 41 - - - Anecdotes, 17–20, 37, 39, 41, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 69, 70, 72, 76, - 82–84, 87, 89, 94, 96, 100, 103, 109, 112, 113, 115, 116, 125, 129, - 130, 133–135, 137, 138, 140, 143–145, 148, 151, 153, 158, 159, 161, - 166, 172, 177, 183, 194, 198, 200, 202, 218, 234, 236, 239, 243, - 245, 247, 255, 256, 266, 288, 291, 293, 294, 298, 300, 301 - - Aram, Eugene, 147 - - Armenianism, 60 - - Arrests, 102 - - Atheism, Prevalence of, 15 - - Austrian Exiles, 28 - - - Baptist Missionary Society, 250 - Union, American, 256 - - Band-Meetings, etc., Origin of, 100 - - Basle Evangelical Mission, 256 - - Baynham, James, 195 - - Baxter, Richard, 266 - - Benson, Bishop, 69, 70 - - Bernard of Clairvaux, 114 - Cluny, 114 - - Berridge, John, 150, 157, 169, 177, 270 - - Bible, The, the Power of God, 7, 279, 286 - Reverenced, 277 - Translated for India, 253 - - Bible Society, The 186, 189, 191, 256 - - Blomfield, Bishop, 18 - - Bloomfield, 197 - - Blossoms in the Wilderness, 180 - - Bogue, David, 254, 257, 320 - - Bolingbroke, Lord, 41, 60, 180 - - Borlase, Dr., 102 - - Boston in 1730, 232 - Elm, 275 - State of Society in, 282 - - Bradford, Joseph, 138 - - Britain’s Obligations to Missions for India, 254 - - British and Foreign School Society, 256 - - _British Quarterly_, 52, 92 - - Brontë Family, 160 - - _Bruised Reed_, 266 - - Buchanan, Claudius, 178, 190, 253, 254, 319 - - Buckingham, Duchess of, 38, 39 - - Bunyan, John, 160 - - Burke, Edmund, 236 - - Butler, Bishop, 22 - - Byron, 117 - - - Calvin’s Institutes, 61 - - Calvinistic Methodists, 101 - - Campbell, John, 178, 190 - - Captains of Ships in 18th Century, 221, 224 - - Cardigan, Lady, 42 - - Carey, William, 250 - - Carlyle, Thomas, 28, 305 - - Cennick, John, 123 - - Chatsworth, 49 - - Cheerfulness and Joy Significant of Revival, 98, 99, 101, 109, 124 - - Chesterfield, Lord, 41, 180 - - Christian Remembrances, 123 - - “_Christian World Unmasked, The_; _Pray Come and Peep_,”, 158 - - Christianity, Effect of, 98, 185 - - Chrysostom, 52 - - Church of England, Evangelical Party in, 269 - Religion in, 15, 18, 233 - Disabilities against Members of, 258 - Opposition to Methodism, 99 - Opposition to Revival, 22, 70, 156, 159, 172, 270 - Southey on the Clergy of the, 308 - - Church Signs and Counter-signs, 99 - - Church’s, Rev. Thomas, Denunciation of Evil, 21 - - Chubbs, 180 - - Church Missionary Society, 255 - - City Road Chapel, 91 - - Clapham Sect, 184, 189, 191 - - Clarkson, Thomas, 190 - - Clergy, Corruption of, 18 - - Coates, Alexander, 153 - - Colman, Dr., Testimony of, 285 - - Colliers, The, 75 - - Collins, 180 - - Colston, Edward, 218 - - Colston’s School, Bristol, 218 - - Compton, Adam, 198 - - Congregationalism, 170 - - Controversialists of Revival, 117, 119 - - Conversions, 219, 234, 238, 258, 266, 267, 284, 290 - - Cornwall, 116, 131, 171 - - Cottage Visitation, 50 - - Cowper, William, 126, 178, 207, 211 - - Cradle of London Methodism, 91 - - Crime in 18th Century, 14, 16, 21, 242 - - Criminals, Condition of, 200, 237, 239, 244 - - Criminal Law in 18th Century, 14, 237, 242, 244, 247, 248, 259 - - - Danish Hymns, 131 - Missionary Society, 250 - - Darkness before Dawn, 7, 107 - - Dawn, First Streaks of, 24 - - Deaf and Dumb Asylum, 258 - - Defoe, 177, 216 - - Deism, Prevalence of, 15 - - Derby, Earl of, 129 - - Dissenters, Disabilities of, 258 - - Dissent in, Boston, in 1730, 232 - - Divine authority of the New Testament, The, 255 - - Doddridge, Philip, 28, 31, 110, 113, 126, 267 - his Academy, 29 - his Friends, 36, 58 - his Hymns, 29 - - Drawing-Room Preaching, 37, 38, 40 - Effect of, 43 - - Drury Lane, 155 - - Dying Words, 169, 261, 262, 300 - - - East India Company, 191 - - Economy of Charity, 210 - - _Edinburgh Review_, 69, 184, 253 - - Education, Neglect of, 16 - Spreading, 257 - - Edwards, Jonathan, 28, 275, 283, 296 - - Effect of Rejection of Gospel, 7 - - Eighteenth Century Revival, 9, 277 - - Emerson, quoted, 12 - - England and France Contrasted, 23, 180 - - England, State of Religion in, 23 - - Epitaphs, 156, 197, 212, 268 - - Episcopal Board of Missions, Methodist, 256 - Protestant, 256 - - Epworth, 43, 53, 94, 97 - - Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography, 184 - - Everton, 156 - - Excitement of the Revival, 68 - - Executions at Tyburn in 1738, 14 - - Exiles in England, 28 - - Experiences of Christians expressed in Song, 128 - - Eyre, Jane, 160 - - - Fair-Preaching, 83 - - Fenwick, Michael, 137 - - Ferrars, Lady, 40 - - Field-Preaching, 68, 89, 101, 104 - - First Day or Sunday-school Society, 256 - - Flaxley, 197 - - Fletcher of Madsley, 149 - - Florence, 7 - - Foote, the Actor, 154 - - Founders of London Missionary Society, 254 - - Foundry, The Moorfields, 91 - - France, 7, 180 - - Free Church of England, 101 - - French Protestants in England, 25 - - Fry, Elizabeth, 237, 258, 278 - - - Gambold, John, 50, 64 - - Garrick, David, 155, 172 - - George II, 181 - - George IV, 158 - - Gerhardt, Paul, 113 - - German Empire, 7 - Hymns, 131 - - Germain, Lady Betty, 41 - - Gisborne, Thomas, 192 - - Gladstone, W. E., 119, 317 - - Gloucestershire, 183, 193, 213 - - God’s Method of Diffusing the Truth, 12, 13 - - Goethe, 28, 305 - - Goldsmith, 21 - - Gospel Preached in Song, 114 - - Grant, James, 126 - Sir Robert, 192 - - Gregory, Alfred, 196 - - Greenfield, Edward, 102 - - Griggs, Joseph, 126 - - Grimshaw, William, 160, 169, 178, 270 - - Guthrie, Dr., 158 - - Gwennap Pit, 103, 275 - - - Haime, John, 151 - - Hamilton, Duchess of, 41 - Lady Elizabeth, 243 - Sir William, 179 - - Hardcastle, Joseph, 191 - - Hardships, 221 - - Harris, Howell, 272 - - Harvard College, Religion in, 285 - - Hastings, Lady Margaret, 170, 171 - - Haweis, Thomas, 254 - - Haworth, 160 - - Haymarket Theatre, 154 - - Helmsley, 119 - - Herbert, George, 110 - - Hervey, James, 50, 57, 60 - Writings, 63 - - Hey, James (Old Jemmie o’ the Hey), 198 - - Hill, Rowland, 120, 159, 170, 254 - - Holy Club, The, 51, 54, 57, 60, 65, 170 - Spirit, The, the Power, 85 - - Hooper, John, 195 - - Hopper, Christopher, 151 - - Horne, Dr., 66 - - Hospitality in New England, 225, 229, 231 - - Hostility to Revival, 21, 32, 61, 77, 288 - - Howard, John, 236, 318 - - Hymns, 115, 118, 119, 122, 125–130, 203, 311, 313 - Character of, 127, 131 - Influence of, 98, 99, 101, 109, 112, 129 - of Doddridge, 29, 110 - of Watts, 29, 31, 110 - of Wesley, 112 - - Hymnists of the Revival, 109, 121, 123, 126, 192 - - Huddersfield, 169 - - Huguenots, The, 24, 98 - Descendants in England, 26 - Influence on Revival, 26 - Settlement in England, 26 - - Huntingdon, Lady, 20, 35, 46, 50, 64, 66, 69, 91, 101, 124, 135, 143, - 148, 155, 159, 169, 172, 183, 254, 257, 261, 307 - - Huntingdon, William, 276 - - Hupton, Job, 127 - - - Independents, 256 - - Indians, Cause of, Espoused by Whitefield, 290 - - Ingham, Benjamin, 50, 170 - - Itinerancy, by Wesley, 93 - - Itinerant Preachers, 116, 160 - - - Jay, William, 184 - - Jenner, Dr. Edward, 195 - - Johnson, Samuel, 55 - - Joss, Toriel, 149 - - Juvenal, 52 - - - Kempis, Thomas à., 55, 59 - - Kingsbury, William, 254 - - Kirk, John, Author of “Mother of the Wesleys”, 44 - - - Lackington, 154 - - Lancashire, 131 - Independent College, 257 - - Lanterns, New Lights and Old, 48 - - Lavington, Bishop, 70 - - Law, William, 53 - - Lay Preaching, 132, 136, 139, 147–149, 151 - - Lecky on the Effect of the Revival, 10 - - Lee, Jesse, 275 - - Literature, State of, at beginning of 18th Century. How Affected by - Revival, 16, 269 - - Livingstone, 255 - - Local Preachers, 136 - Wesley’s Reasons for, 136 - - London Missionary Society, 191, 254, 255, 319 - - Love of Souls, 101, 185, 186, 281 - - Luther, 7, 57, 110, 114, 179 - - Lyttleton, Lord, 17, 40, 42 - - - Macaulay, 86, 97, 99, 189 - Tribute to Puritans, 9, 97, 303–305 - - McOwan, Peter, 130 - - Mann, Sir Horace, 40 - - Mansfield, Lord, 172 - - Marlborough, Duchess of, 37, 39, 42 - - Marshman and Ward, 253 - - Martyrs, 195 - - Maxfield, Thomas, 115, 134 - - Melcombe, Lord, 42 - - Methodism, 182, 257, 275, 278 - in New England, 275 - - Methodists acknowledged, 177, 256 - and Puritans Compared, 98 - - Methodists and Quakers, 278 - - Methodist Band-Meetings, etc., 100 - - Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, 256 - - Methodists, Beginning of, 45, 52, 80, 91 - Calvinistic and Wesleyan, 101 - - Methodists, Creed of, 100 - Early, 98, 102, 309 - Effect of, 35, 129 - Efforts of Earliest, 257 - Expelled from Oxford, 66 - Growth of, 40, 170 - in United States, 275 - Held as Opposed to Church of England, 66, 70, 94, 99 - Hymnals, 32 - Manifestations of, 85 - Origin of Name, 52, 60, 309 - Regarded as Enemies, 21, 70, 94, 99, 139, 143, 144, 233, 309 - - Methodists, Sects of, 276 - - Middleton, 180 - - Milton, 110 - - _Minor, The_, 154 - - Mission Enterprises, 186, 250, 256 - to Africa, 191, 255 - to China, 255 - to India, 190, 253 - to Madagascar, 255 - to South Seas, 255 - - Missionary Societies, 250, 256, 320 - - Moffat, Robert, 191, 255 - - Molière, 155 - - Montague, Duchess of, 42 - - Montgomery, James, 118 - - Moorfields, London, 84, 91, 134, 149, 233 - - Morality at Beginning of 18th Century, 16 - - Moravians, The, 35, 64, 113, 170, 250, 256 - - More, Hannah, 178, 210 - - Morgan, 50 - - Mystery of Life, The, 65 - - - Napoleon at St. Helena, 255 - - Nash, Beau, Overcome by Wesley, 87 - - Nelson, John, 139 - - Netherlands Missionary Society, 256 - - Newman, John Henry, 269 - - Newton, John, 123, 126, 149, 174, 190, 216, 217, 270 - - Noel, Baptist, 259 - - Nonconformists, Religion Among, 15 - - - Oliver, John, 115 - - Olivers, Thomas, 115, 125, 311, 313 - - One-eyed Christians, 183 - - Orphan Asylum in Georgia, 291, 296 - - Oxford, 48, 65 - Forecasting Future of Union, 48 - - Oxford Methodists, 49 - Society, 54 - - - Parson, John, 151 - - Perronet, Edward, 125 - - Persecution, 102, 139, 143, 270 - - Philadelphia Adult and Sunday-school Union, 256 - - Pilgrim’s Progress, The, 219, 236 - - Pitt, William, 42, 266 - - Politics Influenced by Revival, 258 - - Pope, 38 - - Portraits of Revivalists, 154, 271 - - Power of Song, 114 - - _Practical View of Christianity_, 266, 267 - - Prayer, 102 - - Preacher and Robbers, The, 151 - - Preaching at Beginning of 18th Century, 61 - by Laymen, 132, 136, 139, 147, 148, 149, 151 - in Drawing-Room, 37, 38, 40 - Effect of, 7, 98, 99, 101, 107, 139, 143 - - Prejudices Against Lay Preachers, 132 - - Prison Philanthropy, 199, 217, 234, 236, 241, 246, 248, 258, 318 - - Promoting Christian Knowledge, Society for, 250 - - Propagation of Gospel, Society for, in New England, 250 - - Propagation of Gospel, Society for, in Foreign Parts, 250 - - Protestant Episcopal Board of Missions, 256 - - Puritans, The, 8, 9, 35, 52, 98, 303, 305 - Macaulay’s estimate of, 9, 97, 303 - and Methodists Compared, 98 - - - Quakers, The, 35, 231, 278 - - _Quarterly Review_, 125, 126 - - Quietists, 55 - - Quixote, the Spiritual, 154 - - - Raikes, Anne, 213 - - Raikes, Robert, 183, 193, 194, 196, 201, 211, 214 - at Windsor, 202, 208 - House at Gloucester, 213 - - Raymont of Pegnafort, 93 - - Reciprocation the Soul of Methodism, 100 - - Redruth, Cornwall, 103 - - Reformation, The, 8 - - Reign of Terror, 181 - - Rejection of Gospel, its Effect on Nations, 7 - - Religion, State of - at Beginning of 18th Century, 10, 22, 23, 107 - State of and After Revival Contrasted, 13, 277 - - Religious Tract Society, 191, 256 - - Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts, 258 - - Revival, The, Anecdotes of (See Anecdotes.) - - Revival Beacons, 184 - Becomes Educational, 193, 257, 278 - Beginning of, 24, 28, 35, 39, 49, 57, 73, 181, 186 - Cheerfulness and Joy of, 98, 99, 101, 109, 124 - Conservative, 86 - Dawn of, 24, 48, 49 - Depth of, 277 - Done Most for Well-being of Mankind, 280 - Effect on Literature, 260 - Effect of on World at Large, 279, 293 - Effects of, 8, 10, 13, 107, 115, 129, 132, 147, 166, 171, 180, 183, - 186, 258, 259, 260, 269, 277, 279, 285, 293, 296, 300 - Evangelical in England, 8, 271, - Fair-Preaching, 83 - Field-Preaching, 68, 89, 101, 104 - Foremost Names in, 46, 154 - Fruit of, 180, 186 - - Revival, Growth of, 73, 265 - Hostility to, 21, 22, 32, 61, 77, 94, 102, 154, 156, 159, 172, 288, - 298 - Importance of, 10 - in Wales, 272 - in America, 275, 281, 288, 295, 300 - at Kingswood, 77 - Lay Preaching, 132, 135, 139, 147, 148, 149, 151 - Sects Formed, 276 - Singers of, 109, 121, 123, 126, 192, 310 - Spiritual, 114, 285 - - Revivalist Portraits, 154, 271 - - Richmond Legh, 267 - - Ridicule of Revivalists, 154, 253, 298 - - Rise and Progress in the Soul, 267 - - Ritual Absent in Revival, 114 - - Rock of Ages, 119 - - Rockingham, Lady, 40 - - Rogers’ Lives of Early Preachers, 151 - - Romaine, William, 149, 172 - - Roman Catholics, 133, 145, 193 - - Romelly, Sir Samuel, 26 - - Romish Stories and Incidents in Work of Wesley, 133, 145 - - Romney, Earl, 259 - - Rosary, The, 99 - - Rowlands, 272 - - - Sabbath Observance, 17, 229 - - Sacred Song, Power of, 109, 113, 127 - - Sailors’ Hardships, etc., 221, 224, 240 - - _Saints Everlasting Rest_, 267 - - Salvation by Grace the Grand Doctrine of the Revival, 60, 186, 270, 284 - - Sandwich Islands, 255 - - Sandys, 110 - - Sarton, William, 195 - - Saunderson, Lady Frances, 37 - - Savonarola, 7 - - Schools, Sunday, 16, 196–199, 201, 204 - - School, Sunday, Commended, 207, 208 - Effect of, 201, 215 - First Day or Society, 256 - Growth of, 208, 209, 215 - - Scott, Captain Jonathan, 149 - Thomas, 269 - Walter, Sir, 117 - - Sects Rising from Revival: Bible Christians of West of England, 276 - Primitive Methodists Of the North, 276 - New Connection Methodists, 276 - United Free Church Association, 276 - - Selborne, Lord, Referred to, 125 - - Sharp, Granville, 190 - - Shaw, Robert, 169 - - Ships of 18th Century, 220 - - Shirley, Lady Fanny, 64 - Mr. (Lady Huntingdon’s Cousin), 20 - - Sidney, Sir Philip, 110 - - Simeon, Charles, 269 - - Singers of the Revival, 109, 121, 123, 126, 192, 310 - - Slave Abolition, 186, 211, 265, 278 - - Smiles, Dr., referred to, 24 - - Smith, Adam, 207 - Sydney, 184, 253 - - Society, State of, at beginning of 18th Century, 10, 16, 24, 75, 277, - 282, 294 - State of and after Revival, Contrasted, 13, 277 - - Somerset, Duchess of, 36 - - Songs Used in Great National Movements, 109 - - Southey, 71, 83, 89, 93, 115, 130, 133, 146, 147, 157, 166, 249, 276, - 308 - - Spain, 7 - - Spencer, 52 - - St. Ambrose, 117 - - St. Ann’s, Black Friars, London, 174 - - St. George’s, Hanover Square, London, 172 - - Stage Libels against the Revivalists, 154 - - Staniforth, Sampson, 151 - - Stanhope, Earl, Testimony to Wesley, 10 - - Starting Point, The, of Modern Religious History, 181 - - Steam Engine, The, 12 - - Steele, Miss, 126 - - Stephen, Sir James, 83, 184, 191, 192, 269 - Sir George, 192 - - Stevens, Dr. Abel, 27, 83, 182, 216, 249, 262, 300 - - Stocker, John, 127 - - Stock, Thomas, 204 - - Story, George, 147 - - Stratford, Joseph, 196 - - Streaks of Dawn, First, 24 - - Suffolk, Countess of, 40 - - Swedenborg, 276 - - Swedish Missionary Society, 250 - - - Taylor, Isaac, 45, 83, 128 - - Teachers, Character of at Beginning of 18th Century, 17 - - Te Deum, 114 - - Teignmouth, Lord, 189, 254 - - Tennent, Gilbert, 286, 287, 290 - - “_The Last Judgment_”, 118 - - Thomson, Mr., The Vicar of St. Gennys, 70 - - Thornton, John, 190 - - Ticket, The, 99 - - Told, Silas, 216, 257 - his Preaching and his Work, 235 - - Toleration Act, 258 - - Toplady, Augustus, 119, 121 - - Tottenham Court Chapel, 120, 150 - - Townshend, Lady, 37 - John, 258 - Lord, 42 - - Tractarian Movement, The, 48 - - Tract Societies, 186, 191 - - Trevisa, John De, 193 - - Trimmer, Sarah, Mrs., 209 - - Trophies of Revival, 115 - - Turnpikes in England, 93 - - Tyerman, Mr., referred to, 27, 43, 249 - - Tyndale, William, 183, 193 - - - Venn, Henry, 169 - - Vicar of Wakefield, 21, 267, 305 - - Voltaire, 51, 180 - - - Wales, 272 - - Walker, Samuel, 171 - - Walpole, Horace, 39, 43, 79, 83, 154 - - Walsh, Thomas, 135, 145 - - Warburton, Bishop, on Wesley, 22 - - Ward and Marshman, 253 - - Watson, Richard, 158 - - Watt, James, 12 - - Watts, Isaac, 29, 110, 122, 128 - Friends of, 36 - his Mother, 26 - Hymns of, 29, 113 - Literary Labors, 29 - - Waugh, Alexander, 254 - - Welsh Preaching and Preachers, 275 - - Wesleyan Methodists, 101 - Missionary Society, 256, 320 - - Wesleyan Societies, 170, 182 - - Wesleyanism, Historians of, 182 - - Wesley, Charles, 45, 50, 57, 118, 121, 128, 265 - - Wesley, John, 21, 26, 46, 50, 53, 80, 92, 122, 136, 165, 179, 182, 207 - as an Administrator, 82, 86 - and Church Polity, 82, 86 - and Bradford, 138 - and Fenwick, 137 - and Nelson, 145 - and Silas Told, 217, 233, 237, 249 - and Walsh, 146 - and Whitefield Compared, 69, 80, 86, 87, 89, 148 - and Field-Preaching, 89 - - Wesley, John, - and Methodists Regarded as Enemies, 21, 94, 99 - and Hervey’s Teaching, 59 - at Epworth, 43, 53, 94, 95 - at the Foundry, Moorfields (City Road Chapel), 91 - at Glasgow, 11 - at Gwennap Pit, 103 - at Oxford, 50, 53 - at York, 96 - Compared with Calvin, 69 - Conversion, Time of, 58 - Creed, 100 - Death of, 262 - Early Religious Experiences, 53 - Effect of His Preaching on Himself, 82 - Effect of His Preaching on Others, 82, 87, 96, 114 - Estimate of by Macaulay, 86, 89 - Expelled from Church of England, 68, 69 - Expelled from Oxford, 65 - Hymns, 112, 113, 114, 124, 126 - Influence of, 10, 26, 182 - Itinerancy, 93 - on Sabbath-Schools, 208 - Parish, the World, 91 - Power over Others, 82, 87, 137 - Preaching in Epworth Church-yard, 95 - Restrictions on Lay Preachers, 134 - Tomb, 262 - Translations, 113 - Victory of, over Nash, 87 - - Wesley, Samuel, 43, 53 - Susannah, 44, 134 - her Sayings, 45 - - Weston, Favel, 58, 62 - - Wilberforce, William, 178, 189, 191, 254, 258, 265, 266 - - Wilderness, Blossoms in, 180 - - Wilks, Matthew, 254 - - Winter, Cornelius, 184, 257 - - Wiseman, Cardinal, 131 - - White, Rev George, Vicar of Colne, 71 - - Whitefield, George, 32, 46, 52, 60, 69, 73, 86, 122, 148, 165, 179, - 184, 195, 258, 270, 284 - and the Children, 292 - Among the Indians, 290 - and the Poor Woman, 56 - and Wesley Compared, 69, 80, 86, 87, 89, 148 - and the Recruiting Sergeant, 84 - Among the Nobility, 36, 38, 41, 79 - Among the Roughs, 83, 115 - at Boston, New England, 284, 285 - at Cambridge, New England, 28 - at Harvard, 285 - at Kingswood, Bristol, 73 - at Princeton, 290 - at Gloucester, 73 - at New Haven, 285 - at Oxford, 49, 54 - at the Tower of London, 73 - Compared with Luther, 69 - Description of his Preaching During Thunder Storm, 79 - Early Religious Experience, 55 - - Whitefield, George, - Effect of his Preaching on Himself, 80, 81, 294 - Effect on Others, 43, 76, 79, 82–84, 87, 115, 284, 294, 295, 301 - First Meeting Charles Wesley, 56 - in Georgia, 291 - Journeys, 281 - in New York, 288 - in America, 73, 85, 281 - in Wales, 272 - in London, 81 - in Maryland, 290 - in Moorfields, London, 84 - in Philadelphia, 289 - on Toriel Joss and Newton, 149 - Preaching of, 73, 295 - on Religion in America, 299 - Orphan Asylum in Georgia, 291, 296 - Regarded as a Fanatic, 83 - Ridiculed, 154 - The First in the Opening of the Methodist Movement, 80 - Treatment of Those Who Opposed Themselves to Him, 78, 298 - Watts’ Blessing of, 32 - - Williams, John (Martyr of Erromanga) 255 - - Woolston, 180 - - Work Done in the Revival, 66 - - Wyclif, John, 193 - - - Xavier, Francis, 93 - - - York, Wesley at, 96 - - Yorkshire, 131, 139, 160, 170 - - Yorkshire, Apostles of, 139 - - Young Cottager, The, 267 - - - Zinzendorf, Count, Hymns of, 113, 171 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ Several footnote references just said “See Appendix.” without - specifying which (there are 15.) The references have been resolved - as well as was possible. - ○ Some footnotes had no references to them in the text. These were - assumed to be additional material for the entire page, or pages, - and a reference was created. - ○ Some index entries were reformatted to be more consistent with the - majority of the entries. - ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. - ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only - when a predominant form was found in this book. - ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Revival of the Eighteenth -Century: with a supplemental chapte, by Edwin Paxton Hood - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 61062 *** diff --git a/old/61062-h/61062-h.htm b/old/61062-h/61062-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 314714b..0000000 --- a/old/61062-h/61062-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10066 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <title>Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century, by Edwin Paxton Hood--A Project Gutenberg eBook</title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - body { margin-left: 8%; 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} - .blackletter {font-family: "Old English Text MT", Gothic, serif; } - </style> - </head> - <body> -<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 61062 ***</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class="blackletter">The Great Revival.—Frontispiece.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i00-page-0-frontispiece.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>The Foundry, Moorfields.</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div> - <h1 class='c002'>THE<br /> <br /><span class='xxlarge'>GREAT REVIVAL</span><br /> <br /><span class='small'>OF</span><br /> <br /> <span class='xlarge'>THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.</span></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class='small'>BY</span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'>REV. EDWIN PAXTON HOOD,</span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='small'>AUTHOR OF</span></div> - <div class='c000'><i>“Isaac Watts: his Life and Writings, his Home and Friends,” etc.</i></div> - <div class='c003'><i>With a Supplemental Chapter on the Revival in America.</i></div> - <div class='c003'>PHILADELPHIA:</div> - <div>AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,</div> - <div><span class='sc'>1122 Chestnut Street</span>.</div> - <div class='c000'>NEW YORK. CHICAGO.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c004'>EDITOR’S NOTE.</h2> -</div> -<hr class='c005' /> -<p class='c006'>The only changes made in revising this work are in the local -allusions to England as “our country,” etc., and in a few -phrases and expressions naturally arising from the original preparation -of the chapters for successive numbers of a magazine. -If any reader thinks that the Author’s enthusiasm in his subject -has caused him to ascribe too great influence to the “Methodist -movement,” and not to give due recognition to other potent -agencies in the “great awakening” of the last century, let him -remember that this volume does not profess to give a <i>complete</i>, -but only a <i>partial</i> history of the Great Revival. Indeed, the -Author’s graphic pictures relate chiefly to the movement, as it -swept over London and the great mining centres of England, -where the truth, as proclaimed by the great leaders, Whitefield, -the Wesleys, and their co-laborers, won its greatest victories, -and where Methodism has ever continued to render some of its -most valiant and glorious services for Christ. It is not to be -inferred that in Scotland, Ireland, and in the American colonies, -as in many portions of England, other organizations, dissenting -societies and churches were not a power in spreading the Great -Revival movement.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A brief chapter has been added at the close, sketching some -phases of the revival in the American colonies, under the labors -of Edwards, Whitefield, the Tennents, and their associates. -Whatever other material has been added by the Editor is indicated -by brackets, thus leaving the distinguished Author’s views -and expressions intact.</p> - -<p class='c007'>An Index has also been added, to increase the permanent -value of the book to the reader. If the history of the remarkable -“religious awakenings” of the eighteenth century were -more diligently studied, and the holy enthusiasm and wonderful -zeal of those great leaders in “hunting for souls” were to -inspire workers of this century, what marvellous conquests and -victories should we witness for the Son of God!</p> - -<p class='c007'><i>Philadelphia, March, 1882.</i></p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c004'>PREFACE.</h2> -</div> -<hr class='c005' /> -<p class='c006'>The author of the following pages begs that -they may be read kindly—and, he will venture -to say, <i>not</i> critically. Originally published as -a series of papers in the <i>Sunday at Home</i>, * * * -they are only <i>Vignettes</i>—etchings. The History -of the great Religious Movement of the Eighteenth -Century yet remains unwritten; not -often has the world known such a marvellous -awakening of religious thought; and, as we are -further removed in time, so, perhaps, we are -better able to judge of the momentous circumstances, -could we but seize the point of view.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c004'>CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> -<hr class='c005' /> -<table class='table0' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='11%' /> -<col width='76%' /> -<col width='11%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'><span class='xsmall'>CHAP. </span></td> - <td class='c010'><span class='xsmall'> PAGE.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>I.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Darkness Before the Dawn</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch01'>7</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>II.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>First Streaks of Dawn</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch02'>24</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>III.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Oxford: New Lights and Old Lanterns</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch03'>48</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>IV.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cast Out from the Church—Taking to the Fields</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch04'>68</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>V.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Revival Conservative</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch05'>86</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>VI.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Singers of the Revival</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch06'>109</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>VII.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Lay Preaching and Lay Preachers</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch07'>132</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>VIII.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>A Gallery of Revivalist Portraits</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch08'>154</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>IX.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Blossoms in the Wilderness</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch09'>180</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>X.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Revival Becomes Educational—Robert Raikes</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch10'>193</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>XI.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Romantic Story of Silas Told</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch11'>216</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>XII.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Missionary Societies</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch12'>250</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>XIII.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Aftermath</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch13'>260</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>XIV.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Revival in the New World</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch14'>281</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Appendices</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#app-a'>303</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Index</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#index'>321</a></td> - </tr> -</table> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span><span class='xxlarge'>THE GREAT REVIVAL.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c011' /> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch01' class='c004'>CHAPTER I<br /> <br /><span class='small'>DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>It cannot be too often remembered or repeated -that when the Bible has been brought -face to face with the conscience of corrupt -society, in every age it has shown itself to be -that which it professes, and which its believers -declare it to be—“the great power of God.” It -proved itself thus amidst the hoary and decaying -corruptions of the ancient civilisation, when -its truths were first published to the Roman -Empire; it proclaimed its power to the impure -but polished society of Florence, when Savonarola -preached his wonderful sermons in St. -Mark’s; and effected the same results throughout -the whole German Empire, when Bible -truth sounded forth from Luther’s trumpet-tones. -The same principle is illustrated where -the great evangelical truths of the New Testament -entered nations, as in Spain or France, -only to be rejected. From that rejection and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>the martyrdoms of the first believers; those -nations have never recovered themselves even -to this hour; and of the two nations, that in -which the rejection was the most haughty and -cruel, has suffered most from its renunciation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>England has passed through three great -evangelical revivals.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The first, the period of the <span class='sc'>Reformation</span>, -whose force was latent there, even before the -waves of the great German revolution reached -its shores, and called forth the pen of a monarch, -and that monarch a haughty Tudor, to enter -the lists of disputation with the lowly-born son -of a miner of Hartz Mountains. What that -Reformation effected in England we all very -well know; the changes it wrought in opinion, -the martyrs who passed away in their chariots -of fire in vindication of its doctrines, the great -writers and preachers to whose works and -names we frequently and lovingly refer.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then came the second great evangelical -revival, the period of <span class='sc'>Puritanism</span>,<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c012'><b>[1]</b></a> whose -central interests gather round the great civil -wars. This was the time, and these were the -opinions which produced some of the most -massive and magnificent writers of our language; -the whole mind of the country was -stirred to its deepest heart by faith in those -truths, which to believe enobles human nature, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>and enables it to endure “as seeing Him who -is invisible.” There can be no doubt that it -produced some of the grandest and noblest -minds, whether for service by sword or pen, in -the pulpit or the cabinet, that the world has -known. Lord Macaulay’s magnificently glowing -description of the English Puritan, and how -he attained, by his evangelical opinions, his -stature of strength, will be familiar to all readers -who know his essay on Milton.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f1'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-a'>A</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>But the present aim is to gather up some of -the facts and impressions, and briefly to recite -some of the influences of the third great evangelical -revival in the Eighteenth Century. We -are guilty of no exaggeration in saying that -these have been equally deserving historic -fame with either of the preceding. The story -has less, perhaps, to excite some of our most -passionate human interests; it had not to make -its way through stakes and scaffolds, although -it could recite many tales of persecution; it -unsheathed no sword, the weapons of its warfare -were not carnal; and on the whole, it -may be said its doctrine distilled “as the dew;” -yet it is not too much to say that from the revival -of the last century came forth that wonderfully -manifold reticulation and holy machinery -of piety and benevolence, we find in such -active operation around us to-day.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>All impartial historians of the period place this -most remarkable religious impulse in the rank of -the very foremost phenomena of the times. The -calm and able historian, Earl Stanhope, speaking -of it, as “despised at its commencement,” -continues, “with less immediate importance -than wars or political changes, it endures long -after not only the result but the memory of -these has passed away, and thousands” (his -lordship ought to have said millions) “who -never heard of Fontenoy or Walpole, continue -to follow the precepts, and venerate the name -of John Wesley.” While the latest, a still more -able and equally impartial and quiet historian, -Mr. Lecky, says, “Our splendid victories by -land and sea must yield in real importance to -this religious revolution; it exercised a profound -and lasting influence upon the spirit of -the Established Church of England, upon the -amount and distribution of the moral forces of -that nation, and even upon the course of its -political history.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Shall we, then, first attempt to obtain some -adequate idea of what this Revival effected, by -a slight effort to realise what sort of world and -state of society it was into which the Revival -came? One writer truly remarks, “Never has -century risen on christian England so void of -soul and faith as that which opened with Queen -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>Anne, and which reached its misty noon beneath -the second George, a dewless night succeeded -by a dewless dawn. There was no -freshness in the past and no promise in the -future; the Puritans were buried, the Methodists -were not born.” It is unquestionably true -that black, bad and corrupt as society was, for -the most part, all round, in the eighteenth -century, intellectual and spiritual forces broke -forth, simultaneously we had almost said, and -believing, as we do, in the Providence which -governed the rise of both, we may say, consentaneously, -which have left far behind all social -regenerations which the pen of history has recited -before. Of almost all the fruits we enjoy, -it may be said the seeds were planted then; -even those which, like the printing-press or the -gospel, had been planted ages before, were so -transplanted as to flourish with a new vigour.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our eye has been taught to rest on an interesting -incident. It was in 1757 John Wesley, -travelling and preaching, then about fifty years -of age, but still with nearly forty years of work -before him, arrived in Glasgow. He saw in the -University its library and its pictures; but, had -he possessed the vision of a Hebrew seer he -might have glanced up from the quadrangle of -the college to the humble rooms, up a spiral -staircase, of a young workman, over whose -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>lodging was the sign and information that -they were tenanted by a “mathematical instrument -maker to the University.” This young -man, living there upon a poor fare, and eking -out a poor subsistence, with many thoughts -burdening his mind, was destined to be the -founder of the greatest commercial and material -revolution the world has known: through -him seems to have been fulfilled the wonderfully -significant prophecy of Nahum: “The -chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall -jostle one against another in the broad ways: -they shall seem like torches, they shall run -like the lightnings.” This young man was -James Watt, who gave to the world the steam -engine. A few years after he gave his mighty -invention to Birmingham; and the world has -never been the same world since. “By that -invention,” says Emerson, “one man can do the -work of two hundred and fifty men;” and in -Manchester alone and in its vicinity there are -probably sixty thousand boilers, and the aggregate -power of a million horses.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Let not the allusion seem out of place. That -age was the seed-time of the present harvest -fields; in that time those great religious ideas -which have wrought such an astonishing revolution, -acquired body and form; and we ought -to notice how, when God sets free some new -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>idea, He also calls into existence the new vehicle -for its diffusion. He did not trust the early -christian faith to the old Latin races, to the -selfish and æsthetic Greek, or to the merely -conservative Hebrew; He “hissed,” in the -graphic language of the old Bible, for a new -race, and gave the New Testament to the -Teutonic people, who have ever been its chief -guardians and expositors; and thus, in all reviews -of the development and unfolding of the -religious life in the times of which we speak, -we have to notice how the material and the -spiritual changes have re-acted on each other, -while both have brought a change which has -indeed “made all things new.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Contrasting the state of society after the rise -of the Great Revival with what it was before, -the present with the past, it is quite obvious -that something has brought about a general -decency and decorum of manners, a tenderness -and benevolence of sentiment, a religious interest -in, and observance of, pious usages, not to -speak of a depth of religious life and conviction, -and a general purity and nobility of literary -taste, which did not exist before. All these -must be credited to this great movement. It is -not in the nature of steam engines, whether -stationary or locomotive, nor in printing -presses, or Staffordshire potteries, undirected -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>by spiritual forces, to raise the morals or to -improve the manners of mankind.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If sometimes in the presence of the spectacles -of ignorance, crime, irreligion, and corruption -in our own day, we are filled with a sense of -despair for the prospects of society, it may be -well to take a retrospect of what society was in -England at the commencement of the last century. -When George III. ascended the throne -the population of England was not much over -five millions; at the commencement of the -present century it was nearly eleven millions; -but with the intensely crowded population of -the present day, the cancerous elements of society, -the dangerous, pauperised, and criminal -classes are in far less proportion, not merely -relatively, but really. It was a small country, -and possessed few inhabitants. There are few -circumstances which can give us much pleasure -in the review. National distress was constantly -making itself bitterly felt; it was the age of -mobs and riots. The state of the criminal law -was cruel in the extreme. Blackstone calculates -that for no fewer than one hundred and -sixty offences, some of them of the most frivolous -description, the judge was bound to pronounce -sentence of death. Crime, of course, -flourished. During the year 1738 no fewer -than fifty-two criminals were hanged at Tyburn. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>During that and the preceding years, twelve -thousand persons had been convicted, within -the Bills of Mortality, for smuggling gin and -selling it without licence. The amusements of -all classes of people were exactly of that order -calculated to create a cruel disposition, and -thus to encourage crime; bear-baiting, bull-baiting, -prize-fighting, cock-fighting: on a -Shrove Tuesday it was dangerous to pass down -any public street. This was the day selected -for the barbarity of tying a harmless cock to a -stake, there to be battered to death by throwing -a stick at it from a certain distance. The -grim humour of the people took this form of -expressing the national hatred to the French, -from the Latin name for the cock, <i>Gallus</i>. It -was in truth a barbarous pun.</p> - -<p class='c007'>With abundant wealth and means of happiness, -the people fell far short of what we should -consider comfort now. Life and liberty were -cheap, and a prevalent Deism or Atheism was -united to a wild licentiousness of manners, brutalising -all classes of society. For the most -part, the Church of England had so shamefully -forgotten or neglected her duty—this is admitted -now by all her most ardent ministers—while -the Noncomformists had sunk generally -into so cold an indifferentism in devotion, and -so hard and sceptical a frame in theology, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>every interest in the land was surrendered to -profligacy and recklessness, and, in thoughtful -minds, to despair. Society in general was -spiritually dead. The literature of England, -with two or three famous exceptions, suffered a -temporary eclipse. Such as it was, it was perverted -from all high purposes, and was utterly -alien to all purity and moral dignity. A good -idea of the moral tone of the times might be -obtained by running the eye over a few volumes -of the old plays of this period, many of -them even written by ladies; it is amazing to -us now to think not only that they could be -tolerated, but even applauded. The gaols were -filled with culprits; but this did not prevent the -heaths, moors, and forests from swarming with -highwaymen, and the cities with burglars. In -the remote regions of England, such as Cornwall -in the west, Yorkshire and Northumberland -in the north, and especially in the midland -Staffordshire, the manners were wild and savage, -passing all conception and description. -We have to conceive of a state of society divested -of all the educational, philanthropic, and -benevolent activities of modern times. There -were no Sunday-schools, and few day-schools; -here and there, some fortunate neighbourhood -possessed a grammar-school from some old -foundation. Or, perhaps some solitary chapel, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>retreating into a bye-lane in the metropolitan -city, or the country town, or, more probably, -far away from any town, stood at some confluence -of roads, a monument of old intolerance; -but, as we said, religious life was in fact dead, -or lying in a trance.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As to the religious teachers of those times, -we know of no period in our history concerning -which it might so appropriately be said, in the -words of the prophet, “The pastors” are “become -brutish, and have not sought the Lord.” -In the life of a singular man, but not a good one, -Thomas Lord Lyttleton, in a letter dated 1775, -we have a most graphic portrait of a country -clergyman, a friend of Lyttleton, who went by -the designation of “Parson Adams.” We suppose -him to be no bad representative of the average -parson of that day—coarse, profane, jocular, -irreligious. On a Saturday evening he told -Lyttleton, his host, that he should send his -flocks to grass on the approaching Sabbath. -“The next morning,” says Lyttleton, “we -hinted to him that the company did not wish -to restrain him from attending the Divine service -of the parish; but he declared that it -would be adding contempt to neglect if, when -he had absented himself from his own church -he should go to any other. This curious etiquette -he strictly observed; and we passed a Sabbath -contrary, I fear, both to law and to gospel.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>If we desire to obtain some knowledge of -what the Church of England was, as represented -by her clergy when George III. was king, -we should go to her own records; and for the -later years of his reign, notably to the life of -that learned, active, and amiable man, Dr. -Blomfield, Bishop of London, whose memory -was a wonderful repository of anecdotes, not -tending to elevate the clergy of those times in -popular estimation. Intoxication was a vice -very characteristic of the cloth: on one occasion -the bishop reproved one of his Chester -clergy for drunkenness: he replied, “But, my -lord, I never was drunk on duty.” “On duty!” -exclaimed the bishop; “and pray, sir, when is -a clergyman not on duty?” “True,” said the -other; “my lord, I never thought of that.” -The bishop went into a poor man’s cottage in -one of the valleys in the Lake district, and -asked whether his clergyman ever visited him. -The poor man replied that he did very frequently. -The bishop was delighted, and expressed -his gratification at this pastoral oversight; -and this led to the discovery that -there were a good many foxes on the hills -behind the house, which gave the occasion for -the frequency of calls which could scarcely be -considered pastoral. The chaplain and son-in-law -of Bishop North examined candidates for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>orders in a tent on a cricket-field, he being -engaged as one of the players; the chaplain of -Bishop Douglas examined whilst shaving; -Bishop Watson never resided in his diocese -during an episcopate of thirty-four years.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And those who preached seem rarely to have -been of a very edifying order of preachers; -Bishop Blomfield used to relate how, in his -boyhood, when at Bury St. Edmund’s, the Marquis -of Bristol had given a number of scarlet -cloaks to some poor old women; they all appeared -at church on the following Sunday, resplendent -in their new and bright array, and -the clergyman made the donation of the marquis -the subject of his discourse, announcing -his text with a graceful wave of his hand towards -the poor old bodies who were sitting there -all together: “Even Solomon, in all his glory, -was not arrayed like one of these!” This -worthy seems to have been very capable of -such things: on another occasion a dole of potatoes -was distributed by the local authorities -in Bury, and this also was improved in a sermon. -“He had himself,” the bishop says, “a -very corpulent frame, and pompous manner, -and a habit of rolling from side to side while he -delivered himself of his breathing thoughts and -burning words; on the occasion of the potato -dole, he chose for his singularly appropriate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>text (Exodus xvi. 15): ‘And when the children -of Israel saw it, they said one to another, -It is manna;’ and thence he proceeded to -discourse to the recipients of the potatoes on -the warning furnished by the Israelites against -the sin of gluttony, and the wickedness of taking -more than their share.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>When that admirable man, Mr. Shirley, began -his evangelistic ministry as the friend and -coadjutor of his cousin, the Countess of Huntingdon, -a curate went to the archbishop to -complain of his unclerical proceedings: “Oh, -your grace, I have something of great importance -to communicate; it will astonish you!” -“Indeed, what can it be?” said the archbishop. -“Why, my lord,” replied he, throwing into his -countenance an expression of horror, and expecting -the archbishop to be petrified with astonishment, -“he actually wears white stockings!” -“Very unclerical indeed,” said the archbishop, -apparently much surprised; he drew -his chair near to the curate, and with peculiar -earnestness, and in a sort of confidential whisper, -said, “Now tell me—I ask this with peculiar -feelings of interest—does Mr. Shirley wear -them over his boots?” “Why, no, your grace, -I cannot say he does.” “Well, sir, the first -time you ever hear of Mr. Shirley wearing them -over his boots, be so good as to warn me, and -I shall know how to deal with him!”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>We would not, on the other hand, be unjust. -We may well believe that there were hamlets -and villages where country clergymen realised -their duties and fulfilled them, and not only deserved -all the merit of Goldsmith’s charming -picture,<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c012'><b>[2]</b></a> but were faithful ministers of the New -Testament too. But our words and illustrations -refer to the average character presented -to us by the Church; and this, again, is illustrated -by the vehement hostility presented on -all hands to the first indications of the Great -Revival. For instance, the Rev. Dr. Thomas -Church, Vicar of Battersea, in a well-known -sermon on charity schools, deplored and denounced -the enormous wickedness of the times; -after saying, “Our streets are grievously infested; -every day we see the most dreadful -confusions, daring villanies, dangers, and mischiefs, -arising from the want of sentiments of -piety,” he continues: “For our own sakes and -our posterity’s everything should be encouraged -which will contribute to suppressing these evils, -and keep the poor from stealing, lying, drunkenness, -cruelty, or taking God’s name in vain. -While we feel our disease, ’tis madness to set -aside any remedy which has power to check its -fury.” Having said this, with a perfectly startling -inconsistency he turns round, and addressing -himself to Wesley and the Methodists, he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>says, “We cannot but regard you as our most -dangerous enemies.”</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f2'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-b'>B</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>When the Great Revival arose, the Church of -England set herself, everywhere, in full array -against it; she possessed but few great minds. -The massive intellects of Butler and Berkeley -belonged to the immediately preceding age. -The most active intellect on the bench of bishops -was, no doubt, that of Warburton; and it -is sad to think that he descended to a tone of -scurrility and injustice in his attack on Wesley, -which, if worthy of his really quarrelsome temper, -was altogether unworthy of his position -and his powers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, whether we derive our impressions -from the so-called Church of that time, or from -society at large, we obtain the evidences of a -deplorable recklessness of all ordinary principles -of religion, honour, or decorum. Bishop -Butler had written, in the “Advertisement” to -his <i>Analogy</i>, and he appears to have been referring -to the clerical and educated opinion of -his time: “It is come, I know not how, to be -taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity -is not so much as a subject of inquiry; -but that it is, now at length, discovered to be -fictitious;” and he wrote his great work for the -purpose of arguing the reasonableness of the -christian religion, even on the principles of the -Deism prevalent everywhere around him in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>Church and society. Addison had declared -that there was “less appearance of religion in -England than in any neighbouring state or -kingdom, whether Protestant or Catholic;” and -Montesquieu came to the country, and having -made his notes, published, probably with some -French exaggeration, that there was “no religion -in England, and that the subject, if mentioned -in society, excited nothing but laughter.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such was the state of England, when, as we -must think, by the special providence of God, -the voices were heard crying in the wilderness. -From the earlier years of the last century they -continued sounding with such clearness and -strength, from the centre to the remotest -corners of the kingdom; from, the coasts, -where the Cornish wrecker pursued his strange -craft of crime, along all the highways and -hedges, where rudeness and violence of every -description made their occasions for theft, outrage, -and cruelty, until the whole English nation -became, as if instinctively, alive with a -new-born soul, and not in vision, but in reality, -something was beheld like that seen by the -prophet in the valley of vision—dry bones -clothed with flesh, and standing up “an exceeding -great army,” no longer on the side of -corruption and death, but ready with song and -speech, and consistent living, to take their -place on the side of the Lord.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span> - <h2 id='ch02' class='c004'>CHAPTER II<br /> <br /><span class='small'>FIRST STREAKS OF DAWN.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>In the history of the circumstances which -brought about the Great Revival, we must not -fail to notice those which were in action even before -the great apostles of the Revival appeared. -We have already given what may almost be -called a silhouette of society, an outline, for -the most part, all dark; and yet in the same -period there were relieving tints, just as sometimes, -upon a silhouette-portrait, you have seen -an attempt to throw in some resemblance to -the features by a touch of gold.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Chief among these is one we do not remember -ever to have seen noticed in this connection—the -curious invasion of our country by the -French at the close of the seventeenth century. -That cruel exodus which poured itself upon -our shores in the great and even horrible persecution -of the Protestants of France, when the -blind bigotry of Louis XIV. revoked the Edict -of Nantes, was to us, as a nation, a really incalculable -blessing. It is quite singular, in reading -Dr. Smiles’s <i>Huguenots</i>, to notice the large -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>variety of names of illustrious exiles, eminent for -learning, science, character, and rank, who found -a refuge here. The folly of the King of France -expelled the chief captains of industry; they -came hither and established their manufactures -in different departments, creating and carrying -on new modes of industry. Also great numbers -of Protestant clergymen settled here, and -formed respectable French churches; some of -the most eminent ministers of our various denominations -at this moment are descendants -of those men. Their descendants are in our -peerage; they are on our bench of bishops; -they are at the bar; they stand high in the -ranks of commerce. At the commencement -of the eighteenth century, their ancestors were -settled on English shores; in all instances -men who had fled from comfort and domestic -peace, in many instances from affluence and -fame, rather than be false to their conscience -or to their Saviour. The cruelties of that dreadful -persecution which banished from France -almost every human element it was desirable -to retain in it, while they were, no doubt, there -the great ultimate cause of the French Revolution, -brought to England what must have been -even as the very seasoning of society, the salt -of our earth in the subsequent age of corruption. -Most of the children of these men -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>were brought up in the discipline of religious -households, such as that which Sir Samuel -Romilly—himself one of the descendants of an -earlier band of refugees. Dr. Watts’s mother -was a child of a French exile. Clusters of -them grew up in many neighbourhoods in the -country, notably in Southampton, Norwich, -Canterbury, in many parts of London, where -Spitalfields especially was a French colony. -When the Revival commenced, these were -ready to aid its various movements by their -character and influence. Some fell into the -Wesleyan ranks, though, probably, most, like -the eminent scholar and preacher, William -Romaine, one of the sons of the exile, maintained -the more Calvinistic faith, reflecting -most nearly the old creed of the Huguenot.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This surmise of the influence of that noble -invasion upon the national well-being of Britain -is justified by inference from the facts. It -is very interesting to attempt to realise the -religious life of eminent activity and usefulness -sustained in different parts of the country before -the Revival dawned, and which must have -had an influence in fostering it when it arose. -And, indeed, while we would desire to give all -grateful honour to the extraordinary men (especially -to such a man as John Wesley, who -achieved so much through a life in which the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>length and the usefulness were equal to each -other, since only when he died did he cease to -animate by his personal influence the immense -organisation he had formed), yet it seems really -impossible to regard any one mind as the seed -and source of the great movement. It was as -if some cyclone of spiritual power swept all -round the nation—or, as if a subtle, unseen train -had been laid by many men, simultaneously, in -many counties, and the spark was struck, and -the whole was suddenly wrapped in a Divine -flame.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Dr. Abel Stevens, in his most interesting, -indeed, charming history of Methodism, from -his point of view, gives to his own beloved -leader and Church the credit of the entire -movement; so also does Mr. Tyerman, in his -elaborate life of Wesley. But this is quite -contrary to all dispassionate dealing with -facts; there were many men and many means -in quiet operation, some of these even before -Wesley was born, of which his prehensile mind -availed itself to draw them into his gigantic -work; and there were many which had operated, -and continued to operate, which would not -fit themselves into his exact, and somewhat -exacting, groove of Church life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We have said it was as if a cyclone of spiritual -power were steadily sweeping round the minds -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>of men and nations, for there were undoubted -gusts of remarkable spiritual life in both hemispheres, -at least fifty years before Methodism -had distinctly asserted itself as a fact. Most -remarkable was the “Great Awakening” in -America, in Massachusetts—especially at -Northampton (that is a remarkable story, which -will always be associated with the name of -Jonathan Edwards).<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c012'><b>[3]</b></a> We have referred to the -exodus of the persecuted from France; equally -remarkable was another exodus of persecuted -Protestants from Salzburg, in Austria. The -madness of the Church of Rome again cast -forth an immense host of the holiest and most -industrious citizens. At the call of conscience -they marched forth in a body, taking joyfully -the spoiling of their goods rather than disavow -their faith: such men with their families are a -treasure to any nation amongst whom they may -settle. Thomas Carlyle has paid a glowing -historical eulogy to the memory of these men, -and the exodus has furnished Goethe with the -subject of one of his most charming poems.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f3'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span>See Appendix <a href='#app-c'>C</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Philip Doddridge’s work was almost done before -the Methodist movement was known. It -seems to us that no adequate honour has ever yet -been paid to that most beautiful and remarkably -inclusive life. It was public, it was known -and noticed, but it was passed almost in retreat -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>in Northampton. That he was a preacher and -pastor of a Church was but a slight portion of -the life which succumbed, yet in the prime of -his days, to consumption. His academy for -the education of young ministers seems to us, -even now, something like a model of what such -an academy should be; his lectures to his students -are remarkably full and scholarly and -complete. From thence went forth men like -the saintly Risdon Darracott, the scholarly and -suggestive Hugh Farmer, Benjamin Fawcett, -and Andrew Kippis. The hymns of Doddridge -were among the earliest, as they are still -among the sweetest, of that kind of offering to -our modern Church; their clear, elevated, -thrush-like sweetness, like the more uplifted -seraphic trumpet tones of Watts, broke in upon -a time when there was no sacred song worthy -of the name in the Church, and anticipated the -hour when the melodious acclamations of the -people should be one of the most cherished elements -of Christian service.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id003'> -<img src='images/i01-page-30-isaacwatts.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>ISAAC WATTS.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>And Isaac Watts was, by far, the senior of -Doddridge; he lived very much the life of a -hermit. Although the pastor of a city church, -he was sequestered and withdrawn from public -life in Theobalds, or Stoke Newington, where, -however, he prosecuted a course of sacred labor -of a marvellously manifold description, inter-meddling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>with every kind of learning, and consecrating -it all to the great end of the christian -ministry and the producing of books, which, -whether as catechisms for children, treatises for -the formation of mental character, philosophic -essays grappling with the difficulties of scholarly -minds, or “comfortable words” to “rock -the cradle of declining age,” were all to become -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>of value when the nation should awake to a real -spiritual power. They are mostly laid aside -now; but they have served more than one -generation well; and he, beyond question, was -the first who taught the Protestant Christian -Church in England to sing. His hymns and -psalms were sounding on when John Wesley -was yet a child, and numbers of them were appropriated -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>in the first Methodist hymn-book. -But Watts and Doddridge, by the conditions -of their physical and mental being, were unfitted -for popular leaders. Perhaps, also, it must -be admitted that they had not that which has -been called the “instinct for souls;” they were -concerned rather to illustrate and expound the -truth of God, and to “adorn the doctrine of -God our Saviour,” by their lives, than to flash -new convictions into the hearts of men. It is -characteristic that, good and great as they -were, they were both at first inimical to the -Great Revival; it seemed to them a suspicious -movement. The aged Watts cautioned his -younger friend Doddridge against encouraging -it, especially the preaching of Whitefield; yet -they both lived to give their whole hearts to it; -and some of Watts’s last words were in blessing, -when, near death, he received a visit from the -great evangelist.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i02-page-31-philipdoddridge.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>PHILIP DODDRIDGE.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Thus we need to notice a little carefully the -age immediately preceding the rise of what we -call Methodism, in order to understand what -Methodism really effected; we have seen that -the dreadful condition of society was not inconsistent -with the existence over the country of -eminently holy men, and of even hallowed -christian families and circles. If space allowed, -it would be very pleasant to step into, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>sketch the life of many an interior; and it would -scarcely be a work of fancy, but of authentic -knowledge. There were yet many which almost -retained the character of Puritan households, -and among them several baronial halls. -Nor ought we to forget that those consistent: -and high-minded Christian folk, the Quakers -[Friends], were a much larger body then than -now, although, like the Shunammite lady, they -especially dwelt among their own people. The -Moravians also were in England; but all existed -like little scattered hamlet patches of spiritual -life; they were respectably conservative of their -own usages. Methodism brought enthusiasm -to religion, and the instinct for souls, united to -a power of organisation hitherto unknown to -the religious life.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i03-page-33-doddridgehouse.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>Doddridge’s House, Northampton.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>At what hour shall we fix the earliest dawn -of the Great Revival? Among the earliest -tints of the “morning spread upon the mountains,” -which was to descend into the valley, and -illuminate all the plains, was the conversion of -that extraordinary woman, Selina Shirley, the -Countess of Huntingdon; it is scarcely too -much to call her the Mother of the Revival; it -is not too much to apply to her the language of -the great Hebrew song—“The inhabitants of -the villages ceased, they ceased until that I -arose: I arose a mother in Israel.” She illustrates -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>the difference of which we spoke just -now, for there can be no doubt that she had a -passionate instinct for souls, to do good to -souls, to save souls. Her injunctions for the -destruction of all her private papers have been -so far complied with as to leave the earlier history -of her mind, and the circumstances which -brought about her conversion, for the most part -unknown. It is certain that she was on terms -of intimate friendship with both Watts and -Doddridge, but especially with Doddridge. -Another intimate friend of the Countess was -Watts’s very close friend, the Duchess of Somerset; -and thus the links of the story seem to -run, like that old and well-known instance of -communicated influence, when Andrew found -his own brother, Simon, and these in turn found -Philip and Nathaniel. It was very natural that, -beholding the state of society about her, she -should be interested, first, as it seems, for those -of her own order; it was at a later time, when -she became acquainted with Whitefield, that he -justified her drawing-room assemblies, by reminding -her—not, perhaps, with exact critical -propriety—of the text in Galatians, where Paul -mentioned how he preached “privately to those -of reputation.”<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c012'><b>[4]</b></a> For some time this appears to -have been the aim of the good Countess, much in -accordance with that pretty saying of hers, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>“there was a text in which she blessed God for -the insertion of the letter M: ‘not <i>m</i>any noble.’” -The beautiful Countess was a heroine in her -own line from the earliest days of her conversion. -Belonging to one of the noblest families -of England, she had an entrance to the highest -circles, and her heart felt very pitiful for, especially, -the women of fashion around her, brokenhearted -with disappointment, or sick with <i>ennui</i>.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f4'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-d'>D</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Among these was Sarah, the great Duchess -of Marlborough, apparently one of the intimate -friends of the Countess; her letters are most -characteristic. She mentions that the Duchess -of Ancaster, Lady Townshend, and others, -had just heard Mr. Whitefield preach, and -“What they said of the sermon has made me -lament ever since that I did not hear it; it -might have been the means of doing me some -good, for good, alas! I do want; but where -among the corrupt sons and daughters of Adam -am I to find it?” She goes on: “Dear, good -Lady Huntingdon, I have no comfort in my -own family; I hope you will shortly come and -see me; I always feel more happy and more -contented after an hour’s conversation with -you; when alone, my reflections and recollection -almost kill me. Now there is Lady Frances -Saunderson’s great rout to-morrow night; -all the world will be there, and I must go. I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>hate that woman as much as I hate a physician, -but I must go, if for no other purpose than to -mortify and spite her. This is very wicked, I -know, but I confess all my little peccadilloes to -you, for I know your goodness will lead you to -be mild and forgiving; and perhaps my wicked -heart may gain some good from you in the end.” -And then she closes her note with some remarks -on “that crooked, perverse little wretch -at Twickenham,” by which pleasant designation -she means the poet, Pope.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another, and another order of character, was -the Duchess of Buckingham; she came to hear -Whitefield preach in the drawing-room, and -was quite scandalised. In a letter to the -Countess, she says, “The doctrines are most -repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence: -it is monstrous to be told that you have -a heart as sinful as the common wretches that -crawl the earth; this is highly offensive and -insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your -ladyship should relish any sentiments so much -at variance with high rank and good breeding.” -Such were some of the materials the Countess -attempted to gather in her drawing-rooms, if -possible to cure the aching of empty hearts. If -the two duchesses met together, it is very likely -they would be antipathetic to each other; a -prouder old lady than Sarah, the English empire -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>did not contain, but she was proud that -she was the wife and widow of the great Marlborough. -The Duchess of Buckingham was -equally proud that she was the natural daughter -of James II. When her son, the Duke of -Buckingham, died, she sent to the old Duchess -of Marlborough to borrow the magnificent car -which had borne John Churchill’s body to the -Abbey, and the fiery old Duchess sent her back -word, “It had carried Lord Marlborough, and -should never be profaned by any other corpse.” -The message was not likely to act as an <i>entente -cordiale</i> in such society as we have described.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The mention of these names will show the -reader that we are speaking of a time when the -Revival had not wrought itself into a great -movement. The Countess continued to make -enthusiastic efforts for those of her own order—we -are afraid, with a few distinguished exceptions, -without any great amount of success; -but certainly, were it possible for us to look -into the drawing-room in South Audley Street, -in those closing years of the reign of George II., -we might well be astonished at the brilliancy -of the concourse, and the finding ourselves -in the company of some of the most distinguished -names of the highest rank and fashion -of the period. It was the age of that cold, sardonic -sneerer, Horace Walpole; he writes to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>Florence, to his friend Sir Horace Mann, in his -scoffing fashion: “If you ever think of returning -to England, you must prepare yourself with -Methodism; this sect increases as fast as almost -any religious nonsense ever did; Lady Fanny -Shirley has chosen this way of bestowing the -dregs of her beauty, and Lyttleton is very near -making the same sacrifice of the dregs of all -those various characters that he has worn. The -Methodists love your big sinners as proper subjects -to work upon, and indeed they have a -plentiful harvest.” Then he satirises Lady -Ferrars, whom he styles “General, my Lady -Dowager Ferrars.” But, indeed, it is impossible -to enumerate the names of all, or any proportion -of the number who attended this brilliant -circle. Sometimes unhappy events took place; -Mr. Whitefield was sometimes too dreadfully, -although unconsciously, faithful. Lady Rockingham, -who really seems to have been inclined -to do good, begged the Countess to permit -her to bring the Countess of Suffolk, well -known as the powerful mistress of George II. -Whitefield “knew nothing of the matter;” but -some arrow “drawn at a venture,” and which -probably might have as well fitted many -another lady about the court or in that very -room, exactly hit the Countess. However -much she fidgeted with irritation, she sat out -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>the service in silence; but, as soon as it was -over, the beautiful fury burst forth in all the -stormful speech of a termagant or virago. She -abused Lady Huntingdon; she declared that -the whole service had been a premeditated -attack upon herself. Her relatives, Lady Bertie, -the celebrated Lady Betty Germain, the -Duchess of Ancaster, one of the most beautiful -women in England, and who, afterwards, with -the Duchess of Hamilton, conducted the future -queen of George III. to England’s shores, expostulated -with her, commanded her to be -silent, and attempted to explain her mistake; -they insisted that she should apologise to Lady -Huntingdon for her behaviour, and, in an ungracious -manner, she did so; but we learn that -she never honoured the assembly again with -her presence.</p> - -<p class='c007'>What a singular assembly from time to time! -the square dark face of that old gentleman, -painfully hobbling in on his crutched stick—face -once as handsome as that of St. John, now -the disappointed, moody features of the massive, -but sceptical intelligence of Bolingbroke; -poor worn-out old Chesterfield, cold and courtly, -yet seeming so genial and humane, coming -again and again, and yet again; those reckless -wits, and leaders of the <i>ton</i> and all high -society, Bubb Doddington, afterwards Lord -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>Melcombe, and George Selwyn; the Duchess of -Montague, with her young daughter; Lady -Cardigan, often there, if her mother, Sarah -of Marlborough, were but seldom a visitor. -Charles Townshend, the great minister, often -came; and his friend, Lord Lyttleton, who -really must have been in sympathy with some -of the objects of the assembly, if we may judge -from his <i>Essay on the Conversion of St. Paul</i>, a -piece of writing which will never lose its value. -There you might have seen even the great -commoner, William Pitt, afterwards Earl of -Chatham; but we can understand why he would -be there to listen to the manifold notes of an -eloquence singularly resembling, in many particulars, -his own. And, in fact, where such persons -were present, we might be sure that the -entire nobility of the country was represented. -It might be tempting to loiter amidst these -scenes a little longer. It was an experiment -made by the Countess; she probably found it -almost a failure, and, in the course of a few -years, turned her attention to the larger ideas -connected with the evangelisation of England, -and the training of young men for the work of -the ministry. She long outlived all those -brilliant hosts she had gathered round her in -the prime of life. But we cannot doubt that -some good was effected by this preaching to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>“people of reputation.” Courtiers like Walpole -sneered, but it saved the movement to a -great degree, when it became popular, from -being suspected as the result of political faction; -and probably, as all these nobles and -gentry passed away to their various country -seats, when they heard of the preachers in -their neighbourhoods, and received the complaints -of the bishops and their clergy, with -some contempt for the messengers, they were -able to feel, and to say, that there was nothing -much more dreadful than the love of God and -His good will to men in their message.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It seems a very sudden leap from the saloons -of the West End to a Lincolnshire kitchen; but -in the kitchen of that most romantic old vicarage -of Epworth, it has been truly said, the -most vigorous form of Methodism had its origin. -There, at the close of the seventeenth century, -and the commencement of the eighteenth, -lived and laboured old Samuel Wesley, the -father of John and Charles Wesley. Samuel -was in every sense a wonderful man, more wonderful -than most people know, though Mr. -Tyerman has done his best to set him forth in -a very clear and pleasant light, in his very entertaining -biography. Scholar, preacher, pastor, -and poet was Samuel Wesley; he led a life full -of romantic incident, and full of troubles, of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>which the two most notable are debts and -ghosts: debts, we must say, in passing, which -had more to do with unavoidable calamity -than with any personal imprudence. The -good man would have been shocked, and have -counted it one of his sorest troubles, could he, -in some real horoscope, have forecast what -“Jackey,” his son John, was to be. But it was -his wife, Susannah Wesley, patient housewife, -much-enduring, much-suffering woman, Mary -and Martha in one, saint as sacredly sweet as -any who have seemed worthy of a place in any -calendar of saints, Catholic or Protestant, -mother of children, all of whom were remarkable—two -of them wonderful, and a third highly -eminent—it was Susannah Wesley, whose -instinct for souls led her to look abroad over all -the parish in which she lived, with a tender, -spiritual affection; in her husband’s absence, -turning the large kitchen into a church, inviting -her poor neighbours into it, and, somewhat -at first to the distress of her husband, preaching -to and praying with them there. This brief -reference can only memorialise her name; read -John Kirk’s little volume, and learn to love -and revere “the mother of the Wesleys!” The -freedom and elevation of her religious life, and -her practical sagacity, it is not difficult to see, -must have given hints and ideas which took -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>shape and body in the large movement of which -her son John came to be regarded, and is still -regarded, as the patriarch. Thus Isaac Taylor -says, “The Wesleys’ mother was the mother -of Methodism in a religious and moral sense, -for her courage, her submissiveness to authority, -the high tone of her mind, its independence, -and its self-control, the warmth of her devotional -feelings, and the practical direction given -to them, came up, and were visibly repeated -in the character and conduct of her sons.” -Later on in life she became one of the wisest -advisers of her son, in his employment of the -auxiliaries to his own usefulness. Perhaps, if -we could see spirits as they are, we might see -in this woman a higher and loftier type of life -than in either of those who first received life -from her bosom; some of her quiet words have -all the passion and sweetness of Charles’s -hymns. Our space will not permit many quotations, -but take the following words, and the -sweet meditation in prose of the much-enduring, -and often patiently suffering lady in the -old world country vicarage, which read like -many of her son’s notes in verse: “If to esteem -and have the highest reverence for Thee; if -constantly and sincerely to acknowledge Thee -the supreme, and only desirable good, be to love -Thee, <span class='sc'>I do love Thee</span>! If to rejoice in Thy essential -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>majesty and glory; if to feel a vital joy -overspread and cheer the heart at each perception -of Thy blessedness, at every thought that -Thou art God, and that all things are in Thy -power; that there is none superior or equal to -Thee, be to love Thee, <span class='sc'>I do love Thee</span>! If -comparatively to despise and undervalue all the -world contains, which is esteemed great, fair, -or good; if earnestly and constantly to desire -Thee, Thy favour, Thy acceptance, Thyself, -rather than any, or all things Thou hast created, -be to love Thee, <span class='sc'>I do love Thee</span>!” At length -she died as she had lived, her last words to her -sons breathing the spirit of her singular life: -“Children, as soon as I am released, sing a -psalm of praise to God!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, from the polite circles of London, from -the obscure old farm-like vicarage, the rude and -rough old English home, events were preparing -themselves. John Wesley was born in 1703; -the Countess of Huntingdon in 1707: near in -their birth time, how far apart the scenery and -the circumstances in which their eyes first -opened to the light. Whitefield was born -later, amidst the still less auspicious scenery of -the old Bell Inn, at Gloucester, in 1714. These -were undoubtedly among the foremost names -in the great palpitation of thought, feeling, and -holy action the country was to experience. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>Future chapters will show a number of other -names, which were simultaneously coming -forth and educating for the great conflict. So -it has always been, and singularly so, as illustrating -the order of Providence, and the way in -which it gives a new personality to the men -whom it designs to aid its purposes. In every -part of the country, all unknown to each other, -in families separated by position and taste, by -birth and circumstances, a band of workers was -preparing to produce an entire moral change in -the features of the country.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span> - <h2 id='ch03' class='c004'>CHAPTER III<br /> <br /><span class='small'>OXFORD: NEW LIGHTS AND OLD LANTERNS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>It is remarkable that one of the very earliest -movements of the new evangelical succession -should manifest itself in Oxford—many minded -Oxford—whose distant spires and antique towers -have looked down through so many ages -upon the varying opinions which have surged -up around and within her walls. Lord Bacon -has somewhere said that the opinions, feelings, -and thoughts of the young men of any present -generation forecast the whole popular mind of -the future age. No remark can be more true, -as exhibited generally in fact. Thus it is not -too much to say that Oxford has usually been -a barometer of coming opinions: either by her -adhesion or antagonism to them, she has indicated -the pathway of the nearing weather, either -for calm or storm. It was so in the dark ages, -with the old scholastic philosophy; it was so -in the times immediately succeeding them: in -our own day, the great Tractarian movement, -with all its influences Rome-ward, arose in -Oxford; later still, the strong tendencies of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>high intellectual infidelity, and denial of the -sacred prerogatives and rights of the Holy -Scriptures, sent forth some of their earliest -notes from Oxford. Oxford has been likened -to the magnificent conservatory at Chatsworth, -where art combines with nature, and achieves -all that wealth and taste could command; -but the air is heavy and close, and rich as -the forms and colours are around the spectator, -there is depression and repression, even -a sense of oppression, upon the spirits, and we -are glad to escape into the breezy chase, and -among the old trees again. This is hardly -true of Oxford; no doubt the air is hushed, and -the influences combine to weigh down the mere -visitor by a sense of the hoariness of the past, -and the black antiquity and frost of ages; but -somehow there is a mind in Oxford which is -always alive—not merely a scholarly knowledge, -but a subtle apprehension of the coming -winds—even as certain creatures forebode and -know the coming storm before the rain falls or -the thunder rolls.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We may presume that most of our readers -are acquainted with the designation, “the Oxford -Methodists;” but, perhaps, some are not -aware that the term was applied to a cluster of -young students, who, in a time when the university -was delivered over to the usual dissoluteness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>and godless indifference of the age, -met together in each other’s rooms for the -purpose of sustaining each other in the determination -to live a holy life, and to bring their -mutual help to the reading and opening of the -Word of God. From different parts of the -country they met together there; when they -went forth, their works, their spheres were -different; but the power and the beauty of the -old college days seem to have accompanied -them through life; they realised the Divine life -as a real power from that commencement to the -close of their career, although it is equally -interesting to notice how the framework of -their opinions changed. Some of their names -are comparatively unknown now, but John and -Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and James -Hervey, are well known; nor is John Gambold -unknown, nor Benjamin Ingham, who married -into the family of the Countess of Huntingdon, -of whom we will speak a little more particularly -when we visit the wild Yorkshire of those days; -nor Morgan of Christ Church, whose influence -is described as the most beautiful of all, a -young man of delicate constitution and intense -enthusiasm, who visited and talked with the -prisoners in the neighbourhood, visited the -cottages around to read and pray, left his -memory as a blessing upon his companions, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>and was very early called away to his reward. -This obscure life seems to have been one most -honoured in that which came to be called by -the wits of Oxford, “The Holy Club.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was just about this time that Voltaire was -predicting that, in the next generation, Christianity -would be overthrown and unknown -throughout the whole civilised world. Christianity -has lived through, and long outlived -many such predictions. Voltaire had said, “It -took twelve men to set up Christianity; it -would only take one” (conceitedly referring to -himself) “to overthrow it;” but the work of -those whom he called the “twelve men” is -still of some account in the world—their words -are still of some authority, and there are very few -people on the face of the earth at this moment -who know much of, and fewer still who care -much for the wit of the vain old infidel. That -Voltaire’s prediction was not fulfilled, under -the Providential influence of that Divine Spirit -who never leaves us in our low estate, was greatly -owing to this obscure and despised “Holy -Club” of Oxford. These young men were feeling -their way, groping, as they afterwards admitted, -and somewhat in the dark, after those -experiences, which, as they were to be assurances -to themselves, should be also their most -certain means of usefulness to others.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>They were also called Methodists. It is -singular, but neither the precise etymology nor -the first appropriation of the term Methodist -has, we believe, ever been distinctly or satisfactorily -settled. Some have derived it from -an allusion in Juvenal to a quack physician, -some to a passage from the writings of Chrysostom, -who says, “to be a methodist is to be -beguiled,” and which was employed in a -pamphlet against Mr. Whitefield. Like some -other phrases, it is not easy to settle its first -import or importation into our language. Certainly -it is much older than the times to which -this book especially refers. It seems to be -even contemporary with the term Puritan, -since we find Spencer, the librarian of Sion -College under Cromwell, writing, “Where are -now our Anabaptists and plain pack-staff -Methodists, who esteem all flowers of rhetoric -in sermons no better than stinking weeds?” A -writer in the <i>British Quarterly</i> tells a curious -story how once in a parish church in Huntingdonshire, -he was listening to a clergyman, -notorious alike by his private character and -vehement intolerance, who was entertaining -his audience, on a week evening, by a discourse -from the text, Ephesians iv. 14, “Whereby -they lie in wait to deceive.” He said to his -people, “Now, you do not know Greek; I know -<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>Greek, and I am going to tell you what this -text really says; it says, ‘they lie in wait to -make you Methodists.’ The word used here is -<i>Methodeian</i>, that is really the word that is used, -and that is really what Paul said, ‘They lie in -wait to make you Methodists’—a Methodist -means a deceiver, and one who deludes, cheats, -and beguiles.” The Grecian scholar was a -little at fault in his next allusion, for he proceeded -to quote that other text, “We are -not ignorant of his devices,” and seemed to be -under the impression that “device” was the -same word as that on which he had expended -his criticism. “Now,” said he, “you may be -ignorant, because you do not know Greek, but -we are not ignorant of his devices, that is, of -his methods, his deceivers, that is, his Methodists.” -In such empty wit and ignorant punning -it is very likely that the term had its origin.</p> - -<p class='c007'>John Wesley passed through a long, singular, -and what we may call a parti-coloured experience, -before his mind came out into the -light. In those days his mind was a singular -combination of High Churchism, amounting to -what we should call Ritualism now, and mysticism, -both of which influences he brought -from Epworth: the first from his father, the -second from the strong fascination of the writings -of William Law. He found, however, in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>the “Holy Club” that which helped him. He -tells us how, when at Epworth, he travelled -many miles to see a “serious man,” and to take -counsel from him. “Sir,” said this person, as -if the right word were given to him at the right -moment, exactly meeting the necessities of the -man standing before him, “Sir, you wish to -serve God and to go to heaven: remember you -cannot serve Him alone; you must therefore -find companions, or make them. The Bible -knows nothing of solitary religion.” It must -be admitted that the enthusiasm of the mystics -has always been rather personal than social; -but the society at Oxford was almost monastic, -nor is it wonderful that, with the spectacle of -the dissolute life around them, these earnest -men adopted rules of the severest self-denial -and asceticism. John Wesley arrived in Oxford -first in 1720; he left for some time. Returning -home to assist his father, he became, as we -know, to his father’s immense exultation, Fellow -of Lincoln College.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In 1733 George Whitefield arrived at Oxford, -then in his nineteenth year. Like most of this -band, Whitefield was, if not really, comparatively -poor, and dependent upon help to enable -him to pursue his studies; not so poor, perhaps, -as an illustrious predecessor in the same college -(Pembroke), who had left only the year -<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>before, one Samuel Johnson, the state of whose -shoes excited so much commiseration in some -benevolent heart, that a pair of new ones was -placed outside his rooms, only, however, creating -surprise in the morning, when he was seen -indignantly kicking them up and down the -passage. Whitefield was not troubled by such -over-sensitive and delicate feelings; men are -made differently. Johnson’s rugged independence -did its work; and the easy facility and -amiable disposition, which could receive favours -without a sense of degradation, were very -essential to what Whitefield was to be. He, -however, when he came to Oxford, was caught -in the same glamour of mysticism as John Wesley. -But in this case it was Thomas à-Kempis -who had besieged the soul of the young -enthusiast; he was miserable, his life, his heart -and mind were crushed beneath this altogether -inhuman and unattainable standard for salvation. -He was a Quietist—what a paradox!—Whitefield -a Quietist! He was seeking salvation -by works of righteousness which he could -do. He was practising the severest austerities -and renouncing the claims of an external world; -he was living an internal life which God did not -intend should bring to him either rest or calm; -for, in that case, how could he ever have stirred -the deep foundations of universal sympathy?</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>But that heart, whose very mould was tenderness, -was easily called aside by the sight of -suffering; and there is an interesting story, -how, at this time, in one of his walks by the -banks of the river, in such a frame of mind -as we have described, he met a poor woman -whose appearance was discomposed. Naturally -enough, he talked with her, and found that her -husband was in the gaol in Oxford, that she -had run away from home, unable to endure any -longer the crying of her children from hunger, -and that she even then meditated drowning -herself. He gave her immediate relief, but -arranged with her to meet him, and see her -husband together in the evening at the prison. -He appears to have done them both -good, ministering to their temporal necessities; -he prayed with them, brought them to the -knowledge of the grace which saves, and late -on in life he says, “They are both now living, -and I trust will be my joy and crown of rejoicing -in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Happy is -the man to whose life such an incident as this -is given; it calls life away from its dreary -introspections, and sets it upon a trail of outwardness, -which is spiritual health; no one -can attain to much religious happiness until he -knows that he has been the means of good to -some suffering soul. Faith grows in us by the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>revelation that we have been used to do good -to others.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was about this time that Charles Wesley -met Whitefield moodily walking through the -college corridors. The misery of his appearance -struck him, and he invited him to his -rooms to breakfast. The memory of the meeting -never passed away; Charles Wesley refers -to it in his elegy on Whitefield. In a short -time he leaped forth into spiritual freedom, and -almost immediately became, youth as he was, -preacher, and we may almost say, apostle. -The change in his mind seems to have been as -instantaneous and as luminous as Luther’s at -Erfurt. Whitefield was at work, commencing -upon his own great scale, long before the Wesleys. -John had to go to America, and to be -entangled there by his High Church notions; -and then there were his Moravian proclivities, -so that, altogether, years passed by before he -found his way out into a light so clear as to be -able to reflect it on the minds of others.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To some of the members of this “Holy Club,” -we shall not be able to refer again; we must, -therefore, mention them now. Especially is -some reference due to James Hervey; his name -is now rather a legend and tradition than an -active influence in our religious literature; but -how popular once, do not the oldest memories -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>amongst us well know? On some important -points of doctrine he parted company from his -friends and fellow-students, the Wesleys. John -Wesley used to declare that he himself was not -converted till his thirty-seventh year, so that -we must modify any impressions we may have -from similar declarations made by the amiable -Vicar of Weston Favel: the term conversion, -used in such a sense, in all probability means -simply a change in the point of view, an alteration -of opinion, giving a more clear apprehension -of truth. Hervey was always infirm in -health, tall, spectral; and, while possessing a -mind teeming with pleasing and poetic fancies, -and a power of perceiving happy analogies, we -should regard him as singularly wanting in that -fine solvent of all true genius, geniality. Hence, -all his letters read like sermons; but his poor, infirm -frame was the tabernacle of an intensely fervent -soul. Shortly after his settlement in his village -in Northamptonshire he was recommended -by his physician to follow the plough, that he -might receive the scent of the fresh earth; a curious -recommendation, but it led to a conversation -with the ploughman, which completely overturned -the young scholar’s scheme of theology. -The ploughman was a member of the Church -of Dr. Doddridge, afterwards one of Hervey’s -most intimate friends. As they walked together, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>the young minister asked the old -ploughman what he thought was the hardest -thing in religion? The ploughman very respectfully -returned the question. Hervey replied, -“I think the hardest thing in religion is -to deny sinful self,” and he proceeded, at some -length, of course, to dilate upon and expound -the difficulty, from which our readers will see -that, at this time, his mind must have been -under the same influences as those we meet in -<i>The Imitation</i> of Thomas à-Kempis. “No, -sir,” said the old ploughman, “the hardest -thing in religion is to deny righteous self,” and -he proceeded to unfold the principles of his -faith. At the time, Hervey thought the -ploughman a fool, but the conversation was not -forgotten, and he declares that it was this -view of things which created for him a new -creed. Our readers, perhaps, know his <i>Theron -and Aspasia</i>: we owe that book to the conversation -with the ploughman; all its pages, alive -with descriptions of natural scenery, historical -and classical allusion, and glittering with chromatic -fancy through the three thick volumes, -are written for the purpose of unfolding and -enforcing—to put it in old theological phraseology—the -imputed and imparted righteousness -of Christ, the great point of divergence in teaching -between Hervey and John Wesley.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>Thus the term Methodism cannot, any more -than Christianity, be contented with, or contained -in one particular line of opinion. Thus, -for instance, among the members of the “Holy -Club” we find the two Wesleys and others distinctly -Arminian—the apostles of that form of -thought which especially teaches us that we -must attain to the grace of God; while Whitefield -first, and Hervey afterwards, became the -teachers of that doctrine which announces the -irresistible grace of God as that which is outside -of us, and comes down upon us. No doubt -the doctrines were too sharply separated by -their respective leaders. In the ultimate issue, -both believed alike that all was of grace, and -all of God; but experience makes every man’s -point of view; as he feels, so he sees. The -grand thought about all these men in this -Great Revival was that they believed in, and -untiringly and with immense confidence announced, -that which smote upon the minds of -their hearers almost like a new revelation; in -an age of indifference and Deism they declared -that “the grace of God hath appeared unto all -men.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is a very interesting anecdote showing -how, about this time, even the massive and -sardonic intellect of Lord Bolingbroke almost -gave way. He was called upon once by a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>High Church dignitary, his intimate friend, Dr. -Church, Vicar of Battersea, and Prebendary of -St. Paul’s, to whom we have already referred as -from the first opposed to the Revival, and, to -the doctor’s amazement, he found Bolingbroke -reading Calvin’s <i>Institutes</i>. The peer asked -the preacher, the infidel the professed Christian, -what he thought of it. “Oh,” said the -doctor, “we think nothing of such antiquated -stuff; we think it enough to preach the importance -of morality and virtue, and have long -given up all that talk about Divine grace.” -Bolingbroke’s face and eyes were a study at all -times, but we could wish to have seen him turn -in his chair, and fix his eyes on the vicar as he -said: “Look you, doctor. You know I don’t -believe the Bible to be a Divine revelation, but -those who do can never defend it but upon the -principle of the doctrine of Divine grace. To say -the truth, there have been times when I have been -almost persuaded to believe it upon this view of -things; and there is one argument I have felt -which has gone very far with me on behalf of its -authenticity, which is, that the belief in it -exists upon earth even when committed to the -care of such as you, who pretend to believe in -it, and yet deny the only principle upon which -it is defensible.” The worn-out statesman and -hard-headed old peer hit the question of his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>own day, and forecast all the sceptical strife of -ours; for all such questions are summed in one, -Is there supernatural grace, and has that grace -appeared unto men? This was the one faith -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>of all these revivalists. The world was eager -to hear it, for the aching heart of the world -longs to believe that it is true. The conversation -we have recited shows that even Bolingbroke -wished that it might be true.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i04-page-62-westonfavelchurch.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>WESTON FAVEL CHURCH,<br />(<i>Where James Hervey Preached.</i>)</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The new creed of Hervey changed the whole -character of his preaching. The little church -of Weston Favel, a short distance from the -town of Northampton, became quite a shrine -for pilgrimages; he was often compelled to -preach in the churchyard. He was assuredly an -intense lover of natural scenery, a student of -natural theology of the old school. His writing -is now said to be meretricious and gaudy. -One critic says that children will always prefer -a red to a white sugar-plum, and that the tea -is nicer to them when they drink it from a -cup painted with coloured flowers; and this, -perhaps, not unfairly, describes the style of -Hervey; we have prettiness rather than power, -elegant disquisition rather than nervous expression, -which is all the more wonderful, as he -must have been an accomplished Latin scholar. -But he had a mind of gorgeous fullness, and his -splendid conceptions bore him into a train of -what now seem almost glittering extravagances. -Hervey was in the manner of his life -a sickly recluse, and we easily call up the figure -of the old bachelor—for he never married—alternately -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>watching his saucepan of gruel on -the fire, and his favourite microscope on the -study table. He was greatly beloved by the -Countess of Huntingdon, perhaps yet more by -Lady Fanny Shirley—the subject of Walpole’s -sneer. He was, no doubt, the writer of the -movement, and its thoughts in his books must -have seemed like “butter in a lordly dish.” -But his course was comparatively brief; his -work was accomplished at the age of forty-five. -He died in his chair, his last words, “Lord, -now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, -for mine eyes have seen Thy most comfortable -salvation;” shortly after, “The conflict is over; -all is done;” the last words of all, “Precious -salvation.” And so passed away one of the -most amiable and accomplished of all the revivalists.</p> - -<p class='c007'>John Gambold, although ever an excellent -and admirable man, lived the life rather of a -secluded mystic, than that of an active reformer. -He became a minister of the Church of England, -but afterwards left that communion, not -from any dissensions either from the doctrines -or the discipline of the Church, but simply -because he found his spiritual relationships -more in harmony with those of the Moravians, -of whose Church he died a bishop. We presume -few readers are acquainted with his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>poetical works; nor are there many words -among them of remarkable strength. <i>The -Mystery of Life</i> is certainly pleasingly impressive; -and his epitaph on himself deserves -quotation:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Ask not, ‘Who ended here his span?’</div> - <div class='line in1'>His name, reproach, and praise, was Man.</div> - <div class='line in1'>‘Did no great deeds adorn his course?’</div> - <div class='line in1'>No deed of his but showed him worse:</div> - <div class='line in1'>One thing was great, which God supplied,</div> - <div class='line in1'>He suffered human life—and died.</div> - <div class='line in1'>‘What points of knowledge did he gain?’</div> - <div class='line in1'>That life was sacred all—and vain:</div> - <div class='line in1'>‘Sacred, how high? and vain, how low?’</div> - <div class='line in1'>He knew not here, but died to know.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Such were some of the men who went forth -from Oxford. Meantime, as the flame of revival -was spreading, Oxford again starts into singular -notice; how the “Holy Club” escaped -official censure and condemnation seems -strange, but in 1768 the members of a similar -club were, for meeting together for prayer and -reading the Scriptures, all summarily expelled -from the university. Their number was seven. -Several of the heads of houses spoke in their -favour, the principal of their own hall, Dr. -Dixon, moved an amendment against their expulsion, -on the ground of their admirable conduct -and exemplary piety. Not a word was -alleged against them, only that some of them -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>were the sons of tradesmen, and that all of them -“held Methodistical tenets, taking upon them -to pray, read and expound the Scriptures, and -sing hymns at private houses.” These practices -were considered as hostile to the Articles and -interests of the Church of England, and sentence -was pronounced against them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of course this expulsion created a great agitation -at the time; and as the moral character -of the young men was so perfectly unimpeachable, -it no doubt greatly aided the cause of the -Revival. Dr. Horne, Bishop of Norwich, author -of the Commentary <i>On the Psalms</i>—no Methodist, -although an admirable and evangelical -man—denounced the measure in a pamphlet -in the strongest terms. The well-known wit -and Baptist minister of Devonshire Square in -London, Macgowan, lashed the transaction in -his piece called <i>The Shaver</i>. All the young -men seem to have turned out well. Some, like -Thomas Jones, who afterwards became curate -of Clifton, and married the sister of Lady -Austen, Cowper’s friend—found admission into -the Church of England; the others instantly -found help from the Countess of Huntingdon, -who sent them to finish their studies at her -college in Trevecca, and afterwards secured -them places in connection with her work of -evangelisation. The transaction gives a singular -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>idea of what Oxford was in 1768, and prepares -us for the vehement persecutions by -which the representatives of Oxford all over -the country armed themselves to resist the -Revival, whilst it justifies our designation of -this chapter, “New Lights and Old Lanterns.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span> - <h2 id='ch04' class='c004'>CHAPTER IV<br /> <br /><span class='small'>CAST OUT FROM THE CHURCH—TAKING TO THE FIELDS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>It was field-preaching, preaching in the open -air, which first gave national distinctiveness to -the Revival, and constituted it a movement. -Assuredly any occasions of excitement we have -known, give no idea whatever of the immense -agitations which speedily rolled over the country, -from one end to the other, when these great -revivalists began their work in the fields. And -the excitement continued, rolling on through -London, and through the counties of England, -from the west to the north, not for days, weeks, -or months merely, but through long years, until -the religious life of the land was entirely rekindled, -and its morals and manners re-moulded; -and all this, especially in its origination, -without money, no large sums being subscribed -or guaranteed to sustain the work. The work -was done, not only without might or power, but -assuredly in the very teeth of the malevolence -of might and of power; nor is it too much to -say that it probably would not have been done, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>could not have been done, had the churches, -chapels, and great cathedrals been thrown open -to the preachers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It seems a singular thing to say, but we -should speak of Whitefield as the Luther of this -Great Revival, and of Wesley as its Calvin. -Both in the quality of their work and in their -relation in point of time, this analogy is not so -unnatural as it perhaps seems at first. The impetuosity -and passion, the vehemence and -sleepless vigilance of Whitefield first broke -open the way; the calm, cautious, frequently -even nervously timid intelligence of Wesley -organised the work.</p> - -<p class='c007'>How could a writer, in a recent number of -the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, say: “It is a great -mistake to complain, as so many do, that the -Church cast out the Wesleys. We have seen -at the beginning how kindly, and even cordially, -they were treated by the leading members -of the episcopate.” Surely any history of -Methodism contradicts this statement. Bishop -Benson, indeed, ordained Whitefield, but he -bitterly lamented to the Countess of Huntingdon -that he had done so, attributing to him -what seemed to the Bishop the mischief of the -evangelical movement. “My lord,” said the -Countess, “mark my words: when you are on -your dying bed, that will be one of the few ordinations -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>you will reflect upon with complaisance.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The words were, in a remarkable degree, -prophetic; when the Bishop was on his death-bed -he sent ten guineas to Mr. Whitefield as a -token of his “regard, veneration, and affection,” -and begged the great field-preacher to -remember him in prayer. If the bishops were -kind and cordial to the first Methodists, they -certainly took a singular way of dissembling -their love. For instance, Bishop Lavington, -of Exeter, whose well-known two volumes on -Methodism are really a curiosity of episcopal -scurrility, was in a passion with everything that -looked like Whitefieldism in his diocese. Mr. -Thomson, the Vicar of St. Gennys, was a dissipated -clergyman, a character of known immorality; -he was a rich man, and not dependent -upon his vicarage. In the midst of his sinful -life conscience was arrested; he became converted; -he countenanced and threw open his -pulpit to Mr. Whitefield; he became now as remarkable -for his devout life and fervent gospel -preaching as he had been before for his ungodliness. -What made it all the worse was, that -he was a man of real genius. Now all his -brethren in the ministry disowned him, and -closed their pulpits against him; and presently -Bishop Lavington summoned him to appear -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>before him to answer the charges made against -him by his brethren for his Methodistical practices. -“Sir,” said the Bishop, in the course of -conversation, “if you pursue these practices, -and countenance Whitefield, I will strip your -gown from off you.” Mr. Thomson had on his -gown at the time—more frequently worn by -ministers of the Church then than now. To -the amazement of the Bishop, Mr. Thomson -exclaimed, “I will save your lordship the -trouble!” He took off his gown, dropped it at -the Bishop’s feet, saying, “My lord, I can -preach without a gown!” and before the Bishop -could recover from his astonishment he was -gone. This was an instance, however, in -which the Bishop was so decidedly in the -wrong that he sent for the vicar again, apologised -to him; and the circumstance, indeed, -led to the entertainment by the Bishop of -views which were somewhat milder with reference -to Methodism than those which still give -notoriety to his name.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i05-page-74-georgewhitefield.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>GEORGE WHITEFIELD.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Southey<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c012'><b>[5]</b></a>, in his certainly not impartial volumes, -admits that, for the most part, the condition -of the clergy was dreadful; it is not wonderful -that they closed their churches against -the innovators. There was, for instance, the -Vicar of Colne, the Rev. George White; when -the preachers came into his neighbourhood, it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>was his usual practice to call his parishioners -together by the beat of a drum, to issue a -proclamation at the market-cross, and enlist a -mob for the defence of the Church against the -Methodists. Here is a copy of the proclamation, -a curiosity in its way: “Notice is hereby -given that if any man be mindful to enlist in -His Majesty’s service, under the command of -the Rev. Mr. George White, Commander-in-Chief, -and John Bannister, Lieutenant-General -of His Majesty’s forces for the defence of the -Church of England, and the support of the -manufactory in and about Colne, both which -are now in danger, let him repair to the drumhead -at the Cross, where each man shall receive -a pint of ale in advance, and all other -proper encouragements.” Such are some of the -instances, which might be multiplied to any -extent, showing the reception given to the revivalists -by the clergy of the time. But let no -reader suppose that, in reciting these things, -we are willingly dwelling upon facts not creditable -to the Church, or that we forget how -many of her most admirable members have -made an abundant <i>amende honorable</i> by their -eulogies since; nor are we forgetting that Nonconformist -chapels, whose cold respectability -of service and theology were sadly outraged by -the new teachers, were not more readily -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>opened than the churches were to men with -whom the Word of the Lord was as a fire, or -as a hammer to break the rock in pieces.<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c012'><b>[6]</b></a> -Whitefield soon felt his power. Immediately -after his ordination, he in some way became for -a time an occasional supply at the chapel in the -Tower; he found a straggling congregation of -twenty or thirty hearers; after a service or two -the place was overflowing, and remained so. -During his short residence in that neighbourhood -the youth continued throughout the -whole week preaching to the soldiers, preaching -to prisoners, holding services on Sunday -mornings for young men before the ordinary -service. He was still ostensibly at Oxford; a -profitable living was offered to him in London, -and instantly declined. He went to Gloucester, -to Bristol, to Kingswood. Of course it is -impossible to follow Whitefield step by step -through his career; we can only rapidly bring -out a crayon sketch of the chief features of his -work. He made voyages to Georgia; voyaging -was no pastime in those days, and he spent a -great amount of time in transit to and fro on -the seas; our business with him is chiefly as -the first field-preacher; and Kingswood, near -Bristol, appears to have been the first place -where this great work was to be tried. It was -then, what it is still, a region of rough collieries, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>the Black Country of the West; the people -themselves were of the roughest order. Whitefield -spoke at Bristol, to some friends, of his -probable speedy embarkation to preach the -Gospel among the Indians of America; and -they said to him, “What need of going abroad -to do this? Have we not Indians enough at -home? If you have a mind to convert Indians, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>there are colliers enough in Kingswood!” A -savage race! As to taking to the fields in this -instance, it was simply a necessity; there were -no churches from whence the preacher could be -ejected. Try to realize it: the heathen society, -indoctrinated only in brutal sports; the rough, -black labour only typical of the rough, black -minds, the rough, black souls. Surely he must -have been a very brave man; nor was he one -at all of that order of apostles whose native -roughness is well fitted, it seems, to challenge -roughness to civility.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f5'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-e'>E</a>.</p> -</div> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f6'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-f'>F</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Whitefield was a perfect gentleman, of manners -most affectionate and amiable; altogether -the most unlikely creature, it seems, to rise triumphant -over the execrations of a mighty mob. -The oratory of Whitefield seems to us almost -the greatest mystery in the history of eloquence: -his voice must have been wonderful; -its strength was overwhelming, but it was not -a roar; its modulations and inflections were -equal to its strength, so that it had the all-commanding -tones of a bell in its clearness, and -all the modulations of an organ in its variety -and sweetness. Kingswood only stands as a -representative of crowds of other such places, -where savages fell before the enchantment of -his sweet music. Read any accounts of him, -and it will be seen that we do not exaggerate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>in speaking of him as the very Orpheus of the -pulpit. Assuredly, as it has been said Orpheus, -by the power of his music, drew trees, stones, -the frozen mountain-tops, and the floods to -bow to his melody, so men, “stockish, hard, -and full of rage,” felt a change pass over their -nature, as they came under the spell of Whitefield. -Yet, perhaps, he would not have gone -to Kingswood had he not been inhibited from -preaching in the Bristol churches. He had -preached in St. Mary Redcliff, and the following -day had preached opening sermons in the -parish church of SS. Philip and Jacob, and then -he was called before the Chancellor of the diocese, -who asked him for his licence by which he -was permitted to preach in that diocese. Whitefield -said he was an ordained minister of the -Church of England, and as to the special licence, -it was obsolete. “Why did you not ask,” he said, -“for the licence of the clergyman who preached -for you last Thursday?” The Chancellor replied, -“That is no business of yours.” Whitefield -said, “There is a canon forbidding clergymen -to frequent taverns and play at cards, -why is that not enforced?” The Chancellor -evaded this, but charged Whitefield with -preaching false doctrine; Whitefield replied that -he preached what he knew to be the truth, and -he would continue to preach. “Then,” said the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>Chancellor, “I will excommunicate you!” The -end of it was that all the city churches were -shut against him. “But,” he says, “if they -were all open, they would not contain half -the people who come to hear. So at three in -the afternoon I went to Kingswood among the -colliers.” Whitefield laid his case in a very respectful -letter, before the Bishop, but on he -went. As to Kingswood, tears poured down -the black faces of the colliers; the great audiences -are described as being drenched in -tears. Whitefield himself was in a passion of -tears. “How can I help weeping,” he said to -them, “when you have not wept for yourselves?” -And they began to weep. Thus in 1739 began -the mighty work at Kingswood, which has been -a great Methodist colony from that day to this. -That was a good morning’s work for the cause -of Christ when the Chancellor shut the doors -of the churches of Bristol against the brave -and beautiful preacher, and threatened to excommunicate -him. Was it not said of old, -“Thou makest the wrath of man to praise -Thee”?</p> - -<p class='c007'>Now, then, see him girt and road-ready; we -might be sure that the example of the Chancellor -of Bristol would be pretty generally -followed. The old ecclesiastical corporations -set themselves in array against him; but how -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>futile the endeavour! Their canons and -rubrics were like the building of hedges to -confine an eagle, and they only left him without -a choice—without any choice but to fulfil -his instinct for souls, and to soar. Other “little -brief authorities,” mayors, aldermen, and such -like, issued their fulminations. Coming to -Basingstoke, the mayor, one John Abbott, -inhibited him. John Abbott seems to have -been a burly butcher. The intercourse and -correspondence between the two is very -humorously characteristic; but, although it -gives an insight as to the antagonism which -frequently awaited Whitefield, it is too long to -quote in this brief sketch. The butcher-mayor -was coarse and insolent; Whitefield never lost -his sweet graciousness; writing to abusive -butchers or abusive bishops, as in his reply to -Lavington, he never lost his temper, never -indulged in satire, never exhibits any great -marks of genius, writes straight to the point, -simply vindicates himself and his course, never -retracts, never apologises, goes straight on.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is no other instance of a preacher who -was so equally at home and equally impressive -and commanding in the most various and -dissimilar circles and scenes; it is significant of -the notice he excited that his name occurs so -frequently in the correspondence of that cold -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>and heartless man and flippant sneerer, Horace -Walpole, whose allusions to him are usually -disgraceful; but so it was, he was equally commanding -in the polished and select circles of -the drawing-room, surrounded by dukes and -duchesses, great statesmen and philosophers, -or in the large old tabernacle or parish church, -surrounded by more orderly and saintly worshippers, -or in nature’s vast and grand cathedrals, -with twenty or thirty thousand people -around him.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From the day when he went to Kingswood, -we may run a rapid eye along the perspective -of his career—in fields, on heaths, and on commons, -it was the same everywhere; from his -intense life we might find many scenes for -description: take one or two. On the breast -of the mountain, the trees and hedges full of -people, hushed to profound silence, the open -firmament above him, the prospect of adjacent -fields—the sight of thousands on thousands of -people; some in coaches, some on horseback, -and all affected, or drenched in tears. Sometimes -evening approaches, and then he says, -“Beneath the twilight it was too much for me, -and quite overcame me.” There was one -night never to be forgotten. While he was -preaching it lightened exceedingly; his spirit -rose on the tempest; his voice tolled out the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>doom and decay hanging over all nature; he -preached the warnings and the consolations of -the coming of the Son of man. The thunder -broke over his head, the lightning shone along -the preacher’s path, it ran along the ground in -wild glares from one part of heaven to the -other; the whole audience shook like the -leaves of a forest in the wind, whilst high -amidst the thunders and the lightnings, the -preacher’s voice rose, exclaiming, “Oh; my -friends, the wrath of God! the wrath of God!” -Then his spirit seemed to pass serenely right -through the tempest, and he talked of Christ, -who swept the wrath away; and then he told -how he longed for the time when Christ should -be revealed, amidst the flaming fire, consuming -all natural things. “Oh,” exclaimed he, “that -my soul may be in a like flame when He shall -come to call me!” Can we realize what his -soul must have been who could burn with such -seraphic ardours in the midst of such scenes?</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i06-page-81-whitefieldpreaching.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>WHITEFIELD PREACHING IN LONDON.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>So he opened the way everywhere, by his -field-preaching, for John Wesley. Truly it has -been said, “Whitefield, and not Wesley, is the -prominent figure in the opening of the Methodist -movement;” and the time we must assign -to this first popular agitation is the winter of -1738-39. The two men were immensely different. -To Whitefield the preaching was no light -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>work; it was not talking. After one of his -sermons, drenched through, he would lie down, -spent, sobbing, exhausted, death-like: John -Wesley, after one of his most effective sermons, -in which he also had shaken men’s souls, would -just quietly mount his little pony, and ride off -to the next village or town, reading his book as -he went, or stopping by the way to pluck -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>curious flowers or simples from the hedges; -the poise of their spirits was so different. All -great movements need two men, Moses and -Aaron; the prophet Elijah must go before, “to -restore all things.” Whitefield lived in the -immediate neighbourhood and breathed the air -of essential truth; Wesley looked at men, and -saw how all remained undone until the work -took coherency and shape. As he says, “I was -convinced that preaching like an apostle, without -joining together those that are awakened, -and training them up in the ways of God, is -only begetting children for the murderer.” -Whitefield preached like an apostle; the scenes -we have described appear charming rural -scenes, in which men’s hearts were bowed and -hushed before him; but there were widely -different scenes when he defied the devil, and -sought to win his victims away, even in fairs -and wakes—the most wild and dissolute periodical -pests and nuisances of the age. Rough -human nature went down before him, as in the -instance of the man who came with heavy -stones to pelt him, and suddenly found his -hands as it were tied, and himself in tears, -and, at the close, went up to the preacher, and -said, “I came here only to break your head, -and you have broken my heart!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But the roughs of London seem to have been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>worse than the roughs of Kingswood; and we -cannot wonder that men like Walpole, and -even polite and refined religious men, thought -that a man who could go right into St. Bartholomew’s -Fair, in Moorfields, and Finsbury, -take his station among drummers, trumpeters, -merry-andrews, harlequins, and all kinds of -wild beasts, must be “mad”; it must have -seemed the height of fanaticism, like preaching -to a real Gadarene swinery. All the historians -of the movement—Sir James Stephen, Dr. -Abel Stevens, Dr. Southey, Isaac Taylor, and -others, recite with admiration the story of the -way in which he wrestled successfully with the -merry-andrews. He began to preach at six -o’clock in the morning; stones, dirt, rotten -eggs were hurled at him. “My soul was -among lions,” he says; but the marvellous -voice overcame, and he went on speaking, and -we know how tenderly he would speak to -them, of their own miseries, and the dangers of -their own sins; the great multitude—it was -between twenty and thirty thousand—“became -like lambs;” he finished, went away, and, -in the wilder time—in the afternoon—he came -again. In the meantime there had been organisations -to put him down: here was a man with -a long heavy whip to strike the preacher; -there was a recruiting sergeant who had been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>engaged with drum and fife to interrupt him. -As he appeared on the outskirts of the crowd, -Whitefield, who well knew how to catch the -humour of the people too, exclaimed, “Make -way for the king’s officer!” and the mob divided, -while, to his surprise, the recruiting officer, with -his drum, found himself immediately beneath -Whitefield; it was easy to manage him now. -The crowd around roared like wild beasts; it -must have been a tremendous scene. Will it -be believed—it seems incredible—that he continued -there, preaching, praying, singing, until -the night fell? He won a decided victory, and -the next day received no fewer than a thousand -notes from persons, “brands plucked from the -burning,” who spoke of the convictions through -which they had passed, and implored the -preacher to remember them in his prayers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This was in Moorfields, in which neighbourhood -since, the followers both of Wesley and -of Whitefield have found their tabernacles and -most eminent fields of usefulness. Many have -attempted fair-preaching since Whitefield’s -day, but not, we believe, with much success; -it needs a remarkable combination of powers to -make such efforts successful. Whitefield was -able to attempt to outbid the showmen, merry-andrews, -and harlequins, and he succeeded. -No wonder they called him a fanatic; he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>might have said, “If we be beside ourselves, it -is for God, that by all means we may save -some!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But what we have been especially desirous -that our readers should note is, that these more -vehement manifestations of Methodism were -not the result of any methodised plan, but were -a simple yielding to, and taking possession of -circumstances; it was as if “the Spirit of the -Lord” came down upon the leaders, and “carried -them whither they knew not.”</p> - -<hr class='c017' /> - -<p class='c007'>[For an account of Whitefield’s labours in -America, and the spread of the Great Revival -there, the reader is referred to the supplemental -chapter at the end of this volume.]</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span> - <h2 id='ch05' class='c004'>CHAPTER V<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE REVIVAL CONSERVATIVE.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>Lord Macaulay’s verdict upon John Wesley, -that he possessed a “genius for government -not inferior to that of Richelieu,” received -immediate demonstration when he came -actively into the movement, and has been -abundantly confirmed since his death, in the -history of the society which he founded. It -has been said that all institutions are the prolonged -shadow of one mind, and that by the -inclusiveness, or power of perpetuity in the institution, -we may know the mind of the -founder. Much of our last chapter was devoted -to some attempt to realise the place and power -of Whitefield;<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c012'><b>[7]</b></a> what he was in relation to the -Revival may be defined by the remark, often -made, and by capable critics, that while there -have been multitudes of better sermon-makers, -it is uncertain whether the Church ever had so -great a pulpit orator. In Wesley’s mind everything -became structural and organic; he was a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>mighty master of administration; but he also -followed Whitefield’s example, and took to the -fields; and very great, indeed, amazing results, -followed his ministry.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f7'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. </span>See Chapter <a href='#ch14'>XIV</a>. for his place and power in America.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Many of the incidents which are impressive -and amusing show the difference between the -men. Whitefield overwhelmed the people: -Wesley met insolence and antagonism by some -sharp, concise, and cuttingly appropriate retort, -which was remarkable, considering his -stature. But both his presence and his words -must have been unusually commanding: “Be -silent, or begone,” he turned round sharply -and said once to some violent disturbers, and -they were obedient to the command.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Wesley’s rencontre with Beau Nash at Bath -is a fair illustration of his quiet and almost obscurely -sarcastic method of confounding a -troublesome person. Preaching in the open air -at Bath, the King of Bath, the Master of the -Ceremonies, Nash, was so unwise as to attempt -to put down the apostolic man. Nash’s character -was bad; it was that of an idle, heartless, -licentious dangler on the skirts of high society. -He appeared in the crowd, and authoritatively -asked Wesley by what right he dared to stand -there. The congregation was not wholly of -the poor; there were a number of fashionable -and noble persons present, and among them -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>many with whom this attack had been pre-arranged, -and who expected to see the discomfiture -of the Methodist by the courtly and -fashionable old dandy. Wesley replied to the -question simply and quietly that he stood there -by the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed to -him “by the present Archbishop of Canterbury, -when he laid hands on me and said, -‘Take thou authority to preach the Gospel!’” -Nash began to bustle and to be turbulent, and -he exclaimed, “This is contrary to Act of Parliament; -this is a conventicle.” “Sir,” said -Wesley, “the Act you refer to applies to seditious -meetings: here is no sedition, no shadow -of sedition; the meeting is not, therefore, contrary -to the Act.” Nash stormed, “I say it is; -besides, your preaching frightens people out of -their wits.” “Sir,” said Wesley, “give me -leave to ask, Did you ever hear me preach?” -“No!” “How, then, can you judge of what you -have never heard?” “Sir, by common report.” -“Common report is not enough,” said Wesley; -“again give me leave to ask is your name not -Nash?” “My name is Nash.” And then the -reader must imagine Wesley’s thin, clear, -piercing voice, cutting through the crowd: -“Sir, I dare not judge of <i>you</i> by common report.” -There does not seem much in it, but -the effect was overwhelming. Nash tried to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>bully it out a little; but, to make his discomfiture -complete, the people took up the case, and -especially one old woman, whose daughter had -come to grief through the fop, in her way so set -forth his sins that he was glad to retreat in dismay. -On another occasion, when attempts -were made to assault Wesley, there was some -uncertainty about his person, and the assailants -were saying, “Which is he? which is -he?” he stood still as he was walking down -the crowded street, turned upon them, and -said, “I am he;” and they instantly fell back, -awed into involuntary silence and respect.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is characteristic that while Whitefield -simply took to the work of field-preaching, and -preaching in the open air, and troubled himself -very little about finding or giving reasons for -the irregularity of the proceeding, Wesley defended -the practice with formidable arguments. -It is remarkable that the practice should have -been deemed so irregular, or should need vindication, -considering that our Lord had given -to it the sanction of His example, and that it -had been adopted by the apostles and fathers, -the greatest of the Catholic preachers, and the -reformers of every age. A history of field and -street-preaching would form a large and interesting -chapter of Church history. Southey -quotes a very happy series of arguments from -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>one of Wesley’s appeals: “What need is -there,” he says, speaking for his antagonists, -“of this preaching in the fields and streets? -Are there not churches enough to preach in?” -“No, my friend, there are not, not for us to -preach in. You forget we are not suffered to -preach there, else we should prefer them to any -place whatever.” “Well, there are ministers -enough without you.” “Ministers enough, and -churches enough! For what? To reclaim all -the sinners within the four seas? and one plain -reason why these sinners are never reclaimed -is this: they never come into a church. Will -you say, as some tender-hearted Christians I -have heard, ‘Then it is their own fault; let -them die and be damned!’ I grant it may be -their own fault, but the Saviour of souls came -after us, and so we ought to seek to save that -which is lost.” He went on to confess the -irregularity, but he retorted that those persons -who compelled him to be irregular had no right -to censure him for irregularity. “Will they -throw a man into the dirt,” said he, “and beat -him because he is dirty? Of all men living -those clergymen ought not to complain who -believe I preach the Gospel; if they will not ask -me to preach in their churches, they are -accountable for my preaching in the fields.” -This is a fair illustration of the neat shrewdness, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>the compact, incisive common sense of Wesley’s -mind. Thus he argued himself into that -sphere of labour which justified him in after -years in saying, without any extravagance, -“The world is my parish.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>We have said the Revival became conservative. -It is true the Countess of Huntingdon -did much to make it so; but it assumed a shape -of vitality, and a force of coherent strength, -chiefly from the touch of Wesley’s administrative -mind. The present City Road Chapel, -which was opened in 1776, opposite Bunhill -Fields Burial Ground, is probably the first -illustration of this fact; it stands where stood -the Foundry—time-honoured spot in the history -of Methodism. It stood in Moorfields; the -City Road was a mere lane then. The building -had been used by government for casting -cannon; it was a rude ruin. Wesley purchased -it and the site at the very commencement of -his work, in 1739; he turned it into a temple. -As the years passed on it became the cradle of -London Methodism, accommodating fifteen -hundred people. Until within twenty years of -Wesley’s purchase this had been a kind of -Woolwich Arsenal to the government; it became -a temple of peace, and here came “band-rooms,” -school-rooms, book-rooms—the first -saplings of Methodist usefulness.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span> -<img src='images/i07-page-92-johnwesley.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>JOHN WESLEY.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It has been truly said by a writer in the <i>British -Quarterly</i>, that the most romantic lives of -the saints of the Roman Catholic calendar do -not present a more startling succession of -incidents than those which meet us in the life -and labours of Wesley. Romish stories claim -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>that Blessed Raymond, of Pegnafort, spread -his cloak upon the sea to transport him across -the water, sailing one hundred and sixty miles -in six hours, and entering his convent through -closed doors! The devout and zealous Francis -Xavier spent three whole days in two different -places at the same time, preaching all the -while! Rome shines out in transactions like -these: Wesley does not; but he seems to -have been almost ubiquitous, and he moves -with a rapidity reminding us of that flying -angel who had the everlasting Gospel to preach, -and he shines alike in his conflicts with nature -and the still wilder tempests caused by the -passions of men. We read of his travelling, -through the long wintry hours, two hundred -and eighty miles on horseback, in six days; it -was a wonderful feat in those times. When -Wesley first began his itinerancy there were no -turnpikes in the country; but before he closed -his career, he had probably paid more, says -Dr. Southey, for turnpikes, than any other man -in England, for no other man in England -travelled so much. His were no pleasant -journeys, as of summer days; he travelled -through the fens of Lincolnshire when the -waters were out; and over the fells of Northumberland -when they were covered with snow. -Speaking of one tremendous journey, through -<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>dreadful weather, he says, “Many a rough -journey have I had before; but one like this I -never had, between wind and hail, and rain, -and ice, and snow, and driving sleet, and -piercing cold; but it is past. Those days will -return no more, and are therefore as though -they had never been.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“‘And pain, like pleasure, is a dream!’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>How singular was his visit to Epworth, -where he found the church of his childhood, his -father’s church, the church of his own first -ministrations, closed against him! The minister -of the church was a drunkard; he had -been under great obligations, both to Wesley -himself and to the Wesley family, but he -assailed him with the most offensive brutality; -and when Wesley, denied the pulpit, signified -his intention of simply partaking of the Lord’s -Supper with the parishioners on the following -Sunday, the coarse man sent word, “Tell Mr. -Wesley I shall not give him the Sacrament, for -he is not <i>fit</i>.” It seems to have cut Mr. Wesley -very deeply. “It was fit,” he says, “that -he who repelled me from the 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 my father had shown to his, as -well as personally to himself.” He stayed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>there, however, eight days, and preached every -evening in the churchyard, standing on his -father’s tomb; truly a singular sight, the living -son, the prophet of his age, surely little short -of inspired, preaching from his dead father’s -grave with such pathos and power as we may -well conceive. “I am well assured,” he says, -“I did far more good to my old Lincolnshire -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>parishioners by preaching three days on my -father’s tomb than I did by preaching three -years in his pulpit!”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i08-page-95-wesleypreaching.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>WESLEY PREACHING IN EPWORTH CHURCHYARD.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>As he travelled to and fro, odd mistakes -sometimes happened. Arrived at York, he -went into the church in St. Saviour’s Gate; the -rector, one Mr. Cordeau, had often warned his -congregation against going to hear “that -vagabond Wesley” preach. It was usual in that -day for ministers of the Establishment to wear -the cassock or gown, just as everywhere in -France we see the French abbés. Wesley -had on his gown, like a university man in -a university town. Mr. Cordeau, not knowing -who he was, offered him his pulpit; Wesley -was quite willing, and always ready. -Sermons leaped impromptu from his lips, -and this sermon was an impressive one; at -its close the clerk asked the rector if he knew -who the preacher was. “No.” “Why, sir, it -was that vagabond Wesley!” “Ah, indeed!” -said the astonished clergyman; “well, never -mind, we have had a good sermon.” The -anecdotes of the incidents which waited upon -the preacher in his travels are of every order of -humorous, affecting, and romantic interest; they -are spread over a large variety of volumes, and -even still need to be gathered, framed, and -hung in the light of some effective chronicle.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span> -<img src='images/i09-page-97-epworthchurch.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>EPWORTH CHURCH.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The brilliant passage in which Lord Macaulay -portrays, as with the pencil of a Vandyke, -the features of the great English Puritans, is -worthy of attention. Perhaps, even had the -great essayist attempted the task, he had -scarcely the requisite sympathies to give an -effective portrait or portraits of the early -Methodists; indeed, their characters are different, -as different as a portrait from the pencil of -Denner to one from that of Vandyke, or of -Velasquez; but as Denner is wonderful too, although -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>so homely, so the Methodist is a study. -The early Methodist was, perhaps, usually a -very simple, what we should call an ignorant, -man, but he had “the true Light which lighteth -every man that cometh into the world.” He -was not such an one as the early Puritan<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c012'><b>[8]</b></a> or the -ancient Huguenot, those children of the camp -and of the sword, Nonconformist Templars and -Crusaders, whose theology had trained them -for the battle-field, teaching them to frown defiance -on kings, and to treat with contempt the -proudest nobles, if they were merely unsanctified -men. The Methodist was not such an one -as the stern Ironside of Cromwell; as he lived -in a more cheerful age, so he was the subject of -a more cheerful piety; he was as loyal as he was -lowly. He had been forgotten or neglected by -all the priests and Levites of the land; but a -voice had reached him, and raised him to the -rank of a living, conscious, immortal soul. He -also was one for whom Christ died. A new life -had created new interests in him; and Christianity, -really believed, does ennoble a man—how -can it do otherwise? It gives self-respect -to a man, it shows to him a new purpose and -business in life; moreover, it creates a spirit of -holy cheerfulness and joy; and thus came about -that state of mind which Wesley made subservient -to organisation—the necessity for meetings -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>and reciprocations. It has been said that -every church must have some sign or counter-sign, -some symbol to make it popularly successful. -St. Dominic gave to his order the Rosary; -John Wesley gave to his Society the Ticket. -There were no chapels, or but few, and none to -open their doors to these strange new pilgrims -to the celestial city. We have seen that the -churches were closed against them. Lord -Macaulay says, had John Wesley risen in the -Church of Rome, she would have thrown her -arms round him, only regarding him as the -founder of a new order, with certain peculiarities -calculated to increase and to extend her -empire, and in due time have given to him the -honours of canonisation.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f8'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. </span>See Appendix <a href='#app-a'>A</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The English clergy as a body gathered up -their garments and shrunk from all contact -with the Methodists as from a pestilence. What -could be done? Something must be done to -prevent them from falling back into the world. -Piety needs habit, and must become habitual to -be safe, even as the fine-twined linen of the -veil, and the ark of the covenant, and the -cherubim shadowing the mercy-seat, were shut -in and all their glory defended by the rude coverings -of badger-skins. John Wesley knew that -the safety of the converted would be in frequent -meetings for singing and prayer and conversation. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>Reciprocation is the soul of Methodism; -so they assembled in each others’ -houses, in rude and lonely but convenient -rooms, by farm-house ingles, in lone hamlets. -Thus was created a homely piety, often rugged -enough, no doubt, but full of beautiful and -pathetic instincts. So grew what came to be -called band-meetings, class-meetings, love-feasts, -and all the innumerable means by which -the Methodist Society worked, until it became -like a wheel within a wheel; simple enough, -however, in the days to which we are referring. -“Look to the Lord, and faithfully attend all -the means of grace appointed in the Society.” -Such was, practically, the whole of Methodism. -So that famous old lady, whose bright example -has so often been held up on Methodist platforms, -when called upon to state the items of -her creed, did so very sufficiently when she -summed it up in the four particulars of “repentance -towards God; faith in the Lord Jesus -Christ; a penny a week; and a shilling a -quarter.” Wesley seems to have summed the -Methodist creed more simply still: “Belief in -the Lord Jesus Christ, and an earnest desire to -flee from the wrath to come.” This was his -condition of Church fellowship. When the -faith became more consciously objective, it too -was seized by the passionate instinct, the desire t -<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>o save souls. This drove the early Methodists -out on great occasions to call vast multitudes -together on heaths, on moors. Perhaps—but -this was at a later time—some country -gentleman threw open his old hall to the -preachers; though the more aristocratic phase -of the Methodist movement fell into the Calvinistic -rather than into the Wesleyan ranks, -and subsided into the organisation of the -Countess of Huntingdon, which was, in fact, a -kind of Free Church of England. The followers -of Wesley sought the sequestration of -nature, or in cities and towns they took to the -streets or the broad ways and outlying fields. -In some neighbourhoods a little room was built, -containing the germ of what in a few years became -a large Wesleyan Society. The burden -of all these meetings, and all their intercourse, -whether in speech or song, was the sweetness -and fulness of Jesus. They had intense faith in -the love of God shed abroad in the heart; and -their great interest was in souls on the brink of -perdition. They knew little of spiritual difficulties -or speculative despair; their conflict was -with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and in -this person, whose features have lately become -somewhat dim, and who has wrapped himself -in a new cloak of darkness, they did really believe. -Wesley dealt with sin as sin, and with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>souls as souls; he and his band of preachers had -little regard to proprieties, and it was not a -polished time; so, ungraceful and undignified, -the face weary, and the hand heavy with toil, -they seemed out of breath pursuing souls. The -strength of all these men was that they had a -definite creed, and they sought to guard it by a -definite Church life. The early Methodist had -also cultivated the mighty instinct of prayer, -about which he had no philosophy, but believing -that God heard him, he quite simply indulged -in it as a passion, and in this to him -there was at once a meaning and a joy. We -are not under the necessity of vindicating -every phase of the great movement, we are -simply writing down some particulars of its -history, and how it was that it grew and prevailed. -God’s ministry goes on by various -means, ordinary and extraordinary; that is the -difference between rivers and rains, between -dews and lightnings.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A very interesting chapter, perhaps a volume, -might be compiled from the old records of the -mere anecdotes—the very humours—of the persecution -attending on the Revival. Thus, in -Cornwall, Edward Greenfield, a tanner, with a -wife and seven children, was arrested under a -warrant granted by Dr. Borlase, the eminent -antiquary, who was, however, a bitter foe to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>Methodism. It was inquired what was the -objection to Greenfield, a peaceable, inoffensive -man; and the answer was, “The man is well -enough, but the gentlemen round about can’t -bear his impudence; why, he says he knows -his sins are forgiven!” The story is well -known how, in one place, a whole waggon-load -of Methodists were taken before the magistrates; -but when the question was asked in -court what they had done, a profound silence -fell over the assembly, for no one was prepared -with a charge against them, till somebody -exclaimed, “They pretended to be -better than other people, and prayed from -morning till night!” And another voice -shouted out, “And they’ve <i>convarted</i> my wife; -till she went among they, she had a tongue of -her own, and now she’s as quiet as a lamb!” -“Take them all back, take them all back,” said -the sensible magistrate, “and let them convert -all the scolds in the town!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is a spot in Cornwall which may be -said to be consecrated and set apart to the -memory of Wesley; it is in the immediate -neighbourhood of Redruth, a wild, bare, rugged-looking -region now, very suggestive of its -savage aspect upwards of a hundred years -since. The spot to which we refer is the -Gwennap Pit; it is a wild amphitheatre, cut out -<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>among the hills, capable of holding about thirty -thousand persons. Its natural walls slant upwards, -and the place has altogether wonderful -properties for the carrying the human voice. -Wesley began to preach in this spot in 1762. -When he first visited Cornwall, the savage -mobs of what used to be called “West Barbary,” -howled and roared upon him like lions or -wild beasts; in his later years of visitation, no -emperor or sovereign prince could have been -received with more reverence and affection. The -streets were lined and the windows of the -houses thronged with gazing crowds, to see -him as he walked along; and no wonder, for -Cornwall was one of the chief territories of that -singular ecclesiastical kingdom of which he -was the founder. When he first went into -Cornwall, it was really a region of savage -irreligion and heathenism. The reader of his -life often finds, usually about once a year, the -visit to Gwennap Pit recorded: he preached his -first sermon there, as we have said, in 1762; at -the age of eighty-six he preached his last in -1789. There, from time to time, they poured -in from all the country round to see and to -listen to the words of this truly reverend -father.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i10-page-106-wesleypreaching.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'><span class="blackletter">The Great Revival.</span><br />Wesley Preaching in Gwennap Pit.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The traditions of Methodism have few more -imposing scenes. Gwennap Pit was, perhaps, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>Wesley’s most famous cathedral; a magnificent -church, if we may apply that term to a building -of nature, among the wild moors; it was -thronged by hushed and devout worshippers. -Until Wesley went among these people, the -whole immense population might have said, “No -man cared for our souls;” now they poured in to -see him there: wild miners from the immediate -neighbourhood, fishermen from the coast, men -who until their conversion had pursued the -wrecker’s remorseless and criminal career, -smugglers, more quiet men and their families -less savage, but not less ignorant, from their -shieling, or lowly farmstead on the distant -heath. A strange throng, if we think of it, -men who had never used God’s name except in -an oath, and who had never breathed a prayer -except for the special providence of a shipwreck, -and who with wicked barbarity had kindled -their delusive lights along the coasts, to fascinate -unfortunate ships to the cruel cliffs! But -a Divine power had passed over them, and they -were changed, with their families; and hither -they came to gladden the heart of the old -patriarch in the wild glen—a strange spot, and -not unbeautiful, roofed over by the blue heavens. -Amidst the broom, the twittering birds, -the heath flower, and the scantling of trees, -amidst the venerable rocks, it must have been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>wonderful to hear the thirty thousand voices -welling up, and singing Wesley’s words:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Suffice that for the season past,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Hell’s horrid language filled our tongues;</div> - <div class='line in1'>We all Thy words behind us cast,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And loudly sang the drunkard’s songs.</div> - <div class='line in1'>But, oh, the power of grace Divine!</div> - <div class='line in1'>In hymns we now our voices raise,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Loudly in strange hosannahs join,</div> - <div class='line in1'>While blasphemies are turned to praise!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Such was one of the triumphs of the Great -Revival.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span> - <h2 id='ch06' class='c004'>CHAPTER VI<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE SINGERS OF THE REVIVAL.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>Chief of all the auxiliary circumstances -which aided the Great Revival, beyond a question, -was this: that it taught the people of -England, for the first time, the real power of -sacred song. That man in the north of England -who, when taken, by a companion who -had been converted, to a great Methodist -preaching, and being asked at the close of the -service how he had enjoyed it, replied, “Weel, -I didna care sae mich aboot the preaching, but, -eh, man! yon ballants were grand,” was no -doubt a representative character. And the -great and subduing power of large bodies of -people, moved as with one heart and one voice, -must have greatly aided to produce those -effects which we are attempting to realise. -All great national movements have acknowledged -and used the power of song. For man -is a born singer, and if he cannot sing himself -he likes to feel the power of those who can. It -has been so in political movements: there were -the songs of the Roundheads and the Cavaliers. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>And the greatest religious movements through -all the Christian ages have acknowledged the -power of sacred song, even from the days of -the apostles, and from the time of St. Ambrose -in Milan. Luther soon found that he must -teach the people to sing. That is a pleasant -little story, how once, as he was sitting at his -window, he heard a blind beggar sing. It was -something about the grace of God, and Luther -says the strain brought tears into his eyes. -Then, he says, the thought suddenly flashed -into his mind, “If I could only make gospel -songs which people could sing, and which -would spread themselves up and down the -cities!” He directly set to work upon this -inspiration, and let fly song after song, each -like a lark mounting towards heaven’s gate, full -of New Testament music. “He took care,” -says one writer, in mentioning the incident, -“that each song should have some rememberable -word or refrain; such as ‘Jesus,’ ‘Believe -and be saved,’ ‘Come unto Me,’ ‘Gospel,’ -‘Grace,’ ‘Worthy is the Lamb,’ and so on.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Until Watts and Doddridge appeared, England -had no popular sacred melodies. Amongst -the works of the poets, such as Sir Philip Sidney, -Milton, Sandys, George Herbert, and -others, a few were scattered up and down; but -they mostly lacked the subtle element which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>constitutes a hymn. For, just as a man may be -a great poet, and utterly fail in the power -to write a good song, so a man may be a -great sacred poet, and yet miss the faculty -which makes the hymn-writer. It is singular, -it is almost indefinable. The subtle -something which catches the essential elements -of a great human experience, and gives it -lyrical expression, takes that which other men -put into creeds, sermons, theological essays, -and sets it flying, as we just now said, like -“the lark to heaven’s gate.” It ought never to -be forgotten that Watts was, in fact, the -creator of the English hymn. He wrote many -lines which good taste can in no case approve; -but here again the old proverb holds true, -“The house that is building does not look like -the house that is built.” And the great number -of following writers, while they have felt -the inspiration he gave to the Church, have -moulded their lines by a more fastidious taste, -which, if it has sometimes improved the metre -or the sentiment, has possibly diminished in -the strength. We will venture to say that even -now there is a greater average of majesty of -thought and expression in Watts’s hymns than -in any other of our great hymn-writers; -although, in some cases, we find here and there -a piece which may equal, and some one or two -<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>which are said to surpass, the flights of the -sweet singer of Stoke Newington. But the -hymns of Watts, as a whole, were not so well -fitted to a great and popular revival, to the -expression of a tumultuous and passionate experience, -as some we shall notice. They were, -as a whole, especially wanting in the social -element, and the finest of them sound like -notes from the harp of some solitary angel. -One cannot give to them the designation which -the Wesleys gave to large sections of their -hymns, “suitable for experience meetings.” -Praise rather than experience is the characteristic -of Watts, although there are noble -exceptions. Our readers will perhaps remember -a well-known and pleasing instance in a -letter from Doddridge to his aged friend. -Doddridge had been preaching on a summer -evening in some plain old village chapel in -Northamptonshire, when at the close of the -service was “given out,” as we say, that hymn -commencing:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Give me the wings of faith to rise.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>We can suppose the melody to which it was -sung to have been very rude; but it was, perhaps, -new to the people, and the preacher was -affected as he saw how, over the congregation, -the people were singing earnestly, and melted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>to tears while they sang; and at the close of -the service many old people gathered round -Doddridge, their hearts all alive with the hymn, -and they wished it were possible, only for once, -to look upon the face of the dear old Dr. Watts. -Doddridge was so pleased that he thought his -old friend would be pleased also, and so he -wrote the account of the little incident in a -letter to him. In many other parts of the -country, no doubt, the people were waiting and -wishful for popular sacred harmonies. And -when the Great Revival came, and congregations -met by thousands, and multitudes who -had been accustomed to song, thoughtless, -foolish, very often sinful and licentious, still -needed to sing (for song and human nature are -inseparable, apparently, so far as we know anything -about it, in the next world as well as in -this), it was necessary that, as they had been -“brought up out of the horrible pit and miry -clay,” “a new song of praise” should be put in -the mouth. John Wesley had heard much of -Moravian singing. He took Count Zinzendorf’s -hymns, translated them, and immensely improved -them; he was the first who introduced -into our psalmody the noble words of Paul -Gerhardt. Some of the finest of all the hymns -in the Wesleyan collection are these translations. -Watts was unsparingly used. Wesley’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>first effort to meet this necessity of the Revival -was the publication of his collection in 1739.<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c012'><b>[9]</b></a> -And thus, most likely without knowing the -anecdote of Luther we have quoted above, -Wesley and his coadjutors did exactly what -the Reformer had done. They gave effect to the -Revival by the ordinance of song, and preached -the Gospel in sweet words, and often recurring -Gospel refrains.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f9'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-114'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The remark is true that there was no art, no -splendid form of worship or ritual; early Methodism -and the entire evangelic movement were -as free from all this as Clairvaux in the Valley of -Wormwood, when Bernard ministered there -with all his monks around him, or as Cluny -when Bernard de Morlaix chanted his “Jerusalem -the Golden.” Like all great religious -movements which have shaken men’s souls, this -was purely spiritual, or if it had a secular expression -it was not artificial. Loud amens resounded -as the preacher spoke or prayed, and -then the hearty gushes of, perhaps, not melodious -song united all hearts in some litany or -Te Deum in new-born verse from some of the -singers of the last revival. Amongst infuriated -mobs, we read how Wesley found a retreat in -song, and overpowered the multitude with what -we, perhaps, should not regard melody. Thus, -when at Bengeworth in 1740, where Wesley -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>was set upon by a crowd, and it was proposed -by one that they should take him away and -duck him, he broke out into singing with his -redoubted friend, Thomas Maxfield. He allowed -them to carry him whither they would; -at the bridge end of the street the mob retreated -and left him; but he took his stand on the -bridge, and striking up—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Angel of God, whate’er betide,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Thy summons I obey,”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>preached a useful and effective sermon to hundreds -who remained to listen, from the text, -“If God be for us, who can be against us?”</p> -<p class='c007'>But the contributions of Watts and Wesley -are so well known that it is more important to -notice here that as the Revival moved on, very -soon other remarkable lyrists appeared to contribute, -if few, yet really effective words. Of -these none is more remarkable than the mighty -cobbler, Thomas Olivers, a “sturdy Welshman,” -as Southey calls him. He is not to be -confounded with John Oliver, also one of the -notabilities of the Revival. Thomas was really -an astonishing trophy of the movement; before -his conversion he was a thoroughly bad fellow, -a kind of wandering reprobate, an idle, dissipated -man. He fell beneath the power of -Whitefield, whom he heard preach from the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>text, “Is not this a brand plucked out of the -fire?” He had made comic songs about Whitefield, -and sung them with applause in tap-rooms. -As Whitefield came in his way, he went -with the purpose of obtaining fresh fuel for his -ridicule. The heart of the man was completely -broken, and he felt so much compunction for -what he had done against the man for whom -he now felt so deep a reverence and awe, that -he used to follow him in the streets, and though -he did not speak to him, he says he could -scarcely refrain from kissing the prints of his -footsteps. And now, he says, at the beginning -of his new life, what we can well believe -of an imagination so intense and strong, “I saw -God in everything: the heavens, the earth and -all therein showed me something of Him; yea, -even from a drop of water, a blade of grass, or -a grain of sand, I received instruction.” He was -about seriously to enter into a settled and respectable -way of business when John Wesley -heard of him; and although he was converted -under Whitefield, Wesley persuaded him to -yield himself to his direction for the work of -preaching as one of his itinerant band, and sent -him into Cornwall—just the man we should -think for Cornwall, fiery and imaginative: off -he went, in 1753. He was born in 1725. He -testifies that he was “unable to buy a horse, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>so, with my boots on my legs, my great-coat -on my back, and my bag with my books and -linen across my shoulders, I set out for Cornwall -on foot.” Henceforth there were forty-six -years on earth before him, during which he witnessed -a magnificent confession before many -witnesses. He became one of the foremost -controversialists when dissensions arose among -the men of the Revival. He acquired a knowledge -of the languages, especially of Hebrew, -and was a great reader. Wesley appointed -him as his editor and general proofreader; but -he could never be taught to punctuate properly, -and the punctilious Wesley could not tolerate -his inaccuracies as they slipped through the -proof, so he did not retain this post long. But -Wesley loved him, and in 1799 he descended -into Wesley’s own tomb, and his remains lie -there, in the cemetery of the City Road Chapel. -He wrote more prose than poetry; but, like -St. Ambrose, he is made immortal by a single -hymn. He is the author of one of the most -majestic hymns in all hymnology. Byron and -Scott wrote Hebrew melodies, but they will -not bear comparison with this one. While in -London upon one occasion, he went into the -Jewish synagogue, and he heard sung there by -a rabbi, Dr. Leoni, an old air, a melody which -so enchanted him and fixed itself in his memory, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>that he went home, and instantly produced -what he called “a hymn to the God of Abraham,” -arranged to the air he had heard. And -thus we possess that which we so frequently -sing,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The God of Abraham praise!”<a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c012'><b>[10]</b></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>It is principally known by its first four verses; -there are twelve. “There is not,” says James -Montgomery, “in our language a lyric of more -majestic style, more elevated thought, or more -glorious imagery; * * * like a stately pile of -architecture, severe and simple in design; it -strikes less on the first view than after deliberate -examination, * * * the mind itself grows -greater in contemplating it;” and he continues, -“On account of the peculiarity of the measure, -none but a person of equal musical and poetical -taste could have produced the harmony perceptible -in the verse.” There will, perhaps, -always be a doubt whether Olivers was the -author of the hymn,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Lo! He comes with clouds descending.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>If Charles Wesley were the author, he undoubtedly -derived the inspiration of the piece from -Olivers’ hymn, “The Last Judgment:”<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c012'><b>[11]</b></a> it is in -the same metre, and probably Wesley took the -thought and the metre, and adapted it to popular -service. What is undoubted is that Olivers, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>who is the author of the metre, is also the author -of the fine old tune “Helmsley,” to which -the hymn was usually sung until quite recent -times; the tune was originally called “Olivers.”</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f10'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-118'>Appendix</a></p> -</div> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f11'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-118'>Appendix</a></p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It is but a natural step from Thomas Olivers -to his great antagonist, Augustus Toplady; he -also is made immortal by a hymn. He wrote -many fine ones, full of melody, pathos, and -affecting imagery. Toplady, as all our readers -know, was a clergyman, the Vicar of Broad -Hembury, in Devonshire. He took the strong -Calvinistic side in the controversies which -arose in the course of the Great Revival; -Olivers took the strong Arminian side. They -were not very civil to each other; and the -scholarly clergyman no doubt felt his dignity -somewhat hurt by the rugged contact with the -cobbler; but the quarrels are forgotten now, -and there is scarcely a hymn-book in which the -hymn of Olivers is not found within a few pages -of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Rock of Ages, cleft for me!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>To this hymn has been given almost universally -the palm as the finest hymn in our -language. Where there are so many, at once -deeply expressive in experience, and subdued -and elevated in feeling, we perhaps may be forgiven -if we hesitate before praise so eminently -high. Mr. Gladstone’s translation into the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>Latin, in the estimation of eminent scholars, -even carries a more thrilling and penetrative -awe.<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c012'><b>[12]</b></a> But Toplady wrote many other hymns -quite equal in pathos and poetic merit. The -characteristic of “Rock of Ages” is its depth of -penitential devotion. A volume might be written -on the history of this expressive hymn. Innumerable -are the multitudes whom these words -have sustained when dying; they were among -the last which lingered on the lips of Prince -Albert as he was passing away; and to how -many, through every variety of social distinction, -have they been at once the creed and consolation! -It is by his hymns that Toplady will -be chiefly remembered. For years he was hovering -along on the borders of the grave, slowly -dying of consumption; and he died in 1778, in -the thirty-eighth year of his age. It was his -especial wish that he should be buried with -more than quiet, that no announcement should -be made of the funeral, and that there should -be no especial service at his grave: it testifies, -however, to the high regard in which he was -held that thousands followed him to his burial -in Tottenham Court Road Chapel; and when -we know that his dear friend Rowland Hill -conducted the service, we can scarcely be surprised, -or offended, that he broke through the -injunctions of his friend, and addressed the multitude -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>in affectionate commemoration of the -sweet singer.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f12'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-120'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i11-page-121-augustustoplady.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>AUGUSTUS TOPLADY.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Toplady we should regard as the chief singer -of the Revival, after Charles Wesley, although -entirely of another order; not so social as meditative, -and reminding us, in many of his pieces, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>of the characteristics we have attributed to -Watts. His midnight hymn is a piece of uncommon -sublimity; portions of it seem almost -unfit for congregational singing; but for inward -plaintive meditation, for reading in the evening -family prayer, when the hushed stillness of night -is over the household, and the pilgrim of life -is about to commit himself to the unconsciousness -of sleep, the verses seem tenderly suggestive:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Thy ministering spirits descend,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And watch while Thy saints are asleep;</div> - <div class='line in1'>By day and by night they attend,</div> - <div class='line in2'>The heirs of salvation to keep.</div> - <div class='line in1'>Bright seraphs despatched from the throne,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Fly swift to their stations assigned;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And angels elect are sent down</div> - <div class='line in2'>To guard the elect of mankind.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Their worship no interval knows;</div> - <div class='line in2'>Their fervour is still on the wing;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And, while they protect my repose,</div> - <div class='line in2'>They chant to the praise of my King.</div> - <div class='line in1'>I, too, at the season ordained,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Their chorus forever shall join,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And love and adore without end,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Their gracious Creator and mine.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>We have noticed in a previous chapter that -when Whitefield separated himself from Wesley, -the Revival took two distinctly different -routes. We only refer to this again for the -purpose of remarking that as Toplady was intensely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>Calvinistic in his method of Divine -grace, so his hymns, also, reflect in all its fulness -that creed; yet they are full of tenderness, -and well calculated frequently to arouse dormant -devotion. “Your harps, ye trembling -saints;” “Emptied of earth I fain would be;” -“When languor and disease invade;” “Jesus, -immutably the same;” “A debtor to mercy -alone,” and many another, leave nothing to be -desired either on the score of devotion, poetry, -or melody.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In a far humbler sphere, but representing the -same faith and fervour as Toplady, and also -carried away young, was Cennick. In an article -in the <i>Christian Remembrancer</i>, on English -hymnology, written very much for the purpose -of throwing contempt on all the hymn-writers -of the Revival, Cennick is spoken of as “a low -and violent person; his hymns peculiarly offensive, -both as to matter and manner.” Some exceptions -are made by the reviewer for “Children -of the Heavenly King.” We may presume, -therefore, that to this writer, “Thou dear Redeemer, -dying Lamb,” is one of the “peculiarly -offensive.” This is not wonderful, when in the -next page we read that “the hymns of Newton -are the very essence of doggerel.” This sounds -rather strange, as a verdict, to those who have -felt the particular charm of that much-loved -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>hymn, “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds!” -It is not without a purpose that we refer to -this paper in the <i>Christian Remembrancer</i>—evidently -by a very scholarly hand—because its -whole tone shows how the sacred song of the -Revival would be likely to be regarded by -those who had no sympathy with its evangelical -teaching. The writer, for instance, speaking -of Wesley’s hymns, doubts whether any of -them could possibly be included by any chance -in English hymnology! “Jesus, lover of my -soul,” is said, “in some <i>small</i> degree to approximate -to the model of a Church hymn!” -Of the Countess of Huntingdon’s hymn-book, -the writer says, “We shall certainly not notice -the raving profanity!” It is not necessary further -either to sadden or to irritate the reader -by similar expressions; but the entire paper, -and the criticisms we have cited, will show -what was likely to be the effect of the hymns -of the Revival on many similar minds of that -time. In fact, the joy of the Revival work -arose from this, that no person, no priest, nor -Church usage, was needed to interpose between -the soul and the Saviour. Faith in -Christ, and His immediate, personal presence -with the soul seeking Him by faith, as it was -the burden of the best of the sermons, so it -was, also, of all the great hymns.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>The origin and the authors of several eminent -hymns are certainly obscure. To Edward -Perronet must be assigned the authorship of -the fine coronation anthem of the Lamb that -was slain: “All hail the power of Jesus’ name!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another, which has become a universal favourite, -is “Beyond the glittering starry globe.” -This is a noble and inspiring hymn; only a few -verses are usually quoted in our hymn-books. -Lord Selborne divides its authorship between -Fanch and Turner. We have seen it attributed -to Olivers; this is certainly a mistake. The -<i>Quarterly Review</i>, in a very able paper on -hymnology, reproducing an old legend concerning -it, traces it to two brothers in a -humble situation in life, one an itinerant -preacher, the other a porter. The preacher desired -the porter to carry a letter for him. “I -can’t go,” said the porter, “I am writing a -hymn.” “You write a hymn, indeed! Nonsense! -you go with the letter, and I will finish -the hymn.” He went, and returned, but the -hymn was unfinished. The preacher had taken -it up at the third verse, and his muse had forsaken -him at the eighth. “Give me the pen,” -said the porter, and he wrote off,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“They brought His chariot from above,</div> - <div class='line in2'>To bear Him to His throne;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Clapped their triumphant wings, and cried,</div> - <div class='line in2'>‘The glorious work is done!’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>Unfortunately the author of the paper in the -<i>Quarterly Review</i> appears never to have seen -the hymn in its entirety. The verse he cites is -not the eighth, but the twenty-second, and it -has been mutilated almost wherever quoted; -the verse itself is part of an apostrophe to the -angels, recalling their ministrations round our -Lord:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Tended His chariot up the sky,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And bore Him to His throne;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Then swept your golden harps and cried,</div> - <div class='line in2'>‘The glorious work is done!’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Whoever wrote the hymn had the imagination -of a poet, the fine pathos of a believer, and -a strong lyrical power of expression.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Anecdotes of the origin of many of our great -hymns of this period are as interesting as they -are almost innumerable; those of which we are -speaking are hymns of the Revival—to speak -concisely—perhaps commenced with the Wesleys, -and closed with Cowper and Newton. It -must not be supposed that there were no -singers save those whose verses found their -way into the Wesleyan or other great collections -of hymns; there were James Grant, -Joseph Griggs, especially notable, Miss Steele, -the author of a great number of hymns of -universal acceptance in all our churches, and -which are more like those of Doddridge than -<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>any other since his day. Then there was John -Stocker,—but we would particularly notice Job -Hupton, the author of a hymn which has never -been included in any hymn-book except <i>Our -Hymn Book</i>, edited by the author of this volume, -but which is scarcely inferior to “Beyond the -glittering starry sky.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Come, ye saints, and raise an anthem,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Cleave the skies with shouts of praise,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Sing to Him who found a ransom,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Ancient of eternal days.</div> - <div class='line in1'>Bring your harps, and bring your odours,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Sweep the string and pour the lay;</div> - <div class='line in1'>View His works! behold His wonders!</div> - <div class='line in2'>Let hosannas crown the day!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>The hymn is far too long for quotation. Job -Hupton was a Baptist minister in the neighbourhood -of Beccles, where he died in 1849, in -the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the -sixty-fifth of his ministry.</p> -<p class='c007'>Thus there was set free throughout the country -a spirit of sacred song which was new to -the experience of the nation: it was boldly -evangelical; it was devoted, not to the eulogy -of Church forms and days; there was not a -syllable of Mariolatry; but praise to Christ, -earnest meditation upon the state of man -without His work, and the blessedness of the -soul which had risen to the saving apprehension -of it. This forms the whole substance of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>the Divine melody. It has seemed to some that -the most perfect hymn in the English language -is, “Jesus! lover of my soul.” Sentiments -may differ, arising from modifications of experience, -but that hymn undoubtedly is the very -essence of all the hymns which were sung in -the days of the Great Revival. For the first -time there was given to Christian experience that -which met it at every turn. Watts found such -a choir, and such an audience for his devotions, -as he had never known in his life; and “Charles -Wesley,” says Isaac Taylor, “has been drawing -thousands in his wake and onward, from earth -to heaven.” The hymns met and united all -companies and all societies. The bridal party -returned from church, singing,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“We kindly help each other,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Till all shall wear the starry crown.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>If they gathered round the grave, they sang;—and -what a variety of glorious funereal hymns -they had! But that was a great favourite:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“There all the ship’s company meet,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Who sailed with their Saviour beneath;</div> - <div class='line in1'>With shoutings each other they greet,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And triumph o’er sorrow and death.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>Few separations took place without that song,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Blest be the dear uniting love,</div> - <div class='line in1'>That will not let us part.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'><span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>While others became such favourites that even -almost every service had to be hallowed by -them; such as,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Jesus! the name high over all,</div> - <div class='line in1'>In hell, or earth, or sky;”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>while an equal favourite almost, was,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing</div> - <div class='line in1'>My great Redeemer’s praise!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>They must soon have become very well known, -for so early as 1748, when a sad cluster of convicts, -horse-stealers, highway robbers, burglars, smugglers, -and thieves, were led forth to execution, -the turnkey of the prison said he had never seen -such people before. The Methodists had been -among them; they had all yielded themselves -to the power of “the truth as it is in Jesus,” -and on their way to Tyburn they all sang -together,</p> -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Lamb of God! whose bleeding love</div> - <div class='line in2'>We now recall to mind,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Send the answer from above,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And let us mercy find;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Think on us, who think of Thee,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And every struggling soul release;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Oh! remember Calvary,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And let us go in peace!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>The hymns found their way to sick beds. -The old Earl of Derby, the grandfather of the -present peer, was dying at Knowsley. He had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>for his housekeeper there a Mrs. Brass, a good -and faithful Methodist; the old Earl was fond of -talking with her upon religious matters, and -one day she read to him the well-known hymn, -“All ye that pass by, to Jesus draw nigh.” -When she came to the lines,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The Lord in the day of His anger did lay</div> - <div class='line in1'>Our sins on the Lamb, and he bore them away,”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>the Earl looked up and said, “Stop! don’t -you think, Mrs. Brass, that ought to be, ‘The -Lord in the day of his <i>mercy</i> did lay’?”</p> -<p class='c007'>The old lady did not admit the validity of -his lordship’s theology; but it very abundantly -showed that his experience had passed through -the verse, and reached to the true meaning of -the hymn. An old blind woman was hearing -Peter McOwan preach. He quoted these lines:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The Lord pours eyesight on the blind;</div> - <div class='line in1'>The Lord supports the fainting mind.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>The poor old woman was not happy until she -met the preacher, and she said, “But are there -really such sweet verses? Are you sure the -book contains such a hymn?” and he read the -whole to her. It is one by Watts:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Innumerable are the anecdotes of these -hymns; they inaugurated really the rise of English -<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>hymnology; and it is not too much to say -that, as compared with them, many more recent -hymns are as tinsel compared with gold. -A writer truly says: “They sob, they swell, -they meet the spirit in its most hushed and -plaintive mood. They roll and bear it aloft, in -its most inspired and prophetic moods, as on -the surge of more than a mighty organ swell; -among the mines and quarries, and wild moors -of Cornwall, among the factories of Lancashire -and Yorkshire, in chambers of death, in the -most joyous assemblages of the household, -they have relieved the hard lot, and sweetened -the pleasant one; and even in other lands soldiers -and sailors, slaves and prisoners, have recited -with what joy these words have entered -into their life.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus the great hymns of this period grew -and became a religious power in the land, -strangely contradicting a verdict which Cardinal -Wiseman pronounced some years since, -that “all Protestant devotion is dead.” While -we give all honour to the fine hymns of Denmark -and Germany, many of the best of which -were translated with the movement, it may, -with no exaggeration, be said that the hymnology -of England in the eighteenth century is -the finest and most complete which the history -of the Church has known.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span> - <h2 id='ch07' class='c004'>CHAPTER VII<br /> <br /><span class='small'>LAY PREACHING AND LAY PREACHERS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>There came with the work of the Revival a -practice, without which it is more than questionable -if it would have obtained such a rapid -and abiding hold upon the various populations -and districts of the country; this was lay -preaching. The designation must have a more -inclusive interpretation than we generally apply -to it; we must understand by it rather the -work of those men who, in contradistinction -to the great leaders of the Revival—men of -scholarship, of universities, and of education—possessed -none of these qualifications, or but in -a more slight and undisciplined degree. They -were converted men, modified by various temperaments; -they one and all possessed an ardent -zeal; but, in many instances, we shall -find that they were as much devoted to the -work of the ministry as those who had received -a regular ordination. It is singular that prejudices -so strong should exist against lay preaching -and preachers, for the practice has surely -received the sanction of the most ancient -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>usages of the Church, as even Dr. Southey admits, -in his notes to the <i>Life of Wesley</i>. Thus, -in the history of the Church, this phenomenon -could scarcely be regarded as new. Orders of -preaching friars; “hedge-preachers,” “black, -white, and grey,” with all their company; disciples -of Francis, Dominic, or Ignatius, had -spread over Europe during the dark and -mediæval ages. Although this rousing element -of Church life had not found much expression -in the churches of the Reformation, yet with -the impulse of the new Revival, up started -these men by multitudes. The reason of this -was very simple. There is a well-known little -anecdote of some town missionary standing up -in a broad highway preaching to a multitude. -He was arrested by a Roman Catholic priest, -who asked him from the edge of the crowd by -what authority he dared to stand there? and -who had given him the right to preach? The -man had his New Testament in his hand; he -rapidly turned to the last chapter of it, and -said, “I find it written here, ‘Let him that -heareth say, Come!’ I have heard, and I would -say Come!” The anecdote represents sufficiently -the rise and progress of lay preaching -in the Revival. There first appeared, naturally, -a simple set of men, who, in their different -spheres, would, perhaps, lead and direct a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>prayer-meeting, and round it with some pious -and gentle exhortation. We have already -pointed out the necessity soon felt for frequent -and reciprocative services; these were not the -lay preachers to whom we refer; but in this -fraternal form of Church fellowship, the lay -preacher had his origin.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Wesley imposed restrictions upon his helpers -which he soon found himself compelled to renounce. -John Wesley was a strong adherent -to the idea of Church order. The first lay -preacher in his communion who leapt over -the traces was Thomas Maxfield. It was at -the Foundry in Moor Fields. Wesley was in -Bristol, and the intelligence was conveyed to -him. He appears to have regarded it as a serious -and dangerous innovation. The good -Susannah Wesley, his mother—now past threescore -years and ten—infirm and feeble, was yet -living in the Chapel House of the Foundry. -To her John hurried on his arrival in London; -and after his affectionate salutations and inquiries, -he expressed such a manifest dissatisfaction -and anxiety that she inquired the cause. -With some indignation and unusual abruptness, -he said, “Thomas Maxfield has turned preacher, -I find;” and then the wise and saintly woman -gave him her advice. She reminded him that, -from her prejudices against lay preaching he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>could not suspect her of favouring anything of -the kind; “but take care,” she said, “what you -do respecting that young man, for he is as surely -called of God to preach as you are.” She advised -her son to hear Maxfield for himself. He -did so, and at once buried all his prejudices. -He exclaimed after the sermon, “It is the -Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good!” -and Thomas Maxfield became the first of a -host who spread all over the country.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It may be supposed that the Countess of -Huntingdon very naturally shared all Wesley’s -prejudices against lay preaching; but she heard -Maxfield preach, and she wrote of him, “God -has raised one from the stones to sit among -the princes of the people. He is my astonishment; -how is God’s power shown in weakness!” -and she soon set herself to the work of supplying -an order of men, of whom Maxfield was the -first to lead the way. By-and-by came another -innovation: the lay evangelists at first never -went into the pulpit, but spoke from among -the people, or from the desk. The first who -broke through this usage was Thomas Walsh; -we will say more of him presently. He was a -man of deep humility, and his life reveals entire -and extraordinary consecration; but he believed -himself to be an ambassador for Christ, -and he walked directly up into the pulpit, never -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>questioning, but quite disregarding the usual -custom. The majesty of his manner, his solemn, -impressive, and commanding eloquence, forbade -all remark; and henceforth all the lay -preachers followed his example. There arose -a band of extraordinary men. Let the reader -refer to the chronicles of their lives, and the -effects of their labours, and he will not suppose -that he has seen anything in our day at all -approaching to what they were.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Local preachers have now long been part of -the great organisation of Methodism. But in -the period to which we refer, it must be -remembered that the pen had not commenced -the exercise of its more popular influence. -There were few authors, few journalists, very -few really popular books; these men, then, with -their various gifts of elevated holiness, broad and -rugged humour, or glowing imagination, went -to and fro among the people, rousing and -instructing the dormant mind of the country. -Then it was Wesley’s great aim to sustain -interest by variety. Wesley himself said that -he believed he should preach himself and his -congregation asleep if he were to confine his -ministrations to one pulpit for twelve months. -We would take the liberty to say in reference -to this, that it would depend upon whether he -kept his own mind fresh and wakeful during -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>the time. He writes, however: “We have -found by long and constant experience, that a -frequent change of teachers is best; this -preacher has one talent, that another. No one -whom I ever knew has all the talents which -are needful for beginning, continuing, and perfecting -the work in a whole congregation; -neither,” he adds, “can he find matter for -preaching morning and evening, nor will the -people come to hear him; hence he grows cold, -and so do the people; whereas if he never stays -more than a fortnight together in one place, he -may find matter enough, and the people will -gladly hear him.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>This certainly gives an idea but of a plain -order of services; and, no doubt, some of Wesley’s -preachers were of the plainest. There -was Michael Fenwick, of whom Wesley says, -“he was just made to travel with me—an -excellent groom, <i>valet de chambre</i>, nurse, and, -upon occasion, a tolerable preacher.” This -good man was one day vain enough to complain -to Wesley, that although he was constantly -travelling with him, his name was never -inserted in Wesley’s published <i>Journals</i>. In -the next number he found himself immortalised -with his master there. “I left Epworth,” -writes Wesley, “with great satisfaction, and -about one, preached at Clayworth. I think -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>none were unmoved but Michael Fenwick, who -fell fast asleep under an adjoining hayrick.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>A higher type of man, but still of the very -plain order of preachers, was Joseph Bradford. -He also was Wesley’s frequent travelling companion, -and he judged no service too servile by -which he could show his reverence for his -master. But on one occasion Wesley directed -him to carry a packet of letters to the post. -The occasion was very extraordinary, and -Bradford wished to hear Wesley’s sermon first. -Wesley was urgent and insisted that the letters -must go. Bradford refused; he would hear the -sermon. “Then,” said Wesley, “you and I -must part!” “Very good, sir,” said Bradford. -The service was over. They slept in the same -room. On rising in the morning, Wesley accosted -his old friend and companion, and asked -if he had considered what had been said, -that they must part. “Yes, sir,” replied -Bradford. “And must we part?” inquired -Wesley. “Please yourself, sir,” was the reply. -“Will you ask my pardon?” rejoined -Wesley. “No, sir.” “You wont?” “No, -sir.” “Then I will ask yours,” replied the -great man. It is said that Bradford melted -under the words, and wept like a child. But -we must not convey the idea that the early -preachers were generally of this order. “In a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>great house there are vessels to honour and -vessels to dishonour.” “Vessels of dishonour” -assuredly were none of these men: but there -were some who attained to a greatness almost -as remarkable as the greatness of the three, -Whitefield and the Wesleys.</p> - -<p class='c007'>What a man was John Nelson! His was a -life full of singular incidents. It was truly -apostolic, whether we consider its holy magnanimity, -the violence and vehemence of the -cruel persecutions he encountered, or his singular -power over excited mobs; reminding us -sometimes of Paul fighting as with wild beasts -at Ephesus, or standing with cunning tact, and -disarming at once captain and crowd on the -steps of the Castle at Jerusalem. Then, although -he was but a poor working stonemason, -he had a high gentlemanly bearing, before -which those who considered themselves -gentlemen, magistrates and others, fell back -abashed and ashamed. He was one of the -prophets of Yorkshire; and many of the large -Societies at this day in Leeds, Halifax, and -Bradford owe their foundation to him. It -seems wonderful to us now, that merely preaching -the word of truth, and especially as John -Nelson preached it, with such a cheerful, radiant, -and even heavenly manner, should bring -out mighty mobs to assault him. The stories -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>of his itinerancy are innumerable, and his life -is really one of the most romantic in these -preaching annals. At Nottingham, while he -was preaching, the crowds threw squibs at him -and round him; but, as he was still pursuing -his path of speech, a sergeant in the army -pressed up to him, with tears, saying, “In the -presence of God and all this company, I beg -your pardon. I came here on purpose to mob -you, but I have been compelled to hear you; -and I here declare I believe you to be a servant -of the living God!” He threw his arms round -Nelson’s neck, kissed him, and went away -weeping; and we see him no more. Perhaps -more remarkable still was his reception at -Grimsby. There the clergyman of the parish -hired a drummer to gather a great mob, as he -said, “to defend the rights of the Church.” -The storm which raged round Nelson was wild -and ferocious; but it illustrates the power of -this extraordinary man over his rudest hearers, -that after beating his drum for a long time, the -poor drummer threw it away, and stood listening, -the tears running down his cheeks.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i12-page-142-johnnelson.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>John Nelson at Nottingham.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Nelson was a man of immense physical -strength; his own trade had fostered this, and -before his conversion he had, no doubt, been -feared as a man who could hit out and hit hard. -As the most effectual means of silencing him, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>he was pressed for a soldier; but John was not -only a Methodist, he had adopted the Quaker -notion that a Christian dare not fight; and he -seems to have been a real torment to the officers -and men of the regiment, who indeed -marched him about different parts of the country, -but could not get him either to accept the -king’s money or to submit to drill. An officer -put him in prison for rebuking his profanity, -and threatened to chastise him. Nelson says, -“It caused a sore temptation to arise in me; to -think that a wicked, ignorant man should thus -torment me, and I able to tie his head and heels -together. I found an old man’s bone in me; -but the Lord lifted up the standard within, else -should I have wrung his neck and set my foot -upon him.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At length, after three months, the Countess -of Huntingdon procured his discharge. The -regiment was in Newcastle. He preached there -on the evening of the day on which he was -liberated, and it is testified that a number of -the soldiers from his regiment came to hear -him, and parted from him with tears. He was -arrested as a vagrant, without any visible -means of living. A gentleman instantly stepped -forward and offered five hundred pounds bail; -but the bail was refused. He was able to -prove that he was a high-charactered, industrious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>workman; but it availed nothing. Crowds -wept and prayed for him as he was borne -through the streets. “Fear not!” he cried, -“oh, friends; God hath His way in the whirlwind, -and in the storm. Only pray that my -faith fail not!” It was at Bradford. They -thrust him into a most filthy dungeon. The -authorities would give him no food. The people -thrust in food, water, and candles. He -shared these with some wretched prisoners in -the same cage, and he sang hymns, and talked -to them all night. He was marched off to -York; but there the excitement was so great -when it was known that John Nelson was coming -a prisoner that armed troops were ordered -out to guard him. He says, “Hell from beneath -was moved to meet me at my coming!” -All the windows were crowded with people—some -in sympathy, but most cheering and huzzaing -as if some great political traitor had been -arrested; but he says, “The Lord made my -brow like brass, so that I could look upon all -the people as grasshoppers, and pass through -the city as if there had been none in it but God -and me.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such was John Nelson. These anecdotes are -sufficient to show the manner of man he was. -He has been truly called “the proto-martyr of -Methodism.” But it is not in a hint or two that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>all can be said which ought to be said of this -noble and extraordinary man. His conversion, -perhaps, sank down to deeper roots than in -many instances. The thoughts of Methodism -found him perplexed with those agonizing questions -which have tormented men in all ages, until -they have realized the truth as it is in Jesus. -His life was guilty of no immoralities; he had -a happy, humble home, was industrious, and -receiving good wages; but as he walked to -and fro among the fields he was distressed, -“for,” he said, “surely God never made man to -be such a riddle to himself, and to leave him -so.” He heard Wesley preach. “Then,” he -says, “my heart beat like the pendulum of a -clock, and I thought his whole discourse was -aimed at me;” and so, in short, he became a -Methodist, and a Methodist preacher; and -among the noble names in the history of the -Church of Christ, in his own line and order, it -may be doubted whether a nobler name can be -mentioned than that of John Nelson.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Quite another order of man, less human, -but equally divine, was Thomas Walsh. His -parents were Romanists, and he was intended -by them for the Romish priesthood; and he -appears to have been an intense Romanist -ascetic until about eighteen years of age. He -had a thoughtful and exceedingly intense nature, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>and his faith was no rest to him. In his -dilemma he heard a Methodist preacher speak -one day from the text, “Come unto Me, all ye -that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give -you rest.” It appears to have been the turning-point -of a remarkable life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“The life of Thomas Walsh,” says Dr. -Southey, “might almost convince a Catholic -that saints were to be found in other communions -as well as in the Church of Rome.” -Walsh became a great biblical scholar; he -was an Irishman, he mastered the native -Irish, that he might preach in it; but Latin, -Greek, and Hebrew became familiar to him; -and of the Hebrew, especially, it is said that -he studied so deeply, that his memory was an -entire concordance of the whole Bible. His -soul was as a flame of fire, but it burnt out the -body quickly. John Wesley says of him, “I do -not remember ever to have known a man who, -in so few years as he remained upon earth, was -the instrument of converting so many sinners.” -He became mighty in his influence over the -Roman Catholics. The priests said that -“Walsh had died some years ago, and that he -who went about preaching, on mountains and -highways, in meadows, private houses, prisons, -and ships, was a devil who had assumed his -shape.” This was the only way in which they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>could account for the extraordinary influence -he possessed. His labours were greatly divided -between Ireland and London, but everywhere -he bore down all before him by a kind of -absorbed ecstasy of ardent faith; but he died at -the age of twenty-seven. While lying on his -death-bed he was oppressed with a sense of -despair, even of his salvation. The sufferings -of his mind on this account were protracted and -intense; at last he broke out in an exclamation, -“He is come! He is come! My Beloved is -mine, and I am His for ever!” and so he fell -back and died. Thomas Walsh is a great name -still in the records of the lay preachers of early -Methodism.</p> - -<p class='c007'>All orders of men rose: different from any we -have mentioned was George Story, whose -quiet, but earnest and reasonable nature, seems -to have commanded the especial love of -Southey. He appears never to have become -what some call an enthusiast; but he interestingly -illustrates, that it was not merely over the -rugged and uninformed minds that the power -of the Revival exercised its influence. Very -curiously, he appears to have been converted -by thinking about Eugene Aram, the well-known -scholar, whose name has become so -celebrated in fiction and in poetry, and who -had a short time before been executed for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>murder at York. Story was impressed by the -importance of the acquisition of knowledge, -and Aram’s extraordinary attainments kindled -in his mind a sense of admiration and emulation; -but, as he thought upon his life, he reasoned, -“What did this man’s learning profit him? It -did not save him from becoming a thief and a -murderer, or even from attempting his own -life.” It was an immense suggestion to him; it -led him upon another track of thinking. The -Methodists came through his village; he yielded -himself to the influence, and Dr. Southey -thinks “there is not in the whole biography of -Methodism a more interesting or remarkable -case than his.” He became a great preacher, -but disarmed and convinced men rather by his -calm, dispassionate elevation of manner, than -by such weapons as the cheerful <i>bonhomie</i> of -Nelson, or the fervid fire of Walsh.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But we are, perhaps, conveying the idea that -it was only beneath the administration of John -Wesley that these great lay preachers were to -be found. It was not so; but no doubt beneath -that administration their itinerancy became -more systematic and organised. Whitefield -does not appear to have at all shared Wesley’s -prejudices on this means of usefulness; but those -men who fell beneath the influence of Whitefield, -or the Countess, seem soon to meet us as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>settled ministers, in many, if not in all instances. -Among them there are few greater names in -the whole Revival than those of Captain Jonathan -Scott and the renowned Captain Toriel -Joss. Captain Scott was a captain of dragoons, -and one of the heroes of Minden; he was -converted by the instrumentality of William -Romaine, who, in spite of his prejudices against -lay preaching, encouraged him in his excursions, -in which he spoke to immense crowds with -great effect. Fletcher, of Madeley, said, “his -coat shames many a black one.” He was a gentleman -of an ancient and opulent family, and -the Countess, who, naturally, was delighted to -see people of her own order by her side, felt herself -greatly strengthened by him. It was said, -when he preached at Leeds, the whole town -turned out to hear him; and he was one of the -great preachers of the Tabernacle in Moorfields, -during more than twenty years. But yet a far -more famous man was Toriel Joss. He was a -captain of the seas, and had led a life which -somewhat reminds us of Newton’s. He was a -good and even great sailor, but he became a -greater preacher. Whitefield said of these two -men, that “God, who sitteth upon the flood, -can bring a shark from the ocean, and a lion -from the forest, to show forth his praise.” Joss -was a man of property, with a fair prospect of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>considerable wealth, when he renounced the -seas and became one of the great lay preachers. -Whitefield insisted that he should abandon the -chart, the compass, and the deck, and take to -the pulpit. He did so. In London his fame -was second only to that of Whitefield himself. -He became Whitefield’s coadjutor at the Tabernacle, -where, first as associate pastor, and -afterwards as pastor, he continued for thirty -years. The chapel at Tottenham Court Road -was his chief field, and John Berridge called him -“Whitefield’s Archdeacon of Tottenham.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i13-page-150-tabernacle.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>TABERNACLE, MOORFIELDS.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>We cannot particularise others: there were -Sampson Staniforth, the soldier, Alexander -Mather, Christopher Hopper, John Haime, -John Parson—and these are only representative -names. There were crowds of them; they -travelled to and fro, with hard fare, throughout -the land. Their excursions were not recreations -or amusements. Attempt to think what -England was at that time. It is a fact that -they often had to swim through streams and -wade through snows to keep their appointments; -often to sleep in summer in the open -air, beneath the trees of a forest. Sometimes a -preacher was seen with a spade strapped to his -back, to cut a way for man and horse through -the heavy snow-drifts. Highwaymen were -abroad, and there are many odd stories about -their encounters with these men; but, then, -usually, they had nothing to lose. Rogers, in -his <i>Lives of the Early Preachers</i>, tells a characteristic -story. One of these lay preachers, as -usual on horseback, was waylaid by three robbers; -one of them seized the bridle of his horse, -the second put a pistol to his head, the third -began to pull him from the saddle—all, of -course, declaring that they would have his -money or his life. The preacher looked solemnly -at them, and asked them “if they had -prayed that morning.” This confounded them -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>a little, still they continued their work of plunder. -One pulled out a knife to rip the saddle-bag -open; the preacher said, “There are only -some books and tracts there; as to money, I -have only twopence halfpenny in my pocket;” -he took it out and gave it them. “All that -I have of value about me,” he said, “is my -coat. I am a servant of God; I am going on -His errand to preach; but let me kneel down -and pray with you; that will do you more good -than anything I can give you.” One of them -said, “I will have nothing to do with anything -we can get from this man!” They had taken -his watch; they restored this, and took up the -bags and fastened them again on the horse. -The preacher thanked them for their great -civility to him; “But now,” said he, “I will -pray!” and he fell upon his knees, and prayed -with great power. Two of the rascals, utterly -frightened at this treatment, started off as fast -as their legs could carry them; the third—he -who had first refused to have anything to do -with the job—continued on his knees with the -preacher; and when they parted company he -promised that he would try to lead a new life, -and hoped to become a new man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Should the reader search the old magazines -and documents in which are enshrined the -records of the early days of the Revival, he will -<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>find many incidents showing what a romantic -story is this of the self-denials, the difficulties, -and enthusiasm of these men, whose best record -is on high—most of them faithful men, like -Alexander Coates, who, after a life of singular -length and usefulness in the work, went to his -rest. His talents were said to be extraordinary, -both in preaching and in conversation. -Just as he was dying, one of his brethren called -upon him and said, “You don’t think you have -followed a cunningly-devised fable now?” “No, -no, no!” said the dying man. “And what do -you see?” “Land ahead!” said the old man. -They were his last words. Such were the men -of this Great Revival; so they lived their lives -of faithful usefulness, and so they passed away.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span> - <h2 id='ch08' class='c004'>CHAPTER VIII<br /> <br /><span class='small'>A GALLERY OF REVIVALIST PORTRAITS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>If we were writing a sustained history of the -Revival, we might devote some pages, at this -period, to notice the varied forms of satire and -ribaldry by which it was greeted. While the -noble bands of preachers were pursuing their -way, instructing and awakening the popular -mind of the country, not only heartless and -affected dilettanti, like Horace Walpole, regarded -it with the condescension of their supercilious -sneers, but for the more popular taste -there was <i>The Spiritual Quixote</i>, a book which -even now has its readers, and in which Whitefield -and his followers were held up to ridicule; -and Lackington, the great bookseller, in his -disgraceful, but entertaining autobiography, attempted -to cover the Societies of Wesley with -his scurrility. It was about the year 1750 that -<i>The Minor</i> was brought out on the stage of the -Haymarket Theatre; the author was that great -comedian, but most despicable and dissolute -character, Foote. The play lies before us as -we write; we have taken it down to notice the -really shameless buffoonery and falsehood in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>which it indulges. Whitefield is especially -libelled and burlesqued. The Countess of -Huntingdon waited personally on the Lord -Chamberlain, and besought him to suppress it; -it was not much to the credit of his lordship’s -knowledge, that he declared, had he known the -evil influence of the thing before it was licensed, -it should not have been produced, but being -licensed, it was beyond his control. Then the -good Countess waited on David Garrick; Garrick -knew and admired Whitefield; he received -her with distinguished kindness and respect, -and it is to his honour that, through his influence, -it was temporarily suppressed. It seems -a singular compensation that the author of this -piece, who permitted himself to indulge in the -most disgraceful insinuations against one of the -holiest and purest of men, a few years after was -charged with a great crime, of which he was, -no doubt, quite innocent, and died a broken-hearted -and beggared man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another of these disgraceful stage libels, <i>The -Hypocrite</i>, appeared at Drury Lane in 1768; in -it are the well-known characters of Dr. Cantwell, -and Mawworm, and old Lady Lambert. -There is more of a kind of genius in it than in -<i>The Minor</i>, but it was all stolen property, and -little more than an appropriation from Molière’s -<i>Tartuffe</i> and Cibber’s <i>Nonjuror</i>. All these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>things are forgotten now; but they are worthy -of notice as entering into the history of the -Revival, and showing the malice which was -stirred in multitudes of minds against men and -designs, on the whole, so innocent and holy. -Was it not written from of old, “The carnal -mind is enmity against God”?</p> - -<p class='c007'>But as to the movement itself, companions-in-arms, -and of a very high order alike for valour -and character, crowded to the field; we -have referred to several distinguished laymen; -it is at least equally important to notice that -while the leaders of the Church were, as a -body, set in array against it—while archbishops -and bishops of that day frowned, or scoffed -and scorned, there were a number of clergymen -whose piety, whose wit and eloquence, whose -affluent humour, whose learning, whose intrepidity -and sleepless variety of labour, surround -their names, even now as then, with a charm -of interest, making every life as it comes before -us a readable and delightful recreation. Some -of them were assuredly oddities; it is not long -since we made a pilgrimage to Everton, in -Bedfordshire, to read the singular epitaph, on -the tomb in the churchyard, of one of the oddest -and most extraordinary of all these men. -Even if our readers have read that epitaph, it -will do them no harm to read it again:</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c019'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>Here lie</div> - <div>The earthly remains of</div> - <div><span class='sc'>John Berridge</span>,</div> - <div>Late Vicar of Everton,</div> - <div>And an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ,</div> - <div>Who loved his Master, and His work,</div> - <div>And after running on His errands many years,</div> - <div>Was called up to wait on Him above.</div> - <div>Reader,</div> - <div>Art thou born again?</div> - <div>No salvation without a New Birth!</div> - <div>I was born in sin, February, 1716,</div> - <div>Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730,</div> - <div>Lived proudly on Faith and Works for Salvation</div> - <div>Till 1751.</div> - <div>Was admitted to Everton Vicarage, 1755.</div> - <div>Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756.</div> - <div>Fell asleep in Christ Jesus, January 22, 1793.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>With the exception of the date of his death, -it was written by the hand that moulders beneath -the stone; it is characteristic that its -writer caused himself to be buried in that part -of the churchyard where, up to that time, only -those had been interred who had destroyed -themselves, or come to an ignominious end. -Before his death he had often said that he -would take this effectual means of consecrating -that unhallowed spot.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This epitaph sufficiently shows that John -Berridge was an original character. Southey -says of him that he was a buffoon and a fanatic. -Southey’s judgments about the men of the Revival -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>were frequently as shallow as they were -unjust; he must have felt a sharp sting when, -as doubtless was the case, he heard the well-known -anecdote of George IV., who, on reading -Richard Watson’s calm reply to Southey’s -attacks on the Methodist leaders, exclaimed, -as he laid down the book, “Oh, my poor Poet -Laureate!” He deserved all that and a good -deal more, if only for the verdict we have -quoted on Berridge. So far as scholarship may -test a man, John Berridge was most likely a -far deeper scholar than Dr. Southey; he was a -distinguished member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, -and for many years read and studied fourteen -hours a day; but he was an uncontrollable droll -and humourist; pithy proverbs fell spontaneously -along all his speech. As one critic says of -his style, “It was like granulated salt.” As a -preacher, he was equal to any multitudes; he -lived among farmers and graziers, and the -twinkling of his eye, all alive with shrewd -cheerfulness, compelled attention even before -he opened his lips. The late Dr. Guthrie, not -long before his death, thought it worth his -while to republish <i>The Christian World Unmasked; -pray Come and Peep</i>; and it is characteristic -of Berridge throughout.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After his conversion, his Bishop called him -up and threatened to send him to gaol for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>preaching out of his parish. Our readers may -imagine with such a man what sort of conference -it was, and which of the two would be -likely to get the worst of it: “I tell you,” said -the Bishop, “if you continue preaching where -you have no right, you are very likely to be -sent to Huntingdon Gaol.” “I have no more -regard for a gaol than other folks,” said he; -“but I would rather go there with a good conscience -than be at liberty without one.” The -conference is too long for quotation, but Berridge -held on his way; he became one of the -most beloved and intimate friends of the -Countess of Huntingdon; and if he shocked his -bishop by preaching out of his own parish, he -must have roused his wrath by preaching in -her ladyship’s chapel in London, and throughout -the country. His letters to the Countess -are as characteristic as his speech, or any other -of his writings. Thus he writes to her about -young Rowland Hill, “I find you have got -honest Rowland down to Bath; he is a pretty -young spaniel, fit for land or water, and he has -a wonderful yelp; he forsakes father and mother -and brethren, and gives up all for Jesus, and I -believe he will prove a useful labourer if he -keeps clear of petticoat snares.” No doubt, -Berridge sometimes seemed not only racy, but -rude; but his words were wonderfully calculated -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>to meet the average and level of an immense -congregation. While he lived on terms -of fellowship with all the great leaders of the -movement, he was faithful as the vicar of his -own parish, and was the apostle of the whole -region of Bedfordshire.</p> - -<p class='c007'>With all his shrewd worldly wisdom, Berridge -had a most benevolent hand; he was rich, -and devoted far more than the income of his -vicarage to helping his poor neighbours, supporting -itinerant ministers, renting houses -and barns for preaching the Gospel, and, however -far he travelled to preach, always disbursing -his expenses from his own pocket. How -he would have loved John Bunyan, and how -John Bunyan would have loved him! It is -curious that within a few miles of the place -where the illustrious dreamer was so long -imprisoned, one should arise out of the very -Church which persecuted Bunyan, to do for a -long succession of years, on the same ground, -the work for which he was persecuted.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i14-page-163-haworthchurch.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>Haworth Church.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>From the low Bedford level, what a flight to -the wildest spot in wild Yorkshire, Haworth, -and its venerable old parish church, celebrated -now as a classic region, haunted by the memory -of the author of <i>Jane Eyre</i>, and all the Brontë -family; but in the times of which we are writing, -the vicar, William Grimshaw, was quite as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>queer and quaint a creature as Berridge. A -wild spot now—a stern, grand place; desolate -moors still seeming to stretch all round it; -though more easily reached in this day, it must -indeed have been a rough solitude when William -Grimshaw became its vicar, in 1742. He was -born in 1708; he died in 1763. He was a man -something of the nature of the wild moors -around him. When he became the pastor of -the parish, the people all round him were -plunged in the most sottish heathenism. The -pastor was a kind of son of the desert, and he -became such an one as the Baptist, crying in -the wilderness. The people were rough, they -perhaps needed a rough shepherd; they had -one. The character of Grimshaw is that of a -rough, faithful, and not less beautiful shepherd’s -dog. On the Sabbath morning he would commence -his service, giving out the psalm, and -having taken note of the absentees from the -congregation, would start off, while the psalm -was being sung, to drive in the loiterers, visiting -the ale-houses, routing out the drinkers, and -literally compelling them to come into the -parish church. One Sabbath morning, a -stranger riding through Haworth, seeing some -men scrambling over a garden wall, and some -others leaping through a low window, imagined -the house was on fire. He inquired what was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>the matter. One of them cried out, “The -parson’s a coming!” and that explained the -riddle. Upon another occasion, as a man was -passing through the village, on the Sabbath -day, on his way to call a doctor, his horse lost -a shoe. He found his way to the village -smithy to have his loss repaired. The blacksmith -told him that it was the Lord’s day, and the -work could not be done unless the minister -gave his permission. So they went to the parson, -who, of course, as the case was urgent and -necessary, gave his consent. But the story -illustrates the mastery the vicar attained over -the rough minds around him. He was a man -of a hardy mould. He was intensely earnest. -He not only effected a mighty moral change in -his own parish, but Haworth was visited every -Sabbath by pilgrims from miles round to listen -to this singular, strong, mountain voice; so that -the church became unequal to the great congregations, -and he often had to preach in the -churchyard, a desolate looking spot now, but -alive with mighty concourses then. It is said -that his strong, pithy words haunted men long -after they were spoken, as the infidel nobleman, -who, in an affected manner, told him he was -unable to see the truth of Christianity. “The -fault,” said the rough vicar, “is not so much in -your lordship’s head as in your heart.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span> -<img src='images/i15-page-165-grimshawhouse.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>GRIMSHAW’S HOUSE.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Grimshaw was the first who kindled in the -wild heights of Yorkshire the flames of the -Revival. His mind was stirred simultaneously -with others, but he does not appear to have -received either from Whitefield or Wesley the -impulses which created his extraordinary character, -though he, of course, entered heartily -into all their work. They visited Haworth, -and preached to immense concourses there. -As to Grimshaw himself, in the most irregular -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>manner, he preached in the Methodist conventicles -and dissenting chapels in all the country -round. He effected an entire change in his -own neighbourhood. He put down the races; -he reformed the village feasts, wakes, and fairs. -He was often expecting suspension, and at last -he was cited before the Archbishop, who inquired -of him as to the number of his communicants. -“How many,” said his grace, “had -you when you first went to Haworth?” -“Twelve.” “And how many now?” “In the -summer, about twelve hundred.” The astonished -Archbishop turned to his assistants in -the examination, and said, “I really cannot -find fault with Mr. Grimshaw when he brings so -many people to the Lord’s Table.” Southey is -also complimentary, in his own way, to this -singular clergyman, and says, “He was certainly -mad!”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i16-page-167-williamgrimshaw.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>William Grimshaw.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It was what Festus said to Paul; but the -madness of the pastor of Haworth was a blessing -to the farms and cottages of those wild -moorlands. He was a child of nature in her -most beautiful moods, glorified by Divine grace. -The freshness and buoyancy of the heath his -foot so lightly pressed, and the torrents which -sung around him, were but typical of his hardy -naturalness and beauty of character. Truly it -has been said, it was not more natural that the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>gentle lover of nature should lie at the foot of -Helvellyn, than that this watchman of the -mountains should sleep at the foot of the hills -amongst which he had so faithfully laboured. -He died comparatively young. His last words -were very characteristic. Robert Shaw, an old -Methodist preacher, called upon him; he said, -“I will pray for you as long as I live, and if -there is praying in heaven, I will pray for you -there; I am as happy as I can be on earth, and -as sure of glory as if I were in it.” His last -words were, “Here goes an unprofitable servant!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The wild Yorkshire of that day took up the -Revival with a will; and Henry Venn, of Huddersfield, -we suppose, has even transcended by -his usefulness the fame of either Berridge or -Grimshaw; he was born in 1724, and died in -1797. His life was genial and fruitful, and to -his church in Huddersfield the people poured -in droves to listen to him. It has been said his -life was like a field of wheat, or a fine summer -day. And how are these to be painted or put -upon the canvas? He could scarcely be called -eccentric, excepting in the sense in which -earnestness, holiness, and usefulness are always -eccentric. His influence may be said, in some -directions, to continue still. He was one of the -indefatigable coadjutors of the Countess in all -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>her work, and towards the close of his life he -came to London to throw his influence round -young Rowland Hill, by preaching for some -time in Surrey Chapel.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In another district of Yorkshire, a mighty -movement was going on, commencing about -1734. Benjamin Ingham, whom we met some -time since at Oxford, as a member of the Holy -Club, was living at Ossett, near Dewsbury. He -had married Lady Margaret Hastings, a -younger sister of the Countess of Huntingdon. -He had received ordination in the Church of -England, but his irregularities had forced him -out. Like the Wesleys, in the earlier part of -his history, he became enchanted with the -devotional life of the Moravians, and at this -period he introduced with marvellous results a -modified Moravianism into the West Riding of -Yorkshire. He founded as many as eighty -Societies; but he appears to have attempted to -carry out an impossible scheme, the union of -the Moravian discipline and doctrine with his -idea of Congregationalism. His influence over -the West Riding for a long time was immense; -but, most naturally, divisions arose, and the -purely Moravian element separated itself into -its own order of Church life, while the Methodist -element was absorbed in the great and growing -Wesleyan Societies. He was a friend of Count -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>Zinzendorf, who was his guest for a long time -at Ledstone House. The shock which his -Society sustained, and the death of Lady -Margaret, his admirable and beloved wife, -were blows from which the good man never -recovered; but the effects of his usefulness continued, -although he passed; and if the reader -ever visits the little Moravian Colony and -Institution of Fulneck, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, -he may be pleased to remember that -this is also one of the offshoots of the Great -Revival.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is a sudden leap from the West Riding of -Yorkshire to Truro, the charming little capital -of Western Cornwall. We are here met by -an imperishable and beautiful name, that of -Samuel Walker, the minister; he was born in -1714, and died in 1761. His influence over his -town was great and abiding, and Walker of -Truro is a name which to this day retains its -fragrance, as associated with the restoration of -his town from wild depravity to purity and exemplary -piety.</p> - -<p class='c007'>How impossible it is to do more than merely -mention the names of men, every action of -whose lives was consecrated, and every breath -an ardent flame, all helping on and urging forward -the great work of rousing a careless world -and a careless Church. What an influence had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>William Romaine, who for a long time, it has -been said, was one of the sights of London; it -was rather drolly put when it was said, “People -came from the country to see Garrick act and -to hear Romaine preach!” Nor let our readers -suppose that he was a mere sensational orator; -he was a great scholar. We hear of him first -as the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and -the editor of the four volumes of Calasio’s -<i>Hebrew Concordance</i>; then he caught the -evangelic fire; he became one of the chaplains -of the Countess of Huntingdon, and, so far as -the Church of the Establishment was concerned, -he was the most considerable light of -London for a period of nearly fifty years; and -very singular was his history in this relation, -especially in some of the churches whose pulpits -he filled. It seems singular to us now how -even his great talents could obtain for him the -place of morning lecturer at St. George’s, Hanover -Square; but the charge was soon urged -against him that he vulgarised that most -fashionable of congregations, and most uncomfortably -crowded the church. He was appointed -evening lecturer at St. Dunstan’s in Fleet -Street; but the rector barred his entrance into -the pulpit, seating himself there during the -time of prayers, so that the preacher might be -unable to enter. Lord Mansfield decided that, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>after seven in the evening, the church was not -the rector’s, but that Mr. Romaine was entitled -to the use of it; then, at seven in the evening, -the churchwardens closed the church doors, -and kept the congregation outside, wearying -them in the rain or in the cold. At length, the -patience of the churchwardens gave way before -the persistency of the people and the preacher; -but it was an age of candles, and they refused -to light the church, and Mr. Romaine often -preached in a crowded church by the light of -one candle. They paid him the merest minimum -which he could demand, or which they -were compelled to pay; sometimes only eighteen -pounds a year. But he was a hardy man, -and he lived on the plainest fare, and dressed -in homespun cloth. He was dragged repeatedly -before courts of law, but he was as difficult -to manage here as in the church; he brought -his judges to the statutes, none of which he -had broken. Every effort was made to expel -him from the Church, but he would not be cast -out; and at last he appears to have settled himself, -as such men generally do, into an irresistible -fact. He became the Rector of St. Ann’s, -Blackfriars. There he preached those sermons -which were shaped afterwards into the favourite -book of our forefathers, <i>The Life, Walk, and -Triumph of Faith</i>. Born in 1714, he died in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>1795. His last years were clothed with a pleasant -serenity, although, perhaps, some have detected -in his character marks of a severity, -probably the result of those conflicts which, -through so many years, he had with such remarkable -consistency sustained.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i17-page-174-stannsblackfriars.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>ST. ANN’S, BLACKFRIARS.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>And surely we ought to mention, in this right -noble band, John Newton; but he brings us -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>near to the time when the passion of the Revival -was settling itself into organisation and -calm; when the fury of persecution was ceasing; -Methodism was becoming even a respectable -and acknowledged fact. John Newton was -born in 1725, and died in 1807. All his sympathies -were with the theology and the activities -of the revivalists; but before he most singularly -found himself the Rector of St. Mary -Woolnoth, and St. Mary Woolchurch, he had -led a life which, for its marvellous variety of -incident, reads like one of Defoe’s fictions.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i18-page-175-stmarywolnoth.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>St. Mary Woolnoth.<br />John Newton.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>But his parlour in No. 8 Coleman Street -Buildings, on a Friday evening, was thronged -by all the dignitaries of the evangelical movement -of his day. As he said, “I was a wild -beast on the coast of Africa, but the Lord -caught me and tamed me; and now you come -to see me as people go to see the lions in the -Tower.” A grand old man was John Newton, -the young sailor transformed into the saintly -old rector; there he sat with few traces of the -parson about him, in his blue pea-jacket, and -his black neckerchief, liking still to retain -something of the freedom of his old blue seas; -full of quaint wisdom, which never, like that of -his friend Berridge, became rude or droll; quietly -sitting there and meditating; his enthusiastic -life apparently having subsided into stillness, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>while the Hannah Mores, Wilberforces, -Claudius Buchanans, and John Campbells, went -to him to find their enthusiasm confirmed. -The friend of Cowper, who surely deserves to -be called the Poet Laureate of the Revival—himself -the author of some of the sweetest hymns -we still sing; the biographer of his own wonderful -career, and of the life of his friend and -brother-in-arms, William Grimshaw; one of the -finest of our religious letter-writers; with capacities -within him for almost everything he -might have thought it wise to undertake, he -now seems to us appropriately to close this -small gallery we have attempted to present. -When the spirit of the Revival was either settling -into firmness and consolidation, or striking -out into those new and marvellous fields of -labour—its natural outgrowth—which another -chapter may present succinctly to the eye, John -Newton, by his great experience of men, his -profound faith, his steady hand and clear eye, -became the wise adviser and fosterer of schemes -whose gigantic enterprise would certainly have -astonished even his capacious intelligence.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In closing this chapter it is quite worth while -to notice that, various as were the characters -of these men, and of their innumerable comrades, -to whom we do homage, although we -have no space even to mention their names, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>their strength arose from the certainty and the -confidence with which they spoke; there was -nothing tentative about their teaching. That -great scholar, Sir William Hamilton, says that -“assurance is the <i>punctum saliens</i>, that is the -strong point of Luther’s system;” so it was with -all these men, “We speak that we do know, -and testify that we have seen;” it was the full -assurance of knowledge; and it gave them authority -over the men with whom they wrestled, -whether in public or private. Whitefield and -Wesley alike, and all their followers, had strong -faith in God. They were believers in the personal -regard of God for the souls of men; and -every idea of prayer supposes some such personal -regard, whether offered by the highest of -high Calvinists, or the simplest primitive Methodist; -the whole spirit of the Revival turned on -this; these men, as they strongly believed, -were able, by the strong attractive force of their -own nature, to compel other minds to their -convictions. Their history strongly illustrates -that that teaching which oscillates to and fro -in a pendulous uncertainty is powerless to reform -character or influence mind.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span> - <h2 id='ch09' class='c004'>CHAPTER IX<br /> <br /><span class='small'>BLOSSOMS IN THE WILDERNESS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>The preceding chapters have shown that the -Great Revival was creating over the wild moral -wastes of England a pure and spiritual atmosphere, -and its movements and organisations -were taking root in every direction. Voltaire, -and that pedantic cluster of conceited infidels, -the Bolingbrokes, Middletons, and Mandevilles, -Chubbs, Woolstons, and Collinses, who -prophesied that Christian faith was fast vanishing -from the earth, were slightly premature. It -is, indeed, interesting to notice the contrast in -this period between England and the then most -unhappy sister-kingdom of France: there, indeed, -Christian faith did seem to be trodden -underfoot of men. While a great silent, hallowed -revolution was going on in one, all -things were preparing for a tremendous revolution -in the other. It was just about the time -that the Revival was leavening English society -that Lord Chesterfield summed up what he had -noticed in France, in the following words: “In -short, all the symptoms which I have ever met -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>with in history previous to great changes and -revolutions in government, now exist and daily -increase in France.” The words were spoken -several years before that terrible Revolution -came, which conducted the King, the Queen, -and almost all the aristocracy, respectability, -and lingering piety of the nation to the scaffold. -It was a wonderful compensation. A few -years before, a sovereign had cast away from -his nation, and from around his throne, all the -social elements which could guard and give -dignity to it; how natural, then, that the whole -<i>canaille</i> of the kingdom should rush upon the -throne of his successor, and cast it and its occupant -into the bonfire of the Reign of Terror!</p> - -<p class='c007'>In Britain, from some cause, all was different. -This period of the Revival has been truly called -the starting-point of the modern religious history -of that land; and, somehow, all things -were singularly combining to give to the nation -a new-born happiness, to create new facilities -for mental growth and culture, and to enlarge -and to fill their cup of national joy. It will be -noticed that these things did not descend to -the nation generally from the highest places of -the land. With the exception of the sovereign, -we cannot see many instances of a lively interest -in the moral well-being of the people. -Other exceptions there were, but they were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>very few. From the people themselves, and -from the causes we have described, originated -and spread those means which, amidst the wild -agitations of revolution, as they came foaming -over the Channel, and which were rather aided -than repressed by the unwisdom of many of -the governments and magistrates, calmed and -enlightened the public mind, and secured the -order of society, and the stability of the throne.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The historians of Wesleyanism—we will say -it respectfully, but still very firmly—have been -too uniformly disposed to see in their own society -the centre and the spring of all those -amazing means of social regeneration to which -the period of the Revival gave birth. Dr. Abel -Stevens specially seems to regard Methodism -and Wesleyanism as conterminous. It would -seem from him that the work of the printing-office, -the book or the tract society, schools -and missions, and the various means of social -amelioration or redemption, all have their -origin in Wesleyanism. We may give the -largest honour to the venerable name of Wesley, -and accept this history by Dr. Stevens as -the best, yet as an American he did not fully -know what had been done by others not in the -Connexion. There was an immense field of -Methodism which did not fall beneath the dominion -of Wesley, and had no relation to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Wesleyan Conference. The same spirit touched -simultaneously many minds, quite separated by -ecclesiastical and social relations, but all -wrought up to the same end. These pages -have been greatly devoted to reminiscences of -the great preachers, and illustrations of the -preaching power of the Revival, but our readers -know that the Revival did not end in -preaching. These voices stirred the slumbering -mind of the nation like a thunder-peal, but -they roused to work and practical effort. The -great characteristic of all that came out of the -movement may be summed up in the often-quoted -expression, “A single eye to the glory -of God.” As one of the clergymen of Yorkshire, -earnest and active in those times, was -wont to say, “I do love those one-eyed Christians.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>We shall have occasion to mention the name -of Robert Raikes, and that name reminds us not -only of Gloucester, but of Gloucestershire; many -circumstances gave to that most charming county -a conspicuous place. Lying in the immediate -neighbourhood of Bath, it attracted the attention -of the Countess of Huntingdon. “As sure -as God is in Gloucestershire,” was an old proverb, -first used in monastic days, then applied to the -Reformation time, when Tyndale, the first -translator of the English New Testament, had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>his home in the lovely village of North Nibley; -but it became yet more true when Whitefield -preached to the immense concourses on Stinchcombe -Hill; when Rodborough and Ebley, and -the valley of the Stroud Water were lit up with -Revival beacons, and when Rowland Hill -established his vicarage at Wotton-under-Edge; -then, in its immediate neighbourhood, -arose that beautiful Christian worker, the close -friend of George Whitefield, Cornelius Winter; -and from his labours came forth his most -eminent pupil, and great preacher, William -Jay.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And the Revival took effect on distinct circles -which certainly seemed outside of the Methodist -movement, but which yet, assuredly, belonged -to it; the Clapham Sect, for instance. “The -Clapham Sect” is a designation originating in -the facetious and satiric brain of Sydney Smith, -than whom the Revival never had a more -unjust, ungenerous, or ungracious critic; but the -pages of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, in which the -flippant sting of speech first appeared, years -afterwards consecrated the term and made it -historical in the elegant essay of Sir James -Stephen. By his pen the sect, with all its -leaders, acts, and consequences, are pleasantly -described in the <i>Essays on Ecclesiastical -Biography</i>; and surely this was as much the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>result of the Great Revival as the “evangelical -succession” which calls forth the exercise in -previous pages of the same interesting pen; it -was all a natural evangelical succession, that of -which we have spoken before, as enthusiasm -for humanity growing out of enthusiasm for -Divine truth. Men who have become fairly -impressed by a sense of their own immortality -and its redemption in Christ, become interested -in the temporal well-being and the eternal -welfare of others. It has always been so, and -is so still, that men who have not a sense of -man’s immortal welfare have usually cared but -little about his temporal interests. Hospitals -and churches, orphanages and missionary -societies, usually grow out of the same spiritual -root.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We scarcely need ask our readers to accompany -us to the pleasant little village of Clapham, -and its sweet sequestered Common, then -so far removed from the great metropolis; -surrounded by the homes of wealthy men, -merchants, statesmen, eminent preachers, all -of them infected with the spirit of the Revival, -and all of them noteworthy in the story of those -means which were to shiver the chains of the -slave, to carry light to dark heathen minds, -and to hand out the Bible to English villages -and far-off nations. We have been desirous of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>conveying the impression that those were times -of a singular and almost simultaneous spiritual -upheaval; it was as if, in different regions of the -great lake of humanity, submerged islands suddenly -appeared from beneath the waves; and it -is not too much to say that all those various -means which have so tended to beautify and -bless the world, schemes of education, schemes -for the improvement of prison discipline, -schemes of missionary enterprise for the extension -of Christian influence in the East Indies, -the destruction of slavery in the West Indies, -and the abolition of the slave trade throughout -the British Empire; Bible societies and Tract -societies, and, in fact, the whole munificent -machinery and organisation of our day, sprang -forth from that revival of the last century. It -seems now like a magnificent burst of enthusiasm; -yet, ultimately it was based upon only -two or three great elements of faith: the -spiritual world was an intense reality; the soul -of every man, woman, and child on the face of -the earth had an endowment of immortality; -they were precious to the Redeemer, they -ought, therefore, to be precious to all the followers -of the Redeemer. Charged with these -truths, their spirits inflamed to a holy enthusiasm -by them, from parlours and drawing-rooms, -from the lowly homes and cottages of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>England, all these new professors appeared to -be in search of occasions for doing good; the -schemes worked themselves through all the -varieties of human temperament and imperfection; -but, looking back, it must surely be -admitted that they achieved glorious results.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id005'> -<img src='images/i19-page-187-johnthorton.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>John Thornton.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>If the reader, impressed by veneration, should -make a pilgrimage to Clapham Common, and -inquire from some one of the oldest inhabitants -which was the house in which John Shore, the -great Lord Teignmouth, the first President of -the Bible Society, lived, his soul within him -might be a little vexed to be informed that -yonder large building at the extreme corner of -the common, the great Roman Catholic Redemptionist -College, is the house. There, were -canvassed and brooded over a number of the -schemes to which we have referred. Thither -from his own house, close to the well-known -“Plough”—its site now covered by suburban -shops—went the great Zachary Macaulay, -sometimes accompanied by his son, a bright, -intelligent lad, afterwards known as Thomas -Babington Macaulay. John Shore had been -Governor of India, at Calcutta. On the common -resided also, for some time, William Wilberforce. -These were the great statesmen who -were desirous of organising great plans, from -which the consummating prayer of David in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>72nd Psalm should be realised. Then there -was another house on the common, the mansion -of John Thornton, which seemed to share with -that of Lord Teignmouth the honours of these -Divine committees of ways and means. Before -the establishment of the Bible Society, Mr. -Thornton had been in the habit of spending -two thousand pounds a year in the distribution -of Bibles and Testaments—a very Bible Society -in himself. It is, perhaps, not too much to say, -there was scarcely a thought which had for its -object the well-being of the human family but -it found its representation and discussion in -those palatial abodes on Clapham Common. -There were Granville Sharp and Thomas -Clarkson; thither, how often went cheery old -John Newton, to whom, first of all, on arriving -in London, went every holy wayfarer from the -provinces, wayfarers who soon found their -entrance beneath his protecting wing, and -cheery introduction to these pleasant circles. -Beneath the incentives of his animating words, -the fervid earnestness of Claudius Buchanan -found its pathway of power, and <i>The Star of the -East</i>—his great sermon on “Missions to -India,”—was first seen shining over Clapham -Common; and it was the same genial tongue -which encouraged that fine, but almost forgotten -man, John Campbell, in the enterprise of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>his spirit, to pierce into the deserts of Africa. -We may notice how great ideas perpetuate -themselves into generations, when we remember -that it was John Campbell who first took -out Robert Moffat, and settled him down in the -field of his wonderful labours.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Sir James Stephen, in his admirable paper, is -far from exhausting all the memories of that -Clapham Sect. There was another house, not -in Clapham, but not far removed—Hatcham -House, as we remember it—a noble mansion, -standing in its park, opposite where the old -lane turned off from the main road to Peckham. -There lived Joseph Hardcastle—certainly one -of the Clapham Sect—Wilberforce’s close and -intimate friend, a munificent merchant prince, -in whose offices in the City were held for a long -time all the earliest committee meetings of the -Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, and -the London Missionary Society, and from whom -appear to have emanated the first suggestions -for the limitation of the powers of the East India -Company in supporting and sanctioning, by -the English Government, Hindoo infanticide -and idolatry. Among all the glorious names -of the Clapham Sect, not one shines out more -beautifully than that of this noble Christian -gentleman.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Perhaps a natural delicacy withheld Sir James -<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>Stephen from chronicling the story of his own -father, Sir George Stephen; and there was -Thomas Gisborne, most charming of English -preachers of the Church of England evangelical -school; and Sir Robert Grant, whose hymns -are still among the sweetest in our national -psalmody. But we can do no more than thus -say that it was from hence that the spirit of the -Revival rose in new strength, and taking to itself -the wings of the morning, spread to the uttermost -parts of the earth.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span> - <h2 id='ch10' class='c004'>CHAPTER X<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE REVIVAL BECOMES EDUCATIONAL.—ROBERT RAIKES.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>In the year 1880 was celebrated in England -and America the centenary of Sunday-schools. -The life and labours of Robert Raikes, whose -name has long been familiar as “a household -word” in connection with such institutions, -were reviewed, and fresh interest added to that -early work for the young.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i20-page-194-robertraikes.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>ROBERT RAIKES AND HIS SCHOLARS.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Gloucestershire, if not one of the largest, is -certainly one of the fairest—as, indeed, its name -is said to imply: from <i>Glaw</i>, an old British -word signifying “fair”—it is one of the fairest, -and it ought to be one of the most famous, -counties of England. Many are its distinguished -worthies: John de Trevisa was Vicar of Berkeley, -in Gloucestershire, and a contemporary -with John Wyclif, and, like him, he had a strong -aversion to the practices of the Church of Rome, -and an earnest desire to make the Scriptures -known to his parishioners; and in Nibley, in -Gloucestershire, was born, and lived, William -Tyndale, in whose noble heart the great idea -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>sprang up that Christian Englishmen should -read the New Testament in their own mother-tongue, -and who said to a celebrated priest, -“If God spares my life, I will take care that a -plough-boy shall know more of the Scriptures -than you do.” The story of the great translator -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>and martyr is most interesting. Gloucestershire -has been famous, too, for its contributions -to the noble army of martyrs, notably, not -only James Baynham, but, in Gloucester, its -bishop, John Hooper, was in 1555 burnt to -death. In Berkeley the very distinguished -physician, and first promulgator of the doctrine -of vaccination, Dr. Edward Jenner, the son of -the vicar, was born; and from the Old Bell, in -Gloucester, went forth the wonderful preacher -George Whitefield, to arouse the sleeping -Church in England and America from its lethargy. -The quaint old proverb to which we -have already alluded—“As sure as God is in -Gloucestershire”—was very complimentary, but -not very correct; it arose from the amazing -ecclesiastical wealth of the county, which was -so rich that it attracted the notice of the papal -court, and four Italian bishops held it in succession -for fifty years; one of these, Giulio de -Medici, became Pope Clement VII., succeeding -Pope Leo X. in the papacy in 1523. This eminent -ecclesiastical fame no doubt originated -the proverb; but it acquired a tone of reality -and truth rather from the martyrdom of its -bishop than from the elevation of his predecessor -to the papal tiara; rather from Tyndale, -William Sarton, and his brother weaver-martyrs, -than from its costly and magnificent endowments; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>from Whitefield and Jenner rather -than from its crowd of priests and friars.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus Gloucestershire has certainly considerable -eminence among English counties. To -other distinguished names must be added that -of Robert Raikes, who must ever be regarded -as the founder of Sabbath-schools. It is not -intended by this that there had never been any -attempts made to gather the children on the -Sabbath for some kind of religious instruction—although -such attempts were very few, and a -diligent search has probably brought them -all [?] under our knowledge; but the example -and the influence of Raikes gave to the idea the -character of a movement; it stirred the whole -country, from the throne itself, the King and -Queen, the bishops, and the clergy; all classes -of ministers and laymen became interested in -what was evidently an easy and happy method -of seizing upon the multitudes of lost children -who in that day were “perishing for lack of -knowledge.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Joseph Stratford, in his <i>Biographical -Sketches of the Great and Good Men in Gloucestershire</i>, -and Mr. Alfred Gregory, in his <i>Life -of Robert Raikes</i>—to which works we must -confess our obligation for much of the information -contained in this chapter—have both done -honour to the several humbler and more obscure -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>labourers whose hearts were moved to attempt -the work to which Raikes gave a national importance, -and which from his hands, and from -his time, became henceforth a perpetual institution -in the Church work of every denomination -of Christian believers and labourers. The -Rev. Joseph Alleine, the author of <i>The Alarm -to the Unconverted</i>, an eminent Nonconformist -minister of Taunton, adopted the plan of -gathering the young people together for instruction -on the Lord’s day. Even in Gloucestershire, -before Raikes was born, in the village -of Flaxley, on the borders of the Forest of -Dean—Flaxley, of which the poet Bloomfield -sings:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“’Mid depths of shade gay sunbeams broke</div> - <div class='line in1'>Through noble Flaxley’s bowers of oak;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Where many a cottage, trim and gay,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Whispered delight through all the way:”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>in the old Cistercian Abbey, Mrs. Catharine -Boevey, the lady of the abbey, had one of the -earliest and pleasantest Sabbath-schools. Her -monument in Flaxley Church, erected after -her death in 1726, records her “clothing and -feeding her indigent neighbours, and teaching -their children, some of whom she entertained -at her house, and examined them herself.” Six -of the poor children, it is elsewhere stated, -“by turns dined at her residence on Sundays, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>and were afterwards heard say the Catechism.”</p> -<p class='c007'>We read of a humbler labourer, realising, -perhaps, more the idea of a Sabbath-school -teacher, in Bolton, in Lancashire, James Hey, -or “Old Jemmy o’ th’ Hey.” Old Jemmy, Mr. -Gregory tells us, employed the working days -of the week in winding bobbins for weavers, -and on Sundays he taught the boys and girls -of the neighbourhood to read. His school -assembled twice each Sunday, in the cottage of -a neighbour, and the time of commencing was -announced, not by the ringing of a bell, but by -an excellent substitute, an old brass pestle and -mortar. After a while, Mr. Adam Compton, a -paper manufacturer in the neighbourhood, -began to supply Jemmy with books, and subscriptions -in money were given him; he was -thus enabled to form three branch establishments, -the teachers of which were paid one -shilling each Sunday for their services. Besides -these there are several other instances: in -1763 the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey established -something like a Sunday-school at Catterick, in -Yorkshire; at High Wycombe, in 1769, Miss -Hannah Ball, a young Methodist lady, formed -a Sunday-school in her town; and at Macclesfield -that admirable and excellent man, the -Rev. David Simpson, originated a similar plan -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>of usefulness; and, contemporary with Mr. -Raikes, in the old Whitefield Tabernacle, at -Dursley, in Gloucestershire, we find Mr. William -King, a woollen card-maker, attempting the -work of teaching on a Sunday, and coming into -Gloucester to take counsel with Mr. Raikes as -to the best way of carrying it forward. Such, -scattered over the face of the country, at great -distances, and in no way representing a general -plan of useful labour, were the hints and efforts -before the idea took what may be called an -apostolic shape in the person of Robert Raikes.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Notwithstanding the instances we have -given, Mr. Raikes must really be regarded -as the founder of Sunday-schools as an extended -organisation. With him they became more -than a notion, or a mere piece of local effort; -and his position and profession, and the high -respect in which he was held in the city in -which he lived, all alike enabled him to give -publicity to the plan: and before he commenced -this movement, he was known as a philanthropist; -indeed, John Howard himself bears -something like the same relation to prison -philanthropy which Raikes bears to Sunday-schools. -No one doubts that Howard was the -great apostle of prisons; but it seems that before -he commenced his great prison crusade, -Raikes had laboured diligently to reform the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>Gloucester gaol. The condition of the prisoners -was most pitiable, and Raikes, nearly -twenty years before he commenced the Sunday-school -system, had been working among -them, attempting their material, moral, and -spiritual improvement, by which he had earned -for himself the designation of the “Teacher of -the Poor.” Howard visited Raikes in Gloucester, -and bears his testimony to the blessedness -and benevolence of his labours in the prison -there; and the gaol appears not unnaturally to -have suggested the idea of the Sunday-school -to the benevolent-hearted man. It was a -dreadful state of society. Some idea may be -formed of it from a paragraph in the <i>Gloucester -Journal</i> for June, 1783, the paper of which -Raikes was the editor and proprietor: it is mentioned -that no less than sixty-six persons were -committed to the Castle in one week, and Mr. -Raikes adds, “The prison is already so full -that all the gaoler’s stock of fetters is occupied, -and the smiths are hard at work casting new -ones.” He goes on to say: “The people sent -in are neither disappointed soldiers nor sailors, -but chiefly frequenters of ale-houses and skittle-alleys.” -Then, in another paragraph, he goes -on to remark, “The ships about to sail for -Botany Bay will carry about one thousand -miserable creatures, who might have lived perfectly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>happy in this country had they been early -taught good principles, and to avoid the danger -of associating with those who make sobriety -and industry the objects of their ridicule.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>From sentences like these it is easy to see the -direction in which the mind of the good man -was moving, before he commenced the work -which has given such a happy and abiding perpetuity -to his name. He gathered the children; -the streets were full of noise and disturbances -every Sunday. In a little while, says the -Rev. Dr. Glass, Mr. Raikes found himself surrounded -by such a set of little ragamuffins as -would have disgusted other men less zealous to -do good, and less earnest to disseminate comfort, -exhortation, and benefit to all around him, -than the founder of Sunday-schools. He prevented -their running about in wild disorder -through the streets. By and by, he arranged -that a number of them should meet him at -seven o’clock on the Sunday morning in the -cathedral close, when he and they all went -into the cathedral together to an early service. -The increase of the numbers was rapid; Mr. -Raikes was looked up to as the commander-in-chief -of this ragged regiment. It is testified -that a change took place and passed over the -streets of the old Gloucester city on the Sunday. -A glance at the features of Mr. Raikes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>will assure the reader that he was an amiable -and gentle man, but that by no means implies -always a weak one. He appears to have had -plenty of strength, self-possession, and knowledge -of the world. He also belonged to, and -moved in, good society; and this is not without -its influence. As he told the King, in the -course of a long interview, when the King and -Queen sent for him to Windsor, to talk over -his system with him, in order that they might, -in some sense, be his disciples, and adopt and -recommend his plan: it was “botanising in -human nature.” “All that I require,” said -Raikes, to the parents of the children, “are -clean hands, clean faces, and their hair -combed.” To many who were barefooted, -after they had shown some regularity of attendance, -he gave shoes, and others he clothed. -Yes, it was “botanising in human nature;” and -very many anecdotes show what flowers sprang -up out of the black soil in the path of the good -man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>All the stories told of Raikes show that the -law of kindness was usually on his lips. A -sulky, stubborn girl had resisted all reproofs -and correction, and had refused to ask forgiveness -of her mother. In the presence of the -mother, Raikes said to the girl, “Well, if you -have no regard for yourself, I have much for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>you. You will be ruined and lost if you do not -become a good girl; and if you will not humble -yourself, I must humble myself on your behalf -and make a beginning for you;” and then, with -great solemnity, he entreated the mother to -forgive the girl, using such words that he overcame -the girl’s pride. The stubborn creature -actually fell on her knees, and begged her -mother’s forgiveness, and never gave Mr. -Raikes or her mother trouble afterwards. It is -a very simple anecdote; but it shows the Divine -spirit in the method of the man; and the more -closely we come into a personal knowledge of -his character, the more admirable and lovable -it seems. Thus literally true and beautiful are -the words of the hymn:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Like a lone husbandman, forlorn,</div> - <div class='line in2'>The man of Gloucester went,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Bearing his seeds of precious corn;</div> - <div class='line in2'>And God the blessing sent.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in1'>Now, watered long by faith and prayer,</div> - <div class='line in2'>From year to year it grows,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Till heath, and hill, and desert bare,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Do blossom as the rose.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Mr. Raikes was a Churchman; he was so -happy as to have, near to his own parish of St. -Mary-le-Crypt, in Gloucester, an intimate -friend, the Rector of St. Aldate’s—a neighbouring -parish in the same city—the Rev. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>Thomas Stock, whose monument in the -church truly testifies that “to him, in conjunction -with Robert Raikes, Esquire, is justly attributed -the honour of having planned and instituted -the first Sunday-school in the kingdom.” -Mr. Stock was but a young man in 1780, for he -died in 1803, then only fifty-four years of age; -he must have been, at the time of the first institution -of Sunday-schools, a young man of -fine and tender instincts. He appears, simultaneously -with Mr. Raikes’s movement, to have -formed a Sunday-school in his own parish, -taking upon himself the superintendence of it, -and the responsibility of such expenses as it involved. -But Mr. Stock says, in a letter written -in 1788, “The progress of the institution -through the kingdom is justly attributed to the -constant representations which Mr. Raikes -made in his own paper of the benefits which he -saw would probably arise from it.” At the time -Mr. Raikes began the work, he was about -forty-four years of age; it was a great thing in -that day to possess a respectable journal, a -newspaper of acknowledged character and influence; -to this, very likely, we owe it, in some -considerable measure, that the work in Gloucester -became extensively known and spread, and -expanded into a great movement. But he does -not appear to have used the columns of his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>newspaper for the purpose of calling attention -to the usefulness and desirability of the work -until after it had been in operation about three -years; in 1783 and 1784, very modestly he -commends the system to general adoption.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i21-page-205-robertraikes.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>Robert Raikes.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It is remarkable that in the course of two or -three years, several bishops—the Bishop of -Gloucester, in the cathedral, the Bishops of -Chester and Salisbury, in their charges to the -clergy of their dioceses—strongly commended -the plan. All orders of mind poured around -the movement their commendation; even Adam -Smith, whom no one will think likely to have -fallen into exaggerated expressions where -Christian activity is concerned, said, “No plan -has promised to effect a change of manners with -equal ease and simplicity, since the days of the -apostles.” The poet Cowper declared that he -knew of no nobler means by which a reformation -of the lower classes could be effected. -Some attempts have been made to claim for -John Wesley the honour of inaugurating the -Sunday-school system; considering the intensely -practical character of that venerated -man, and how much he was in advance of his -times in most of his activities, it is a wonder -that he did not; but his venerable memory has -honours, certainly, in all sufficiency. He wrote -his first commendation of Sunday-schools in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>the <i>Arminian Magazine</i> of 1784. He says, -“I find these schools spring up wherever I -go; perhaps God may have a deeper end -therein than men are aware of; who knows but -that some of these schools may become nurseries -for Christians?” Prophetic as these words are, -this is fainter and tardier praise than we should -have expected from him; but in 1787 he writes -more warmly, expresses his belief that these -schools will be one great means of reviving -religion throughout the kingdom, and expresses -“wonder that Satan has not sent out some able -champion against them.” In 1788 he says: “I -verily think that these schools are one of the -noblest specimens of charity which have been -set on foot in England since the days of William -the Conqueror.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some estimate may be formed of the rapidity -with which the movement spread, when we -find that in this year, 1787, the number of -children taught in Sunday-schools in Manchester -alone, on the testimony of the very -eminent John Nichols, the great printer and -anecdotist, was no fewer than five thousand. -It was in this year also, 1787, that Mr. Raikes -was visiting some relatives in the neighbourhood -of Windsor. He must have attained to -the dignity of a celebrity; nor is this wonderful, -when we remember the universal acceptance -<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>with which his great idea of Sunday-schools -had been honoured. The Queen invited him to -visit her, and inquired of him, he says, “by -what accident a thought which promised so -much benefit to the lower order of people as -the institution of Sunday-schools, was suggested -to his mind?” The visit was a long one; he -spent two hours with the Queen—the King -also, we believe, being present most of the -time—not so much in expounding the system, -for that was simple enough, but they were -curious as to what he had observed in the -change and improvement of the characters -among whom he worked; and we believe that -it was then he told the King, in the words we -have already quoted, that he regarded his work -as a kind of “botanising in human nature;” this -was a favourite phrase of his in describing the -work. The result of this visit was, that the -Queen established a Sunday-school in Windsor, -and also a school of industry at Brentford, -which the King and Queen occasionally visited. -It may be taken as an illustration of the native -modesty of Mr. Raikes’s own character that he -never referred in his paper to this distinguished -notice of royalty.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Do our readers know anything of Mrs. Sarah -Trimmer? A hundred years ago, there was, -probably, not a better-known woman in England; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>and although her works have long ceased -to exercise any influence, we suppose none, in -her time, were more eminently useful. Pious, -devoted, earnestly evangelical, if we speak of -her as a kind of lesser Hannah More, the remark -must apply to her intellectual character rather -than to her reputation or her usefulness. Almost -as soon as the Sunday-school idea was -announced, she stepped forward as its most able -and intrepid advocate; her <i>Economy of Charity</i> -exercised a large influence, and she published a -number of books, which, at that time, were admirably -suited to the level of the capacity -which the Sunday-school teacher desired to -reach; she was also a great favourite with the -King and Queen, and appears to have visited -them on the easy terms of friendship. The intense -interest she felt in Sunday-schools is -manifest in innumerable pages of the two volumes -which record her life; certainly, she was -often at the ear of the royal pair, to whisper -any good and pleasant thing connected with the -progress of her favourite thought. She repeatedly -expresses her obligation to Mr. Raikes; -but her biographer only expresses the simple -truth when he says: “To Mr. Raikes, of -Gloucester, the nation is, in the first place, indebted -for the happy idea of collecting the -children of the poor together on the Sabbath, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>and giving them instruction suited to the sacredness -of the day; but, perhaps, no publication -on this subject was of more utility than the -<i>Economy of Charity</i>. The influence of the -work was very visible when it first made its appearance, -and proved a source of unspeakable -gratification to the author.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is not consistent with the aim of this book -to enter at greater length into the life of Robert -Raikes; we have said sufficient to show that -the term which has been applied to him of -“founder of Sunday-schools,” is not misapplied. -He was a simple and good man, on whose heart, -as into a fruitful soil, an idea fell, and it became -a realised conviction. Look at his portrait, -and instantly there comes to your mind -Cowper’s well-known description of one of his -friends,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>No words can better describe him—not a tint -of fanaticism seems to shade his character; he -had a warm enthusiasm for ends and aims -which commended themselves to his judgment. -It is pleasant to know that, as he lived when -the agitation for the abolition of the slave trade -was commencing, he gave to the movement his -hearty blessings and best wishes. At sixty-seven -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>years of age he retired from business; no -doubt a very well-to-do man, for he was the -owner of two freehold estates near Gloucester, -and he received an annuity of three hundred -pounds from the <i>Gloucester Journal</i>. He died -at his house in Bell Lane, in the city of Gloucester, -where he had taken up his residence -when he retired from active life; he died suddenly, -in his seventy-sixth year, in 1811. Then -the family vault in St. Mary-le-Crypt, which -sixty years before had received his father’s -ashes, received the body of the gentle philanthropist. -He had kept up his Sunday-school -work and interest to the close; and he left instructions -that his Sunday-school children -should be invited to follow him to the grave, -and that each of them should receive a shilling -and a plum cake. On the tablet over the place -where he sleeps an appropriate verse of Scripture -well describes him: “When the ear heard -me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw -me, it gave witness to me: because I delivered -the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and -him that had none to help him. The blessing -of him that was ready to perish came upon -me: and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for -joy.”</p> -<p class='c007'>It seems very questionable whether the -slightest shade can cross the memory of this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>plain, simply useful, and unostentatious man. -And it ought to be said that Anne Raikes, who -rests in the same grave, appears to have been -every way the worthy companion of her husband. -She was the daughter of Thomas Trigg, -Esq., of Newnham, in Gloucestershire; the -sister of Sir Thomas Trigg and Admiral John -Trigg. They were married in 1767. She shared -in all her husband’s large and charitable intentions, -and when he died he left the whole of his -property to her. She survived him seventeen -years, and died in 1828, at the age of eighty-five.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id006'> -<img src='images/i22-page-213-raikeshouse.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>RAIKES’S HOUSE, GLOUCESTER.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The visitor to Gloucester will be surely struck -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>by a quaint old house in Southgate Street—still -standing almost unaltered, save that the -basement is now divided into two shops. A -few years since the old oak timbers were -braced, stained, and varnished. It is a fine -specimen of the better class of English residences -of a hundred and fifty years since, and is -still remarkable in the old city, owing very -much to the good taste which governed their -renovation. This was the printing-office of -Robert Raikes, a notice in the <i>Gloucester -Journal</i>, dated August 19, 1758, announcing his -removal from Blackfriars Square to this house in -Southgate Street. The house now is in the -occupation of Mrs. Watson. The house where -Raikes lived and died is nearly opposite. It -will not be difficult for the spectator to realise -the pleasant image of the old gentleman, -dressed, after the fashion of the day, in his blue -coat with gold buttons, buff waistcoat, drab -kerseymere breeches, white stockings, and low -shoes, passing beneath those ancient gables, -and engaged in those various public and private -duties which we have attempted to record. A -century has passed away since then, and the -simple lessons the philanthropist attempted to -impart to the young waifs and strays he gathered -about him have expanded into more comprehensive -departments of knowledge. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>originator of Sunday-schools would be astonished -were he to step into almost any of those -which have branched out from his leading idea. -It is still expanding; it is one of the most real -and intense activities of the Universal Church; -but among the immense crowds of those who, -in England and America, are conducting Sunday-school -classes, it is, perhaps, not too much -to say, that in not one is there a more simple -and earnest desire to do good than that which -illuminated the life, and lends a sweet and -charming interest to the memory, of Robert -Raikes.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span> - <h2 id='ch11' class='c004'>CHAPTER XI<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE ROMANTIC STORY OF SILAS TOLD.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>Dr. Abel Stevens, in his <i>History of Methodism</i>, -says, “I congratulate myself on the -opportunity of reviving the memory of Silas -Told;” and speaks of the little biography in -which Silas himself records his adventures as -“a record told with frank and affecting simplicity, -in a style of terse and flowing English Defoe -might have envied.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such a testimony is well calculated to excite -the curiosity of an interested reader, especially -as the two or three incidents mentioned only -serve to whet the appetite for more of the like -description. The little volume to which he refers -has been for some years in the possession -of the author of this volume. It is indeed an -astonishing book; its alleged likeness to Defoe’s -charmingly various style of recital of adventures -by sea and by land is no exaggeration, -whilst as a piece of real biography it may -claim, and quite sustain, a place side by side -with the romantic and adventurous career of -John Newton; but the wild wonderfulness of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>the story of Silas seems to leave Newton’s in -the shade. Like Newton, Told was also a seer -of visions and a dreamer of dreams, and a believer, -in special providences; and well might he -believe in such who was led certainly along as -singular a path as any mortal could tread. The -only other memorial besides his own which has, -we believe, been penned of him—a brief recapitulations-well -describes him as honest, simple, -and tender. Silas Told accompanied, in that -awful day, numbers of persons to the gallows, -and attempted to console sufferers and victims -in circumstances of most harrowing and tragic -solemnity: he certainly furnished comfortable -help and light when no others were willing or -able to sympathise or to help. John Wesley -loved him, and when Silas died he buried him, -and says of him in his <i>Journal</i>: “On the 20th -of December, 1778, I buried what was mortal of -honest Silas Told. For many years he attended -the malefactors in Newgate without fee or -reward; and I suppose no man, for this hundred -years, has been so successful in that melancholy -office. God had given him peculiar talents for -it, and he had amazing success therein; the -greatest part of those whom he attended died -in peace, and many of them in the triumph of -faith.” Such was Silas Told.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But before we come to those characteristic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>circumstances to which Wesley refers, we must -follow him through some of the wild scenes of -his sailor life. He was born in Bristol in 1711; his -parents were respectable and creditable people, -but of somewhat faded families. His grandfather -had been an eminent physician in Bunhill -Row, London; his mother was from Exeter. -* * *</p> - -<p class='c007'>Silas was educated in the noble foundation -school of Edward Colston in Bristol. The life -of this excellent philanthropist was so remarkable, -and in many particulars so like his own, -that we cannot wonder that he stops for some -pages in his early story to recite some of the -remarkable phenomena in Colston’s life. Silas’s -childhood was singular, and the stories he tells -are especially noticeable, because in after-life -the turn of his character seems to have been -especially real and practical. Thus he tells -how, when a child, wandering with his sister in -the King’s Wood, near Bristol, they lost their -way, and were filled with the utmost consternation, -when suddenly, although no house was -in view, nor, as they thought, near, a dog came -up behind them, and drove them clear out of -the wood into a path with which they were acquainted; -especially it was remarkable that the -dog never barked at them, but when they -looked round about for the dog he was nowhere -<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>to be seen. Careless children out for their own -pleasure, they sauntered on their way again, -and again lost their way in the wood—were -again bewildered, and in greater perplexity -than before, when, on a sudden looking up, they -saw the same dog making towards them; they -ran from him in fright, but he followed them, -drove them out of the labyrinths, and did not -leave them until they could not possibly lose -their way again. Simple Silas says, “I then -turned about to look for the dog, but saw no -more of him, although we were now upon an -open common. This was the Lord’s doings, -and marvellous in our eyes.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>When he was twelve years of age, he appears -to have been quite singularly influenced by the -reading of the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>; and late in -life, when writing his biography, he briefly, but -significantly, attempts to reproduce the intense -enjoyment he received—the book evidently -caught and coloured his whole imagination. At -this time, too, he was very nearly drowned, -and while drowning, so far from having any -sense of terror, he had no sense nor idea of the -things of this world, but that it appeared to -him he rushingly emerged out of thick darkness -into what appeared to him a glorious city, -lustrous and brilliant, the light of which seemed -to illuminate the darkness through which he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>had urged his way. It was as if the city had a -floor like glass, and yet he was sure that neither -city nor floor had any substance; also he saw -people there; the inhabitants arrayed in robes -of what seemed the finest substance, but flowing -from their necks to their feet; and yet he -was sensible too that they had no material -substance; they moved, but did not labour as -in walking, but glided as if carried along by the -wind; and he testifies how he felt a wonderful -joy and peace, and he never forgot the impression -through life, although soon recalled to the -world in which he was to sorrow and suffer so -much. It is quite easy to see John Bunyan in -all this; but while he was thus pleasantly happy -in his visionary or intro-visionary state, a -benevolent and tender-hearted Dutchman, who -had been among some haymakers in a field on -the banks of the river, was striking out after -him among the willow-bushes and sedges of -the stream, from whence he was brought, body -and soul, back to the world again. Such are -the glimpses of the childhood of Silas.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then shortly comes a dismal transition from -strange providences in the wood, and enchanting -visions beneath the waves, to the -singularly severe sufferings of a seafaring life. -The ships in that day have left a grim and ugly -reputation surviving still. The term “sea-devil” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>has often been used as descriptive of the -masters of ships in that time. Silas seems to -have sailed under some of the worst specimens -of this order. About the age of fourteen he was -bound apprentice to Captain Moses Lilly, and -started for his first voyage from Bristol to Jamaica. -“Here,” he says, “I may date my first -sufferings.” He says the first of his afflictions -“was sea-sickness, which held me till my arrival -in Jamaica;” and considering that it was a -voyage of fourteen weeks, it was a fair spell of -entertainment from that pleasant companion. -They were short of water, they were put on -short allowance of food, and when having obtained -their freight, while lying in Kingston -harbour, their vessel, and seventy-six sail of -ships, many of them very large, but all riding -with three anchors ahead, were all scattered by -an astonishing hurricane, and all the vessels in -Port Royal shared the same fate. He tells how -the corpses of the drowned sailors strewed the -shores, and how, immediately after the subsidence -of the hurricane, a pestilential sickness -swept away thousands of the natives. “Every -morning,” he says, “I have observed between -thirty and forty corpses carried past my window; -being very near death myself, I expected -every day to approach with the messenger of -my dissolution.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>During this time he appears to have been -lying in a warehouse, with no person to take -care of him except a negro, who every day -brought to him, where he was laid in his hammock, -Jesuit’s bark.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“At length,” he says, “my master gave me -up, and I wandered up and down the town, -almost parched with the insufferable blaze of -the sun, till I resolved to lay me down and die, -as I had neither money nor friend; accordingly, -I fixed upon a dunghill in the east end of the -town of Kingston, and being in such a weak -condition, I pondered much upon Job’s case, -and considered mine similar to that of his; -however, I was fully resigned to death, nor had -I the slightest expectation of relief from any -quarter; yet the kind providence of God was -over me, and raised me up a friend in an entire -stranger. A London captain coming by was -struck with the sordid object, came up to me, -and, in a very compassionate manner, asked -me if I was sensible of any friend upon the island -from whom I could obtain relief; he likewise -asked me to whom I belonged. I answered, to -Captain Moses Lilly, and had been cast away -in the late hurricane. This captain appeared -to have some knowledge of my master, and, -cursing him for a barbarous villain, told me he -would compel him to take proper care of me. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>About a quarter of an hour after this, my master -arrived, whom I had not seen before for six -weeks, and took me to a public-house kept by, -a Mrs. Hutchinson, and there ordered me to be -taken proper care of. However, he soon quitted -the island, and directed his course for England, -leaving me behind at his sick quarters; and, if -it should please God to permit my recovery, I -was commanded to take my passage to England -in the <i>Montserrat</i>, Captain David Jones, a -very fatherly, tender-hearted man: this was -the first alleviation of my misery. Now the -captain sent his son on shore, in order to receive -me on board. When I came alongside, Captain -Jones, standing on the ship’s gunwale, addressed -me after a very humane and compassionate -manner, with expressions to the following -effect: ‘Come, poor child, into the cabin, and -you shall want nothing that the ship affords; -go, and my son shall prepare for you, in the -first place, a basin of good egg-flip, and anything -else that maybe conducive to your relief.’ -But I, being very bad with my fever and ague, -could neither eat nor drink.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>A very pleasant captain, this seems, to have -sailed with; but poor Silas had very little of -his company. However, the good captain and -his boatswain put their experiences together, -and the poor boy was restored to health, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>after some singular adventures he reached -Bristol. Arriving there, however, Captain -Lilly transferred him to a Captain Timothy -Tucker, of whom Silas bears the pleasing testimony, -“A greater villain, I firmly believe, -never existed, although at home he assumed -the character and temper of a saint.” The -wretch actually stole a white woman from her -own country to sell her to the black prince of -Bonny, on the African coast. They had not -been long at sea before this delightful person -gave Silas a taste of his temper. Thinking the -boy had taken too much bread from the cask, -he went to the cabin and brought back with -him his large horsewhip, “and exercised it,” -says Silas, “about my body in so unmerciful a -manner, that not only the clothes on my back -were cut to pieces, but every sailor declared -they could see my bones; and then he threw -me all along the deck, and jumped many times -upon the pit of my stomach, in order to endanger -my life; and had not the people laid -hold of my two legs, and thrown me under the -windlass, after the manner they throw dead -cats or dogs, he would have ended his despotic -cruelty in murder.” This free and easy mode -of recreation was much indulged in by seafaring -officers in that time, but this Tucker appears to -have been really what Silas calls him, “a blood-thirsty -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>devil;” and stories of murder, and the -incredible cruelties of the slave-trade lend their -horrible fascination to the narrative of Silas Told. -How would it be possible to work the commerce -of the slave-trade without such characters -as this Tucker, who presents much more the -appearance of a lawless pirate than of the noble -character we call a sailor?</p> - -<p class='c007'>Those readers who would like to follow poor -Silas through the entire details of his miseries -on ship-board, his hairbreadth escapes from -peril and shipwreck, must read them in Silas’s -own book, if they can find it; but we may attempt -to give some little account of his wreck -upon the American coast, in New England. -Few stories can be more charming than the -picture he gives of his wanderings with his -companions after their escape from the wreck, -not because he and they were destitute, and -all but naked, but because of the pleasant -glimpses we have of the simple, hospitable, -home life in those beautiful old New England -days—hospitality of the most romantic and -free-handed description.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We will select two pictures, as illustrating -something of the character of New England -settlements in those very early days of their -history. Silas and his companions were cast -on shore, and had found refuge in a tavern -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>seven miles from the beach; he had no clothing; -but the landlord of the tavern gave him a -pair of red breeches, the last he had after supplying -the rest. Silas goes on: “Ebenezer -Allen, Governor of the island, and who dwelt -about six miles from the tavern, hearing of our -distress, made all possible haste to relieve us; -and when he arrived at the tavern, accompanied -by his two eldest sons, he took Captain -Seaborn, his black servant, Joseph and myself -through partiality, and escorted us home to his -own house. Between eleven and twelve at -night we reached the Governor’s mansion, all -of us ashamed to be seen; we would fain have -hid ourselves in any dark hole or corner, as it -was a truly magnificent building, with wings -on each side thereof, but, to our astonishment, -we were received into the great parlour, where -were sitting by the fireside two fine, portly -ladies, attending the spit, which was burdened -with a very heavy quarter of house-lamb. Observing -a large mahogany table to be spread -with a fine damask cloth, and every knife, fork, -and plate to be laid in a genteel mode, I was -apprehensive that it was intended for the entertainment -of some persons of note or distinction, -or, at least, for a family supper. In a -short time the joint was taken up, and laid on -the table, yet nobody sat down to eat; and as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>we were almost hid in one corner of the room, -the ladies turned round and said, ‘Poor men, -why don’t you come to supper?’ I replied, -‘Madam, we had no idea it was prepared for -us.’ The ladies then entreated us to eat without -any fear of them, assuring us that it was -prepared for none others; and none of us having -eaten anything for near six and thirty -hours before, we picked the bones of the whole -quarter, to which we had plenty of rich old -cider to drink: after supper we went to bed, -and enjoyed so profound a sleep that the next -morning it was difficult for the old gentleman -to awake us. The following day I became the -partaker of several second-hand garments, and, -as I was happily possessed of a little learning, -it caused me to be more abundantly caressed -by the whole family, and therefore I fared -sumptuously every day.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“This unexpected change of circumstances -and diet I undoubtedly experienced in a very -uncommon manner; but as I was strictly trained -up a Churchman, I could not support the idea -of a Dissenter, although, God knows, I had -well-nigh by this time dissented from all that is -truly good. This proved a bar to my promotion, -and my strong propensity to sail for England -to see my mother prevented my acceptance -of the greatest offer I ever received in my life -<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>before; for when the day came that we were to -quit the island, and to cross the sound over to -a town called Sandwich, on the main continent, -the young esquire took me apart from my associates, -and earnestly entreated me to tarry with -them, saying that if I would accede to their -proposals nothing should be lacking to render -my situation equivalent to the rest of the family. -As there were very few white men on the -island, I was fixed upon, if willing, to espouse -one of the Governor’s daughters. I had been -informed that the Governor was immensely rich, -having on the island two thousand head of cattle -and twenty thousand sheep, and every acre -of land thereon belonging to himself. However, -I could not be prevailed upon to accept the -offer; therefore the Governor furnished us with -forty shillings each, and gave us a pass over to -the town of Sandwich.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such passages as this show the severe experiences -through which Silas passed; they illustrate -the education he was receiving for that -life of singular earnestness and tenderness which -was to close and crown his career; but we have -made the extract here for the purpose of giving -some idea of that cheerful, hospitable, home -life of New England in those then almost wild -regions which are now covered with the population -of towns.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>Here is another instance, which occurred at -Hanover, in the United States, through which -district Silas and his companions appear to have -been wending their way, seeking a return to -England. “One Sunday, as my companions -and self were crossing the churchyard at the -time of Divine service, a well-dressed gentleman -came out of the church and said, ‘Gentlemen, -we do not suffer any person in this country -to travel on the Lord’s day.’ We gave him to -understand that it was necessity which constrained -us to walk that way, as we had all been -shipwrecked on St. Martin’s [Martha’s (?)] -Vineyard, and were journeying to Boston. The -gentleman was still dissatisfied, but quitted our -company and went into church. When we had -gone a little farther, a large white house proved -the object of our attention. The door being -wide open, we reasonably imagined it was not -in an unguarded state, without servants or -others; but as we all went into the kitchen, nobody -appeared to be within, nor was there an -individual either above or below. However, I -advised my companions to tarry in the house -until some person or other should arrive. They -did so, and in a short time afterwards two ladies, -richly dressed, with a footman following -them, came in through the kitchen; and, notwithstanding -they turned round and saw us, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>who in so dirty and disagreeable a garb and appearance -might have terrified them exceedingly, -yet neither of them was observed to take -any notice of us, nor did either of them ask us -any questions touching the cause of so great an -intrusion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“About a quarter of an hour afterwards, a -footman entered the kitchen with a cloth and -a large two-quart silver tankard full of rich -cider, also a loaf and cheese; but we, not -knowing it was prepared for us, did not attempt -to partake thereof. At length the ladies -coming into the kitchen, and viewing us in our -former position, desired to know the reason of -our malady, seeing we were not refreshing ourselves; -whereupon I urged the others to join -with me in the acceptance of so hospitable a -proposal. After this the ladies commenced a -similar inquiry into our situation. I gave them -as particular an account of every recent vicissitude -that befell us as I was capable of, with a -genuine, relation of our being shipwrecked, and -the sole reasons of our travelling into that -country; likewise begged that they would excuse -our impertinence, as they were already informed -of the cause; we were then emboldened -to ask the ladies if they could furnish us with a -lodging that evening. They replied it was -uncertain whether our wishes could be accomplished -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>there, but that if we proceeded somewhat -farther we should doubtless be entertained -and genteelly accommodated by their -brother—a Quaker—whose house was not more -than a distance of seven miles. We thanked -the ladies, and set forward, and at about eight -o’clock arrived at their brother’s house. Fatigued -with our journey, we hastened into the -parlour and delivered our message; whereupon -a gentleman gave us to understand, by his free -and liberal conduct, that he was the Quaker -referred to by the aforesaid ladies, who, total -strangers as we were, used us with a degree of -hospitality impossible to be exceeded; indeed, -I could venture to say that the accommodations -we met with at the Quaker’s house, seeing -they were imparted to us with such affectionate -sympathy, greatly outweighed those -we formerly experienced.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“After our banquet, the gentleman took us -up into a fine spacious bed-chamber, with desirable -bedding and very costly chintz curtains. -We enjoyed a sound night’s rest, and arose between -seven and eight the next morning, and -were entertained with a good breakfast; -returned many thanks for the unrestrained -friendship and liberality, and departed therefrom, -fully purposed to direct our course for -Boston, which was not more than seven miles -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>farther. Here all the land was strewed with -plenty, the orchards were replete with apple-trees -and pears; they had cider-presses in the -centre of their orchards, and great quantities -of fine cider, and any person might become a -partaker thereof for the mere trouble of asking. -We soon entered Boston, a commodious, beautiful -city, with seventeen spired meetings, the -dissenting religion being then established in -that part of the world. I resided here for the -space of four months, and lodged with Captain -Seaborn at Deacon Townshend’s; deacon of the -North Meeting, and by trade a blacksmith.” -He gives a glowing and beautiful description of -the high moral and religious character of Boston; -here also he met with a stroke of good -fortune in receiving some arrears of salvage for -a vessel he had assisted in saving before his last -wreck. Such are specimens of the interest and -entertainment afforded in the earlier parts of -this pleasant piece of autobiography. But we -must hasten past his adventures, both in the -island of Antigua and among the islands of the -Mediterranean.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is not wonderful that the great sufferings -and toils of Silas should, even at a very early -period of life, prostrate his health, and subject -him to repeated vehement attacks of illness. -He was but twenty-three when he married; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>still, however, a sailor, and destined yet for -some wild experiences on the seas. Not long, -however. A married life disposed him for a -home life, and he accepted, while still a very -young man, the position of a schoolmaster, beneath -the patronage of a Lady Luther, in the -county of Essex. He was not in this position -very long. Silas, although an unconverted -man, must have had strong religious feelings; -and the clergyman of the parish, fond of smoking -and drinking with him—and it may well be -conceived what an entertaining companion -Silas must have been in those days, with his -budget of adventures—ridiculed him for his -faith in the Scriptures and his belief in Bible -theology. This so shocked Silas, that, making -no special profession of religion, he yet separated -himself from the clergyman’s company, -and shortly after he left that neighbourhood, -and again sought his fortune, but without any -very cheerful prospects, in London.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was in 1740 that a young blacksmith introduced -him to the people whom he had hitherto -hated and despised—the Methodists. He heard -John Wesley preach at the Foundry in the -Moor Fields from the text, “I write unto you, -little children, for your sins are forgiven you.” -This set his soul on fire; he became a Methodist, -notwithstanding the very vehement opposition -<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>of his wife, to whom he appears to have -been very tenderly attached, and who herself -was a very motherly and virtuous woman, but -altogether indisposed to the new notions, as -many people considered them. He improved -in circumstances, and became a responsible -managing clerk on a wharf at Wapping. While -there Mr. Wesley repeatedly and earnestly -pressed him to take charge of the charity school -he had established at the Foundry. After long -hesitation he did so; and it was here that while -attending a service at five o’clock in the morning, -he heard Mr. Wesley preach from the text, -“I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me -not.” By a most remarkable application of this -charge to himself, Silas testifies that his mind -was stirred with a strange compunction, as he -thought that he had never cared for, or attempted -to ameliorate the condition, or to minister -to the souls of the crowds of those unhappy -malefactors who then almost weekly expiated -their offences, very often of the most trivial -description, on the gallows. It seems that the -hearing that sermon proved to be a most -remarkable turning-point in the life of Silas. -Through it he became most eminently useful -during a very remarkable and painful career; -and his after-life is surrounded by such a succession -of romantic incidents that they at once -<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>equal, if they do not transcend, and strangely -contrast with his wild adventures on the seas.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And here we may pause a moment to reflect -how every man’s work derives its character from -what he was before. What thousands of sailors, -in that day, passed through all the trials which -Silas passed, leaving them still only rough -sailor men! In him all the roughness seemed -only to strike down to depths of wonderful -compassion and tenderness. Singular was the -university in which he graduated to become so -great and powerful a preacher! How he preached -we do not know, but his words must have been -warm and touching, faithful and loving, judging -from their results; and as to his pulpit, we do -not hear that it was in chapels or churches—his -audience was very much confined to the -condemned cell, and to the cart from whence -the poor victims were “turned off,” as it was -called in those days. In this work he found -his singular niche. How long it often takes for -a man to find his place in the work that is -given him to do; and when the place is found, -sometimes, how long it takes to fit nicely and -admirably into the work itself! what sharp -angles have, to be rubbed away, what difficulties -to be overcome! It is wonderful, with all the -horrible experiences through which this man -had passed, and spectacles of cruelty so revolting -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>that they seem almost to shake our faith, -not merely in man, but even in a just and overruling -God, that every sentiment of religion -and tenderness had not been eradicated from -his nature; but it would appear that the old -gracious influences of childhood—the days of -the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, and the wonderful -vision when drowning beneath the waters, had -never been effaced through all his strange and -chequered career, although certainly not untainted -by the sins of the ordinary sailor’s life. -The work in which he was now to be engaged -needed a very tender and affectionate nature; -but ordinary tenderness starts back and is -repelled by cruel and repulsive scenes. Told’s -education on the seas, like that of a surgeon in -a hospital, enabled him to look on harrowing -sights of suffering without wincing, or losing in -his tender interest his own self-possession.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It ought not to be forgotten that John Howard, -the great prison philanthropist, belongs to -the epoch of the Great Revival. Of him -Edmund Burke said, “He had visited all -Europe in a circumnavigation of charity, not to -survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the -stateliness of temples; not to collect medals or -to collate manuscripts, but to dive into the -depths of dungeons and to plunge into the infections -of hospitals.” About the year 1760,<a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c012'><b>[13]</b></a> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>when he began his consecrated work, Silas Told, -as a prison philanthropist upon a smaller, but -equally earnest scale, attempted to console the -prisoners of Newgate.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f13'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-236'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Shortly after hearing that sermon to which -we have alluded, a messenger came to him at -the school to tell him that there were ten -malefactors lying under sentence of death in -Newgate, some of them in a state of considerable -terror and alarm, and imploring him to -find some one to visit them. Here was the call -to the work. The coincidences were remarkable: -John Wesley’s sermon, his own aroused -and tender state of mind produced by the -sermon, and the occasion for the active and -practical exercise of his feeling. So opportunities -would meet us of turning suggestions into -usefulness, if we watched for them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The English laws were barbarous in those -days; truly it has been said that a fearfully -heavyweight of blood rests upon the conscience -of England for the state of the law in those -times. Few of those who have given such -honour to the noble labours of John Howard -and the loving ministrations of Elizabeth Fry -ever heard of Silas Told. In a smaller sphere -than the first of these, and in a much more intensely -painful manner than the second, he -anticipated the labours of both. He instantly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>responded to this first call to Newgate. Two -of the ten malefactors were reprieved; he -attended the remaining eight to the gallows. -He had so influenced the hearts of all of them -in their cell that their obduracy was broken -down and softened—so great had been his -power over them, that locked up together in -one cell the night before their execution, they -had spent it in prayer and solemn conversation. -“At length they were ordered into the cart, -and I was prevailed upon to go with them. -When we were in the cart I addressed myself -to each of them separately. The first was Mr. -Atkins, the son of a glazier in the city, a youth -nineteen years of age. I said to him, ‘My dear, -are you afraid to die?’ He said, ‘No, sir; -really I am not.’ I asked him wherefore he was -not afraid to die? and he said, ‘I have laid my -soul at the feet of Jesus, therefore I am not -afraid to die.’ I then spake to Mr. Gardner, a -journeyman carpenter; he made a very comfortable -report of the true peace of God which he -found reigning in his heart. The last person -to whom I spoke was one Thompson, a very -illiterate young man; but he assured me he was -perfectly happy in his Saviour, and continued -so until his last moments. This was the first -time of my visiting the malefactors in Newgate, -and then it was not without much shame and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>fear, because I clearly perceived the greater part -of the populace considered me as one of the -sufferers.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The most remarkable of this cluster was one -John Lancaster—for what offence he was sentenced -to death does not appear; but the entire -account Silas gives of him, both in the prison -and at the place of execution, exhibits a fine, -tender, and really holy character. The attendant -sheriff himself burst into tears before the -beautiful demeanour of this young man. However, -so it was, that he was without any friend -in London to procure for his body a proper -interment; and the story of Silas admits us -into a pretty spectacle of the times. After the -poor bodies were cut down, Lancaster’s was -seized by a surgeons’ mob, who intended to -carry it over to Paddington. It was Silas’s first -experience, as we have seen; and he describes -the whole scene as rather like a great fair than -an awful execution. In this confusion the body -of Lancaster had been seized, the crowd dispersed—all -save some old woman, who sold -gin, and Silas himself, very likely smitten into -extraordinary meditation by a spectacle so new -to him—when a company of eight sailors appeared -on the scene, with truncheons in their -hands, who said they had come to see the execution, -and gazed with very menacing faces -<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>on the vacated gallows from whence the bodies -had been cut down. “Gentlemen,” said the -old woman, “I suppose you want the man that -the surgeons have got?” “Ay,” said the sailors, -“where is he?” The old woman gave them to -understand that the body had been carried -away to Paddington, and she pointed them to -the direct road. Away the sailors hastened—it -may be presumed that Lancaster was a -sailor, and some old comrade of these men. -They demanded his body from the surgeons’ -mob, and obtained it. What they intended to -do with it scarcely transpires; it is most likely -that they had intended a rescue at the foot of -the gallows, and arrived too late. However, -hoisting it on their shoulders, away they -marched with it off to Islington, and thence -round to Shoreditch; thence to a place called -Coventry’s Fields. By this time they were -getting fairly wearied out with their burden, -and by unanimous consent they agreed to lay -it on the step of the first door they came to: -this done, they started off. It created some -stir in the street, which brought down an old -woman who lived in the house to the step of the -door, and who exclaimed, as she saw the body, -in a loud, agitated voice, “Lord! this is my son -John Lancaster!” It is probable that the old -woman was a Methodist, for to Silas Told and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>the Methodists she was indebted for a decent and -respectable burial for her son in a good strong -coffin and decent shroud. Silas and his wife -went to see him whilst he was lying so, previous -to his burial. There was no alteration of -his visage, no marks of violence, and says Told, -“A pleasant smile appeared on his countenance, -and he lay as in sweet sleep.” A singularly -romantic story, for it seems the sailors did -not know at all to whom he belonged; and -what an insight into the social condition of -London at that time!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Told did not give up his connection with his -school at the Foundry, but he devoted himself, -sanctioned by John Wesley and his Church -fellowship, to the preaching and ministering to -all the poor felons and malefactors in London, -including also, in this exercise of love, the -work-houses for twelve miles round London; he -believed he had a message of tender sympathy -for those who were of this order, “sick and in -prison.” It seems strange to us, who know how -much he had suffered himself, that the old -sailor possessed such a loving, tender, and -affectionate heart; and yet he tells how, in the -earlier part of these very years, he was haunted -by irritating doubts and alarms: then came to -him old mystical revelations, such as those he -had known when drowning, reminding us of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>similar instances in the lives of John Howe and -John Flavel; and the noble man was strengthened.</p> - -<p class='c007'>He went on for twenty years in the way we -have described; and the interest of his autobiography -compels the wish that it were much -longer; for, of course, the largest amount of his -precious life of labour was not set down, and -cannot be recalled; and readers who are fond -of romance will find his name in connection -with some of the most remarkable executions -of his time.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A singular circumstance was this: Four -gentlemen—Mr. Brett, the son of an eminent -divine in Dublin; Whalley, a gentleman of considerable -fortune, possessed of three country-seats -of his own; Dupree, “in every particular,” -says Silas, “a complete gentleman;” and Morgan, -an officer on board one of His Majesty’s -ships of war—after dinner, upon the occasion of -their being at an election for the members for -Chelmsford, proposed to start forth, and, by -way of recreation, rob somebody on the highway. -Away they went, and chanced upon a -farmer, whom they eased of a considerable sum -of money. The farmer followed them into -Chelmsford; they were all secured, and next -day removed to London; they took their trials, -and were sentenced, and left for execution. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>Told visited them all in prison. Morgan was -engaged to be married to Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, -the sister of the Duke of Hamilton. She -repeatedly visited her affianced husband in the -cell, and Told was with them at most of their -interviews. It was supposed that, from the -rank of the prisoners, and the character of their -offence, there would be no difficulty in obtaining -a reprieve; but the King was quite inexorable; -he said, “his subjects were not to be in -bodily fear in order that men might gratify -their drunken whims.” Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, -however, thrust herself several times before -the King; wept, threw herself on her -knees, and behaved altogether in such a manner -that the King said, “Lady Betsy, there is -no standing your importunity any further; I -will spare his life, but on one condition—that -he is not acquainted therewith until he arrives -at the place of execution;” and it was so. The -other three unfortunates were executed, and -Lady Elizabeth, in her coach, received her -lover into it as he stepped from the cart. It is -a sad story, but it must have been a sweet satisfaction -to the lady.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Far more dreadful were some cases which -engaged the tender heart of Silas. A young -man, named Coleman, was tried for an aggravated -assault on a young woman. The young -<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>woman herself declared that Coleman was not -the man; but he had enemies who pressed apparent -circumstances against him, and urged -them on the young woman, to induce her to -change her opinion. She never wavered; yet, -singular to say, he was convicted and executed. -A short time after the real criminal was discovered, -by his own confession; he was also -tried, condemned, and executed, and the perjured -witnesses against poor Coleman sentenced -to stand in the pillory.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But one of the most pitiful and dreadful cases -in Silas Told’s experience was that of Mary -Edmondson, a sweet young girl, tried upon -mere circumstantial evidence, and executed -on Kennington Common, for the supposed -murder of her aunt at Rotherhithe. She appears -to have been most brutally treated; the -mob believed her to be guilty, and received -her with shocking execrations. Whether Silas -had a prejudice against her or not, we cannot -say; it is not likely that he had a prejudice -against any suffering soul; but it so happened, -he says, as he had not visited her in her imprisonment, -so he entertained no idea of seeing her -suffer. But as he was passing through the -Borough, a pious cheesemonger, named Skinner, -called him into his shop, tenderly expressed -deep interest in her present and future -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>state, and besought him to see her; so his first -interview with her was only just as she was -going forth to her sad end.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Silas shall tell the story himself: “When -she was brought into the room, she stood with -her back against the wainscot, but appeared -perfectly resigned to the will of God. I then -addressed myself to her, saying, ‘My dear, for -God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, for the sake of -your own precious soul, do not die with a lie in -your mouth; you are, in a few moments, to appear -in the presence of the holy God, who is of -purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Oh, consider -what an eternity of misery must be the -position of all who die in their sins!’ She -heard me with much meekness and simplicity, -but answered that she had already advanced -the truth, and must persevere in the same spirit -to her last moments.” Efforts were made to -prevent Told from accompanying her any farther, -and the rioters were so exasperated -against her that Told seems only to have been -safe by keeping near to the sheriff along the -whole way. The sheriff also told him that he -would be giving a great satisfaction to the -whole nation, could he only bring her to a confession. -“Now, as we were proceeding on the -road, the sheriff’s horse being close to the cart, -I looked up at her from under the horse’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>bridle, and I said, ‘My dear, look to Jesus.’ -This quickened her spirit, insomuch that although -she had not looked about her before, -she turned herself round to me, and said, ‘Sir, -I bless God I can look to Jesus—to my comfort.’”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Arrived at the place of execution, he spoke -to her again solemnly, “Did you not commit -the act? Had you no concern therein? Were -you not interested in the murder?” She said, -“I am as clear of the whole affair as I was the -day my mother brought me into the world.” -She was very young, she had all the aspects of -innocence about her. The sheriff burst into -tears, and turned his head away, exclaiming, -“Good God! it is a second Coleman’s case!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At this moment her cousin stepped up into -the cart, and sought to kiss her. She turned -her face away, and pushed him off. She had -before charged him with being the murderer—and -he was. When subsequently taken up for -another crime, he confessed the committal of -this. Her aunt had left to Mary, in the event -of her death, more money than to this wretch. -The executioner drew the cart away, and -Mary’s body—leaning the poor head, in her last -moments, on Silas’s shoulder—dear old Silas, -her only comfort in that terrible hour—fell into -the arms of death. But he tells how she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>was cold and still before the cart was drawn -away.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But perhaps a still more pitiful case was that -of poor Anderson, who was hanged for stealing -sixpence: he was a labouring man, and had been -of irreproachable character. He and his wife—far -gone with child—were destitute of money, -clothes, and food. He said to his wife, “My -dear, I will go out, down to the quays; it may -be that the Lord will provide me with a loaf of -bread.” All his efforts were fruitless, but passing -through Hoxton Fields, he met two washerwomen. -He did not bid them stop, but he -said to one, “Mistress, I want money.” She -gave him twopence. He said to the other, -“You have money, I know you have.” She -said, “I have fourpence.” He took that. Insensible -of what might follow, as of what he had -done, he walked down into Old Street: there, -the two women having followed him gave him -in charge of a constable. He was tried, sentenced -to death, and for this he died. “Never,” -says Told, “through the years I have attended -the prisoners, have I seen such meek, loving, -patient spirits as this man and his wife.” Told -attended him to execution, and sought to comfort -the poor fellow by promising him to look -after his wife; and most tenderly did Told and -his wife redeem the promise, for they took her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>for a short time into their own home. Told -obtained a housekeeper’s situation for her, and -she became a creditable and respected woman. -He bound her daughter apprentice to a weaver, -and she, probably, turned out well, although he -says, “I have never seen her but twice since, -which is many years ago.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our readers will, perhaps, think that it is -time we drew these harrowing stories to a close; -but there are many more of them in this brief, -but most interesting, although forgotten autobiography. -They are recited with much pathos. -We have the story of Harris, the flying highwayman; -of Bolland, a sheriff’s officer, who was -executed for forging a note, although he had -refunded the money, and twice afterwards paid -the sum of the bill to secure himself. A young -gentleman, named Slocomb, defrauded his -father of three hundred pounds; his father -would not in any way stir, or remit his claim, to -save him. Told attended him and thought -highly of him, not only because he expressed -himself with so much resignation, but because -he never indulged a complaint against him -whom Told calls “that lump of adamant, his -father.” With him was executed another young -gentleman, named Powell, for forgery. Silas -Told also attended that cruel woman, Elizabeth -Brownrigg, who was executed for the atrocious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>murder of her apprentices. And of all the -malefactors whom he attended she seems to us -the most unsatisfactory.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We trust our readers will not be displeased -to receive these items from the biography of a -very remarkable, a singularly romantic and -chequered, as well as singularly useful career. -References to Silas Told will be found in most -of the biographies of Wesley. Southey passes -him by with a very slight allusion. Tyerman -dwells on his memory with a little more tenderness; -but, with the exception of Stevens, none -has touched with real interest upon this extraordinary -though obscure man, and his romantic -life and labours in a very strange path of Christian -benevolence and usefulness. He was -known, far and near, as the “prisoners’ chaplain,” -although an unpaid one. He closed his life -in 1778, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. As -we have seen, John Wesley appropriately officiated -at his funeral, and pronounced an affectionate -encomium over the remains of his honoured -old friend and fellow-labourer.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span> - <h2 id='ch12' class='c004'>CHAPTER XII<br /> <br /><span class='small'>MISSIONARY SOCIETIES.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>Illustrating what we have said before, it -remains to be noticed, that nearly all the great -societies sprang into existence almost simultaneously. -The foremost among these,<a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c012'><b>[14]</b></a> founded -in 1792, was the Baptist Missionary Society. -It appears to have arisen from a suggestion of -William Carey, the celebrated Northamptonshire -shoemaker, who proposed as an inquiry to -an association of Northamptonshire ministers, -“whether it were not practicable and obligatory -to attempt the conversion of the heathen.” It -is certainly still a moot question whether Le -Verrier or Adams first laid the hand of science -on the planet Neptune; but it seems quite certain -that, when one of God’s great thoughts is -throbbing in the heart of one of His apostles, -the same impulse and passion is stirring -<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>another, perhaps others, in remote and faraway -scenes. Altogether unknown to William -Carey, that same year the great Claudius -Buchanan was dreaming his divine dreams -about the conquest of India for Christ, in St. -Mary’s College, Cambridge.<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c012'><b>[15]</b></a> Undoubtedly the -honour of the first consolidation of the thought -into a missionary enterprise must be given to -William Carey and his little band of obscure -believers.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f14'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. </span>It is not implied that these were the first modern missionary -agencies. The Moravians had already sent the Gospel into -many regions. There were Swedish and Danish Missionary -Societies also at work. In 1649 a Society for Promoting and -Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England had been -formed, and about 1697 the “Society for Promoting Christian -Knowledge” and the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel -in Foreign Parts” were established. See page <a href='#Page_256'>256</a> and foot note.</p> -</div> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f15'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-253'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i23-page-251-williamcarey.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>William Carey.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>At the close of Carey’s address, to which we -have referred, a collection was made for the -purpose of attempting a missionary crusade -upon Hindostan, amounting to £13 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> = -$65.60. The wits made fine work of this: the -reader may still turn to Sydney Smith’s paper -in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, in which the idea -and the effort are satirised as that of “an army -of maniacs setting forth to the conquest of -India.” But this humble effort resulted in -magnificent achievements; Carey and his illustrious -coadjutors, Ward and Marshman, set -forth, and became stupendous Oriental scholars, -translating the Word of Life into many -Indian dialects. Then came tempests of abuse -and scurrility at home from eminent pens. We -experience a shame in reading them; but it -shows the catholicity of spirit pervading the -minds of Christ’s real followers, that Lord -<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>Teignmouth, and William Wilberforce, and Dr. -Buchanan, were amongst the ablest and most -earnest defenders of the noble Baptist missionaries. -We are able to see now that this mission -may be said to have saved India to the -British Empire. It not only created the -scholars to whom we have referred, and the -bands of holy labourers, but also the sagacity -of Lord Lawrence, and the consecrated courage -of Sir Henry Havelock. We are prepared, -therefore, to maintain that England is indebted -more to William Carey and his £13 2<i>s</i> 6<i>d.</i> than -to the cunning of Clive and the rapacity of -Warren Hastings.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another child of the Revival was born in -1795—the London Missionary Society. But it -would be idle to attempt to enumerate the -names either of its founders, its missionaries, or -their fields of labour; let the reader turn to the -names of the founders, and he will find they -were nearly all enthusiasts who had been baptised -into the spirit of the Revival—Rowland -Hill, Matthew Wilks, Alexander Waugh, William -Kingsbury, and, notably, Thomas Haweis, -the Rector of Aldwinckle and chaplain to the -Countess of Huntingdon. Nor must we omit -the name of David Bogue,<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c012'><b>[16]</b></a> that strong and eloquent -intelligence, whose admirable and suggestive -work on <i>The Divine Authority of the</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span><i>New Testament</i>, sent to Napoleon in his exile -at St. Helena by the Viscountess Duncan, was, -after the Emperor’s death, returned to the -author full of annotations, thus seeming to -give some clue to those religious conversations, -in which the illustrious exile certainly astonishes -us, not long before his departure.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f16'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-254'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It is the London Missionary Society which -has covered the largest surface of the earth -with its missions, and it is not invidious to say -that its records register a larger range of conquests -over heathenism and idolatry than could -be chronicled in any age since the first apostles -went upon their way. We have only to remember -the Sandwich Islands,<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c012'><b>[17]</b></a> and the crowds of -islands in the Southern Seas, with their chief -civiliser, the martyr of Erromanga; Africa, from -the Cape along through the deep interior, with -Moffatt and Livingstone, whose celebrated -motto was, “The end of the geographical feat -is the beginning of the missionary enterprise;” -China and Robert Morison; Madagascar and -William Ellis, and many other regions and -names to justify our verdict.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f17'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. </span>(The civilisation and Christian character of these Islands is -largely, due to the labours of the missionaries of the American -Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.—<span class='sc'>Ed.</span>)</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>In 1799 the Church Missionary Society came -into existence. “What!” said the passionate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>and earnest Rev. Melville Horne, in attempting -to arouse the clergy to missionary enthusiasm; -“have Carey and the Baptists had more -forgiven than we, that they should love more? -Have the fervent Methodists and patient -Moravians been extortionate publicans, that -they should expend their all in a cause which -we decline? Have our Independent brethren -persecuted the Church more, that they should -now be more zealous in propagating the faith -which it once destroyed?” And so the Church -Missionary Society arose;<a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c012'><b>[18]</b></a> and in 1804, the -Bible Society; in 1805, the British and Foreign -School Society; in 1799, the Religious Tract -Society, which, since its foundation, has probably -circulated not less than five hundred millions -of publications. The Wesleyan Missionary -Society—which claims in date to take precedence -of all in its foundation in the year 1769—was -not formally constituted till 1817.<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c012'><b>[19]</b></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f18'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-256'>Appendix</a></p> -</div> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f19'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. </span>(The great missionary organizations of America belong to -the early part of this century. The First day or Sunday-school -Society was formed in 1791; the American Board of Commissioners -for Foreign Missions in 1810; the American Baptist -Missionary Union in 1814; Methodist Episcopal Missionary -Society in 1819; the Philadelphia Adult and Sunday-school -Union (which, in 1824, was merged in the American Sunday-school -Union) in 1817; the Protestant Episcopal Board of Missions -in 1821. Of Continental Societies, the Moravian Missionary -Society was formed in 1732; the Netherlands Missionary Society -in 1797; the Basle Evangelical Mission in 1816. Appendix.—<span class='sc'>Ed.</span>)</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>Every one of these, and many other such associations, -alike show the vivid and vigorous -spirit which was abroad seeking to secure the -empire of the world to the cause of Divine truth -and love.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And, meantime, what works were going on -at home? Education and intelligence were -widely spreading; simple academies were forming, -like that founded by the Countess of -Huntingdon at Trevecca, where the minds of -young men were being moulded and informed -to become the intelligent vehicles of the Gospel -message—eminently that of the great and -good Cornelius Winter, in Gloucestershire; and -that of David Bogue at Gosport; while, in the -north of England, arose the small but very -effective colleges of Bradford and Rotherham; -and the now handsome Lancashire Independent -College had its origin in the vestry of -Mosley Street Chapel, where the sainted -William Roby, as tutor, gathered around him -a number of young men, and armed them with -intellectual appliances for the work of the ministry.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some of the earliest efforts of Methodism, -and some of the most successful, had been in -the gaols, and among the malefactors of the -country—notably in the wonderful labours of -Silas Told, whose extraordinary story has been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>recited in these pages. Silas passed away, but -an angel of light moved through the cells of -Newgate in the person of Elizabeth Fry, as -beautiful and commanding in her presence as -she was holy in her sweet and fervid zeal. Now -began thoughts too about the waifs and strays -of the population—the helpless and forgotten; -and John Townshend, an Independent minister, -laid the foundation of the first Deaf and -Dumb Asylum, the noble institution of London.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the world of politics, also, the men of the -Revival were exercising their influence, and -procuring charters of freedom for the mind of -the nation. Has it not been ever true that civil -and religious liberty have flourished side by -side? A blight cannot pass over one without -withering the other. The honour of the Repeal -of the Test and Corporation Acts is due to the -Great Revival: the Toleration Act of those -days was really more oppressive on pious members -of the Church of England than on Dissenters; -they could not obtain, as Dissenters could, -a licence for holding religious services in their -houses, because they were members of the -Church of England.</p> - -<p class='c007'>William Wilberforce owed his first religious -impressions to the preaching of Whitefield; -with all his fine liberality of heart, he became -an ardent member of the communion of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>Church of England. It seems incredible to -us now that he lived constantly in the expectation—we -will not say fear—of indictments -against him, for holding prayer-meetings and -religious services at his house in Kensington -Gore. Lord Barham, the father of the late amiable -and excellent Baptist Noel, was fined forty -pounds, on two informations of his neighbour, -the Earl of Romney, for a breach of the statute -in like services. That such a state of things -as this was changed to the free and happy ordinances -now in force, was owing to the spirit -which was abroad, giving not only freedom to -the soul of the man, but dignity and independence -to the social life of the citizen. Everywhere, -and in every department of life, the -spirit of the Revival moved over the face of the -waters, dividing the light from the darkness, -and thus God said, “Let there be light, and -there was light.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span> - <h2 id='ch13' class='c004'>CHAPTER XIII<br /> <br /><span class='small'>AFTERMATH.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>The effects of that great awakening which -we have thus attempted concisely, but fairly, -to delineate, are with us still; the strength is -diffused, the tone and colour are modified. One -chief purpose has guided the pen of the writer -throughout: it has been to show that the immense -regeneration effected in English manners -and society during the later years of the last -century and the first of the present, was the -result of a secret, silent, most subtle spiritual -force, awakening the minds and hearts of men -in most opposite parts of the nation, and in -widely different social circumstances. We -would give all honour where honour is due, remembering -that “Every good gift and every -perfect gift is from above.” There are writers -whose special admiration is given to some -favourite sect, some effective movement, or -some especially beloved name; but a dispassionate -view, an entrance—if we may be permitted -so to speak of it—into the camera, the -chamber of the times, presents to the eye a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>long succession of actors, and brings out into -the clear light a wonderful variety of influences -all simultaneously at work to redeem society -from its darkness, and to give it a higher degree -of spiritual purity and mental and moral dignity.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The first great workers were passing away, -most of them, as is usually the case, dying on -Pisgah, seeing most distinctly the future results -of their work, but scarcely permitted to enter -upon the full realisation of it. In 1791, in the -eighty-fourth year of her age, died the revered -Countess of Huntingdon; her last words, “My -work is done; I have nothing to do but to go -to my Father!” No chronicle of convent or of -canonisation, nor any story of biography, can -record, a more simple, saintly, and utterly unselfish -life. To the last unwearied, she was -daily occupied in writing long letters, arranging -for her many ministers, disposing of her chapel -trusts; sometimes feeling that her rank, and -certain suppositions as to the extent of her -wealth, made her an object upon which men -were not indisposed to exercise their rapacity. -Still, as compared with the state of society -when she commenced her work, in this her -closing year, she must have looked over a hopeful -and promising future, as sweet and enchanting -as the ineffably lovely scenery upon which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>her eyes opened at Castle Doddington, and the -neighbouring beauties of her first wedded home.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i24-page-262-wesleystomb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>JOHN WESLEY’S TOMB, CITY ROAD, LONDON.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>In 1791, John Wesley, in his eighty-eighth -year, entered into his rest, faithfully murmuring, -as well as weakness and stammering lips could -articulate, “The best of all is, God is with us!” -Abel Stevens says, “His life stands out in the -history of the world, unquestionably pre-eminent -in religious labours above that of any other -man since the apostolic age.” It is not necessary, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>in order to do Wesley sufficient honour, -to indulge in such invidious comparisons. It is -significant, however, that the last straggling -syllables which ever fell from the pen in his -beloved hand, were in a letter to William Wilberforce, -cheering him on in his efforts for -the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. -Charles Wesley had preceded his brother to his -rest in 1788, in the eightieth year of his age.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id007'> -<img src='images/i25-page-263-wesleymonument.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>JOHN WESLEY. M.A.<br />BORN JUNE 17, 1703; DIED MARCH 2, 1791.<br />CHARLES WESLEY. M.A.<br />BORN DECEMBER 18, 1708; DIED MARCH 29, 1788.<br />“THE BEST OF ALL IS, GOD IS WITH US.”<br />“I LOOK UPON ALL THE WORLD AS MY PARISH.”<br />The Wesley Monument.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Thus the earlier labourers were passing away, -and the work of the Revival was passing into -other forms, illustrating how not only “one -generation passeth away, and another cometh,” -but also how, as the workers pass, the work -abides. It would be very pleasant to spend -some time in noticing the interior of many old -halls, which were now opening, at once for the -entertainment of evangelists, and for Divine -service; prejudices were dying out, and so far -from the new religious life proving inimical to -the repose of the country, it was found to be -probably its surest security and friend; and -while the efforts were growing for carrying to -far-distant regions the truth which enlightens -and saves, anecdotes are not wanting to show -that it was this very spirit which created a -tender interest in maintaining and devising -means to make more secure the minister’s happiness -at home.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>From many points of view William Wilberforce -maybe regarded as the central man of -the Revival in its new and crowning aspect; as -he bore the standard of England at that great -funeral which did honour to all that was mortal -of his friend William Pitt, on its way to the -vaults of the old Abbey, so, as his predecessors -departed, it devolved on him to bear the standard -of those truths and principles which had -effected the great change, and which were to -effect, if possible, yet greater changes. By his -sweet, winning, and if silvery, yet enchaining -and overwhelming eloquence, by his conversation, -which cannot have been, from the traditions -which are preserved of it, less than -wonderful, and by his lucid and practical pen, -he continued to give eminent effect to the Revival, -and to procure for its doctrines acceptance -in the highest circles of society. It is -perhaps difficult now to understand the cause of -the wonderful influence produced by his <i>Practical -View of Christianity</i>; that book itself -illustrates how the seeds of things are transmitted -through many generations. It is a long -way to look back to the poor pedlar who called -at the farm door of Richard Baxter’s father in -Eaton-Constantine, and sold there Richard -Sibbs’s <i>Bruised Reed</i>, but that was the birth-hour -of that great and transcendently glorious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>book, <i>The Saint’s Everlasting Rest</i>. <i>The Saint’s -Everlasting Rest</i> was the inspiration of Philip -Doddridge, and to it we owe his <i>Rise and Progress -of Religion in the Soul</i>. Wilberforce read -that book, and it moved him to the desire to -speak out its earnestness, pathos, and solemnity -in tones suitable to the spirit of the Great Revival -which had been going on around him. A -young clergyman read the result of Wilberforce’s -wish in his <i>Practical View of Christianity</i>, -and he testifies, “To that book I owe a debt of -gratitude; to my unsought and unexpected introduction -to it, I owe the first sacred impressions -which I ever received as to the spiritual -nature of the Gospel system, the vital character -of personal religion, the corruption of the human -heart, and the way of salvation by Jesus -Christ.” And all this was very shortly given -to the world in those beautiful pieces, which it -surely must be ever a pleasure to read, whether, -for their tender delineation of the most important -truths, or the exquisite language, and the -delightful charm of natural scenery and pathetic -reflection in which the experiences of <i>The -Young Cottager</i>, <i>The Dairyman’s Daughter</i>, and -other “short and simple annals of the poor,” -are conveyed through the fascinating pen of -Legh Richmond.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In this eminently lovely and lovable life we -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>meet with one on whom, assuredly, the mantle -of the old clerical fathers of the Revival had -fallen. He was a Churchman and a clergyman, -he loved and honoured his Church and its services -exceedingly; but it seems impossible to -detect, in any single act of his life or word of -his writings, a tinge of acerbity or bitterness. -The quiet and mellowed charm of his tracts—which -are certainly among the finest pieces of -writing in that way which we possess—appear -to have pervaded his whole life. Brading, in -the Isle of Wight, has been marvellously transformed -since he was the vicar of its simple little -church; the old parsonage, where little Jane -talked with her pastor, is now only a memory, -and no longer, as we saw it first many years -since, a feature in the charming landscape; and -the little epitaphs which the vicar himself wrote -for the stones, or wooden memorials over the -graves of his parishioners, are all obliterated by -time. Several years since we sought in vain -for the sweet verse on his own infant daughter, -although about thirty-five years since we read -it there:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“This early bud, so young and fair,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Called hence by early doom,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Just came to show how sweet a flower</div> - <div class='line in1'>In Paradise should bloom.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>But these little papers of this excellent man -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>circulated wherever the English language was -spoken or read, and the spirit of their pages penetrated -farther than the pages themselves; while -they seem to present in a more pleasant, winning -and portable form the spirit of the Revival, -divested of much of the ruggedness which had, -naturally, characterized its earlier pens.</p> -<p class='c007'>Indeed, if some generalisation were needed -to express the phase into which the Revival -was passing, at this, the earlier part of the -present century, it should be called the “literary.” -Eminent names were appearing, and -eminent pens, to gather up the elements of -faith which had moved the minds and tongues -of men in past years, and to arrest the conscience -through the eye. This opens up a field -so large that we cannot do justice to it in these -brief sketches. To name here only one other -writer;—Thomas Scott, the commentator on -the Bible, and author of <i>The Force of Truth</i>, -is acknowledged to have exerted an influence -the greatness of which has been described in -glowing terms by men such as Sir. James -Stephen and John Henry Newman.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id008'> -<img src='images/i26-page-270-charlessimeon.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>CHARLES SIMEON.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>No idea can be formed by those of the present -generation of the immense influence Charles -Simeon exercised over the mind of the Church -of England. He was the leader of the growing -evangelical party in the Church; his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>doctrines were exactly those which had been -the favourite on the lips of Whitefield, Berridge, -Grimshaw, and Newton. His family was ancient -and respectable, he was the son of a Berkshire -squire. He had been educated at Eton, -and afterwards at King’s College, Cambridge; -he became very wealthy. His accession to the -life of the Revival seemed like an immense -addition of natural influence: he was faithful -and earnest, and, in the habits of his mind and -character, exactly what we understand by the -thorough English gentleman; almost may it be -said that he made the Revival “gentlemanly” -in clergymen. He opened the course of his -fifty-six years’ ministry in Cambridge amidst a -storm of persecution; the church wardens -<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>attempted to crush him, the pews of his church -were locked up, and he was even locked out of -the building. Through all this he passed, and -he became, for the greater part of the long -period we have mentioned, the most noted -preacher of his town and university; and he -published, certainly, in his <i>Horæ Homileticæ</i> a -greater number of attempts at opening texts -in the form of sermons, than had ever been -given to the world. Simeon devoted his own -fortune and means for the purchase of advowsons, -in order that the pulpits of churches might -be filled by the representatives of his own opinions. -No history of the Revival can be -complete without noticing this phase, which -scattered over England, far more extensively -than can be here described, a new order of -clergyman, who have maintained in their circles -evangelical truth, and have held no inconsiderable -sway over the mind of the country.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We only know history through men; events -are only possible through men, of whose mind -and activity they are the manifestation. This -brief succession of sketches has been very greatly -a series of portraits standing out prominently -from the scenery to which the character gave -effect; but of this singular, almost simultaneous -movement, how much has been left unrecorded! -It remains unquestionably true that no -<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>adequate and perfectly impartial review of the -Revival has ever yet been written.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id009'> -<img src='images/i27-page-273-bostonelm.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>Boston Elm.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The story of the Revival in Wales, what it -found there, and what it effected, is one of its -most interesting chapters. How deep was the -slumber when, about 1735-37, Howell Harris -began to traverse the Principality, exhorting -his neighbours concerning the interests of their -souls! another illustration that it was not from -one single spring that the streams of the Revival -poured over the land. It was rather like -some great mountain, such as Plinlimmon, -from whose high centre, elevated among the -clouds, leap forth five rivers, meandering among -the rocks in their brook-like way, until at last -they pour themselves along the lowlands in -broad and even magnificent streams, either -uniting as the Severn and the Wye, or finding -their separate way to the ocean. Whitefield -found his way to Wales, but Howell Harris was -already pouring out his consecrated life there; -to his assistance came the voice of Rowlands, -“the thunderer,” as he was called. Scientific -sermon-makers would say that Harris was no -great preacher; but he has been described as -the most successful and wonderful one who -ever ascended pulpit or platform in the Principality. -By the mingling of his tears and his -terrors, in seven years he roused the whole -<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>country from one end to the other, north and -south; communicating the impulse of his zeal -to many like-minded men, by whose impassioned -words and indefatigable labours the -work was continued with signal and lasting results.<a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c012'><b>[20]</b></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f20'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. </span>See a series of papers on “Welsh Preaching and Preachers” -in the <i>Sunday at Home</i>, for 1876.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>If the first throbbings of the coming Revival -were felt in Northampton, in America, in 1734, -beneath the truly awful words of the great -Jonathan Edwards, it was from England it derived -its sustenance, and assumed organisation -and shape. The Boston Elm, a venerable tree -near the centre of Boston Park, or common, -whose decayed limbs are still held together by -clamps or rivets of iron, while a railing defends -it from rude hands, is an object as sacred to the -traditions of Methodism in the United States, -as is Gwennap Pit to those of Methodism in -Western England. There Jesse Lee, the first -founder of Methodism in New England, commenced -the work in 1790, which has issued in -an organisation even more extensive and gigantic -than that which is associated with the -Conference in England. As the United States -have inherited from the mother country their -language, their literature, and their principles -of law, so also those great agitations of spiritual -<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>life to which we have concisely referred, -crossed the Atlantic, and spread themselves -with power there.<a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c012'><b>[21]</b></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f21'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. </span>See Chapter <a href='#ch14'>XIV</a>., The Revival in the New World.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It is not within our province to attempt to -enumerate all the sects, each with its larger or -lesser proportion of spiritual power, religious -activity, and general acceptance among the -people, to which the Revival gave birth;—such -as the large body of the Bible Christians of the -West of England; the Primitive Methodists of -the North, those who called themselves the -New Connection Methodists, or the United -Free Church Association. All these, and -others, are branches from the great central -stem. Neither is it in our province to notice -how the same universal agitation of religious -feeling, at exactly the same time, gave birth to -other forms, not regarded with so much complacency;—such -as the rugged and faulty faith -and following of that curious creature, William -Huntington, who, singular to say, found also -his best biographer in Robert Southey; or the -strangely multifarious works and rationalistic -development of Baron Swedenborg, which have, -at least, the merit of giving a more spiritual -rendering to the Christian system than that -which was found in the prevalent Arianism of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>the period of their publication. Turn wherever -we may, it is the same. There was a deeper -upheaving of the religious life, and far more -widely spread, than perhaps any age of the -world since the time of the apostles had known -before.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A change passed over the whole of English -society. That social state which we find described -in the pages of Fielding and Smollett, -and less respectable writers, passed away, and -passed away, we trust, for ever. The language -of impurity indulged with freedom by the dramatists -of the period when the Revival arose, -and read, and read aloud, by ladies and young -girls in drawing-rooms, or by parlour firesides, -became shameful and dishonoured. In the -course of fifty years, society, if not entirely -purged—for when may we hope for that blessedness?—was -purified. A sense of religious -decorum, and some idea of religious duty, took -possession of homes and minds which were not -at all impressed, either by the doctrines or the -discipline of Methodism. All this arose from -the new life which had been created.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was a fruitful soil upon which the revivalists -worked. There was a reverence for the -Bible as the word of God, a faith often held -very ignorantly, but it pervaded the land. The -Book was there in every parish church, and in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>every hamlet; it became a kind of nexus of -union for true minds when they felt the power -of Divine principles. Thus, when, as the Revival -strengthened itself, the great Evangelic -party—a term which seems to us less open to -exception than “the Methodist party,” because -far more inclusive—met with the members of -the Society of Friends, they found that, with -some substantial differences, they had principles -in common. The Quakers had been long in -the land, but excepting in their own persons—and -they were few in number—they had not -given much effect to their principles. Methodism -roused the country; Quakerism, with its -more quiet thought, gave suggestions, plans, -largely supplied money. The great works -which these two have since unitedly accomplished -of educating the nation, and shaking -off the chain of the slave abroad, neither could -have accomplished singly; the conscience of -the country was prepared by Evangelic sentiment. -In taking up and working out the great -ideas of the Revival, we have never been -indifferent to the share due to members of the -Society of Friends. We have already spoken -of Elizabeth Fry, to whom many of the princes -of Europe in turn paid honour, to whom with -singular simplicity they listened as they heard -her preach. There are many names on which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>we should like a little to dwell; missionaries as -arduous and earnest as any we have mentioned, -such as Stephen Grellet, Thomas Shillitoe, and -Thomas Chalkley. But this would enter into -a larger plan than we dare to entertain. Our -object now is only to say, how greatly other -nations, and the world at large, have benefited -by the awakening the conscience, the setting -free the mind, the education of the character, -by bringing all into immediate contact with -the Word of God and the truth which it unveils.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Situated as we are now, amidst the movements -and agitations of uncertain seas of -thought, wondering as to the future, with -strong adjurations on every hand to renounce -the Word of Life, and to trust ourselves to the -filmy rationalism of modern speculation; while -we feel that for the future, and for those seas -over which we look there are no tide-tables, we -may, at least, safely affirm this, that the Bible -carries us beyond the highest water-mark; -that, as societies have constructed themselves -out of its principles they have built safely, not -only for eternal hope, but for human and social -happiness also; and we may safely ask human -thought—which, unaided and unenlightened -by revelation, has had a pretty fair field for the -exercise and display of its power in the history -of the world—to show to us a single chapter in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>all the ages of its history, which has effected so -much for human, spiritual, intellectual, and -social well-being, as that which records the results -of the Great Revival of the Last Century.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span> - <h2 id='ch14' class='c004'>CHAPTER XIV<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE REVIVAL IN THE NEW WORLD.</span><br /> <br />[<span class='xsmall'>BY THE EDITOR.</span>]</h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>The labours of Whitefield had a remarkable -influence upon the extension of the Great Revival -in the colonies of America. In these -days of mammoth steamships and rapid railways, -equipped with drawing-room coaches, -travelling has become a pleasant pastime; but -a century and a half ago, when the sailing -vessel and the old lumbering stage-coach were -the most rapid and the chief means of public -conveyance, and when these were often uncertain -and irregular, subjecting the traveller to -frequent and annoying delays, if not disappointments, -it must have been a formidable -undertaking to cross the Atlantic and to journey -through a new country, almost a wilderness, -such long distances as from Georgia to -Massachusetts. Yet Whitefield, with a zeal -and a holy desire in “hunting for souls,” made -seven visits to America, crossing the ocean in -sailing-vessels thirteen times (“one voyage -lasting eleven weeks”), and travelled on his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>preaching tours almost constantly. In one of -these visits he went upwards of 1,100 miles -through this then sparsely settled country, and -endured hardships and exposures from which a -far stronger and more vigorous constitution -might well shrink.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As in England, so in the American colonies, -the decay of vital godliness which preceded -the great awakening had been long and deep. -It began in the latter part of the 17th century, -and its progress was observed with alarm by -many of the notable and godly men of the day. -Governor Stoughton, previous to resigning the -pulpit for the bench, proclaimed, at Boston, -that “many had become like Joash after the -death of Jehoiada—rotten, hypocritical, and a -lie!” The venerable Torrey of Weymouth, in -a sermon before the legislature, exclaimed, -“There is already a great death upon religion; -little more left than a name to live. It is dying -as to the being of it, by the general failure of -the work of conversion.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mather, in 1700, asserts: “If the begun -apostasy should proceed as fast the next thirty -years as it has done these last, it will come to -that in New England (except the gospel itself -depart with the order of it) that churches must -be gathered out of churches.” President Willard -also published a sermon in the same year -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>on “The Perils of the Times Displayed,” in -which he asks, “Whence is there such a prevalency -of so many immoralities amongst professors? -Why so little success of the gospel? -How few thorough conversions to be observed; -how scarce and seldom! * * * It has been -a frequent observation that if one generation -begins to decline, the next that follows usually -grows worse; and so on, until God pours out -his spirit again upon them.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was thirty years before the dawn of the -great awakening began to appear, even in the -colony of Massachusetts; but there were many -godly men in various portions of the American -colonies who had not yet bowed the knee to the -Baal of worldliness, and who earnestly sought, -by great fidelity in the presentation of the -truth, to arrest the evil tendency of the times. -Among them was that greatest of American -theologians, Jonathan Edwards. Beholding -the melancholy state of religion, not only at -Northampton, but in the surrounding regions, -and that this evil tendency was corrupting the -Church, he began to preach with greater boldness, -more especially with the purpose of -keeping error out of the Church than with the -design of awakening sinners. He was a man, -however, whose convictions were exceedingly -strong, and who preached the truth, not simply -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>for the purpose of gaining a worldly victory, -but because he loved the truth and the Spirit -wrought mightily by it. A surprising work of -grace attended his preaching. There was a -melting down of all classes and ages, in an -overwhelming solicitude about salvation; an -absorbing sense of eternal realities and self-abasement -and self-condemnation; a spirit of -secret and social prayer, followed by a concern -for the souls of others; and this awakening was -so sudden and solemn, that in many instances -it produced loud outcries, and in some cases -convulsions. Doubtless this great awakening -was as much a surprise to Edwards as to those -to whom he ministered. Naturally, such a -wonderful work could not be confined to -Northampton alone; it began to extend to -other places in the colony. Remarkable and -widespread as this work of grace was, however, -it does not seem to have penetrated through -New England generally, until after the arrival -of Whitefield. The effect of Whitefield’s preaching -in Boston, says his biographer, was amazing. -Old Mr. Walter, the successor of Eliot, -the apostle to the Indians, declared it was Puritanism -revived. So great was the interest -that his farewell sermon was attended by -twenty thousand persons. “Such a power and -presence of God with a preacher, and in religious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>assemblies,” says Dr. Colman, “I -never saw before. Every day gives me fresh -proofs of Christ speaking in him.” And this -interest, great as it was, seemed, if possible, -exceeded at Northampton when Whitefield -met Edwards and reminded his people of the -days of old. A like success attended Whitefield’s -ministry in the town and college of -New Haven, and at Harvard College the effect -was remarkable. Secretary Willard, writing -to Whitefield, says: “That which forebodes -the most lasting advantage is the new state of -things in the college, where the impressions of -religion have been and still are very general, -and many in a judgment of charity brought -home to Christ. Divers gentlemen’s sons that -were sent there only for a more polite education, -are now so full of zeal for the cause of -Christ and the love of souls as to devote themselves -entirely to the study of divinity.” And -Dr. Colman wrote Whitefield, of Cambridge: -“The college is entirely changed; the students -are full of God, and will, I hope, come -out blessings in their generation, and I trust -are so now to each other. The voice of prayer -and praise fills their chambers, and sincerity, -fervency, and joy, with seriousness of heart, sit -visible on their faces.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>On his return to Boston, in 1745, Whitefield -<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>himself gives a similar testimony in regard to -the remarkable results of the Revival. He was -followed in his labours there by Gilbert Tennent, -a Presbyterian from New Jersey. That -this was not an overdrawn picture of the work -may be inferred from a public testimony given -by three of the leading ministers in Boston, the -Rev. Messrs. Prince, Webb, and Cooper. -Among other things, they said, “The wondrous -work of God at this day making its triumphant -progress through the land has forced many men -of clear minds, strong powers, considerable -knowledge, and firmly riveted in * * * * -Socinian tenets, to give them all up at once -and yield to the adorable sovereignty and -irresistibility of the Divine Spirit in His saving -operations on the souls of men. For to see -such men as these, some of them of licentious -lives, long inured in a course of vice and of -high spirits, coming to the preaching of the -Word, some only out of curiosity, and mere design -to get matter of cavilling and banter, all -at once, in opposition to their inward resolutions -and resistances, to fall under an unexpected -and hated power, to have all the -strength of their resolution and resistance taken -away, to have such inward views of the horrid -wickedness not only of their lives but of their -hearts, with their exceeding great and immediate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>danger of eternal misery as has amazed -their souls and thrown them into distress -unutterable, yea, forced them to cry out in the -assemblies with the greatest agonies, and then, -in two or three days, and sometimes sooner, -to have such unexpected and raised views of -the infinite grace and love of God in Christ, as -have enabled them to believe in Him; lifted -them at once out of their distress; filled -their hearts with admiration and joy unspeakable -and full of glory, breaking forth in their -shining countenances and transporting voices -to the surprise of those about them, kindling -up at once into a flame of love to God in utter -detestation of their former courses and vicious -habits,” fairly characterises this wonderful work -of God.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Gilbert Tennent, who was pressed into the -field by Whitefield, was born in Ireland, and -brought to this country by his father, and was -educated for the ministry. As a preacher he -was, in his vigorous days, equalled by few. -His reasoning powers were strong, his language -was forcible and often sublime, and his manner -of address warm and earnest. His eloquence -was, however, rather bold and awful than soft -and persuasive, he was most pungent in his -address to the conscience. When he wished to -alarm the sinner, he could represent in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>most awful manner the terrors of the Lord. -With admirable dexterity he exposed the false -hope of the hypocrite, and searched the corrupt -heart to the bottom. Such were some of the -qualifications of the man whom Whitefield -chose to continue his work in America. He -entered on his new labours with almost rustic -simplicity, wearing his hair undressed and a -large great-coat girt with a leathern girdle. -He was of lofty stature and dignified and grave -aspect. His career as a preacher in New Jersey -had been remarkable, and now in New England -his ministry was hardly less successful than -that of Whitefield. He actually shook the -country as with an earthquake. Wherever he -came hypocrisy and Pharisaism either fell -before him or gnashed their teeth against him. -Cold orthodoxy also started from her downy -cushion to imitate or to denounce him. So testifies -the author of the “<i>Life and Times of -Whitefield</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Whitefield’s first reception in New York was -not particularly flattering. He was refused the -use of both the church and the court-house. “The -commissary of the Bishop,” he says, “was full -of anger and resentment, and denied me the use -of his pulpit before I asked him for it.” He replied, -“I will preach in the fields, for all places -are alike to me.” At a subsequent visit he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>preached there seven weeks with great acceptableness -and success. Even his first labours -were not wholly in vain. Dr. Pemberton wrote -to him that many were deeply affected, and -some who had been loose and profligate were -ashamed and set upon thorough reformation. -The printers also at New York, as at Philadelphia, -applied to him for sermons to publish, -assuring him “that hundreds had called for -them, and that thousands would purchase them.” -Of his later visit he says, “Such flocking of all -ranks I never saw before.” At New York -many of the most respectable gentlemen and -merchants went home with him after his sermons -to hear something more of the kingdom -of Christ.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“At Philadelphia,” says Philip, in his Life -and Times of Whitefield, “his welcome was -cordial. Ministers and laymen of all denominations -visited him, inviting him to preach. -He was especially pleased to find that they -preferred sermons when not delivered within -church walls. It was well they did, for his -fame had reached the city before he arrived and -this collected crowds which no church could -contain. The court-house steps became his -pulpit, and neither he nor the people wearied, -although the cold winds of November blew -upon them night after night.” Previous to one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>of his visits in Philadelphia, a place was erected -in which Whitefield could preach, and its -managers offered him £800 annually, with -liberty to travel six months in a year wherever -he chose, if he would become their pastor. -Though pleased with the offer he promptly -declined it. He was more pleased to learn that -in consequence of a former visit there were so -many under soul-sickness that even Gilbert -Tennent’s feet were blistered with walking -from place to place to see them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of his work in Maryland he writes, that he -found those who had never heard of redeeming -grace. The harvest is promising. “Have -Marylanders also received the grace of God? -Amazing love. Maryland is yielding converts -to Jesus; the Gospel is moving southwards.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>He frequently visited New Jersey (Princeton) -College, and there won many young -and bright witnesses for Christ. Hearing that -sixteen students had been converted at a -former visit, he again went thither to fan the -flame he had kindled among the students, and -says that he had four sweet seasons which -resembled old times. His spirits rose at the -sight of the young soldiers who were to fight -when he fell.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Although at times prejudice ran high against -the Indians, Whitefield espoused their cause as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>a philanthropist, and preached to them through -interpreters at the Indian school of Lebanon, -under Dr. Wheelock, where the sight of a promising -nursery for future missionaries greatly -inspired him. And at one of the stations -maintained by the sainted Brainerd, he -preached, found converted Indians, and saw -nearly fifty young ones in one school learning -a Bible catechism. In the Indian school at -Lebanon he became so interested that he -appealed to the public and collected £120 at -one meeting for its maintenance. Wherever -he went he saw the Redeemer’s stately steps -in the great congregations which he addressed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If there was any one point about which -Whitefield’s interest centered in America, it -was in the orphan asylum which he aided in -establishing in Georgia. This was his “Bethesda.” -The prosperity of the orphan home -was engraved upon his heart as with the point -of a diamond, and it was ever vividly present to -him wherever he went. At one of his visits -on parting with the inmates he says: “Oh, -what a sweet meeting I had with my dear -friends! What God has prepared for me I -know not; but surely I cannot expect a greater -happiness until I embrace the saints in glory! -When I parted my heart was ready to break -with sorrow, but now it almost bursts with joy. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>Oh, how did each in turn hang upon my neck, -kiss and weep over me with tears of joy! And -my own soul was so full of the sense of God’s -love, when I embraced one friend in particular, -that I thought I should have expired in the place. -I felt my soul so full of the sense of Divine -goodness that I wanted words to express myself. -When we came to public worship, young -and old were all dissolved in tears. After -service several of my parishioners, all of my -family, and the little children returned home -crying along the street, and some could not avoid -praying very loud. Being very weak in body -I laid myself upon a bed, but finding so many -in a weeping condition I rose and betook myself -to prayer again, but had I not lifted up my -voice very high the groans and cries of the -children would have prevented me from being -heard. This continued for near an hour, till at -last, finding their concern rather to increase -than to abate, I desired all to retire. Then -some or other might be heard praying earnestly -in every corner of the house. It happened at -this time to thunder and lighten, which added -very much to the solemnity of the night. * * * I -mention the orphans in particular, that their -benefactors may rejoice at what God is doing -for their souls.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is evident that Whitefield had a very -<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>tender heart towards all children. One of his -most effective sermons at Webb’s Chapel, -Boston, was occasioned by the touching remark -of a dying boy, who had heard him the day -before. The boy was taken ill after the sermon, -and said, “I want to go to Mr. Whitefield’s -God”—and expired. This touched the -secret place of both the thunder and the tears -of Whitefield. He says, “It encouraged me to -speak to the little ones, but oh, how were the -old people affected when I said, ‘Little children, -if your parents will not come to Christ, do -you come and go to heaven without them.’” -After this awful appeal no wonder that there -were but few dry eyes.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another remarkable evidence of the extent -and power of the Revival, and of the versatility -of Mr. Whitefield’s talents, is shown in -the effect produced upon the negro mind. -The intensest interest prevailed among even -the poorest slaves. Upon one occasion Whitefield -was very ill, and in the hands of the physician -to the time when he was expected to -preach. Suddenly he exclaimed, “My pains -are suspended; by the help of God I will go -and preach, and then come home and die!” -With some difficulty he reached the pulpit. All -were surprised, and looked as though they saw -one risen from the dead. He says of himself, “I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>was as pale as death, and told them they must -look upon me as a dying man come to bear my -dying testimony to the truths I had formerly -preached to them. All seemed melted, and -were drowned in tears. The cry after me when -I left the pulpit was like the cry of sincere -mourners when attending the funeral of a dear -departed friend. Upon my coming home, -I was laid upon a bed upon the ground near -the fire, and I heard them say, ‘He is gone!’ -but God was pleased to order it otherwise. I -gradually recovered. At this time a poor -negro woman insisted upon seeing him when -he began to recover. She came in and sat on -the ground, and looked earnestly into his face; -then she said, in broken accents: “Massa, you -jest go to hebben’s gate; but Jesus Christ said, -‘Get you down, get you down; you musn’t -come here yet; go first and call some more poor -negroes.’” Many colored people came to him -asking, “Have I a soul?” Many societies for -prayer and mutual instruction were set up. Mr. -Seward, a travelling companion of Whitefield,; -relates that a drinking club, whereof a clergyman -was a member, had a negro boy attending -them, who used to mimic people for their diversion. -They called on him to mimic Whitefield, -which he was very unwilling to do; but they -insisted upon it. He stood up and said:—“I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, unless you -repent you will all be damned.” Seward adds, -“This unexpected speech broke up the club, -which has never met since.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At Savannah, Charleston, and other southern -cities, the Great Revival had a remarkable success. -Josiah Smith, an Independent minister -of Charleston, published a sermon on the -character and preaching of Whitefield, defending -his doctrines, his personal character, and -describing his manner of preaching. Of Whitefield’s -power he says: “He is certainly a -finished preacher; a noble negligence ran -through his style; the passion and flame of his inspiration -will, I trust, be long felt by many. How -was his tongue like the pen of a ready writer, -touched as with a coal from the altar! With -what a flow of words, what a ready profusion of -language did he speak to us upon the concerns -of our souls! In what a flaming light did he -set <i>our</i> eternity before us! How earnestly he -pressed Christ upon us! The awe, the silence, -the attention, which sat upon the faces of the -great audience was an argument, how he could -reign over all their powers. Many thought he -spake as never man spake before him. So -charmed were the people with the manner of -his address that they shut up their shops, forgot -their secular business, and the oftener he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>preached the keener edge he seemed to put -upon their desires to hear him again. How -awfully—with what thunder and sound—did he -discharge the artillery of heaven upon us! -Eternal themes, the tremendous solemnities of -our religion were all alive upon his tongue. He -struck at the politest and most modish of our -vices, and at the most fashionable entertainments, -regardless of every one’s presence but -His in whose name he spake with this authority. -And I dare warrant if none should go to -these diversions until they had answered the -solemn questions he put to their consciences, -our theatres would soon sink and perish.” Mr. -Smith adds that £600 were contributed in -Charleston to the orphan house.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The wonderful quickening which the Great -Revival gave to benevolent and charitable -enterprises deserves at least a passing allusion. -Besides sending forth into mission work such -men as David Brainerd, and even Jonathan -Edwards himself, it also laid the foundation -more securely of many of our Christian colleges, -and of not a few of our orphan asylums. Whitefield -founded his Bethesda upon a tract of land -covering about 500 acres, ten miles from Savannah, -and laid out the plan of the building, -employed workmen, hired a large house, took -in 24 orphans, incurred at once the heavy -<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>responsibilities of a large family and a larger -institution, encouraged, as he says, by the -example of Professor Francke. Yet on looking -back to this first undertaking he said: “I forgot -that Professor Francke built in a populous -country and that I was building at the very tail -end of the world, which rendered it by far the -most expensive part of all his Majesty’s dominions; -but had I received more and ventured -less, I should have suffered less and others -more.” He undertook to provide for his 40 -orphans and 60 servants and workmen with no -fears nor misgivings of heart. “Near a hundred -mouths,” he writes, “are daily to be supplied -with food. The expense is great, but our great -and good God, I am persuaded, will enable me -to defray it.” He spent a winter at Bethesda -in 1764, and of the success of his orphanage he -says, “Peace and plenty reign at Bethesda; all -things go on successfully. God has given me -great favour in the sight of the governor, council, -and assembly. A memorial was presented -for an additional grant of land consisting of -about 2,000 acres, and was immediately complied -with. Every heart seems to leap for joy -at the prospect of its future utility to this and -the neighbouring colonies.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>This great religious movement did not progress -without stirring up much bitterness. It -<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>was even asserted by President Clap, of New -Haven, that he came into New England to -turn out the generality of their ministers, and to -replace them with ministers from England, -Ireland, and Scotland. “Such a thought,” -replies Whitefield, “never entered my heart, -neither has, as I know of, my preaching any -such tendency.” It is said of one minister that -he went merely to pick a hole in Whitefield’s -coat, but confessed that God picked a hole in -his heart, and afterward healed it by the blood -of Christ. After one of his visits not less -than twenty ministers in the neighbourhood of -Boston did not hesitate to call Whitefield their -spiritual father, tracing their conversion to his -preaching. These men immediately entered -upon a similar work, spreading the great -awakening throughout that colony.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the progress of this work under Whitefield -and others, there were frequent outbursts of -wit and grim humor. Thus when pastors were -shy of giving Whitefield and his associates a -place in their pulpits and the people voted to -allow them to preach in their churches, Whitefield -said, “The <i>lord</i>-brethren of New England -could tyrannize as well as the <i>lord</i>-bishops of -Old England.” The caricatures issued from -Boston in regard to the work were designated -as half-penny squibs; and a good old Puritan -of the city said, “they did not weigh much.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>Of the religion of America Whitefield writes: -“I am more and more in love with the good -old Puritans. I am pleased at the thought of -sitting down hereafter with the venerable -Cotton, Norton, Eliot, and that great cloud of -witnesses who first crossed the western ocean -for the sake of the sacred gospel and the faith -once delivered to the saints. At present my -soul is so filled that I can scarce proceed.” -Again he writes: “It is too much for one man -to be received as I have been by thousands. -The thoughts of it lay me low but I cannot get -low enough. I would willingly sink into -nothing before the blessed Jesus—my all in all.” -And again, “I love those that thunder out the -Word. The Christian world is in a deep sleep, -nothing but a loud voice can awaken them out -of it. Had we a thousand hands and tongues -there is employment enough for them all. -People are everywhere ready to perish for -lack of knowledge.” To an aged veteran he -writes from North Carolina, “I am here hunting -in the woods—these ungospelized wilds—for -sinners. It is pleasant work, though my body -is weak and crazy. But after a short fermentation -in the grave, it will be fashioned like unto -Christ’s glorious body. The thought of this -rejoices my soul and makes me long to leap my -seventy years. I sometimes think all will go to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>heaven before me. Pray for me as a dying man, -but, oh, pray that I may not go off as a snuff. -I would fain die blazing—not with human glory, -but with the love of Jesus.” Such was the -spirit filling the great souls of those who were -God’s instruments in spreading the revival in -America. Mr. Whitefield died at Newburyport, -Massachusetts, Sept. 30, 1770, having -preached the day before at Exeter, and his body -rests in a crypt or tomb beneath the Presbyterian -church at that place.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of the effects of the Great Revival in -America, Dr. Abel Stevens says, “The Congregational -churches of New England, the -Presbyterians and Baptists of the Middle States, -and the mixed colonies of the South, owe their -late religious life and energy mostly to the -impulse given by his [Whitefield’s] powerful -ministrations.” * * * In Pennsylvania and New -Jersey, where Frelinghuysen, Blair, Rowland, -and the two Tennents had been labouring with -evangelistic zeal, he was received as a prophet -of God, and it was then that the Presbyterian -Church took that attitude of evangelical power -and aggression which has ever since characterized -it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A single incident will illustrate the effect of -the Revival upon unbelievers and skeptics. A -noted officer of Philadelphia, who had long -<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>been almost an atheist, crept into the crowd -one night to hear a sermon on the visit of -Nicodemus to Christ. When he came home, -his wife not knowing where he had been, -wished he had heard what she had been hearing. -He said nothing. Another and another -of his family came in and made a similar remark -till he burst into tears and said, “I have been -hearing him and approve of his sermon.” He -afterwards became a sincere Christian with the -spirit of a martyr.</p> - -<p class='c007'>These etchings of a few scenes and fewer -facts indicate the scope, the depth, and the -sweep of the Great Revival of the 18th century -in America. No attempt has been made to -sum up its results, nor has it come within the -purpose of this work to give an inward history -of the movement, nor to explain the philosophy -of it. These intricate questions may be left to -philosophers; the Christian delights to know -the facts; he will cheerfully wait for the future -life to unfold all the mystery and philosophy of -the plan and work of salvation. Then, as -Whitefield exclaims, “What amazing mysteries -will be unfolded when each link in the golden -chain of providence and grace shall be seen and -scanned by beatified spirits in the kingdom of -heaven! Then all will appear symmetry and -harmony, and even the most intricate and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>seemingly most contrary dispensations, will be -evidenced to be the result of infinite and consummate -wisdom, power, and love. Above all, -there the believer will see the infinite depths of -that mystery of godliness, ‘God manifested in -the flesh,’ and join with that blessed choir, who, -with a restless unweariedness, are ever singing -the song of Moses and the Lamb.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<hr class='c005' /> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span> - <h3 id='app-a' class='c002'>APPENDIX A (<span class='sc'>Pages <a href='#Page_9'>9</a> and</span> <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>).</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar -character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and -eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general -terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every -event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was -too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know -him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was, with them, the great end -of existence. They rejected, with contempt, the ceremonious -homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of -the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity -through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable -brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence -originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference -between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed -to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which -separated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were -constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but His -favor; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accomplishments -and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted -with the works of philosophers and poets, they were -deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found -in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of -Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train -of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. -Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their diadems -crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and -the eloquent, on nobles or priests they looked down with contempt, -for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious -measure, and eloquent in a more sublime language—nobles by -right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a -mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose -fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged, on whose -slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with -anxious interest, who had been destined, before Heaven and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue -when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events -which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had -been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, -and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had -proclaimed His will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp -of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer -from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by -the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. -It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks -had been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had -shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men: the one -all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other -proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the -dust before his Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his -king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, -and groans and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or -terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting -whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, -or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, -he thought himself entrusted with the sceptre of the millennial -year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that -God had hid His face from him. But when he took his seat -in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous -workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. -People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, -and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining -hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to -laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate, or on the field -of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a -coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which -some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, -but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity -of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every -other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity -and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors and -pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, -their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this -world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised -them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes -might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to -choose unwise means. They went through the world, like Sir -Artegal’s iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling -down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having -neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, -to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, not to -be withstood by any barrier.—<i>Macaulay’s Essay on Milton.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-b' class='c002'>APPENDIX B (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>“‘The Vicar of Wakefield’ is a domestic epic. Its hero is a -country parson—simple, pious and pure-hearted—a humourist in -his way, a little vain of his learning, a little proud of his fine -family—sometimes rather sententious, never pedantic, and a -dogmatist only on the one favorite topic of monogamy, which -crops out now and then above the surface of his character, only -to give it a new charm. Its world is a rural district, beyond -whose limits the action rarely passes, and that only on great occasions. -Domestic affections and joys, relieved by its cares, its -foibles, and its little failings, cluster around the parsonage, till -the storms from the outward world invade its holiness and trouble -its peace. Then comes sorrow and suffering; and we have -the hero, like the patriarchal prince of the land of Uz, when the -Lord ‘put forth His hand and touched all that He had,’ meeting -each new affliction with meekness and with patience—rising from -each new trial with renewed reliance upon God, till the lowest -depth of his earthly suffering becomes the highest elevation of -his moral strength.”</p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-c' class='c002'>APPENDIX C (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>The most interesting phases which the Reformation anywhere -assumes, especially for us English, is that of Puritanism. In -Luther’s own country, Protestantism soon dwindled into a rather -barren affair, not a religion or faith, but rather now a theological -jangling of argument, the proper seat of it not the heart; the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>essence of it skeptical contention; which, indeed, has jangled -more and more, down to Voltairism itself; through Gustavus -Adolphus contentions onward to French-Revolution cries! But -on our island there arose a Puritanism, which even got itself established -as a Presbyterianism and national church among the -Scotch; which came forth as a real business of the heart; and -has produced in the world very notable fruit. In some senses -one may say it is the only phase of Protestantism that ever got to -the rank of being a faith, a true communication with Heaven, -and of exhibiting itself in history as such. We must spare a few -words for Knox; himself a brave and remarkable man; but -still more important as chief priest and founder, which one may -consider him to be, of the faith that became Scotland’s, New -England’s, Oliver Cromwell’s. History will have something to -say about this for some time to come!</p> - -<p class='c007'>We may censure Puritanism as we please; and no one of us, I -suppose, but would find it a very rough, defective thing; but -we, and all men, may understand that it was a genuine thing; -for nature has adopted it, and it has grown and grows. I say -sometimes that all goes by wager of battle in this world; that -<i>strength</i>, well understood, is the measure of all worth. Give a -thing time; if it can succeed, it is a right thing. Look now at -American Saxondom; and at that little fact of the sailing of the -Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft Haven, in Holland! -Were we of open sense, as the Greeks were, we had -found a poem here; one of nature’s own poems, such as she -writes in broad facts over great continents. For it was properly -the beginning of America: there were straggling settlers in -America before, some material as of a body was there; but the -soul of it was first this. These poor men, driven out of their -own country, not able well to live in Holland, determined on -settling in the New World. Black, untamed forests are there, -and wild, savage creatures; but not so cruel as star-chamber -hangmen. They thought the earth would yield them food, if they -tilled honestly; the everlasting Heaven would stretch there, too, -overhead; they should be left in peace, to prepare for Eternity -by living well in this world of time; worshipping in what they -thought the true, not the idolatrous way. They clubbed their -small means together; hired a ship, the little ship Mayflower, -and made ready to set sail. In <i>Neal’s History of the Puritans</i> is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>an account of the ceremony of their departure; solemnity, we -might call it, rather, for it was a real act of worship. Their -minister went down with them to the beach, and their brethren, -whom they were to leave behind; all joined in solemn prayer -that God would have pity on His poor children, and go with -them into that waste wilderness, for He also had made that, He -was there also as well as here. Hah! These men, I think, had -a work! The weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes strong -one day, if it be a true thing. Puritanism was only despicable, -laughable then; but nobody can manage to laugh at it now. -Puritanism has got weapons and sinews; it has fire-arms, war -navies; it has cunning in its ten fingers, strength in its right -arm: it can steer ships, fell forests, remove mountains; it is one -of the strongest things under this sun at present!—<i>Carlyle on -Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-d' class='c002'>APPENDIX D (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>It has been said of Lady Huntingdon that “almost from infancy -an uncommon seriousness shaded the natural gladness of her -childhood,” and that, without any positive religious instruction, -for none knew her “inward sorrows,” when she was a “little -girl, nor were there any around her who could have led her to -the balm there is in Gilead,” she devoutly and diligently -searched the Scriptures, if haply she might find that precious -something which her soul craved.</p> - -<p class='c007'>During the first years of her married life (she was married at -the age of 21 and in the year 1728), “her chief endeavor * * * -was to maintain a conscience void of offense. She strove -to fulfill the various duties of her position with scrupulous exactness; -she was sincere, just and upright; she prayed, fasted -and gave alms; she was courteous, considerate and charitable.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Her husband, Lord Huntingdon, had a sister, Lady Margaret -Hastings, who, under the preaching of Mr. Ingham, in Ledstone -Church in Yorkshire, was converted. Afterwards, when visiting -her brother, these words were uttered by her: “Since I have -known and believed in the Lord Jesus for salvation, I have been -as happy as an angel.” The expression was strange to Lady -Huntingdon—it alarmed her—she sought to work out a righteousness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>of her own, but the effort only widened the breach between -herself and God. “Thus harassed by inward conflicts, -Lady Huntingdon was thrown upon a sick bed, and after many -days and nights seemed hastening to the grave. The fear of -death fell terribly upon her.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>In that condition the words of Lady Margaret recurred with a -new meaning. “I too will wholly cast myself on Jesus Christ -for life and salvation,” was her last refuge; and from her bed -she lifted up her heart to God for pardon and mercy through -the blood of His Son. “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief,” -was her prayer. Doubt and distress vanished and joy and -peace filled her bosom.—<i>From “Lady Huntingdon and her -Friends.” Compiled by Mrs. Helen C. Knight.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-e' class='c002'>APPENDIX E (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>“It is easier to justify the heads of the restored Clergy upon -this point [want of uniformity or unity in the Church of England], -than to excuse them for appropriating to themselves the -wealth which, in consequence of the long protracted calamities -of the nation, was placed at their disposal. The leases of the -church lands had almost all fallen in; there had been no renewal -for twenty years, and the fines which were now raised -amounted to about a million and a half. Some of this money -was expended in repairing, as far as was reparable, that havoc -in churches and cathedrals which the fanatics had made in their -abominable reign; some also was disposed of in ransoming English -slaves from the Barbary pirates; but the greater part went -to enrich individuals and build up families, instead of being employed, -as it ought to have been, in improving the condition of -the inferior clergy. Queen Anne applied the tenths and first -fruits to this most desirable object; but the effect of her augmentation -was slow and imperceptible: they continued in a -state of degrading poverty, and that poverty was another cause -of the declining influence of the Church, and the increasing irreligion -of the people.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A further cause is to be found in the relaxation of discipline. -In the Romish days it had been grossly abused; and latterly -also it had been brought into general abhorrence and contempt -<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>by the tyrannical measures of Laud on one side, and the absurd -vigor of Puritanism on the other. The clergy had lost that -authority which may always command at least the appearance -of respect; and they had lost that respect also by which the -place of authority may sometimes so much more worthily be -supplied. For the loss of power they were not censurable; but -if they possessed little of that influence which the minister who -diligently and conscientiously discharges his duty will certainly -acquire, it is manifest that, as a body, they must have been culpably -remiss. From the Restoration to the accession of the -House of Hanover, the English Church could boast of some of -its brightest ornaments and ablest defenders; men who have -neither been surpassed in piety, nor in erudition, nor in industry, -nor in eloquence, nor in strength and subtlety of mind: and -when the design for re-establishing popery in these kingdoms -was systematically pursued, to them we are indebted for that -calm and steady resistance, by which our liberties, civil as well -as religious, were preserved. But in the great majority of the -clergy zeal was awanting. The excellent Leighton spoke of the -Church as a fair carcass without a spirit; in doctrine, in worship, -and in the main part of its government, he thought it the best -constituted in the world, but one of the most corrupt in its administration. -And Burnet observes, that in his time our clergy -had less authority, and were under more contempt, than those -of any other church in Europe; for they were much the most -remiss in their labors, and the least severe in their lives. It -was not that their lives were scandalous; he entirely acquitted -them of any such imputation; but they were not exemplary as -it became them to be: and in the sincerity and grief of a pious -and reflecting mind, he pronounced that they should never regain -the influence which they had lost, till they lived better and -labored more.”—<i>Southey’s Life of Wesley.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-f' class='c002'>APPENDIX F (<span class='sc'>Pages <a href='#Page_73'>73</a> and <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></span>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>“The observant Frenchman to whom we have several times -referred, M. Grosley, says of the ‘sect of the Methodists,’ ‘this -establishment has borne all the persecutions that it could possibly -apprehend in a country as much disposed to persecution as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>England is the reverse.’ The light literature of forty years overflows -with ridicule of Methodism. The preachers are pelted by -the mob; the converts are held up to execration as fanatics or -hypocrites. Yet Methodism held the ground it had gained. It -had gone forth to utter the words of truth to men little above the -beasts that perish, and it had brought them to regard themselves, -as akin to humanity. The time would come when its earnestness -would awaken the Church itself from its somnolency, -and the educated classes would not be ashamed to be religious. -There was wild enthusiasm enough in some of the followers of -Whitefield and Wesley; much self seeking; zeal verging upon -profaneness; moral conduct, strongly opposed to pious profession. -But these earnest men left a mark upon their time which -can never be effaced. The obscure young students at Oxford in -1736, who were first called ‘Sacramentarians,’ then ‘Bible -moths,’ and finally ‘Methodists, to whom the regular pulpits -were closed, and who went forth to preach in the fields—who -separated from the Church more in form than in reality—produced -a moral revolution in England which probably saved us -from the fate of nations wholly abandoned to their own devices.”—<i>From -Knight’s History of England.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Pages <a href='#Page_97'>97</a> and <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></span>).</div> - <div>(<i>See Appendix <a href='#app-a'>A</a> and <a href='#app-f'>F</a>.</i>)</div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c011' /> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='p-114' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>“The ‘two brothers in song’ (John and Charles Wesley) began -their issue of ‘Hymns and Sacred Songs’ in 1739, and continued -at intervals to supply Christian singers for half a century. Thirty-eight -publications appeared one after the other: now under the -name of one brother, now under that of the other; some with -both names, and others nameless. The two hymnists appear to -have agreed that, in the volumes which bore their joint names, -they would not distinguish their hymns.”—<i>The Epworth Singers -and other poets of Methodism, by the Rev. S. W. Christophers, Redruth, -Cornwall.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span> - <h3 id='p-118' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Note, Page</span> <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>).</h3> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The God of Abraham praise,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Who reigns enthron’d above;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Ancient of everlasting days,</div> - <div class='line in8'>And God of love:</div> - <div class='line in4'>Jehovah—great I Am—</div> - <div class='line in4'>By earth and Heavens confest;</div> - <div class='line in1'>I bow and bless the sacred name,</div> - <div class='line in8'>For ever bless’d.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The God of Abraham praise,</div> - <div class='line in4'>At whose supreme command</div> - <div class='line in1'>From earth I rise, and seek the joys</div> - <div class='line in8'>At His right hand:</div> - <div class='line in4'>I all on earth forsake,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Its wisdom, fame and power,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And Him my only portion make,</div> - <div class='line in8'>My Shield and Tower.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The God of Abraham praise,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Whose all-sufficient grace</div> - <div class='line in1'>Shall guide me all my happy days,</div> - <div class='line in8'>In all my ways:</div> - <div class='line in4'>He calls a worm His friend!</div> - <div class='line in4'>He calls Himself my God!</div> - <div class='line in1'>And He shall save me to the end,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Thro’ Jesus’ blood.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>He by Himself hath sworn!</div> - <div class='line in4'>I on His oath depend,</div> - <div class='line in1'>I shall, on eagle’s wings up-borne,</div> - <div class='line in8'>To Heaven ascend;</div> - <div class='line in4'>I shall behold His face,</div> - <div class='line in4'>I shall His power adore,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And sing the wonders of His grace</div> - <div class='line in8'>For evermore.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Tho’ nature’s strength decay,</div> - <div class='line in4'>And earth and hell withstand,</div> - <div class='line in1'>To Canaan’s bounds I urge my way</div> - <div class='line in8'>At His command:</div> - <div class='line in4'><span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>The wat’ry deep I pass,</div> - <div class='line in4'>With Jesus in my view;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And thro’ the howling wilderness</div> - <div class='line in8'>My way pursue.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The goodly land I see,</div> - <div class='line in4'>With peace and plenty bless’d;</div> - <div class='line in1'>A land of sacred liberty,</div> - <div class='line in8'>And endless rest.</div> - <div class='line in4'>There milk and honey flow,</div> - <div class='line in4'>And oil and wine abound,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And trees of life forever grow,</div> - <div class='line in8'>With mercy crown’d.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>There dwells the Lord our King,</div> - <div class='line in4'>The Lord our Righteousness,</div> - <div class='line'>Triumphant o’er the world and sin,</div> - <div class='line in8'>The Prince of Peace;</div> - <div class='line in4'>On Sion’s sacred heights</div> - <div class='line in4'>His Kingdom still maintains;</div> - <div class='line'>And glorious with the saints in light,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Forever reigns.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>He keeps His own secure,</div> - <div class='line in4'>He guards them by His side,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Arrays in garments white and pure</div> - <div class='line in8'>His spotless bride.</div> - <div class='line in4'>With streams of sacred bliss,</div> - <div class='line in4'>With groves of living joys,</div> - <div class='line in1'>With all the fruits of Paradise</div> - <div class='line in8'>He still supplies.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Before the great Three—One</div> - <div class='line in4'>They all exulting stand;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And tell the wonders He hath done,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Thro’ all their land:</div> - <div class='line in4'>The list’ning spheres attend,</div> - <div class='line in4'>And swell the growing fame;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And sing, in songs which never end,</div> - <div class='line in8'>The wondrous name.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'><span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>The God who reigns on high,</div> - <div class='line in4'>The great Archangels sing,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And “Holy, holy, holy,” cry,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Almighty King!</div> - <div class='line in4'>Who was, and is, the same!</div> - <div class='line in4'>And evermore shall be;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Jehovah—Father—great I Am!</div> - <div class='line in8'>We worship Thee.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Before the Saviour’s face</div> - <div class='line in4'>The ransom’d nations bow;</div> - <div class='line in1'>O’erwhelmed at His Almighty grace,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Forever new:</div> - <div class='line in4'>He shows His prints of love—</div> - <div class='line in4'>They kindle—to a flame!</div> - <div class='line in1'>And sound through all the worlds above,</div> - <div class='line in8'>The slaughter’d Lamb.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The whole triumphant host</div> - <div class='line in4'>Give thanks to God on high;</div> - <div class='line'>“Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”</div> - <div class='line in8'>They ever cry:</div> - <div class='line in4'>Hail, Abraham’s God—and <i>mine</i>!</div> - <div class='line in4'>I join the heavenly lays,</div> - <div class='line in1'>All might and majesty are Thine,</div> - <div class='line in8'>And endless praise.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Thomas Olivers, the author of the above hymn, lived to see the -issue of at least thirty editions of it.</p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> 118).<br /> THE LAST JUDGMENT.<br /> <span class='small'>BY THOMAS OLIVERS.</span></h3> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Come, immortal King of Glory,</div> - <div class='line'>Now in Majesty appear,</div> - <div class='line'>Bid the nations stand before Thee,</div> - <div class='line'>Each his final doom to hear,</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>Come to judgment,</div> - <div class='line'>Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Speak the word, and lo! all nature</div> - <div class='line'>Flies before Thy glorious face,</div> - <div class='line'>Angels sing your great Creator,</div> - <div class='line'>Saints proclaim His sovereign grace,</div> - <div class='line in6'>While ye praise Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Lift your heads and see Him come.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>See His beauty all resplendent,</div> - <div class='line'>View Him in His glory shine,</div> - <div class='line'>See His majesty transcendent,</div> - <div class='line'>Seated on His throne sublime:</div> - <div class='line in6'>Angels praise Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Saints and angels praise the Lamb.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Shout aloud, ye heavenly choirs,</div> - <div class='line'>Trumpet forth Jehovah’s praise;</div> - <div class='line'>Trumpets, voices, hearts and lyres!</div> - <div class='line'>Speak the wonders of His grace!</div> - <div class='line in6'>Sound before Him</div> - <div class='line'>Endless praises to His name.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ransom’d sinners, see His ensign</div> - <div class='line'>Waving thro’ the purpled air!</div> - <div class='line'>‘Midst ten thousand lightnings daring,</div> - <div class='line'>Jesus’ praises to declare;</div> - <div class='line in6'>How tremendous</div> - <div class='line'>Is this dreadful, joyful day.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Crowns and sceptres fall before Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Kings and conquerors own His sway,</div> - <div class='line'>Fearless potentates are trembling,</div> - <div class='line'>While they see His lightnings play:</div> - <div class='line in6'>How triumphant</div> - <div class='line'>Is the world’s Redeemer now.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Noon-day beauty in its lustre</div> - <div class='line'>Doth in Jesus’ aspect shine,</div> - <div class='line'>Blazing comets are not fiercer</div> - <div class='line'>Than the flaming eyes Divine:</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>O, how dreadful</div> - <div class='line'>Doth the Crucified appear.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Hear His voice as mighty thunder,</div> - <div class='line'>Sounding in eternal roar!</div> - <div class='line'>Far surpassing many waters</div> - <div class='line'>Echoing wide from shore to shore:</div> - <div class='line in6'>Hear His accents</div> - <div class='line'>Through th’ unfathom’d deep resound:</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Come,” He saith, “ye heirs of glory,</div> - <div class='line'>Come, the purchase of my blood;</div> - <div class='line'>Bless’d ye are, and bless’d ye shall be,</div> - <div class='line'>Now ascend the mount of God;</div> - <div class='line in6'>Angels guard them</div> - <div class='line'>To the realms of endless day.”</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>See ten thousand flaming seraphs</div> - <div class='line'>From their thrones as lightnings fly;</div> - <div class='line'>“Take,” they cry, “your seats above us,</div> - <div class='line'>Nearest Him who rules the sky:</div> - <div class='line in6'>Favorite sinners,</div> - <div class='line'>How rewarded are you now!”</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Haste and taste celestial pleasure;</div> - <div class='line'>Haste and reap immortal joys;</div> - <div class='line'>Haste and drink the crystal river;</div> - <div class='line'>Lift on high your choral voice,</div> - <div class='line in6'>While archangels</div> - <div class='line'>Shout aloud the great Amen.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>But the angry Lamb’s determin’d</div> - <div class='line'>Every evil to descry;</div> - <div class='line'>They who have His love rejected</div> - <div class='line'>Shall before His vengeance fly,</div> - <div class='line in6'>When He drives them</div> - <div class='line'>To their everlasting doom.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Now, in awful expectation,</div> - <div class='line'>See the countless millions stand;</div> - <div class='line'>Dread, dismay, and sore vexation,</div> - <div class='line'>Seize the helpless, hopeless band;</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>Baleful thunders,</div> - <div class='line'>Stop and hear Jehovah’s voice!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Go from me,” He saith, “ye cursed—</div> - <div class='line'>Ye for whom I bled in vain—</div> - <div class='line'>Ye who have my grace refused—</div> - <div class='line'>Hasten to eternal pain!”</div> - <div class='line in6'>How victorious</div> - <div class='line'>Is the conquering <i>Son of Man</i>!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>See, in solemn pomp ascending,</div> - <div class='line'>Jesus and His glorious train;</div> - <div class='line'>Countless myriads now attend Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Rising to th’ imperial plain;</div> - <div class='line in6'>Hallelujah!</div> - <div class='line'>To the bless’d Immanuel’s name!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>In full triumph see them marching</div> - <div class='line'>Through the gates of massy light;</div> - <div class='line'>While the city walls are sparkling</div> - <div class='line'>With meridian’s glory bright;</div> - <div class='line in6'>How stupendous</div> - <div class='line'>Are the glories of the Lamb!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>On His throne of radiant azure,</div> - <div class='line'>High above all heights He reigns—</div> - <div class='line'>Reigns amidst immortal pleasure,</div> - <div class='line'>While refulgent glory flames;</div> - <div class='line in6'>How diffusive</div> - <div class='line'>Shines the golden blaze around!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>All the heavenly powers adore Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Circling round his orient seat;</div> - <div class='line'>Ransom’d saints with angels vying,</div> - <div class='line'>Loudest praises to repeat;</div> - <div class='line in6'>How exalted</div> - <div class='line'>Is His praise, and how profound!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Every throne and every mansion,</div> - <div class='line'>All ye heavenly arches ring;</div> - <div class='line'>Echo to the Lord salvation,</div> - <div class='line'>Glory to our glorious King!</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>Boundless praises</div> - <div class='line'>All ye heavenly orbs resound.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Praise be to the Father given,</div> - <div class='line'>Praise to the Incarnate Son,</div> - <div class='line'>Praise the Spirit, one and Seven,</div> - <div class='line'>Praise the mystic Three in One;</div> - <div class='line in6'>Hallelujah!</div> - <div class='line'>Everlasting praise be Thine!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='p-120' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>).<br /> ROCK OF AGES—<span class='sc'>In Latin.</span><br /> <span class='small'>BY W. E. GLADSTONE.</span></h3> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Jesus, pro me perforatus,</div> - <div class='line'>Condar intra Tuum latus,</div> - <div class='line'>Tu per lympham profluentem,</div> - <div class='line'>Tu per sanguinem tepentem,</div> - <div class='line'>In peccata me redunda,</div> - <div class='line'>Tolle culpam, sordes munda.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Coram Te, nec justus forem</div> - <div class='line'>Quamvis totâ si laborem,</div> - <div class='line'>Nec si fide nunquam cesso,</div> - <div class='line'>Fletu stillans indefesso:</div> - <div class='line'>Tibi soli tantum munus;</div> - <div class='line'>Salva me, Salvator unus!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Nil in manu mecum fero,</div> - <div class='line'>Sed me versus crucem gero;</div> - <div class='line'>Vestimenta nudus oro,</div> - <div class='line'>Opem debilis imploro;</div> - <div class='line'>Fontem Christi quæro immundus</div> - <div class='line'>Nisi laves, moribundus.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Dum hos artus vita regit;</div> - <div class='line'>Quando nox sepulchro tegit;</div> - <div class='line'>Mortuos cum stare jubes,</div> - <div class='line'>Sedens Judex inter nubes;</div> - <div class='line'>Jesus, pro me perforatus,</div> - <div class='line'>Condar intra Tuum latus.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c005' /> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span> - <h3 id='p-236' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>).</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>From the “Memoirs of Howard, compiled from his diary, his -confidential letters, and other authentic documents, by James -Baldwin Brown,” it appears that in the year 1755, on a voyage to -Portugal, the vessel in which he was, was captured by a French -privateer, and carried into Brest, where he and the other passengers, -along with the crew, were cast into a filthy dungeon, and -there kept a considerable time without nourishment. There they -lay for six days and nights. The floor, with nothing but straw -upon it, was their sleeping place. He was afterwards removed to -Morlaix, and thence to Carpaix, where he was two months upon -parole. At the latter place “he corresponded with the English -prisoners at Brest, Morlaix and Dinnan; and had sufficient evidence -of their being treated with such barbarity that many hundreds -had perished; and that thirty-six were buried in a hole at -Dinnan in one day.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Through his benevolent and timely interference on their behalf, -when he himself had regained his freedom, the prisoners of war -in these three prisons were released and sent home to England -in the first cartel ships.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Till the year 1773 it does not appear that he was actively engaged -in any philanthropic work on behalf of prisoners. In the -year 1730 there had been a commission of enquiry in the House -of Commons on the state of prisons, and condition of their inmates, -but nothing seems to have followed from it, and it was -not till March, 1774, when Howard received the thanks of the -House for the information which, he communicated to them on -the subject, that the great work assumed shape. In 1773, having -been appointed sheriff of Bedford, the distress of prisoners came -under his notice. He engaged himself in a most minute inspection, -and the consequence was the devotion of every faculty of -his existence to the correction of the abuses existing in similar -institutions as the friend of those who had no friend.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In that Christlike work he continued till his death, on 20th January, -1790, at Cherson, Russian Tartary, having in the meantime -inspected prisons in England, Scotland and Ireland, France, -Holland, Flanders, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Poland, -Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Malta, Turkey, Prussia -and Russia.</p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span> - <h3 id='p-253' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>).</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>At Michaelmas time, 1791, Mr. Buchanan was admitted a member -of Queen’s College, Cambridge, having left London on the -24th October. He was then 25 years of age. In consequence of -a letter from his mother he attended the preaching of John Newton, -with whom he kept up a correspondence when at college. -In one of his replies to Mr. Newton he wrote: “You ask me -whether I would prefer preaching the Gospel to the fame of -learning? Ay, that would I, gladly, were I convinced it was the -will of God, that I should depart this night for Nova Zembla, or -the Antipodes, to testify of Him. I would not wait for an admit -or a college exit.” Some time in the year 1794, the first proposal -appears to have been made to him to go out to India, and on this -occasion he wrote Mr. Newton, saying, “I have only time to say, -that with respect to my going to India, I must decline giving an -opinion. * * * It is with great pleasure I submit this matter -to the determination of yourself and Mr. Thornton and Mr. -Grant. All I wish to ascertain is the will of God.” In a subsequent -letter he wrote, “I am equally ready to preach the Gospel -in the next village, or at the end of the earth.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>After taking his degree of B.A., he was ordained a deacon by -the Bishop of London on 20th September, 1795, when he became -Mr. Newton’s curate, which he held till March, 1796, when -he was appointed one of the chaplains to the East India Company. -Soon after, he received priest’s orders, and on 11th -August, 1796, sailed from Portsmouth, England, for Calcutta, -where he landed 10th March, 1797. In May following he -proceeded to the military station of Barackpore. But it was not -till the beginning of the present century that he fairly developed -his plans for the extension of the Redeemer’s Kingdom in -India.—<i>From Memoirs of Rev. Claudius Buchanan.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='p-254' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>In the month of September, 1794, a paper was published in the -<i>Evangelical Magazine</i>, urging the formation of a mission to the -heathen on the broadest possible basis. The writer of that paper -<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>was the Rev. David Bogue, D.D., of Gosport, Hampshire, and -two months after its appearance a conference, attended by representatives -from several Evangelical bodies, was held to take -action in the matter. The result was an address to ministers -and members of various churches, and the appointment of a -committee to diffuse information upon the subject. Thereafter, -and in September, 1795, a large and influential meeting, extending -over three days, at which the Rev. Dr. Harris preached from -Mark xv: 16, and the Rev. J. Burder and the Rev. Rowland Hill -and many others took part. At that meeting the society was -formed, and it was resolved, with reference to its agents and -their converts, “That it should be entirely left with those whom -God might call into the fellowship of His Son among them, to -assume for themselves such a form of church government as to -them shall appear most agreeable to the Word of God.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Rev. David Bogue, D.D., has therefore well been styled -“the father and founder” of the institution.</p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='p-256' class='c020'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>At a meeting held in Leeds, 5th October, 1813, it was resolved -to constitute a society to be called “The Methodist Missionary -Society for the Leeds District,” of which branches were to be -formed in the several circuits, whose duty it should be to collect -subscriptions in behalf of missions and to remit them to an -already existing committee in London. It was from this point -that, by general consent, the origin of the Wesleyan Missionary -Society is reckoned.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span> - <h2 id='index' class='c004'>INDEX.</h2> -</div> -<ul class='index c001'> - <li class='c021'>Academy, Doddridge’s, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a> - <ul> - <li>Lady Huntingdon’s, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Aftermath, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Age before the Revival, The <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Albert, Prince, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Alleine, Rev. Joseph, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Allen, Ebenezer, Governor of Martha’s Vineyard, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></li> - <li class='c021'>America, Awakening in, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> - <li class='c021'>American Baptist Missionary Union, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>American Revival, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a> - <ul> - <li>Sunday-school Union, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Amusements, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Anabaptists, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ancaster, Duchess of <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li> - <li class='c021'><a id='Anecdotes'></a></li> - <li class='c021'>Anecdotes, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>–<a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>–<a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>–<a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>–<a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Aram, Eugene, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Armenianism, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Arrests, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Atheism, Prevalence of, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Austrian Exiles, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Baptist Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a> - <ul> - <li>Union, American, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Band-Meetings, etc., Origin of, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Basle Evangelical Mission, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Baynham, James, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Baxter, Richard, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Benson, Bishop, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bernard of Clairvaux, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a> - <ul> - <li>Cluny, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Berridge, John, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bible, The, the Power of God, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a> - <ul> - <li>Reverenced, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - <li>Translated for India, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Bible Society, The <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Blomfield, Bishop, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bloomfield, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Blossoms in the Wilderness, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bogue, David, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bolingbroke, Lord, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Borlase, Dr., <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Boston in 1730, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a> - <ul> - <li>Elm, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li>State of Society in, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Bradford, Joseph, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Britain’s Obligations to Missions for India, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>British and Foreign School Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>British Quarterly</i>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Brontë Family, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Bruised Reed</i>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Buchanan, Claudius, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Buckingham, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bunyan, John, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Burke, Edmund, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Butler, Bishop, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>Byron, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Calvin’s Institutes, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Calvinistic Methodists, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Campbell, John, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Captains of Ships in 18th Century, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cardigan, Lady, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Carey, William, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Carlyle, Thomas, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cennick, John, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Chatsworth, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cheerfulness and Joy Significant of Revival, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Chesterfield, Lord, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Christian Remembrances, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> - <li class='c021'>“<i>Christian World Unmasked, The</i>; <i>Pray Come and Peep</i>,”, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Christianity, Effect of, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Chrysostom, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Church of England, Evangelical Party in, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a> - <ul> - <li>Religion in, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li> - <li>Disabilities against Members of, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li>Opposition to Methodism, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li>Opposition to Revival, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li>Southey on the Clergy of the, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Church Signs and Counter-signs, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Church’s, Rev. Thomas, Denunciation of Evil, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Chubbs, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Church Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>City Road Chapel, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Clapham Sect, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Clarkson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Clergy, Corruption of, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Coates, Alexander, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Colman, Dr., Testimony of, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Colliers, The, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Collins, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Colston, Edward, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Colston’s School, Bristol, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Compton, Adam, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Congregationalism, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Controversialists of Revival, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Conversions, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cornwall, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cottage Visitation, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cowper, William, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cradle of London Methodism, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Crime in 18th Century, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Criminals, Condition of, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Criminal Law in 18th Century, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Danish Hymns, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a> - <ul> - <li>Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Darkness before Dawn, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Dawn, First Streaks of, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Deaf and Dumb Asylum, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Defoe, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Deism, Prevalence of, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Derby, Earl of, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Dissenters, Disabilities of, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Dissent in, Boston, in 1730, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Divine authority of the New Testament, The, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Doddridge, Philip, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a> - <ul> - <li>his Academy, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> - <li>his Friends, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li> - <li>his Hymns, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Drawing-Room Preaching, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a> - <ul> - <li>Effect of, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Drury Lane, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Dying Words, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li class='c001'>East India Company, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Economy of Charity, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Edinburgh Review</i>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Education, Neglect of, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a> - <ul> - <li>Spreading, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Edwards, Jonathan, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Effect of Rejection of Gospel, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Eighteenth Century Revival, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Emerson, quoted, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>England and France Contrasted, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>England, State of Religion in, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Epitaphs, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Episcopal Board of Missions, Methodist, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a> - <ul> - <li>Protestant, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Epworth, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Everton, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Excitement of the Revival, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Executions at Tyburn in 1738, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Exiles in England, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Experiences of Christians expressed in Song, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Eyre, Jane, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Fair-Preaching, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Fenwick, Michael, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ferrars, Lady, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Field-Preaching, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li> - <li class='c021'>First Day or Sunday-school Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Flaxley, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Fletcher of Madsley, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Florence, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Foote, the Actor, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Founders of London Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Foundry, The Moorfields, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li class='c021'>France, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Free Church of England, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - <li class='c021'>French Protestants in England, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Fry, Elizabeth, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Gambold, John, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Garrick, David, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c021'>George II, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> - <li class='c021'>George IV, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gerhardt, Paul, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li class='c021'>German Empire, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a> - <ul> - <li>Hymns, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Germain, Lady Betty, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gisborne, Thomas, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gladstone, W. E., <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gloucestershire, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li> - <li class='c021'>God’s Method of Diffusing the Truth, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Goethe, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Goldsmith, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gospel Preached in Song, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Grant, James, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a> - <ul> - <li>Sir Robert, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Gregory, Alfred, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Greenfield, Edward, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Griggs, Joseph, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Grimshaw, William, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Guthrie, Dr., <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gwennap Pit, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Haime, John, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hamilton, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a> - <ul> - <li>Lady Elizabeth, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li>Sir William, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Hardcastle, Joseph, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hardships, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Harris, Howell, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Harvard College, Religion in, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hastings, Lady Margaret, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Haweis, Thomas, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Haworth, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Haymarket Theatre, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Helmsley, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Herbert, George, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hervey, James, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a> - <ul> - <li>Writings, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Hey, James (Old Jemmie o’ the Hey), <a href='#Page_198'>198</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hill, Rowland, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Holy Club, The, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a> - <ul> - <li>Spirit, The, the Power, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Hooper, John, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hopper, Christopher, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Horne, Dr., <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hospitality in New England, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hostility to Revival, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Howard, John, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hymns, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>–<a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a> - <ul> - <li>Character of, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> - <li>Influence of, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> - <li>of Doddridge, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li>of Watts, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li>of Wesley, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>Hymnists of the Revival, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Huddersfield, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Huguenots, The, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a> - <ul> - <li>Descendants in England, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li>Influence on Revival, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li>Settlement in England, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Huntingdon, Lady, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Huntingdon, William, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hupton, Job, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Independents, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Indians, Cause of, Espoused by Whitefield, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ingham, Benjamin, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Itinerancy, by Wesley, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Itinerant Preachers, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Jay, William, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Jenner, Dr. Edward, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Johnson, Samuel, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Joss, Toriel, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Juvenal, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Kempis, Thomas à., <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Kingsbury, William, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Kirk, John, Author of “Mother of the Wesleys”, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Lackington, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lancashire, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a> - <ul> - <li>Independent College, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Lanterns, New Lights and Old, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lavington, Bishop, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Law, William, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lay Preaching, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>–<a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lecky on the Effect of the Revival, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lee, Jesse, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Literature, State of, at beginning of 18th Century. How Affected by Revival, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Livingstone, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Local Preachers, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a> - <ul> - <li>Wesley’s Reasons for, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>London Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Love of Souls, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Luther, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lyttleton, Lord, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Macaulay, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a> - <ul> - <li>Tribute to Puritans, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>–<a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>McOwan, Peter, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Mann, Sir Horace, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Mansfield, Lord, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Marlborough, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Marshman and Ward, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Martyrs, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Maxfield, Thomas, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Melcombe, Lord, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Methodism, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a> - <ul> - <li>in New England, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Methodists acknowledged, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a> - <ul> - <li>and Puritans Compared, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Methodists and Quakers, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Methodist Band-Meetings, etc., <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Methodists, Beginning of, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a> - <ul> - <li>Calvinistic and Wesleyan, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Methodists, Creed of, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a> - <ul> - <li>Early, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li> - <li>Effect of, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> - <li>Efforts of Earliest, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - <li>Expelled from Oxford, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li>Growth of, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li>in United States, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li>Held as Opposed to Church of England, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li>Hymnals, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - <li>Manifestations of, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li> - <li>Origin of Name, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li> - <li>Regarded as Enemies, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>Methodists, Sects of, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Middleton, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Milton, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Minor, The</i>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Mission Enterprises, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a> - <ul> - <li>to Africa, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li>to China, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li>to India, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li>to Madagascar, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li>to South Seas, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Missionary Societies, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Moffat, Robert, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Molière, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Montague, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Montgomery, James, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Moorfields, London, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Morality at Beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Moravians, The, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>More, Hannah, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Morgan, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Mystery of Life, The, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Napoleon at St. Helena, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Nash, Beau, Overcome by Wesley, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Nelson, John, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Netherlands Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Newman, John Henry, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Newton, John, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Noel, Baptist, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Nonconformists, Religion Among, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Oliver, John, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Olivers, Thomas, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a></li> - <li class='c021'>One-eyed Christians, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Orphan Asylum in Georgia, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Oxford, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a> - <ul> - <li>Forecasting Future of Union, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Oxford Methodists, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a> - <ul> - <li>Society, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c001'>Parson, John, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Perronet, Edward, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Persecution, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Philadelphia Adult and Sunday-school Union, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Pilgrim’s Progress, The, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Pitt, William, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Politics Influenced by Revival, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Pope, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Portraits of Revivalists, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Power of Song, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Practical View of Christianity</i>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Prayer, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Preacher and Robbers, The, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Preaching at Beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a> - <ul> - <li>by Laymen, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li>in Drawing-Room, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li>Effect of, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Prejudices Against Lay Preachers, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Prison Philanthropy, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Promoting Christian Knowledge, Society for, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Propagation of Gospel, Society for, in New England, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Propagation of Gospel, Society for, in Foreign Parts, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Protestant Episcopal Board of Missions, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Puritans, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a> - <ul> - <li>Macaulay’s estimate of, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li> - <li>and Methodists Compared, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c001'>Quakers, The, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Quarterly Review</i>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Quietists, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Quixote, the Spiritual, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Raikes, Anne, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Raikes, Robert, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a> - <ul> - <li>at Windsor, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li> - <li>House at Gloucester, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>Raymont of Pegnafort, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Reciprocation the Soul of Methodism, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Redruth, Cornwall, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Reformation, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Reign of Terror, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rejection of Gospel, its Effect on Nations, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Religion, State of - <ul> - <li>at Beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> - <li>State of and After Revival Contrasted, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Religious Tract Society, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Revival, The, Anecdotes of (See <a href='#Anecdotes'>Anecdotes</a>.)</li> - <li class='c021'>Revival Beacons, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a> - <ul> - <li>Becomes Educational, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li>Beginning of, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - <li>Cheerfulness and Joy of, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> - <li>Conservative, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></li> - <li>Dawn of, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li> - <li>Depth of, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - <li>Done Most for Well-being of Mankind, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li> - <li>Effect on Literature, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li> - <li>Effect of on World at Large, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li> - <li>Effects of, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li>Evangelical in England, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>,</li> - <li>Fair-Preaching, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li> - <li>Field-Preaching, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li> - <li>Foremost Names in, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li>Fruit of, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Revival, Growth of, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a> - <ul> - <li>Hostility to, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li> - <li>Importance of, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li>in Wales, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li>in America, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li>at Kingswood, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li> - <li>Lay Preaching, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li>Sects Formed, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li>Singers of, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></li> - <li>Spiritual, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Revivalist Portraits, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Richmond Legh, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ridicule of Revivalists, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rise and Progress in the Soul, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ritual Absent in Revival, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rock of Ages, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rockingham, Lady, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rogers’ Lives of Early Preachers, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Romaine, William, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Roman Catholics, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Romelly, Sir Samuel, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Romish Stories and Incidents in Work of Wesley, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Romney, Earl, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rosary, The, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rowlands, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Sabbath Observance, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sacred Song, Power of, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sailors’ Hardships, etc., <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Saints Everlasting Rest</i>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Salvation by Grace the Grand Doctrine of the Revival, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sandwich Islands, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sandys, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sarton, William, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Saunderson, Lady Frances, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Savonarola, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Schools, Sunday, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>–<a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>School, Sunday, Commended, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a> - <ul> - <li>Effect of, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li> - <li>First Day or Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li>Growth of, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Scott, Captain Jonathan, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a> - <ul> - <li>Thomas, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li>Walter, Sir, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Sects Rising from Revival: Bible Christians of West of England, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a> - <ul> - <li>Primitive Methodists Of the North, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li>New Connection Methodists, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li>United Free Church Association, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Selborne, Lord, Referred to, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sharp, Granville, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Shaw, Robert, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ships of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Shirley, Lady Fanny, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a> - <ul> - <li>Mr. (Lady Huntingdon’s Cousin), <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Sidney, Sir Philip, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Simeon, Charles, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Singers of the Revival, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Slave Abolition, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Smiles, Dr., referred to, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Smith, Adam, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a> - <ul> - <li>Sydney, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Society, State of, at beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a> - <ul> - <li>State of and after Revival, Contrasted, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Somerset, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Songs Used in Great National Movements, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Southey, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Spain, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Spencer, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c021'>St. Ambrose, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li> - <li class='c021'>St. Ann’s, Black Friars, London, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li> - <li class='c021'>St. George’s, Hanover Square, London, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stage Libels against the Revivalists, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Staniforth, Sampson, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stanhope, Earl, Testimony to Wesley, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Starting Point, The, of Modern Religious History, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Steam Engine, The, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Steele, Miss, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stephen, Sir James, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a> - <ul> - <li>Sir George, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Stevens, Dr. Abel, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stocker, John, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stock, Thomas, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Story, George, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stratford, Joseph, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Streaks of Dawn, First, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Suffolk, Countess of, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Swedenborg, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Swedish Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Taylor, Isaac, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Teachers, Character of at Beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Te Deum, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Teignmouth, Lord, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tennent, Gilbert, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li class='c021'>“<i>The Last Judgment</i>”, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Thomson, Mr., The Vicar of St. Gennys, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Thornton, John, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ticket, The, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Told, Silas, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a> - <ul> - <li>his Preaching and his Work, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Toleration Act, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Toplady, Augustus, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tottenham Court Chapel, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Townshend, Lady, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a> - <ul> - <li>John, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li>Lord, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Tractarian Movement, The, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tract Societies, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Trevisa, John De, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Trimmer, Sarah, Mrs., <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Trophies of Revival, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>Turnpikes in England, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tyerman, Mr., referred to, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tyndale, William, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Venn, Henry, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Vicar of Wakefield, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Voltaire, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Wales, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Walker, Samuel, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Walpole, Horace, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Walsh, Thomas, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Warburton, Bishop, on Wesley, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ward and Marshman, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Watson, Richard, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Watt, James, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Watts, Isaac, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a> - <ul> - <li>Friends of, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a></li> - <li>his Mother, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li>Hymns of, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li>Literary Labors, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Waugh, Alexander, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Welsh Preaching and Preachers, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wesleyan Methodists, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a> - <ul> - <li>Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Wesleyan Societies, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wesleyanism, Historians of, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wesley, Charles, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wesley, John, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a> - <ul> - <li>as an Administrator, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></li> - <li>and Church Polity, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></li> - <li>and Bradford, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> - <li>and Fenwick, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li>and Nelson, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> - <li>and Silas Told, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li> - <li>and Walsh, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li> - <li>and Whitefield Compared, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li> - <li>and Field-Preaching, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Wesley, John, - <ul> - <li>and Methodists Regarded as Enemies, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li>and Hervey’s Teaching, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li> - <li>at Epworth, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li> - <li>at the Foundry, Moorfields (City Road Chapel), <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li>at Glasgow, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li>at Gwennap Pit, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li> - <li>at Oxford, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> - <li>at York, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li> - <li>Compared with Calvin, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> - <li>Conversion, Time of, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li> - <li>Creed, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li>Death of, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li>Early Religious Experiences, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> - <li>Effect of His Preaching on Himself, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li> - <li>Effect of His Preaching on Others, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li>Estimate of by Macaulay, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> - <li>Expelled from Church of England, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> - <li>Expelled from Oxford, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> - <li>Hymns, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li>Influence of, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> - <li>Itinerancy, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li>on Sabbath-Schools, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li> - <li>Parish, the World, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li>Power over Others, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li>Preaching in Epworth Church-yard, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li> - <li>Restrictions on Lay Preachers, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> - <li>Tomb, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li>Translations, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li>Victory of, over Nash, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>Wesley, Samuel, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a> - <ul> - <li>Susannah, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> - <li>her Sayings, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Weston, Favel, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wilberforce, William, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wilderness, Blossoms in, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wilks, Matthew, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Winter, Cornelius, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wiseman, Cardinal, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> - <li class='c021'>White, Rev George, Vicar of Colne, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Whitefield, George, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a> - <ul> - <li>and the Children, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a></li> - <li>Among the Indians, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li>and the Poor Woman, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a></li> - <li>and Wesley Compared, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li> - <li>and the Recruiting Sergeant, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li> - <li>Among the Nobility, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></li> - <li>Among the Roughs, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> - <li>at Boston, New England, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li>at Cambridge, New England, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a></li> - <li>at Harvard, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li>at Kingswood, Bristol, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li> - <li>at Princeton, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li>at Gloucester, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li> - <li>at New Haven, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li>at Oxford, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a></li> - <li>at the Tower of London, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li> - <li>Compared with Luther, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> - <li>Description of his Preaching During Thunder Storm, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></li> - <li>Early Religious Experience, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Whitefield, George, - <ul> - <li>Effect of his Preaching on Himself, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li> - <li>Effect on Others, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>–<a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></li> - <li>First Meeting Charles Wesley, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a></li> - <li>in Georgia, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li> - <li>Journeys, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> - <li>in New York, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li> - <li>in America, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> - <li>in Wales, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li>in London, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li> - <li>in Maryland, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li>in Moorfields, London, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li> - <li>in Philadelphia, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li> - <li>on Toriel Joss and Newton, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> - <li>Preaching of, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a></li> - <li>on Religion in America, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a></li> - <li>Orphan Asylum in Georgia, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li> - <li>Regarded as a Fanatic, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li> - <li>Ridiculed, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li>The First in the Opening of the Methodist Movement, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></li> - <li>Treatment of Those Who Opposed Themselves to Him, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li> - <li>Watts’ Blessing of, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Williams, John (Martyr of Erromanga) <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Woolston, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Work Done in the Revival, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wyclif, John, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Xavier, Francis, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c001'>York, Wesley at, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Yorkshire, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Yorkshire, Apostles of, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Young Cottager, The, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Zinzendorf, Count, Hymns of, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> -</ul> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<p class='c007'> </p> -<div class='tnbox'> - - <ul class='ul_1 c001'> - <li>Transcriber’s Notes: - <ul class='ul_2'> - <li>Several footnote references just said “See Appendix.” without specifying which (there - are 15.) The references have been resolved as well as was possible. - </li> - <li>Some footnotes had no references to them in the text. These were assumed to be - additional material for the entire page, or pages, and a reference was created. - </li> - <li>Some index entries were reformatted to be more consistent with the majority of the - entries. - </li> - <li>Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - </li> - <li>Typographical errors were silently corrected. - </li> - <li>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant - form was found in this book. - </li> - </ul> - </li> - </ul> - -</div> -<p class='c007'> </p> - -<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 61062 ***</div> - </body> - <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57c on 2019-12-07 23:54:44 GMT --> -</html> diff --git a/old/61062-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/61062-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 74e440e..0000000 --- a/old/61062-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/61062-h/images/i00-page-0-frontispiece.jpg b/old/61062-h/images/i00-page-0-frontispiece.jpg Binary files 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/dev/null diff --git a/old/old/61062-0.txt b/old/old/61062-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6bdb98a..0000000 --- a/old/old/61062-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7893 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Revival of the Eighteenth -Century: with a supplemental chapte, by Edwin Paxton Hood - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century: with a supplemental chapter on the revival in America - -Author: Edwin Paxton Hood - -Release Date: December 31, 2019 [EBook #61062] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT REVIVAL OF 18TH CENTURY *** - - - - -Produced by Brian Wilson, Peter Vachuska, Barry Abrahamsen, -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net Last Edit of Project Info - - - - - - - - The Great Revival.—Frontispiece. - -[Illustration: - - The Foundry, Moorfields. -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - THE - - GREAT REVIVAL - - OF - - THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. - - - BY - - REV. EDWIN PAXTON HOOD, - - AUTHOR OF - - “Isaac Watts: his Life and Writings, his Home and Friends,” etc. - - - - - With a Supplemental Chapter on the Revival in America. - - - - - PHILADELPHIA: - AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, - 1122 CHESTNUT STREET. - - NEW YORK. CHICAGO. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - EDITOR’S NOTE. - - -------------- - - -The only changes made in revising this work are in the local allusions -to England as “our country,” etc., and in a few phrases and expressions -naturally arising from the original preparation of the chapters for -successive numbers of a magazine. If any reader thinks that the Author’s -enthusiasm in his subject has caused him to ascribe too great influence -to the “Methodist movement,” and not to give due recognition to other -potent agencies in the “great awakening” of the last century, let him -remember that this volume does not profess to give a _complete_, but -only a _partial_ history of the Great Revival. Indeed, the Author’s -graphic pictures relate chiefly to the movement, as it swept over London -and the great mining centres of England, where the truth, as proclaimed -by the great leaders, Whitefield, the Wesleys, and their co-laborers, -won its greatest victories, and where Methodism has ever continued to -render some of its most valiant and glorious services for Christ. It is -not to be inferred that in Scotland, Ireland, and in the American -colonies, as in many portions of England, other organizations, -dissenting societies and churches were not a power in spreading the -Great Revival movement. - -A brief chapter has been added at the close, sketching some phases of -the revival in the American colonies, under the labors of Edwards, -Whitefield, the Tennents, and their associates. Whatever other material -has been added by the Editor is indicated by brackets, thus leaving the -distinguished Author’s views and expressions intact. - -An Index has also been added, to increase the permanent value of the -book to the reader. If the history of the remarkable “religious -awakenings” of the eighteenth century were more diligently studied, and -the holy enthusiasm and wonderful zeal of those great leaders in -“hunting for souls” were to inspire workers of this century, what -marvellous conquests and victories should we witness for the Son of God! - -Philadelphia, March, 1882. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PREFACE. - - -------------- - - -The author of the following pages begs that they may be read kindly—and, -he will venture to say, _not_ critically. Originally published as a -series of papers in the _Sunday at Home_, * * * they are only -_Vignettes_—etchings. The History of the great Religious Movement of the -Eighteenth Century yet remains unwritten; not often has the world known -such a marvellous awakening of religious thought; and, as we are further -removed in time, so, perhaps, we are better able to judge of the -momentous circumstances, could we but seize the point of view. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - CONTENTS. - - -------------- - - - CHAP. PAGE. - - I. THE DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 7 - - II. FIRST STREAKS OF DAWN 24 - - III. OXFORD: NEW LIGHTS AND OLD LANTERNS 48 - - IV. CAST OUT FROM THE CHURCH—TAKING TO THE 68 - FIELDS - - V. THE REVIVAL CONSERVATIVE 86 - - VI. THE SINGERS OF THE REVIVAL 109 - - VII. LAY PREACHING AND LAY PREACHERS 132 - - VIII. A GALLERY OF REVIVALIST PORTRAITS 154 - - IX. BLOSSOMS IN THE WILDERNESS 180 - - X. THE REVIVAL BECOMES EDUCATIONAL—ROBERT 193 - RAIKES - - XI. THE ROMANTIC STORY OF SILAS TOLD 216 - - XII. MISSIONARY SOCIETIES 250 - - XIII. AFTERMATH 260 - - XIV. REVIVAL IN THE NEW WORLD 281 - - APPENDICES 303 - - INDEX 321 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THE GREAT REVIVAL. - - -------------- - - - - - CHAPTER I - - DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN. - - -It cannot be too often remembered or repeated that when the Bible has -been brought face to face with the conscience of corrupt society, in -every age it has shown itself to be that which it professes, and which -its believers declare it to be—“the great power of God.” It proved -itself thus amidst the hoary and decaying corruptions of the ancient -civilisation, when its truths were first published to the Roman Empire; -it proclaimed its power to the impure but polished society of Florence, -when Savonarola preached his wonderful sermons in St. Mark’s; and -effected the same results throughout the whole German Empire, when Bible -truth sounded forth from Luther’s trumpet-tones. The same principle is -illustrated where the great evangelical truths of the New Testament -entered nations, as in Spain or France, only to be rejected. From that -rejection and the martyrdoms of the first believers; those nations have -never recovered themselves even to this hour; and of the two nations, -that in which the rejection was the most haughty and cruel, has suffered -most from its renunciation. - -England has passed through three great evangelical revivals. - -The first, the period of the REFORMATION, whose force was latent there, -even before the waves of the great German revolution reached its shores, -and called forth the pen of a monarch, and that monarch a haughty Tudor, -to enter the lists of disputation with the lowly-born son of a miner of -Hartz Mountains. What that Reformation effected in England we all very -well know; the changes it wrought in opinion, the martyrs who passed -away in their chariots of fire in vindication of its doctrines, the -great writers and preachers to whose works and names we frequently and -lovingly refer. - -Then came the second great evangelical revival, the period of -PURITANISM,[1] whose central interests gather round the great civil -wars. This was the time, and these were the opinions which produced some -of the most massive and magnificent writers of our language; the whole -mind of the country was stirred to its deepest heart by faith in those -truths, which to believe enobles human nature, and enables it to endure -“as seeing Him who is invisible.” There can be no doubt that it produced -some of the grandest and noblest minds, whether for service by sword or -pen, in the pulpit or the cabinet, that the world has known. Lord -Macaulay’s magnificently glowing description of the English Puritan, and -how he attained, by his evangelical opinions, his stature of strength, -will be familiar to all readers who know his essay on Milton. - -Footnote 1: - - Appendix A. - -But the present aim is to gather up some of the facts and impressions, -and briefly to recite some of the influences of the third great -evangelical revival in the Eighteenth Century. We are guilty of no -exaggeration in saying that these have been equally deserving historic -fame with either of the preceding. The story has less, perhaps, to -excite some of our most passionate human interests; it had not to make -its way through stakes and scaffolds, although it could recite many -tales of persecution; it unsheathed no sword, the weapons of its warfare -were not carnal; and on the whole, it may be said its doctrine distilled -“as the dew;” yet it is not too much to say that from the revival of the -last century came forth that wonderfully manifold reticulation and holy -machinery of piety and benevolence, we find in such active operation -around us to-day. - -All impartial historians of the period place this most remarkable -religious impulse in the rank of the very foremost phenomena of the -times. The calm and able historian, Earl Stanhope, speaking of it, as -“despised at its commencement,” continues, “with less immediate -importance than wars or political changes, it endures long after not -only the result but the memory of these has passed away, and thousands” -(his lordship ought to have said millions) “who never heard of Fontenoy -or Walpole, continue to follow the precepts, and venerate the name of -John Wesley.” While the latest, a still more able and equally impartial -and quiet historian, Mr. Lecky, says, “Our splendid victories by land -and sea must yield in real importance to this religious revolution; it -exercised a profound and lasting influence upon the spirit of the -Established Church of England, upon the amount and distribution of the -moral forces of that nation, and even upon the course of its political -history.” - -Shall we, then, first attempt to obtain some adequate idea of what this -Revival effected, by a slight effort to realise what sort of world and -state of society it was into which the Revival came? One writer truly -remarks, “Never has century risen on christian England so void of soul -and faith as that which opened with Queen Anne, and which reached its -misty noon beneath the second George, a dewless night succeeded by a -dewless dawn. There was no freshness in the past and no promise in the -future; the Puritans were buried, the Methodists were not born.” It is -unquestionably true that black, bad and corrupt as society was, for the -most part, all round, in the eighteenth century, intellectual and -spiritual forces broke forth, simultaneously we had almost said, and -believing, as we do, in the Providence which governed the rise of both, -we may say, consentaneously, which have left far behind all social -regenerations which the pen of history has recited before. Of almost all -the fruits we enjoy, it may be said the seeds were planted then; even -those which, like the printing-press or the gospel, had been planted -ages before, were so transplanted as to flourish with a new vigour. - -Our eye has been taught to rest on an interesting incident. It was in -1757 John Wesley, travelling and preaching, then about fifty years of -age, but still with nearly forty years of work before him, arrived in -Glasgow. He saw in the University its library and its pictures; but, had -he possessed the vision of a Hebrew seer he might have glanced up from -the quadrangle of the college to the humble rooms, up a spiral -staircase, of a young workman, over whose lodging was the sign and -information that they were tenanted by a “mathematical instrument maker -to the University.” This young man, living there upon a poor fare, and -eking out a poor subsistence, with many thoughts burdening his mind, was -destined to be the founder of the greatest commercial and material -revolution the world has known: through him seems to have been fulfilled -the wonderfully significant prophecy of Nahum: “The chariots shall rage -in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broad ways: -they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings.” This -young man was James Watt, who gave to the world the steam engine. A few -years after he gave his mighty invention to Birmingham; and the world -has never been the same world since. “By that invention,” says Emerson, -“one man can do the work of two hundred and fifty men;” and in -Manchester alone and in its vicinity there are probably sixty thousand -boilers, and the aggregate power of a million horses. - -Let not the allusion seem out of place. That age was the seed-time of -the present harvest fields; in that time those great religious ideas -which have wrought such an astonishing revolution, acquired body and -form; and we ought to notice how, when God sets free some new idea, He -also calls into existence the new vehicle for its diffusion. He did not -trust the early christian faith to the old Latin races, to the selfish -and æsthetic Greek, or to the merely conservative Hebrew; He “hissed,” -in the graphic language of the old Bible, for a new race, and gave the -New Testament to the Teutonic people, who have ever been its chief -guardians and expositors; and thus, in all reviews of the development -and unfolding of the religious life in the times of which we speak, we -have to notice how the material and the spiritual changes have re-acted -on each other, while both have brought a change which has indeed “made -all things new.” - -Contrasting the state of society after the rise of the Great Revival -with what it was before, the present with the past, it is quite obvious -that something has brought about a general decency and decorum of -manners, a tenderness and benevolence of sentiment, a religious interest -in, and observance of, pious usages, not to speak of a depth of -religious life and conviction, and a general purity and nobility of -literary taste, which did not exist before. All these must be credited -to this great movement. It is not in the nature of steam engines, -whether stationary or locomotive, nor in printing presses, or -Staffordshire potteries, undirected by spiritual forces, to raise the -morals or to improve the manners of mankind. - -If sometimes in the presence of the spectacles of ignorance, crime, -irreligion, and corruption in our own day, we are filled with a sense of -despair for the prospects of society, it may be well to take a -retrospect of what society was in England at the commencement of the -last century. When George III. ascended the throne the population of -England was not much over five millions; at the commencement of the -present century it was nearly eleven millions; but with the intensely -crowded population of the present day, the cancerous elements of -society, the dangerous, pauperised, and criminal classes are in far less -proportion, not merely relatively, but really. It was a small country, -and possessed few inhabitants. There are few circumstances which can -give us much pleasure in the review. National distress was constantly -making itself bitterly felt; it was the age of mobs and riots. The state -of the criminal law was cruel in the extreme. Blackstone calculates that -for no fewer than one hundred and sixty offences, some of them of the -most frivolous description, the judge was bound to pronounce sentence of -death. Crime, of course, flourished. During the year 1738 no fewer than -fifty-two criminals were hanged at Tyburn. During that and the preceding -years, twelve thousand persons had been convicted, within the Bills of -Mortality, for smuggling gin and selling it without licence. The -amusements of all classes of people were exactly of that order -calculated to create a cruel disposition, and thus to encourage crime; -bear-baiting, bull-baiting, prize-fighting, cock-fighting: on a Shrove -Tuesday it was dangerous to pass down any public street. This was the -day selected for the barbarity of tying a harmless cock to a stake, -there to be battered to death by throwing a stick at it from a certain -distance. The grim humour of the people took this form of expressing the -national hatred to the French, from the Latin name for the cock, -_Gallus_. It was in truth a barbarous pun. - -With abundant wealth and means of happiness, the people fell far short -of what we should consider comfort now. Life and liberty were cheap, and -a prevalent Deism or Atheism was united to a wild licentiousness of -manners, brutalising all classes of society. For the most part, the -Church of England had so shamefully forgotten or neglected her duty—this -is admitted now by all her most ardent ministers—while the -Noncomformists had sunk generally into so cold an indifferentism in -devotion, and so hard and sceptical a frame in theology, that every -interest in the land was surrendered to profligacy and recklessness, -and, in thoughtful minds, to despair. Society in general was spiritually -dead. The literature of England, with two or three famous exceptions, -suffered a temporary eclipse. Such as it was, it was perverted from all -high purposes, and was utterly alien to all purity and moral dignity. A -good idea of the moral tone of the times might be obtained by running -the eye over a few volumes of the old plays of this period, many of them -even written by ladies; it is amazing to us now to think not only that -they could be tolerated, but even applauded. The gaols were filled with -culprits; but this did not prevent the heaths, moors, and forests from -swarming with highwaymen, and the cities with burglars. In the remote -regions of England, such as Cornwall in the west, Yorkshire and -Northumberland in the north, and especially in the midland -Staffordshire, the manners were wild and savage, passing all conception -and description. We have to conceive of a state of society divested of -all the educational, philanthropic, and benevolent activities of modern -times. There were no Sunday-schools, and few day-schools; here and -there, some fortunate neighbourhood possessed a grammar-school from some -old foundation. Or, perhaps some solitary chapel, retreating into a -bye-lane in the metropolitan city, or the country town, or, more -probably, far away from any town, stood at some confluence of roads, a -monument of old intolerance; but, as we said, religious life was in fact -dead, or lying in a trance. - -As to the religious teachers of those times, we know of no period in our -history concerning which it might so appropriately be said, in the words -of the prophet, “The pastors” are “become brutish, and have not sought -the Lord.” In the life of a singular man, but not a good one, Thomas -Lord Lyttleton, in a letter dated 1775, we have a most graphic portrait -of a country clergyman, a friend of Lyttleton, who went by the -designation of “Parson Adams.” We suppose him to be no bad -representative of the average parson of that day—coarse, profane, -jocular, irreligious. On a Saturday evening he told Lyttleton, his host, -that he should send his flocks to grass on the approaching Sabbath. “The -next morning,” says Lyttleton, “we hinted to him that the company did -not wish to restrain him from attending the Divine service of the -parish; but he declared that it would be adding contempt to neglect if, -when he had absented himself from his own church he should go to any -other. This curious etiquette he strictly observed; and we passed a -Sabbath contrary, I fear, both to law and to gospel.” - -If we desire to obtain some knowledge of what the Church of England was, -as represented by her clergy when George III. was king, we should go to -her own records; and for the later years of his reign, notably to the -life of that learned, active, and amiable man, Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of -London, whose memory was a wonderful repository of anecdotes, not -tending to elevate the clergy of those times in popular estimation. -Intoxication was a vice very characteristic of the cloth: on one -occasion the bishop reproved one of his Chester clergy for drunkenness: -he replied, “But, my lord, I never was drunk on duty.” “On duty!” -exclaimed the bishop; “and pray, sir, when is a clergyman not on duty?” -“True,” said the other; “my lord, I never thought of that.” The bishop -went into a poor man’s cottage in one of the valleys in the Lake -district, and asked whether his clergyman ever visited him. The poor man -replied that he did very frequently. The bishop was delighted, and -expressed his gratification at this pastoral oversight; and this led to -the discovery that there were a good many foxes on the hills behind the -house, which gave the occasion for the frequency of calls which could -scarcely be considered pastoral. The chaplain and son-in-law of Bishop -North examined candidates for orders in a tent on a cricket-field, he -being engaged as one of the players; the chaplain of Bishop Douglas -examined whilst shaving; Bishop Watson never resided in his diocese -during an episcopate of thirty-four years. - -And those who preached seem rarely to have been of a very edifying order -of preachers; Bishop Blomfield used to relate how, in his boyhood, when -at Bury St. Edmund’s, the Marquis of Bristol had given a number of -scarlet cloaks to some poor old women; they all appeared at church on -the following Sunday, resplendent in their new and bright array, and the -clergyman made the donation of the marquis the subject of his discourse, -announcing his text with a graceful wave of his hand towards the poor -old bodies who were sitting there all together: “Even Solomon, in all -his glory, was not arrayed like one of these!” This worthy seems to have -been very capable of such things: on another occasion a dole of potatoes -was distributed by the local authorities in Bury, and this also was -improved in a sermon. “He had himself,” the bishop says, “a very -corpulent frame, and pompous manner, and a habit of rolling from side to -side while he delivered himself of his breathing thoughts and burning -words; on the occasion of the potato dole, he chose for his singularly -appropriate text (Exodus xvi. 15): ‘And when the children of Israel saw -it, they said one to another, It is manna;’ and thence he proceeded to -discourse to the recipients of the potatoes on the warning furnished by -the Israelites against the sin of gluttony, and the wickedness of taking -more than their share.” - -When that admirable man, Mr. Shirley, began his evangelistic ministry as -the friend and coadjutor of his cousin, the Countess of Huntingdon, a -curate went to the archbishop to complain of his unclerical proceedings: -“Oh, your grace, I have something of great importance to communicate; it -will astonish you!” “Indeed, what can it be?” said the archbishop. “Why, -my lord,” replied he, throwing into his countenance an expression of -horror, and expecting the archbishop to be petrified with astonishment, -“he actually wears white stockings!” “Very unclerical indeed,” said the -archbishop, apparently much surprised; he drew his chair near to the -curate, and with peculiar earnestness, and in a sort of confidential -whisper, said, “Now tell me—I ask this with peculiar feelings of -interest—does Mr. Shirley wear them over his boots?” “Why, no, your -grace, I cannot say he does.” “Well, sir, the first time you ever hear -of Mr. Shirley wearing them over his boots, be so good as to warn me, -and I shall know how to deal with him!” - -We would not, on the other hand, be unjust. We may well believe that -there were hamlets and villages where country clergymen realised their -duties and fulfilled them, and not only deserved all the merit of -Goldsmith’s charming picture,[2] but were faithful ministers of the New -Testament too. But our words and illustrations refer to the average -character presented to us by the Church; and this, again, is illustrated -by the vehement hostility presented on all hands to the first -indications of the Great Revival. For instance, the Rev. Dr. Thomas -Church, Vicar of Battersea, in a well-known sermon on charity schools, -deplored and denounced the enormous wickedness of the times; after -saying, “Our streets are grievously infested; every day we see the most -dreadful confusions, daring villanies, dangers, and mischiefs, arising -from the want of sentiments of piety,” he continues: “For our own sakes -and our posterity’s everything should be encouraged which will -contribute to suppressing these evils, and keep the poor from stealing, -lying, drunkenness, cruelty, or taking God’s name in vain. While we feel -our disease, ’tis madness to set aside any remedy which has power to -check its fury.” Having said this, with a perfectly startling -inconsistency he turns round, and addressing himself to Wesley and the -Methodists, he says, “We cannot but regard you as our most dangerous -enemies.” - -Footnote 2: - - Appendix B. - -When the Great Revival arose, the Church of England set herself, -everywhere, in full array against it; she possessed but few great minds. -The massive intellects of Butler and Berkeley belonged to the -immediately preceding age. The most active intellect on the bench of -bishops was, no doubt, that of Warburton; and it is sad to think that he -descended to a tone of scurrility and injustice in his attack on Wesley, -which, if worthy of his really quarrelsome temper, was altogether -unworthy of his position and his powers. - -Thus, whether we derive our impressions from the so-called Church of -that time, or from society at large, we obtain the evidences of a -deplorable recklessness of all ordinary principles of religion, honour, -or decorum. Bishop Butler had written, in the “Advertisement” to his -_Analogy_, and he appears to have been referring to the clerical and -educated opinion of his time: “It is come, I know not how, to be taken -for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a -subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be -fictitious;” and he wrote his great work for the purpose of arguing the -reasonableness of the christian religion, even on the principles of the -Deism prevalent everywhere around him in the Church and society. Addison -had declared that there was “less appearance of religion in England than -in any neighbouring state or kingdom, whether Protestant or Catholic;” -and Montesquieu came to the country, and having made his notes, -published, probably with some French exaggeration, that there was “no -religion in England, and that the subject, if mentioned in society, -excited nothing but laughter.” - -Such was the state of England, when, as we must think, by the special -providence of God, the voices were heard crying in the wilderness. From -the earlier years of the last century they continued sounding with such -clearness and strength, from the centre to the remotest corners of the -kingdom; from, the coasts, where the Cornish wrecker pursued his strange -craft of crime, along all the highways and hedges, where rudeness and -violence of every description made their occasions for theft, outrage, -and cruelty, until the whole English nation became, as if instinctively, -alive with a new-born soul, and not in vision, but in reality, something -was beheld like that seen by the prophet in the valley of vision—dry -bones clothed with flesh, and standing up “an exceeding great army,” no -longer on the side of corruption and death, but ready with song and -speech, and consistent living, to take their place on the side of the -Lord. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER II - - FIRST STREAKS OF DAWN. - - -In the history of the circumstances which brought about the Great -Revival, we must not fail to notice those which were in action even -before the great apostles of the Revival appeared. We have already given -what may almost be called a silhouette of society, an outline, for the -most part, all dark; and yet in the same period there were relieving -tints, just as sometimes, upon a silhouette-portrait, you have seen an -attempt to throw in some resemblance to the features by a touch of gold. - -Chief among these is one we do not remember ever to have seen noticed in -this connection—the curious invasion of our country by the French at the -close of the seventeenth century. That cruel exodus which poured itself -upon our shores in the great and even horrible persecution of the -Protestants of France, when the blind bigotry of Louis XIV. revoked the -Edict of Nantes, was to us, as a nation, a really incalculable blessing. -It is quite singular, in reading Dr. Smiles’s _Huguenots_, to notice the -large variety of names of illustrious exiles, eminent for learning, -science, character, and rank, who found a refuge here. The folly of the -King of France expelled the chief captains of industry; they came hither -and established their manufactures in different departments, creating -and carrying on new modes of industry. Also great numbers of Protestant -clergymen settled here, and formed respectable French churches; some of -the most eminent ministers of our various denominations at this moment -are descendants of those men. Their descendants are in our peerage; they -are on our bench of bishops; they are at the bar; they stand high in the -ranks of commerce. At the commencement of the eighteenth century, their -ancestors were settled on English shores; in all instances men who had -fled from comfort and domestic peace, in many instances from affluence -and fame, rather than be false to their conscience or to their Saviour. -The cruelties of that dreadful persecution which banished from France -almost every human element it was desirable to retain in it, while they -were, no doubt, there the great ultimate cause of the French Revolution, -brought to England what must have been even as the very seasoning of -society, the salt of our earth in the subsequent age of corruption. Most -of the children of these men were brought up in the discipline of -religious households, such as that which Sir Samuel Romilly—himself one -of the descendants of an earlier band of refugees. Dr. Watts’s mother -was a child of a French exile. Clusters of them grew up in many -neighbourhoods in the country, notably in Southampton, Norwich, -Canterbury, in many parts of London, where Spitalfields especially was a -French colony. When the Revival commenced, these were ready to aid its -various movements by their character and influence. Some fell into the -Wesleyan ranks, though, probably, most, like the eminent scholar and -preacher, William Romaine, one of the sons of the exile, maintained the -more Calvinistic faith, reflecting most nearly the old creed of the -Huguenot. - -This surmise of the influence of that noble invasion upon the national -well-being of Britain is justified by inference from the facts. It is -very interesting to attempt to realise the religious life of eminent -activity and usefulness sustained in different parts of the country -before the Revival dawned, and which must have had an influence in -fostering it when it arose. And, indeed, while we would desire to give -all grateful honour to the extraordinary men (especially to such a man -as John Wesley, who achieved so much through a life in which the length -and the usefulness were equal to each other, since only when he died did -he cease to animate by his personal influence the immense organisation -he had formed), yet it seems really impossible to regard any one mind as -the seed and source of the great movement. It was as if some cyclone of -spiritual power swept all round the nation—or, as if a subtle, unseen -train had been laid by many men, simultaneously, in many counties, and -the spark was struck, and the whole was suddenly wrapped in a Divine -flame. - -Dr. Abel Stevens, in his most interesting, indeed, charming history of -Methodism, from his point of view, gives to his own beloved leader and -Church the credit of the entire movement; so also does Mr. Tyerman, in -his elaborate life of Wesley. But this is quite contrary to all -dispassionate dealing with facts; there were many men and many means in -quiet operation, some of these even before Wesley was born, of which his -prehensile mind availed itself to draw them into his gigantic work; and -there were many which had operated, and continued to operate, which -would not fit themselves into his exact, and somewhat exacting, groove -of Church life. - -We have said it was as if a cyclone of spiritual power were steadily -sweeping round the minds of men and nations, for there were -undoubted gusts of remarkable spiritual life in both hemispheres, at -least fifty years before Methodism had distinctly asserted itself as -a fact. Most remarkable was the “Great Awakening” in America, in -Massachusetts—especially at Northampton (that is a remarkable story, -which will always be associated with the name of Jonathan -Edwards).[3] We have referred to the exodus of the persecuted from -France; equally remarkable was another exodus of persecuted -Protestants from Salzburg, in Austria. The madness of the Church of -Rome again cast forth an immense host of the holiest and most -industrious citizens. At the call of conscience they marched forth -in a body, taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods rather than -disavow their faith: such men with their families are a treasure to -any nation amongst whom they may settle. Thomas Carlyle has paid a -glowing historical eulogy to the memory of these men, and the exodus -has furnished Goethe with the subject of one of his most charming -poems. - -Footnote 3: - - See Appendix C. - -Philip Doddridge’s work was almost done before the Methodist movement -was known. It seems to us that no adequate honour has ever yet been paid -to that most beautiful and remarkably inclusive life. It was public, it -was known and noticed, but it was passed almost in retreat in -Northampton. That he was a preacher and pastor of a Church was but a -slight portion of the life which succumbed, yet in the prime of his -days, to consumption. His academy for the education of young ministers -seems to us, even now, something like a model of what such an academy -should be; his lectures to his students are remarkably full and -scholarly and complete. From thence went forth men like the saintly -Risdon Darracott, the scholarly and suggestive Hugh Farmer, Benjamin -Fawcett, and Andrew Kippis. The hymns of Doddridge were among the -earliest, as they are still among the sweetest, of that kind of offering -to our modern Church; their clear, elevated, thrush-like sweetness, like -the more uplifted seraphic trumpet tones of Watts, broke in upon a time -when there was no sacred song worthy of the name in the Church, and -anticipated the hour when the melodious acclamations of the people -should be one of the most cherished elements of Christian service. - -[Illustration: - - ISAAC WATTS. -] - -And Isaac Watts was, by far, the senior of Doddridge; he lived very much -the life of a hermit. Although the pastor of a city church, he was -sequestered and withdrawn from public life in Theobalds, or Stoke -Newington, where, however, he prosecuted a course of sacred labor of a -marvellously manifold description, inter-meddling with every kind of -learning, and consecrating it all to the great end of the christian -ministry and the producing of books, which, whether as catechisms for -children, treatises for the formation of mental character, philosophic -essays grappling with the difficulties of scholarly minds, or -“comfortable words” to “rock the cradle of declining age,” were all to -become of value when the nation should awake to a real spiritual power. -They are mostly laid aside now; but they have served more than one -generation well; and he, beyond question, was the first who taught the -Protestant Christian Church in England to sing. His hymns and psalms -were sounding on when John Wesley was yet a child, and numbers of them -were appropriated in the first Methodist hymn-book. But Watts and -Doddridge, by the conditions of their physical and mental being, were -unfitted for popular leaders. Perhaps, also, it must be admitted that -they had not that which has been called the “instinct for souls;” they -were concerned rather to illustrate and expound the truth of God, and to -“adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour,” by their lives, than to flash -new convictions into the hearts of men. It is characteristic that, good -and great as they were, they were both at first inimical to the Great -Revival; it seemed to them a suspicious movement. The aged Watts -cautioned his younger friend Doddridge against encouraging it, -especially the preaching of Whitefield; yet they both lived to give -their whole hearts to it; and some of Watts’s last words were in -blessing, when, near death, he received a visit from the great -evangelist. - -[Illustration: - - PHILIP DODDRIDGE. -] - -Thus we need to notice a little carefully the age immediately preceding -the rise of what we call Methodism, in order to understand what -Methodism really effected; we have seen that the dreadful condition of -society was not inconsistent with the existence over the country of -eminently holy men, and of even hallowed christian families and circles. -If space allowed, it would be very pleasant to step into, and sketch the -life of many an interior; and it would scarcely be a work of fancy, but -of authentic knowledge. There were yet many which almost retained the -character of Puritan households, and among them several baronial halls. -Nor ought we to forget that those consistent: and high-minded Christian -folk, the Quakers [Friends], were a much larger body then than now, -although, like the Shunammite lady, they especially dwelt among their -own people. The Moravians also were in England; but all existed like -little scattered hamlet patches of spiritual life; they were respectably -conservative of their own usages. Methodism brought enthusiasm to -religion, and the instinct for souls, united to a power of organisation -hitherto unknown to the religious life. - -[Illustration: - - Doddridge’s House, Northampton. -] - -At what hour shall we fix the earliest dawn of the Great Revival? Among -the earliest tints of the “morning spread upon the mountains,” which was -to descend into the valley, and illuminate all the plains, was the -conversion of that extraordinary woman, Selina Shirley, the Countess of -Huntingdon; it is scarcely too much to call her the Mother of the -Revival; it is not too much to apply to her the language of the great -Hebrew song—“The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased until -that I arose: I arose a mother in Israel.” She illustrates the -difference of which we spoke just now, for there can be no doubt that -she had a passionate instinct for souls, to do good to souls, to save -souls. Her injunctions for the destruction of all her private papers -have been so far complied with as to leave the earlier history of her -mind, and the circumstances which brought about her conversion, for the -most part unknown. It is certain that she was on terms of intimate -friendship with both Watts and Doddridge, but especially with Doddridge. -Another intimate friend of the Countess was Watts’s very close friend, -the Duchess of Somerset; and thus the links of the story seem to run, -like that old and well-known instance of communicated influence, when -Andrew found his own brother, Simon, and these in turn found Philip and -Nathaniel. It was very natural that, beholding the state of society -about her, she should be interested, first, as it seems, for those of -her own order; it was at a later time, when she became acquainted with -Whitefield, that he justified her drawing-room assemblies, by reminding -her—not, perhaps, with exact critical propriety—of the text in -Galatians, where Paul mentioned how he preached “privately to those of -reputation.”[4] For some time this appears to have been the aim of the -good Countess, much in accordance with that pretty saying of hers, that -“there was a text in which she blessed God for the insertion of the -letter M: ‘not _m_any noble.’” The beautiful Countess was a heroine in -her own line from the earliest days of her conversion. Belonging to one -of the noblest families of England, she had an entrance to the highest -circles, and her heart felt very pitiful for, especially, the women of -fashion around her, brokenhearted with disappointment, or sick with -_ennui_. - -Footnote 4: - - Appendix D. - -Among these was Sarah, the great Duchess of Marlborough, apparently one -of the intimate friends of the Countess; her letters are most -characteristic. She mentions that the Duchess of Ancaster, Lady -Townshend, and others, had just heard Mr. Whitefield preach, and “What -they said of the sermon has made me lament ever since that I did not -hear it; it might have been the means of doing me some good, for good, -alas! I do want; but where among the corrupt sons and daughters of Adam -am I to find it?” She goes on: “Dear, good Lady Huntingdon, I have no -comfort in my own family; I hope you will shortly come and see me; I -always feel more happy and more contented after an hour’s conversation -with you; when alone, my reflections and recollection almost kill me. -Now there is Lady Frances Saunderson’s great rout to-morrow night; all -the world will be there, and I must go. I hate that woman as much as I -hate a physician, but I must go, if for no other purpose than to mortify -and spite her. This is very wicked, I know, but I confess all my little -peccadilloes to you, for I know your goodness will lead you to be mild -and forgiving; and perhaps my wicked heart may gain some good from you -in the end.” And then she closes her note with some remarks on “that -crooked, perverse little wretch at Twickenham,” by which pleasant -designation she means the poet, Pope. - -Another, and another order of character, was the Duchess of Buckingham; -she came to hear Whitefield preach in the drawing-room, and was quite -scandalised. In a letter to the Countess, she says, “The doctrines are -most repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence: it is -monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common -wretches that crawl the earth; this is highly offensive and insulting, -and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiments -so much at variance with high rank and good breeding.” Such were some of -the materials the Countess attempted to gather in her drawing-rooms, if -possible to cure the aching of empty hearts. If the two duchesses met -together, it is very likely they would be antipathetic to each other; a -prouder old lady than Sarah, the English empire did not contain, but she -was proud that she was the wife and widow of the great Marlborough. The -Duchess of Buckingham was equally proud that she was the natural -daughter of James II. When her son, the Duke of Buckingham, died, she -sent to the old Duchess of Marlborough to borrow the magnificent car -which had borne John Churchill’s body to the Abbey, and the fiery old -Duchess sent her back word, “It had carried Lord Marlborough, and should -never be profaned by any other corpse.” The message was not likely to -act as an _entente cordiale_ in such society as we have described. - -The mention of these names will show the reader that we are speaking of -a time when the Revival had not wrought itself into a great movement. -The Countess continued to make enthusiastic efforts for those of her own -order—we are afraid, with a few distinguished exceptions, without any -great amount of success; but certainly, were it possible for us to look -into the drawing-room in South Audley Street, in those closing years of -the reign of George II., we might well be astonished at the brilliancy -of the concourse, and the finding ourselves in the company of some of -the most distinguished names of the highest rank and fashion of the -period. It was the age of that cold, sardonic sneerer, Horace Walpole; -he writes to Florence, to his friend Sir Horace Mann, in his scoffing -fashion: “If you ever think of returning to England, you must prepare -yourself with Methodism; this sect increases as fast as almost any -religious nonsense ever did; Lady Fanny Shirley has chosen this way of -bestowing the dregs of her beauty, and Lyttleton is very near making the -same sacrifice of the dregs of all those various characters that he has -worn. The Methodists love your big sinners as proper subjects to work -upon, and indeed they have a plentiful harvest.” Then he satirises Lady -Ferrars, whom he styles “General, my Lady Dowager Ferrars.” But, indeed, -it is impossible to enumerate the names of all, or any proportion of the -number who attended this brilliant circle. Sometimes unhappy events took -place; Mr. Whitefield was sometimes too dreadfully, although -unconsciously, faithful. Lady Rockingham, who really seems to have been -inclined to do good, begged the Countess to permit her to bring the -Countess of Suffolk, well known as the powerful mistress of George II. -Whitefield “knew nothing of the matter;” but some arrow “drawn at a -venture,” and which probably might have as well fitted many another lady -about the court or in that very room, exactly hit the Countess. However -much she fidgeted with irritation, she sat out the service in silence; -but, as soon as it was over, the beautiful fury burst forth in all the -stormful speech of a termagant or virago. She abused Lady Huntingdon; -she declared that the whole service had been a premeditated attack upon -herself. Her relatives, Lady Bertie, the celebrated Lady Betty Germain, -the Duchess of Ancaster, one of the most beautiful women in England, and -who, afterwards, with the Duchess of Hamilton, conducted the future -queen of George III. to England’s shores, expostulated with her, -commanded her to be silent, and attempted to explain her mistake; they -insisted that she should apologise to Lady Huntingdon for her behaviour, -and, in an ungracious manner, she did so; but we learn that she never -honoured the assembly again with her presence. - -What a singular assembly from time to time! the square dark face of that -old gentleman, painfully hobbling in on his crutched stick—face once as -handsome as that of St. John, now the disappointed, moody features of -the massive, but sceptical intelligence of Bolingbroke; poor worn-out -old Chesterfield, cold and courtly, yet seeming so genial and humane, -coming again and again, and yet again; those reckless wits, and leaders -of the _ton_ and all high society, Bubb Doddington, afterwards Lord -Melcombe, and George Selwyn; the Duchess of Montague, with her young -daughter; Lady Cardigan, often there, if her mother, Sarah of -Marlborough, were but seldom a visitor. Charles Townshend, the great -minister, often came; and his friend, Lord Lyttleton, who really must -have been in sympathy with some of the objects of the assembly, if we -may judge from his _Essay on the Conversion of St. Paul_, a piece of -writing which will never lose its value. There you might have seen even -the great commoner, William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham; but we can -understand why he would be there to listen to the manifold notes of an -eloquence singularly resembling, in many particulars, his own. And, in -fact, where such persons were present, we might be sure that the entire -nobility of the country was represented. It might be tempting to loiter -amidst these scenes a little longer. It was an experiment made by the -Countess; she probably found it almost a failure, and, in the course of -a few years, turned her attention to the larger ideas connected with the -evangelisation of England, and the training of young men for the work of -the ministry. She long outlived all those brilliant hosts she had -gathered round her in the prime of life. But we cannot doubt that some -good was effected by this preaching to “people of reputation.” Courtiers -like Walpole sneered, but it saved the movement to a great degree, when -it became popular, from being suspected as the result of political -faction; and probably, as all these nobles and gentry passed away to -their various country seats, when they heard of the preachers in their -neighbourhoods, and received the complaints of the bishops and their -clergy, with some contempt for the messengers, they were able to feel, -and to say, that there was nothing much more dreadful than the love of -God and His good will to men in their message. - -It seems a very sudden leap from the saloons of the West End to a -Lincolnshire kitchen; but in the kitchen of that most romantic old -vicarage of Epworth, it has been truly said, the most vigorous form of -Methodism had its origin. There, at the close of the seventeenth -century, and the commencement of the eighteenth, lived and laboured old -Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley. Samuel was in -every sense a wonderful man, more wonderful than most people know, -though Mr. Tyerman has done his best to set him forth in a very clear -and pleasant light, in his very entertaining biography. Scholar, -preacher, pastor, and poet was Samuel Wesley; he led a life full of -romantic incident, and full of troubles, of which the two most notable -are debts and ghosts: debts, we must say, in passing, which had more to -do with unavoidable calamity than with any personal imprudence. The good -man would have been shocked, and have counted it one of his sorest -troubles, could he, in some real horoscope, have forecast what “Jackey,” -his son John, was to be. But it was his wife, Susannah Wesley, patient -housewife, much-enduring, much-suffering woman, Mary and Martha in one, -saint as sacredly sweet as any who have seemed worthy of a place in any -calendar of saints, Catholic or Protestant, mother of children, all of -whom were remarkable—two of them wonderful, and a third highly -eminent—it was Susannah Wesley, whose instinct for souls led her to look -abroad over all the parish in which she lived, with a tender, spiritual -affection; in her husband’s absence, turning the large kitchen into a -church, inviting her poor neighbours into it, and, somewhat at first to -the distress of her husband, preaching to and praying with them there. -This brief reference can only memorialise her name; read John Kirk’s -little volume, and learn to love and revere “the mother of the Wesleys!” -The freedom and elevation of her religious life, and her practical -sagacity, it is not difficult to see, must have given hints and ideas -which took shape and body in the large movement of which her son John -came to be regarded, and is still regarded, as the patriarch. Thus Isaac -Taylor says, “The Wesleys’ mother was the mother of Methodism in a -religious and moral sense, for her courage, her submissiveness to -authority, the high tone of her mind, its independence, and its -self-control, the warmth of her devotional feelings, and the practical -direction given to them, came up, and were visibly repeated in the -character and conduct of her sons.” Later on in life she became one of -the wisest advisers of her son, in his employment of the auxiliaries to -his own usefulness. Perhaps, if we could see spirits as they are, we -might see in this woman a higher and loftier type of life than in either -of those who first received life from her bosom; some of her quiet words -have all the passion and sweetness of Charles’s hymns. Our space will -not permit many quotations, but take the following words, and the sweet -meditation in prose of the much-enduring, and often patiently suffering -lady in the old world country vicarage, which read like many of her -son’s notes in verse: “If to esteem and have the highest reverence for -Thee; if constantly and sincerely to acknowledge Thee the supreme, and -only desirable good, be to love Thee, I DO LOVE THEE! If to rejoice in -Thy essential majesty and glory; if to feel a vital joy overspread and -cheer the heart at each perception of Thy blessedness, at every thought -that Thou art God, and that all things are in Thy power; that there is -none superior or equal to Thee, be to love Thee, I DO LOVE THEE! If -comparatively to despise and undervalue all the world contains, which is -esteemed great, fair, or good; if earnestly and constantly to desire -Thee, Thy favour, Thy acceptance, Thyself, rather than any, or all -things Thou hast created, be to love Thee, I DO LOVE THEE!” At length -she died as she had lived, her last words to her sons breathing the -spirit of her singular life: “Children, as soon as I am released, sing a -psalm of praise to God!” - -Thus, from the polite circles of London, from the obscure old farm-like -vicarage, the rude and rough old English home, events were preparing -themselves. John Wesley was born in 1703; the Countess of Huntingdon in -1707: near in their birth time, how far apart the scenery and the -circumstances in which their eyes first opened to the light. Whitefield -was born later, amidst the still less auspicious scenery of the old Bell -Inn, at Gloucester, in 1714. These were undoubtedly among the foremost -names in the great palpitation of thought, feeling, and holy action the -country was to experience. Future chapters will show a number of other -names, which were simultaneously coming forth and educating for the -great conflict. So it has always been, and singularly so, as -illustrating the order of Providence, and the way in which it gives a -new personality to the men whom it designs to aid its purposes. In every -part of the country, all unknown to each other, in families separated by -position and taste, by birth and circumstances, a band of workers was -preparing to produce an entire moral change in the features of the -country. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER III - - OXFORD: NEW LIGHTS AND OLD LANTERNS. - - -It is remarkable that one of the very earliest movements of the new -evangelical succession should manifest itself in Oxford—many minded -Oxford—whose distant spires and antique towers have looked down through -so many ages upon the varying opinions which have surged up around and -within her walls. Lord Bacon has somewhere said that the opinions, -feelings, and thoughts of the young men of any present generation -forecast the whole popular mind of the future age. No remark can be more -true, as exhibited generally in fact. Thus it is not too much to say -that Oxford has usually been a barometer of coming opinions: either by -her adhesion or antagonism to them, she has indicated the pathway of the -nearing weather, either for calm or storm. It was so in the dark ages, -with the old scholastic philosophy; it was so in the times immediately -succeeding them: in our own day, the great Tractarian movement, with all -its influences Rome-ward, arose in Oxford; later still, the strong -tendencies of high intellectual infidelity, and denial of the sacred -prerogatives and rights of the Holy Scriptures, sent forth some of their -earliest notes from Oxford. Oxford has been likened to the magnificent -conservatory at Chatsworth, where art combines with nature, and achieves -all that wealth and taste could command; but the air is heavy and close, -and rich as the forms and colours are around the spectator, there is -depression and repression, even a sense of oppression, upon the spirits, -and we are glad to escape into the breezy chase, and among the old trees -again. This is hardly true of Oxford; no doubt the air is hushed, and -the influences combine to weigh down the mere visitor by a sense of the -hoariness of the past, and the black antiquity and frost of ages; but -somehow there is a mind in Oxford which is always alive—not merely a -scholarly knowledge, but a subtle apprehension of the coming winds—even -as certain creatures forebode and know the coming storm before the rain -falls or the thunder rolls. - -We may presume that most of our readers are acquainted with the -designation, “the Oxford Methodists;” but, perhaps, some are not aware -that the term was applied to a cluster of young students, who, in a time -when the university was delivered over to the usual dissoluteness and -godless indifference of the age, met together in each other’s rooms for -the purpose of sustaining each other in the determination to live a holy -life, and to bring their mutual help to the reading and opening of the -Word of God. From different parts of the country they met together -there; when they went forth, their works, their spheres were different; -but the power and the beauty of the old college days seem to have -accompanied them through life; they realised the Divine life as a real -power from that commencement to the close of their career, although it -is equally interesting to notice how the framework of their opinions -changed. Some of their names are comparatively unknown now, but John and -Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and James Hervey, are well known; nor -is John Gambold unknown, nor Benjamin Ingham, who married into the -family of the Countess of Huntingdon, of whom we will speak a little -more particularly when we visit the wild Yorkshire of those days; nor -Morgan of Christ Church, whose influence is described as the most -beautiful of all, a young man of delicate constitution and intense -enthusiasm, who visited and talked with the prisoners in the -neighbourhood, visited the cottages around to read and pray, left his -memory as a blessing upon his companions, and was very early called away -to his reward. This obscure life seems to have been one most honoured in -that which came to be called by the wits of Oxford, “The Holy Club.” - -It was just about this time that Voltaire was predicting that, in the -next generation, Christianity would be overthrown and unknown throughout -the whole civilised world. Christianity has lived through, and long -outlived many such predictions. Voltaire had said, “It took twelve men -to set up Christianity; it would only take one” (conceitedly referring -to himself) “to overthrow it;” but the work of those whom he called the -“twelve men” is still of some account in the world—their words are still -of some authority, and there are very few people on the face of the -earth at this moment who know much of, and fewer still who care much for -the wit of the vain old infidel. That Voltaire’s prediction was not -fulfilled, under the Providential influence of that Divine Spirit who -never leaves us in our low estate, was greatly owing to this obscure and -despised “Holy Club” of Oxford. These young men were feeling their way, -groping, as they afterwards admitted, and somewhat in the dark, after -those experiences, which, as they were to be assurances to themselves, -should be also their most certain means of usefulness to others. - -They were also called Methodists. It is singular, but neither the -precise etymology nor the first appropriation of the term Methodist has, -we believe, ever been distinctly or satisfactorily settled. Some have -derived it from an allusion in Juvenal to a quack physician, some to a -passage from the writings of Chrysostom, who says, “to be a methodist is -to be beguiled,” and which was employed in a pamphlet against Mr. -Whitefield. Like some other phrases, it is not easy to settle its first -import or importation into our language. Certainly it is much older than -the times to which this book especially refers. It seems to be even -contemporary with the term Puritan, since we find Spencer, the librarian -of Sion College under Cromwell, writing, “Where are now our Anabaptists -and plain pack-staff Methodists, who esteem all flowers of rhetoric in -sermons no better than stinking weeds?” A writer in the _British -Quarterly_ tells a curious story how once in a parish church in -Huntingdonshire, he was listening to a clergyman, notorious alike by his -private character and vehement intolerance, who was entertaining his -audience, on a week evening, by a discourse from the text, Ephesians iv. -14, “Whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” He said to his people, “Now, -you do not know Greek; I know Greek, and I am going to tell you what -this text really says; it says, ‘they lie in wait to make you -Methodists.’ The word used here is _Methodeian_, that is really the word -that is used, and that is really what Paul said, ‘They lie in wait to -make you Methodists’—a Methodist means a deceiver, and one who deludes, -cheats, and beguiles.” The Grecian scholar was a little at fault in his -next allusion, for he proceeded to quote that other text, “We are not -ignorant of his devices,” and seemed to be under the impression that -“device” was the same word as that on which he had expended his -criticism. “Now,” said he, “you may be ignorant, because you do not know -Greek, but we are not ignorant of his devices, that is, of his methods, -his deceivers, that is, his Methodists.” In such empty wit and ignorant -punning it is very likely that the term had its origin. - -John Wesley passed through a long, singular, and what we may call a -parti-coloured experience, before his mind came out into the light. In -those days his mind was a singular combination of High Churchism, -amounting to what we should call Ritualism now, and mysticism, both of -which influences he brought from Epworth: the first from his father, the -second from the strong fascination of the writings of William Law. He -found, however, in the “Holy Club” that which helped him. He tells us -how, when at Epworth, he travelled many miles to see a “serious man,” -and to take counsel from him. “Sir,” said this person, as if the right -word were given to him at the right moment, exactly meeting the -necessities of the man standing before him, “Sir, you wish to serve God -and to go to heaven: remember you cannot serve Him alone; you must -therefore find companions, or make them. The Bible knows nothing of -solitary religion.” It must be admitted that the enthusiasm of the -mystics has always been rather personal than social; but the society at -Oxford was almost monastic, nor is it wonderful that, with the spectacle -of the dissolute life around them, these earnest men adopted rules of -the severest self-denial and asceticism. John Wesley arrived in Oxford -first in 1720; he left for some time. Returning home to assist his -father, he became, as we know, to his father’s immense exultation, -Fellow of Lincoln College. - -In 1733 George Whitefield arrived at Oxford, then in his nineteenth -year. Like most of this band, Whitefield was, if not really, -comparatively poor, and dependent upon help to enable him to pursue his -studies; not so poor, perhaps, as an illustrious predecessor in the same -college (Pembroke), who had left only the year before, one Samuel -Johnson, the state of whose shoes excited so much commiseration in some -benevolent heart, that a pair of new ones was placed outside his rooms, -only, however, creating surprise in the morning, when he was seen -indignantly kicking them up and down the passage. Whitefield was not -troubled by such over-sensitive and delicate feelings; men are made -differently. Johnson’s rugged independence did its work; and the easy -facility and amiable disposition, which could receive favours without a -sense of degradation, were very essential to what Whitefield was to be. -He, however, when he came to Oxford, was caught in the same glamour of -mysticism as John Wesley. But in this case it was Thomas à-Kempis who -had besieged the soul of the young enthusiast; he was miserable, his -life, his heart and mind were crushed beneath this altogether inhuman -and unattainable standard for salvation. He was a Quietist—what a -paradox!—Whitefield a Quietist! He was seeking salvation by works of -righteousness which he could do. He was practising the severest -austerities and renouncing the claims of an external world; he was -living an internal life which God did not intend should bring to him -either rest or calm; for, in that case, how could he ever have stirred -the deep foundations of universal sympathy? - -But that heart, whose very mould was tenderness, was easily called aside -by the sight of suffering; and there is an interesting story, how, at -this time, in one of his walks by the banks of the river, in such a -frame of mind as we have described, he met a poor woman whose appearance -was discomposed. Naturally enough, he talked with her, and found that -her husband was in the gaol in Oxford, that she had run away from home, -unable to endure any longer the crying of her children from hunger, and -that she even then meditated drowning herself. He gave her immediate -relief, but arranged with her to meet him, and see her husband together -in the evening at the prison. He appears to have done them both good, -ministering to their temporal necessities; he prayed with them, brought -them to the knowledge of the grace which saves, and late on in life he -says, “They are both now living, and I trust will be my joy and crown of -rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Happy is the man to whose life -such an incident as this is given; it calls life away from its dreary -introspections, and sets it upon a trail of outwardness, which is -spiritual health; no one can attain to much religious happiness until he -knows that he has been the means of good to some suffering soul. Faith -grows in us by the revelation that we have been used to do good to -others. - -It was about this time that Charles Wesley met Whitefield moodily -walking through the college corridors. The misery of his appearance -struck him, and he invited him to his rooms to breakfast. The memory of -the meeting never passed away; Charles Wesley refers to it in his elegy -on Whitefield. In a short time he leaped forth into spiritual freedom, -and almost immediately became, youth as he was, preacher, and we may -almost say, apostle. The change in his mind seems to have been as -instantaneous and as luminous as Luther’s at Erfurt. Whitefield was at -work, commencing upon his own great scale, long before the Wesleys. John -had to go to America, and to be entangled there by his High Church -notions; and then there were his Moravian proclivities, so that, -altogether, years passed by before he found his way out into a light so -clear as to be able to reflect it on the minds of others. - -To some of the members of this “Holy Club,” we shall not be able to -refer again; we must, therefore, mention them now. Especially is some -reference due to James Hervey; his name is now rather a legend and -tradition than an active influence in our religious literature; but how -popular once, do not the oldest memories amongst us well know? On some -important points of doctrine he parted company from his friends and -fellow-students, the Wesleys. John Wesley used to declare that he -himself was not converted till his thirty-seventh year, so that we must -modify any impressions we may have from similar declarations made by the -amiable Vicar of Weston Favel: the term conversion, used in such a -sense, in all probability means simply a change in the point of view, an -alteration of opinion, giving a more clear apprehension of truth. Hervey -was always infirm in health, tall, spectral; and, while possessing a -mind teeming with pleasing and poetic fancies, and a power of perceiving -happy analogies, we should regard him as singularly wanting in that fine -solvent of all true genius, geniality. Hence, all his letters read like -sermons; but his poor, infirm frame was the tabernacle of an intensely -fervent soul. Shortly after his settlement in his village in -Northamptonshire he was recommended by his physician to follow the -plough, that he might receive the scent of the fresh earth; a curious -recommendation, but it led to a conversation with the ploughman, which -completely overturned the young scholar’s scheme of theology. The -ploughman was a member of the Church of Dr. Doddridge, afterwards one of -Hervey’s most intimate friends. As they walked together, the young -minister asked the old ploughman what he thought was the hardest thing -in religion? The ploughman very respectfully returned the question. -Hervey replied, “I think the hardest thing in religion is to deny sinful -self,” and he proceeded, at some length, of course, to dilate upon and -expound the difficulty, from which our readers will see that, at this -time, his mind must have been under the same influences as those we meet -in _The Imitation_ of Thomas à-Kempis. “No, sir,” said the old -ploughman, “the hardest thing in religion is to deny righteous self,” -and he proceeded to unfold the principles of his faith. At the time, -Hervey thought the ploughman a fool, but the conversation was not -forgotten, and he declares that it was this view of things which created -for him a new creed. Our readers, perhaps, know his _Theron and -Aspasia_: we owe that book to the conversation with the ploughman; all -its pages, alive with descriptions of natural scenery, historical and -classical allusion, and glittering with chromatic fancy through the -three thick volumes, are written for the purpose of unfolding and -enforcing—to put it in old theological phraseology—the imputed and -imparted righteousness of Christ, the great point of divergence in -teaching between Hervey and John Wesley. - -Thus the term Methodism cannot, any more than Christianity, be contented -with, or contained in one particular line of opinion. Thus, for -instance, among the members of the “Holy Club” we find the two Wesleys -and others distinctly Arminian—the apostles of that form of thought -which especially teaches us that we must attain to the grace of God; -while Whitefield first, and Hervey afterwards, became the teachers of -that doctrine which announces the irresistible grace of God as that -which is outside of us, and comes down upon us. No doubt the doctrines -were too sharply separated by their respective leaders. In the ultimate -issue, both believed alike that all was of grace, and all of God; but -experience makes every man’s point of view; as he feels, so he sees. The -grand thought about all these men in this Great Revival was that they -believed in, and untiringly and with immense confidence announced, that -which smote upon the minds of their hearers almost like a new -revelation; in an age of indifference and Deism they declared that “the -grace of God hath appeared unto all men.” - -There is a very interesting anecdote showing how, about this time, even -the massive and sardonic intellect of Lord Bolingbroke almost gave way. -He was called upon once by a High Church dignitary, his intimate friend, -Dr. Church, Vicar of Battersea, and Prebendary of St. Paul’s, to whom we -have already referred as from the first opposed to the Revival, and, to -the doctor’s amazement, he found Bolingbroke reading Calvin’s -_Institutes_. The peer asked the preacher, the infidel the professed -Christian, what he thought of it. “Oh,” said the doctor, “we think -nothing of such antiquated stuff; we think it enough to preach the -importance of morality and virtue, and have long given up all that talk -about Divine grace.” Bolingbroke’s face and eyes were a study at all -times, but we could wish to have seen him turn in his chair, and fix his -eyes on the vicar as he said: “Look you, doctor. You know I don’t -believe the Bible to be a Divine revelation, but those who do can never -defend it but upon the principle of the doctrine of Divine grace. To say -the truth, there have been times when I have been almost persuaded to -believe it upon this view of things; and there is one argument I have -felt which has gone very far with me on behalf of its authenticity, -which is, that the belief in it exists upon earth even when committed to -the care of such as you, who pretend to believe in it, and yet deny the -only principle upon which it is defensible.” The worn-out statesman and -hard-headed old peer hit the question of his own day, and forecast all -the sceptical strife of ours; for all such questions are summed in one, -Is there supernatural grace, and has that grace appeared unto men? This -was the one faith of all these revivalists. The world was eager to hear -it, for the aching heart of the world longs to believe that it is true. -The conversation we have recited shows that even Bolingbroke wished that -it might be true. - -[Illustration: - - WESTON FAVEL CHURCH, - (Where James Hervey Preached.) -] - -The new creed of Hervey changed the whole character of his preaching. -The little church of Weston Favel, a short distance from the town of -Northampton, became quite a shrine for pilgrimages; he was often -compelled to preach in the churchyard. He was assuredly an intense lover -of natural scenery, a student of natural theology of the old school. His -writing is now said to be meretricious and gaudy. One critic says that -children will always prefer a red to a white sugar-plum, and that the -tea is nicer to them when they drink it from a cup painted with coloured -flowers; and this, perhaps, not unfairly, describes the style of Hervey; -we have prettiness rather than power, elegant disquisition rather than -nervous expression, which is all the more wonderful, as he must have -been an accomplished Latin scholar. But he had a mind of gorgeous -fullness, and his splendid conceptions bore him into a train of what now -seem almost glittering extravagances. Hervey was in the manner of his -life a sickly recluse, and we easily call up the figure of the old -bachelor—for he never married—alternately watching his saucepan of gruel -on the fire, and his favourite microscope on the study table. He was -greatly beloved by the Countess of Huntingdon, perhaps yet more by Lady -Fanny Shirley—the subject of Walpole’s sneer. He was, no doubt, the -writer of the movement, and its thoughts in his books must have seemed -like “butter in a lordly dish.” But his course was comparatively brief; -his work was accomplished at the age of forty-five. He died in his -chair, his last words, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in -peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy most comfortable salvation;” shortly -after, “The conflict is over; all is done;” the last words of all, -“Precious salvation.” And so passed away one of the most amiable and -accomplished of all the revivalists. - -John Gambold, although ever an excellent and admirable man, lived the -life rather of a secluded mystic, than that of an active reformer. He -became a minister of the Church of England, but afterwards left that -communion, not from any dissensions either from the doctrines or the -discipline of the Church, but simply because he found his spiritual -relationships more in harmony with those of the Moravians, of whose -Church he died a bishop. We presume few readers are acquainted with his -poetical works; nor are there many words among them of remarkable -strength. _The Mystery of Life_ is certainly pleasingly impressive; and -his epitaph on himself deserves quotation: - - “Ask not, ‘Who ended here his span?’ - His name, reproach, and praise, was Man. - ‘Did no great deeds adorn his course?’ - No deed of his but showed him worse: - One thing was great, which God supplied, - He suffered human life—and died. - ‘What points of knowledge did he gain?’ - That life was sacred all—and vain: - ‘Sacred, how high? and vain, how low?’ - He knew not here, but died to know.” - -Such were some of the men who went forth from Oxford. Meantime, as the -flame of revival was spreading, Oxford again starts into singular -notice; how the “Holy Club” escaped official censure and condemnation -seems strange, but in 1768 the members of a similar club were, for -meeting together for prayer and reading the Scriptures, all summarily -expelled from the university. Their number was seven. Several of the -heads of houses spoke in their favour, the principal of their own hall, -Dr. Dixon, moved an amendment against their expulsion, on the ground of -their admirable conduct and exemplary piety. Not a word was alleged -against them, only that some of them were the sons of tradesmen, and -that all of them “held Methodistical tenets, taking upon them to pray, -read and expound the Scriptures, and sing hymns at private houses.” -These practices were considered as hostile to the Articles and interests -of the Church of England, and sentence was pronounced against them. - -Of course this expulsion created a great agitation at the time; and as -the moral character of the young men was so perfectly unimpeachable, it -no doubt greatly aided the cause of the Revival. Dr. Horne, Bishop of -Norwich, author of the Commentary _On the Psalms_—no Methodist, although -an admirable and evangelical man—denounced the measure in a pamphlet in -the strongest terms. The well-known wit and Baptist minister of -Devonshire Square in London, Macgowan, lashed the transaction in his -piece called _The Shaver_. All the young men seem to have turned out -well. Some, like Thomas Jones, who afterwards became curate of Clifton, -and married the sister of Lady Austen, Cowper’s friend—found admission -into the Church of England; the others instantly found help from the -Countess of Huntingdon, who sent them to finish their studies at her -college in Trevecca, and afterwards secured them places in connection -with her work of evangelisation. The transaction gives a singular idea -of what Oxford was in 1768, and prepares us for the vehement -persecutions by which the representatives of Oxford all over the country -armed themselves to resist the Revival, whilst it justifies our -designation of this chapter, “New Lights and Old Lanterns.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - CAST OUT FROM THE CHURCH—TAKING TO THE FIELDS. - - -It was field-preaching, preaching in the open air, which first gave -national distinctiveness to the Revival, and constituted it a movement. -Assuredly any occasions of excitement we have known, give no idea -whatever of the immense agitations which speedily rolled over the -country, from one end to the other, when these great revivalists began -their work in the fields. And the excitement continued, rolling on -through London, and through the counties of England, from the west to -the north, not for days, weeks, or months merely, but through long -years, until the religious life of the land was entirely rekindled, and -its morals and manners re-moulded; and all this, especially in its -origination, without money, no large sums being subscribed or guaranteed -to sustain the work. The work was done, not only without might or power, -but assuredly in the very teeth of the malevolence of might and of -power; nor is it too much to say that it probably would not have been -done, could not have been done, had the churches, chapels, and great -cathedrals been thrown open to the preachers. - -It seems a singular thing to say, but we should speak of Whitefield as -the Luther of this Great Revival, and of Wesley as its Calvin. Both in -the quality of their work and in their relation in point of time, this -analogy is not so unnatural as it perhaps seems at first. The -impetuosity and passion, the vehemence and sleepless vigilance of -Whitefield first broke open the way; the calm, cautious, frequently even -nervously timid intelligence of Wesley organised the work. - -How could a writer, in a recent number of the _Edinburgh Review_, say: -“It is a great mistake to complain, as so many do, that the Church cast -out the Wesleys. We have seen at the beginning how kindly, and even -cordially, they were treated by the leading members of the episcopate.” -Surely any history of Methodism contradicts this statement. Bishop -Benson, indeed, ordained Whitefield, but he bitterly lamented to the -Countess of Huntingdon that he had done so, attributing to him what -seemed to the Bishop the mischief of the evangelical movement. “My -lord,” said the Countess, “mark my words: when you are on your dying -bed, that will be one of the few ordinations you will reflect upon with -complaisance.” - -The words were, in a remarkable degree, prophetic; when the Bishop was -on his death-bed he sent ten guineas to Mr. Whitefield as a token of his -“regard, veneration, and affection,” and begged the great field-preacher -to remember him in prayer. If the bishops were kind and cordial to the -first Methodists, they certainly took a singular way of dissembling -their love. For instance, Bishop Lavington, of Exeter, whose well-known -two volumes on Methodism are really a curiosity of episcopal scurrility, -was in a passion with everything that looked like Whitefieldism in his -diocese. Mr. Thomson, the Vicar of St. Gennys, was a dissipated -clergyman, a character of known immorality; he was a rich man, and not -dependent upon his vicarage. In the midst of his sinful life conscience -was arrested; he became converted; he countenanced and threw open his -pulpit to Mr. Whitefield; he became now as remarkable for his devout -life and fervent gospel preaching as he had been before for his -ungodliness. What made it all the worse was, that he was a man of real -genius. Now all his brethren in the ministry disowned him, and closed -their pulpits against him; and presently Bishop Lavington summoned him -to appear before him to answer the charges made against him by his -brethren for his Methodistical practices. “Sir,” said the Bishop, in the -course of conversation, “if you pursue these practices, and countenance -Whitefield, I will strip your gown from off you.” Mr. Thomson had on his -gown at the time—more frequently worn by ministers of the Church then -than now. To the amazement of the Bishop, Mr. Thomson exclaimed, “I will -save your lordship the trouble!” He took off his gown, dropped it at the -Bishop’s feet, saying, “My lord, I can preach without a gown!” and -before the Bishop could recover from his astonishment he was gone. This -was an instance, however, in which the Bishop was so decidedly in the -wrong that he sent for the vicar again, apologised to him; and the -circumstance, indeed, led to the entertainment by the Bishop of views -which were somewhat milder with reference to Methodism than those which -still give notoriety to his name. - -[Illustration: - - GEORGE WHITEFIELD. -] - -Southey[5], in his certainly not impartial volumes, admits that, for the -most part, the condition of the clergy was dreadful; it is not wonderful -that they closed their churches against the innovators. There was, for -instance, the Vicar of Colne, the Rev. George White; when the preachers -came into his neighbourhood, it was his usual practice to call his -parishioners together by the beat of a drum, to issue a proclamation at -the market-cross, and enlist a mob for the defence of the Church against -the Methodists. Here is a copy of the proclamation, a curiosity in its -way: “Notice is hereby given that if any man be mindful to enlist in His -Majesty’s service, under the command of the Rev. Mr. George White, -Commander-in-Chief, and John Bannister, Lieutenant-General of His -Majesty’s forces for the defence of the Church of England, and the -support of the manufactory in and about Colne, both which are now in -danger, let him repair to the drumhead at the Cross, where each man -shall receive a pint of ale in advance, and all other proper -encouragements.” Such are some of the instances, which might be -multiplied to any extent, showing the reception given to the revivalists -by the clergy of the time. But let no reader suppose that, in reciting -these things, we are willingly dwelling upon facts not creditable to the -Church, or that we forget how many of her most admirable members have -made an abundant _amende honorable_ by their eulogies since; nor are we -forgetting that Nonconformist chapels, whose cold respectability of -service and theology were sadly outraged by the new teachers, were not -more readily opened than the churches were to men with whom the Word of -the Lord was as a fire, or as a hammer to break the rock in pieces.[6] -Whitefield soon felt his power. Immediately after his ordination, he in -some way became for a time an occasional supply at the chapel in the -Tower; he found a straggling congregation of twenty or thirty hearers; -after a service or two the place was overflowing, and remained so. -During his short residence in that neighbourhood the youth continued -throughout the whole week preaching to the soldiers, preaching to -prisoners, holding services on Sunday mornings for young men before the -ordinary service. He was still ostensibly at Oxford; a profitable living -was offered to him in London, and instantly declined. He went to -Gloucester, to Bristol, to Kingswood. Of course it is impossible to -follow Whitefield step by step through his career; we can only rapidly -bring out a crayon sketch of the chief features of his work. He made -voyages to Georgia; voyaging was no pastime in those days, and he spent -a great amount of time in transit to and fro on the seas; our business -with him is chiefly as the first field-preacher; and Kingswood, near -Bristol, appears to have been the first place where this great work was -to be tried. It was then, what it is still, a region of rough -collieries, the Black Country of the West; the people themselves were of -the roughest order. Whitefield spoke at Bristol, to some friends, of his -probable speedy embarkation to preach the Gospel among the Indians of -America; and they said to him, “What need of going abroad to do this? -Have we not Indians enough at home? If you have a mind to convert -Indians, there are colliers enough in Kingswood!” A savage race! As to -taking to the fields in this instance, it was simply a necessity; there -were no churches from whence the preacher could be ejected. Try to -realize it: the heathen society, indoctrinated only in brutal sports; -the rough, black labour only typical of the rough, black minds, the -rough, black souls. Surely he must have been a very brave man; nor was -he one at all of that order of apostles whose native roughness is well -fitted, it seems, to challenge roughness to civility. - -Footnote 5: - - Appendix E. - -Footnote 6: - - Appendix F. - -Whitefield was a perfect gentleman, of manners most affectionate and -amiable; altogether the most unlikely creature, it seems, to rise -triumphant over the execrations of a mighty mob. The oratory of -Whitefield seems to us almost the greatest mystery in the history of -eloquence: his voice must have been wonderful; its strength was -overwhelming, but it was not a roar; its modulations and inflections -were equal to its strength, so that it had the all-commanding tones of a -bell in its clearness, and all the modulations of an organ in its -variety and sweetness. Kingswood only stands as a representative of -crowds of other such places, where savages fell before the enchantment -of his sweet music. Read any accounts of him, and it will be seen that -we do not exaggerate in speaking of him as the very Orpheus of the -pulpit. Assuredly, as it has been said Orpheus, by the power of his -music, drew trees, stones, the frozen mountain-tops, and the floods to -bow to his melody, so men, “stockish, hard, and full of rage,” felt a -change pass over their nature, as they came under the spell of -Whitefield. Yet, perhaps, he would not have gone to Kingswood had he not -been inhibited from preaching in the Bristol churches. He had preached -in St. Mary Redcliff, and the following day had preached opening sermons -in the parish church of SS. Philip and Jacob, and then he was called -before the Chancellor of the diocese, who asked him for his licence by -which he was permitted to preach in that diocese. Whitefield said he was -an ordained minister of the Church of England, and as to the special -licence, it was obsolete. “Why did you not ask,” he said, “for the -licence of the clergyman who preached for you last Thursday?” The -Chancellor replied, “That is no business of yours.” Whitefield said, -“There is a canon forbidding clergymen to frequent taverns and play at -cards, why is that not enforced?” The Chancellor evaded this, but -charged Whitefield with preaching false doctrine; Whitefield replied -that he preached what he knew to be the truth, and he would continue to -preach. “Then,” said the Chancellor, “I will excommunicate you!” The end -of it was that all the city churches were shut against him. “But,” he -says, “if they were all open, they would not contain half the people who -come to hear. So at three in the afternoon I went to Kingswood among the -colliers.” Whitefield laid his case in a very respectful letter, before -the Bishop, but on he went. As to Kingswood, tears poured down the black -faces of the colliers; the great audiences are described as being -drenched in tears. Whitefield himself was in a passion of tears. “How -can I help weeping,” he said to them, “when you have not wept for -yourselves?” And they began to weep. Thus in 1739 began the mighty work -at Kingswood, which has been a great Methodist colony from that day to -this. That was a good morning’s work for the cause of Christ when the -Chancellor shut the doors of the churches of Bristol against the brave -and beautiful preacher, and threatened to excommunicate him. Was it not -said of old, “Thou makest the wrath of man to praise Thee”? - -Now, then, see him girt and road-ready; we might be sure that the -example of the Chancellor of Bristol would be pretty generally followed. -The old ecclesiastical corporations set themselves in array against him; -but how futile the endeavour! Their canons and rubrics were like the -building of hedges to confine an eagle, and they only left him without a -choice—without any choice but to fulfil his instinct for souls, and to -soar. Other “little brief authorities,” mayors, aldermen, and such like, -issued their fulminations. Coming to Basingstoke, the mayor, one John -Abbott, inhibited him. John Abbott seems to have been a burly butcher. -The intercourse and correspondence between the two is very humorously -characteristic; but, although it gives an insight as to the antagonism -which frequently awaited Whitefield, it is too long to quote in this -brief sketch. The butcher-mayor was coarse and insolent; Whitefield -never lost his sweet graciousness; writing to abusive butchers or -abusive bishops, as in his reply to Lavington, he never lost his temper, -never indulged in satire, never exhibits any great marks of genius, -writes straight to the point, simply vindicates himself and his course, -never retracts, never apologises, goes straight on. - -There is no other instance of a preacher who was so equally at home and -equally impressive and commanding in the most various and dissimilar -circles and scenes; it is significant of the notice he excited that his -name occurs so frequently in the correspondence of that cold and -heartless man and flippant sneerer, Horace Walpole, whose allusions to -him are usually disgraceful; but so it was, he was equally commanding in -the polished and select circles of the drawing-room, surrounded by dukes -and duchesses, great statesmen and philosophers, or in the large old -tabernacle or parish church, surrounded by more orderly and saintly -worshippers, or in nature’s vast and grand cathedrals, with twenty or -thirty thousand people around him. - -From the day when he went to Kingswood, we may run a rapid eye along the -perspective of his career—in fields, on heaths, and on commons, it was -the same everywhere; from his intense life we might find many scenes for -description: take one or two. On the breast of the mountain, the trees -and hedges full of people, hushed to profound silence, the open -firmament above him, the prospect of adjacent fields—the sight of -thousands on thousands of people; some in coaches, some on horseback, -and all affected, or drenched in tears. Sometimes evening approaches, -and then he says, “Beneath the twilight it was too much for me, and -quite overcame me.” There was one night never to be forgotten. While he -was preaching it lightened exceedingly; his spirit rose on the tempest; -his voice tolled out the doom and decay hanging over all nature; he -preached the warnings and the consolations of the coming of the Son of -man. The thunder broke over his head, the lightning shone along the -preacher’s path, it ran along the ground in wild glares from one part of -heaven to the other; the whole audience shook like the leaves of a -forest in the wind, whilst high amidst the thunders and the lightnings, -the preacher’s voice rose, exclaiming, “Oh; my friends, the wrath of -God! the wrath of God!” Then his spirit seemed to pass serenely right -through the tempest, and he talked of Christ, who swept the wrath away; -and then he told how he longed for the time when Christ should be -revealed, amidst the flaming fire, consuming all natural things. “Oh,” -exclaimed he, “that my soul may be in a like flame when He shall come to -call me!” Can we realize what his soul must have been who could burn -with such seraphic ardours in the midst of such scenes? - -[Illustration: - - WHITEFIELD PREACHING IN LONDON. -] - -So he opened the way everywhere, by his field-preaching, for John -Wesley. Truly it has been said, “Whitefield, and not Wesley, is the -prominent figure in the opening of the Methodist movement;” and the time -we must assign to this first popular agitation is the winter of 1738-39. -The two men were immensely different. To Whitefield the preaching was no -light work; it was not talking. After one of his sermons, drenched -through, he would lie down, spent, sobbing, exhausted, death-like: John -Wesley, after one of his most effective sermons, in which he also had -shaken men’s souls, would just quietly mount his little pony, and ride -off to the next village or town, reading his book as he went, or -stopping by the way to pluck curious flowers or simples from the hedges; -the poise of their spirits was so different. All great movements need -two men, Moses and Aaron; the prophet Elijah must go before, “to restore -all things.” Whitefield lived in the immediate neighbourhood and -breathed the air of essential truth; Wesley looked at men, and saw how -all remained undone until the work took coherency and shape. As he says, -“I was convinced that preaching like an apostle, without joining -together those that are awakened, and training them up in the ways of -God, is only begetting children for the murderer.” Whitefield preached -like an apostle; the scenes we have described appear charming rural -scenes, in which men’s hearts were bowed and hushed before him; but -there were widely different scenes when he defied the devil, and sought -to win his victims away, even in fairs and wakes—the most wild and -dissolute periodical pests and nuisances of the age. Rough human nature -went down before him, as in the instance of the man who came with heavy -stones to pelt him, and suddenly found his hands as it were tied, and -himself in tears, and, at the close, went up to the preacher, and said, -“I came here only to break your head, and you have broken my heart!” - -But the roughs of London seem to have been worse than the roughs of -Kingswood; and we cannot wonder that men like Walpole, and even polite -and refined religious men, thought that a man who could go right into -St. Bartholomew’s Fair, in Moorfields, and Finsbury, take his station -among drummers, trumpeters, merry-andrews, harlequins, and all kinds of -wild beasts, must be “mad”; it must have seemed the height of -fanaticism, like preaching to a real Gadarene swinery. All the -historians of the movement—Sir James Stephen, Dr. Abel Stevens, Dr. -Southey, Isaac Taylor, and others, recite with admiration the story of -the way in which he wrestled successfully with the merry-andrews. He -began to preach at six o’clock in the morning; stones, dirt, rotten eggs -were hurled at him. “My soul was among lions,” he says; but the -marvellous voice overcame, and he went on speaking, and we know how -tenderly he would speak to them, of their own miseries, and the dangers -of their own sins; the great multitude—it was between twenty and thirty -thousand—“became like lambs;” he finished, went away, and, in the wilder -time—in the afternoon—he came again. In the meantime there had been -organisations to put him down: here was a man with a long heavy whip to -strike the preacher; there was a recruiting sergeant who had been -engaged with drum and fife to interrupt him. As he appeared on the -outskirts of the crowd, Whitefield, who well knew how to catch the -humour of the people too, exclaimed, “Make way for the king’s officer!” -and the mob divided, while, to his surprise, the recruiting officer, -with his drum, found himself immediately beneath Whitefield; it was easy -to manage him now. The crowd around roared like wild beasts; it must -have been a tremendous scene. Will it be believed—it seems -incredible—that he continued there, preaching, praying, singing, until -the night fell? He won a decided victory, and the next day received no -fewer than a thousand notes from persons, “brands plucked from the -burning,” who spoke of the convictions through which they had passed, -and implored the preacher to remember them in his prayers. - -This was in Moorfields, in which neighbourhood since, the followers both -of Wesley and of Whitefield have found their tabernacles and most -eminent fields of usefulness. Many have attempted fair-preaching since -Whitefield’s day, but not, we believe, with much success; it needs a -remarkable combination of powers to make such efforts successful. -Whitefield was able to attempt to outbid the showmen, merry-andrews, and -harlequins, and he succeeded. No wonder they called him a fanatic; he -might have said, “If we be beside ourselves, it is for God, that by all -means we may save some!” - -But what we have been especially desirous that our readers should note -is, that these more vehement manifestations of Methodism were not the -result of any methodised plan, but were a simple yielding to, and taking -possession of circumstances; it was as if “the Spirit of the Lord” came -down upon the leaders, and “carried them whither they knew not.” - - * * * * * - -[For an account of Whitefield’s labours in America, and the spread of -the Great Revival there, the reader is referred to the supplemental -chapter at the end of this volume.] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER V - - THE REVIVAL CONSERVATIVE. - - -Lord Macaulay’s verdict upon John Wesley, that he possessed a “genius -for government not inferior to that of Richelieu,” received immediate -demonstration when he came actively into the movement, and has been -abundantly confirmed since his death, in the history of the society -which he founded. It has been said that all institutions are the -prolonged shadow of one mind, and that by the inclusiveness, or power of -perpetuity in the institution, we may know the mind of the founder. Much -of our last chapter was devoted to some attempt to realise the place and -power of Whitefield;[7] what he was in relation to the Revival may be -defined by the remark, often made, and by capable critics, that while -there have been multitudes of better sermon-makers, it is uncertain -whether the Church ever had so great a pulpit orator. In Wesley’s mind -everything became structural and organic; he was a mighty master of -administration; but he also followed Whitefield’s example, and took to -the fields; and very great, indeed, amazing results, followed his -ministry. - -Footnote 7: - - See Chapter XIV. for his place and power in America. - -Many of the incidents which are impressive and amusing show the -difference between the men. Whitefield overwhelmed the people: Wesley -met insolence and antagonism by some sharp, concise, and cuttingly -appropriate retort, which was remarkable, considering his stature. But -both his presence and his words must have been unusually commanding: “Be -silent, or begone,” he turned round sharply and said once to some -violent disturbers, and they were obedient to the command. - -Wesley’s rencontre with Beau Nash at Bath is a fair illustration of his -quiet and almost obscurely sarcastic method of confounding a troublesome -person. Preaching in the open air at Bath, the King of Bath, the Master -of the Ceremonies, Nash, was so unwise as to attempt to put down the -apostolic man. Nash’s character was bad; it was that of an idle, -heartless, licentious dangler on the skirts of high society. He appeared -in the crowd, and authoritatively asked Wesley by what right he dared to -stand there. The congregation was not wholly of the poor; there were a -number of fashionable and noble persons present, and among them many -with whom this attack had been pre-arranged, and who expected to see the -discomfiture of the Methodist by the courtly and fashionable old dandy. -Wesley replied to the question simply and quietly that he stood there by -the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed to him “by the present -Archbishop of Canterbury, when he laid hands on me and said, ‘Take thou -authority to preach the Gospel!’” Nash began to bustle and to be -turbulent, and he exclaimed, “This is contrary to Act of Parliament; -this is a conventicle.” “Sir,” said Wesley, “the Act you refer to -applies to seditious meetings: here is no sedition, no shadow of -sedition; the meeting is not, therefore, contrary to the Act.” Nash -stormed, “I say it is; besides, your preaching frightens people out of -their wits.” “Sir,” said Wesley, “give me leave to ask, Did you ever -hear me preach?” “No!” “How, then, can you judge of what you have never -heard?” “Sir, by common report.” “Common report is not enough,” said -Wesley; “again give me leave to ask is your name not Nash?” “My name is -Nash.” And then the reader must imagine Wesley’s thin, clear, piercing -voice, cutting through the crowd: “Sir, I dare not judge of _you_ by -common report.” There does not seem much in it, but the effect was -overwhelming. Nash tried to bully it out a little; but, to make his -discomfiture complete, the people took up the case, and especially one -old woman, whose daughter had come to grief through the fop, in her way -so set forth his sins that he was glad to retreat in dismay. On another -occasion, when attempts were made to assault Wesley, there was some -uncertainty about his person, and the assailants were saying, “Which is -he? which is he?” he stood still as he was walking down the crowded -street, turned upon them, and said, “I am he;” and they instantly fell -back, awed into involuntary silence and respect. - -It is characteristic that while Whitefield simply took to the work of -field-preaching, and preaching in the open air, and troubled himself -very little about finding or giving reasons for the irregularity of the -proceeding, Wesley defended the practice with formidable arguments. It -is remarkable that the practice should have been deemed so irregular, or -should need vindication, considering that our Lord had given to it the -sanction of His example, and that it had been adopted by the apostles -and fathers, the greatest of the Catholic preachers, and the reformers -of every age. A history of field and street-preaching would form a large -and interesting chapter of Church history. Southey quotes a very happy -series of arguments from one of Wesley’s appeals: “What need is there,” -he says, speaking for his antagonists, “of this preaching in the fields -and streets? Are there not churches enough to preach in?” “No, my -friend, there are not, not for us to preach in. You forget we are not -suffered to preach there, else we should prefer them to any place -whatever.” “Well, there are ministers enough without you.” “Ministers -enough, and churches enough! For what? To reclaim all the sinners within -the four seas? and one plain reason why these sinners are never -reclaimed is this: they never come into a church. Will you say, as some -tender-hearted Christians I have heard, ‘Then it is their own fault; let -them die and be damned!’ I grant it may be their own fault, but the -Saviour of souls came after us, and so we ought to seek to save that -which is lost.” He went on to confess the irregularity, but he retorted -that those persons who compelled him to be irregular had no right to -censure him for irregularity. “Will they throw a man into the dirt,” -said he, “and beat him because he is dirty? Of all men living those -clergymen ought not to complain who believe I preach the Gospel; if they -will not ask me to preach in their churches, they are accountable for my -preaching in the fields.” This is a fair illustration of the neat -shrewdness, the compact, incisive common sense of Wesley’s mind. Thus he -argued himself into that sphere of labour which justified him in after -years in saying, without any extravagance, “The world is my parish.” - -We have said the Revival became conservative. It is true the Countess -of Huntingdon did much to make it so; but it assumed a shape of -vitality, and a force of coherent strength, chiefly from the touch of -Wesley’s administrative mind. The present City Road Chapel, which was -opened in 1776, opposite Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, is probably the -first illustration of this fact; it stands where stood the -Foundry—time-honoured spot in the history of Methodism. It stood in -Moorfields; the City Road was a mere lane then. The building had been -used by government for casting cannon; it was a rude ruin. Wesley -purchased it and the site at the very commencement of his work, in -1739; he turned it into a temple. As the years passed on it became the -cradle of London Methodism, accommodating fifteen hundred people. -Until within twenty years of Wesley’s purchase this had been a kind of -Woolwich Arsenal to the government; it became a temple of peace, and -here came “band-rooms,” school-rooms, book-rooms—the first saplings of -Methodist usefulness. - -[Illustration: - - JOHN WESLEY. -] - -It has been truly said by a writer in the _British Quarterly_, that the -most romantic lives of the saints of the Roman Catholic calendar do not -present a more startling succession of incidents than those which meet -us in the life and labours of Wesley. Romish stories claim that Blessed -Raymond, of Pegnafort, spread his cloak upon the sea to transport him -across the water, sailing one hundred and sixty miles in six hours, and -entering his convent through closed doors! The devout and zealous -Francis Xavier spent three whole days in two different places at the -same time, preaching all the while! Rome shines out in transactions like -these: Wesley does not; but he seems to have been almost ubiquitous, and -he moves with a rapidity reminding us of that flying angel who had the -everlasting Gospel to preach, and he shines alike in his conflicts with -nature and the still wilder tempests caused by the passions of men. We -read of his travelling, through the long wintry hours, two hundred and -eighty miles on horseback, in six days; it was a wonderful feat in those -times. When Wesley first began his itinerancy there were no turnpikes in -the country; but before he closed his career, he had probably paid more, -says Dr. Southey, for turnpikes, than any other man in England, for no -other man in England travelled so much. His were no pleasant journeys, -as of summer days; he travelled through the fens of Lincolnshire when -the waters were out; and over the fells of Northumberland when they were -covered with snow. Speaking of one tremendous journey, through dreadful -weather, he says, “Many a rough journey have I had before; but one like -this I never had, between wind and hail, and rain, and ice, and snow, -and driving sleet, and piercing cold; but it is past. Those days will -return no more, and are therefore as though they had never been. - - “‘And pain, like pleasure, is a dream!’” - -How singular was his visit to Epworth, where he found the church of his -childhood, his father’s church, the church of his own first -ministrations, closed against him! The minister of the church was a -drunkard; he had been under great obligations, both to Wesley himself -and to the Wesley family, but he assailed him with the most offensive -brutality; and when Wesley, denied the pulpit, signified his intention -of simply partaking of the Lord’s Supper with the parishioners on the -following Sunday, the coarse man sent word, “Tell Mr. Wesley I shall not -give him the Sacrament, for he is not _fit_.” It seems to have cut Mr. -Wesley very deeply. “It was fit,” he says, “that he who repelled me from -the 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 my -father had shown to his, as well as personally to himself.” He stayed -there, however, eight days, and preached every evening in the -churchyard, standing on his father’s tomb; truly a singular sight, the -living son, the prophet of his age, surely little short of inspired, -preaching from his dead father’s grave with such pathos and power as we -may well conceive. “I am well assured,” he says, “I did far more good to -my old Lincolnshire parishioners by preaching three days on my father’s -tomb than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit!” - -[Illustration: - - WESLEY PREACHING IN EPWORTH CHURCHYARD. -] - -As he travelled to and fro, odd mistakes sometimes happened. Arrived at -York, he went into the church in St. Saviour’s Gate; the rector, one Mr. -Cordeau, had often warned his congregation against going to hear “that -vagabond Wesley” preach. It was usual in that day for ministers of the -Establishment to wear the cassock or gown, just as everywhere in France -we see the French abbés. Wesley had on his gown, like a university man -in a university town. Mr. Cordeau, not knowing who he was, offered him -his pulpit; Wesley was quite willing, and always ready. Sermons leaped -impromptu from his lips, and this sermon was an impressive one; at its -close the clerk asked the rector if he knew who the preacher was. “No.” -“Why, sir, it was that vagabond Wesley!” “Ah, indeed!” said the -astonished clergyman; “well, never mind, we have had a good sermon.” The -anecdotes of the incidents which waited upon the preacher in his travels -are of every order of humorous, affecting, and romantic interest; they -are spread over a large variety of volumes, and even still need to be -gathered, framed, and hung in the light of some effective chronicle. - -[Illustration: - - EPWORTH CHURCH. -] - -The brilliant passage in which Lord Macaulay portrays, as with the -pencil of a Vandyke, the features of the great English Puritans, is -worthy of attention. Perhaps, even had the great essayist attempted the -task, he had scarcely the requisite sympathies to give an effective -portrait or portraits of the early Methodists; indeed, their characters -are different, as different as a portrait from the pencil of Denner to -one from that of Vandyke, or of Velasquez; but as Denner is wonderful -too, although so homely, so the Methodist is a study. The early -Methodist was, perhaps, usually a very simple, what we should call an -ignorant, man, but he had “the true Light which lighteth every man that -cometh into the world.” He was not such an one as the early Puritan[8] -or the ancient Huguenot, those children of the camp and of the sword, -Nonconformist Templars and Crusaders, whose theology had trained them -for the battle-field, teaching them to frown defiance on kings, and to -treat with contempt the proudest nobles, if they were merely -unsanctified men. The Methodist was not such an one as the stern -Ironside of Cromwell; as he lived in a more cheerful age, so he was the -subject of a more cheerful piety; he was as loyal as he was lowly. He -had been forgotten or neglected by all the priests and Levites of the -land; but a voice had reached him, and raised him to the rank of a -living, conscious, immortal soul. He also was one for whom Christ died. -A new life had created new interests in him; and Christianity, really -believed, does ennoble a man—how can it do otherwise? It gives -self-respect to a man, it shows to him a new purpose and business in -life; moreover, it creates a spirit of holy cheerfulness and joy; and -thus came about that state of mind which Wesley made subservient to -organisation—the necessity for meetings and reciprocations. It has been -said that every church must have some sign or counter-sign, some symbol -to make it popularly successful. St. Dominic gave to his order the -Rosary; John Wesley gave to his Society the Ticket. There were no -chapels, or but few, and none to open their doors to these strange new -pilgrims to the celestial city. We have seen that the churches were -closed against them. Lord Macaulay says, had John Wesley risen in the -Church of Rome, she would have thrown her arms round him, only regarding -him as the founder of a new order, with certain peculiarities calculated -to increase and to extend her empire, and in due time have given to him -the honours of canonisation. - -Footnote 8: - - See Appendix A. - -The English clergy as a body gathered up their garments and shrunk from -all contact with the Methodists as from a pestilence. What could be -done? Something must be done to prevent them from falling back into the -world. Piety needs habit, and must become habitual to be safe, even as -the fine-twined linen of the veil, and the ark of the covenant, and the -cherubim shadowing the mercy-seat, were shut in and all their glory -defended by the rude coverings of badger-skins. John Wesley knew that -the safety of the converted would be in frequent meetings for singing -and prayer and conversation. Reciprocation is the soul of Methodism; so -they assembled in each others’ houses, in rude and lonely but convenient -rooms, by farm-house ingles, in lone hamlets. Thus was created a homely -piety, often rugged enough, no doubt, but full of beautiful and pathetic -instincts. So grew what came to be called band-meetings, class-meetings, -love-feasts, and all the innumerable means by which the Methodist -Society worked, until it became like a wheel within a wheel; simple -enough, however, in the days to which we are referring. “Look to the -Lord, and faithfully attend all the means of grace appointed in the -Society.” Such was, practically, the whole of Methodism. So that famous -old lady, whose bright example has so often been held up on Methodist -platforms, when called upon to state the items of her creed, did so very -sufficiently when she summed it up in the four particulars of -“repentance towards God; faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; a penny a week; -and a shilling a quarter.” Wesley seems to have summed the Methodist -creed more simply still: “Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, and an -earnest desire to flee from the wrath to come.” This was his condition -of Church fellowship. When the faith became more consciously objective, -it too was seized by the passionate instinct, the desire t o save souls. -This drove the early Methodists out on great occasions to call vast -multitudes together on heaths, on moors. Perhaps—but this was at a later -time—some country gentleman threw open his old hall to the preachers; -though the more aristocratic phase of the Methodist movement fell into -the Calvinistic rather than into the Wesleyan ranks, and subsided into -the organisation of the Countess of Huntingdon, which was, in fact, a -kind of Free Church of England. The followers of Wesley sought the -sequestration of nature, or in cities and towns they took to the streets -or the broad ways and outlying fields. In some neighbourhoods a little -room was built, containing the germ of what in a few years became a -large Wesleyan Society. The burden of all these meetings, and all their -intercourse, whether in speech or song, was the sweetness and fulness of -Jesus. They had intense faith in the love of God shed abroad in the -heart; and their great interest was in souls on the brink of perdition. -They knew little of spiritual difficulties or speculative despair; their -conflict was with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and in this -person, whose features have lately become somewhat dim, and who has -wrapped himself in a new cloak of darkness, they did really believe. -Wesley dealt with sin as sin, and with souls as souls; he and his band -of preachers had little regard to proprieties, and it was not a polished -time; so, ungraceful and undignified, the face weary, and the hand heavy -with toil, they seemed out of breath pursuing souls. The strength of all -these men was that they had a definite creed, and they sought to guard -it by a definite Church life. The early Methodist had also cultivated -the mighty instinct of prayer, about which he had no philosophy, but -believing that God heard him, he quite simply indulged in it as a -passion, and in this to him there was at once a meaning and a joy. We -are not under the necessity of vindicating every phase of the great -movement, we are simply writing down some particulars of its history, -and how it was that it grew and prevailed. God’s ministry goes on by -various means, ordinary and extraordinary; that is the difference -between rivers and rains, between dews and lightnings. - -A very interesting chapter, perhaps a volume, might be compiled from the -old records of the mere anecdotes—the very humours—of the persecution -attending on the Revival. Thus, in Cornwall, Edward Greenfield, a -tanner, with a wife and seven children, was arrested under a warrant -granted by Dr. Borlase, the eminent antiquary, who was, however, a -bitter foe to Methodism. It was inquired what was the objection to -Greenfield, a peaceable, inoffensive man; and the answer was, “The man -is well enough, but the gentlemen round about can’t bear his impudence; -why, he says he knows his sins are forgiven!” The story is well known -how, in one place, a whole waggon-load of Methodists were taken before -the magistrates; but when the question was asked in court what they had -done, a profound silence fell over the assembly, for no one was prepared -with a charge against them, till somebody exclaimed, “They pretended to -be better than other people, and prayed from morning till night!” And -another voice shouted out, “And they’ve _convarted_ my wife; till she -went among they, she had a tongue of her own, and now she’s as quiet as -a lamb!” “Take them all back, take them all back,” said the sensible -magistrate, “and let them convert all the scolds in the town!” - -There is a spot in Cornwall which may be said to be consecrated and set -apart to the memory of Wesley; it is in the immediate neighbourhood of -Redruth, a wild, bare, rugged-looking region now, very suggestive of its -savage aspect upwards of a hundred years since. The spot to which we -refer is the Gwennap Pit; it is a wild amphitheatre, cut out among the -hills, capable of holding about thirty thousand persons. Its natural -walls slant upwards, and the place has altogether wonderful properties -for the carrying the human voice. Wesley began to preach in this spot in -1762. When he first visited Cornwall, the savage mobs of what used to be -called “West Barbary,” howled and roared upon him like lions or wild -beasts; in his later years of visitation, no emperor or sovereign prince -could have been received with more reverence and affection. The streets -were lined and the windows of the houses thronged with gazing crowds, to -see him as he walked along; and no wonder, for Cornwall was one of the -chief territories of that singular ecclesiastical kingdom of which he -was the founder. When he first went into Cornwall, it was really a -region of savage irreligion and heathenism. The reader of his life often -finds, usually about once a year, the visit to Gwennap Pit recorded: he -preached his first sermon there, as we have said, in 1762; at the age of -eighty-six he preached his last in 1789. There, from time to time, they -poured in from all the country round to see and to listen to the words -of this truly reverend father. - -[Illustration: - - The Great Revival. - Wesley Preaching in Gwennap Pit. -] - -The traditions of Methodism have few more imposing scenes. Gwennap Pit -was, perhaps, Wesley’s most famous cathedral; a magnificent church, if -we may apply that term to a building of nature, among the wild moors; it -was thronged by hushed and devout worshippers. Until Wesley went among -these people, the whole immense population might have said, “No man -cared for our souls;” now they poured in to see him there: wild miners -from the immediate neighbourhood, fishermen from the coast, men who -until their conversion had pursued the wrecker’s remorseless and -criminal career, smugglers, more quiet men and their families less -savage, but not less ignorant, from their shieling, or lowly farmstead -on the distant heath. A strange throng, if we think of it, men who had -never used God’s name except in an oath, and who had never breathed a -prayer except for the special providence of a shipwreck, and who with -wicked barbarity had kindled their delusive lights along the coasts, to -fascinate unfortunate ships to the cruel cliffs! But a Divine power had -passed over them, and they were changed, with their families; and hither -they came to gladden the heart of the old patriarch in the wild glen—a -strange spot, and not unbeautiful, roofed over by the blue heavens. -Amidst the broom, the twittering birds, the heath flower, and the -scantling of trees, amidst the venerable rocks, it must have been -wonderful to hear the thirty thousand voices welling up, and singing -Wesley’s words: - - “Suffice that for the season past, - Hell’s horrid language filled our tongues; - We all Thy words behind us cast, - And loudly sang the drunkard’s songs. - But, oh, the power of grace Divine! - In hymns we now our voices raise, - Loudly in strange hosannahs join, - While blasphemies are turned to praise!” - -Such was one of the triumphs of the Great Revival. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - THE SINGERS OF THE REVIVAL. - - -Chief of all the auxiliary circumstances which aided the Great Revival, -beyond a question, was this: that it taught the people of England, for -the first time, the real power of sacred song. That man in the north of -England who, when taken, by a companion who had been converted, to a -great Methodist preaching, and being asked at the close of the service -how he had enjoyed it, replied, “Weel, I didna care sae mich aboot the -preaching, but, eh, man! yon ballants were grand,” was no doubt a -representative character. And the great and subduing power of large -bodies of people, moved as with one heart and one voice, must have -greatly aided to produce those effects which we are attempting to -realise. All great national movements have acknowledged and used the -power of song. For man is a born singer, and if he cannot sing himself -he likes to feel the power of those who can. It has been so in political -movements: there were the songs of the Roundheads and the Cavaliers. And -the greatest religious movements through all the Christian ages have -acknowledged the power of sacred song, even from the days of the -apostles, and from the time of St. Ambrose in Milan. Luther soon found -that he must teach the people to sing. That is a pleasant little story, -how once, as he was sitting at his window, he heard a blind beggar sing. -It was something about the grace of God, and Luther says the strain -brought tears into his eyes. Then, he says, the thought suddenly flashed -into his mind, “If I could only make gospel songs which people could -sing, and which would spread themselves up and down the cities!” He -directly set to work upon this inspiration, and let fly song after song, -each like a lark mounting towards heaven’s gate, full of New Testament -music. “He took care,” says one writer, in mentioning the incident, -“that each song should have some rememberable word or refrain; such as -‘Jesus,’ ‘Believe and be saved,’ ‘Come unto Me,’ ‘Gospel,’ ‘Grace,’ -‘Worthy is the Lamb,’ and so on.” - -Until Watts and Doddridge appeared, England had no popular sacred -melodies. Amongst the works of the poets, such as Sir Philip Sidney, -Milton, Sandys, George Herbert, and others, a few were scattered up and -down; but they mostly lacked the subtle element which constitutes a -hymn. For, just as a man may be a great poet, and utterly fail in the -power to write a good song, so a man may be a great sacred poet, and yet -miss the faculty which makes the hymn-writer. It is singular, it is -almost indefinable. The subtle something which catches the essential -elements of a great human experience, and gives it lyrical expression, -takes that which other men put into creeds, sermons, theological essays, -and sets it flying, as we just now said, like “the lark to heaven’s -gate.” It ought never to be forgotten that Watts was, in fact, the -creator of the English hymn. He wrote many lines which good taste can in -no case approve; but here again the old proverb holds true, “The house -that is building does not look like the house that is built.” And the -great number of following writers, while they have felt the inspiration -he gave to the Church, have moulded their lines by a more fastidious -taste, which, if it has sometimes improved the metre or the sentiment, -has possibly diminished in the strength. We will venture to say that -even now there is a greater average of majesty of thought and expression -in Watts’s hymns than in any other of our great hymn-writers; although, -in some cases, we find here and there a piece which may equal, and some -one or two which are said to surpass, the flights of the sweet singer of -Stoke Newington. But the hymns of Watts, as a whole, were not so well -fitted to a great and popular revival, to the expression of a tumultuous -and passionate experience, as some we shall notice. They were, as a -whole, especially wanting in the social element, and the finest of them -sound like notes from the harp of some solitary angel. One cannot give -to them the designation which the Wesleys gave to large sections of -their hymns, “suitable for experience meetings.” Praise rather than -experience is the characteristic of Watts, although there are noble -exceptions. Our readers will perhaps remember a well-known and pleasing -instance in a letter from Doddridge to his aged friend. Doddridge had -been preaching on a summer evening in some plain old village chapel in -Northamptonshire, when at the close of the service was “given out,” as -we say, that hymn commencing: - - “Give me the wings of faith to rise.” - -We can suppose the melody to which it was sung to have been very rude; -but it was, perhaps, new to the people, and the preacher was affected as -he saw how, over the congregation, the people were singing earnestly, -and melted to tears while they sang; and at the close of the service -many old people gathered round Doddridge, their hearts all alive with -the hymn, and they wished it were possible, only for once, to look upon -the face of the dear old Dr. Watts. Doddridge was so pleased that he -thought his old friend would be pleased also, and so he wrote the -account of the little incident in a letter to him. In many other parts -of the country, no doubt, the people were waiting and wishful for -popular sacred harmonies. And when the Great Revival came, and -congregations met by thousands, and multitudes who had been accustomed -to song, thoughtless, foolish, very often sinful and licentious, still -needed to sing (for song and human nature are inseparable, apparently, -so far as we know anything about it, in the next world as well as in -this), it was necessary that, as they had been “brought up out of the -horrible pit and miry clay,” “a new song of praise” should be put in the -mouth. John Wesley had heard much of Moravian singing. He took Count -Zinzendorf’s hymns, translated them, and immensely improved them; he was -the first who introduced into our psalmody the noble words of Paul -Gerhardt. Some of the finest of all the hymns in the Wesleyan collection -are these translations. Watts was unsparingly used. Wesley’s first -effort to meet this necessity of the Revival was the publication of his -collection in 1739.[9] And thus, most likely without knowing the -anecdote of Luther we have quoted above, Wesley and his coadjutors did -exactly what the Reformer had done. They gave effect to the Revival by -the ordinance of song, and preached the Gospel in sweet words, and often -recurring Gospel refrains. - -Footnote 9: - - See Appendix. - -The remark is true that there was no art, no splendid form of worship or -ritual; early Methodism and the entire evangelic movement were as free -from all this as Clairvaux in the Valley of Wormwood, when Bernard -ministered there with all his monks around him, or as Cluny when Bernard -de Morlaix chanted his “Jerusalem the Golden.” Like all great religious -movements which have shaken men’s souls, this was purely spiritual, or -if it had a secular expression it was not artificial. Loud amens -resounded as the preacher spoke or prayed, and then the hearty gushes -of, perhaps, not melodious song united all hearts in some litany or Te -Deum in new-born verse from some of the singers of the last revival. -Amongst infuriated mobs, we read how Wesley found a retreat in song, and -overpowered the multitude with what we, perhaps, should not regard -melody. Thus, when at Bengeworth in 1740, where Wesley was set upon by a -crowd, and it was proposed by one that they should take him away and -duck him, he broke out into singing with his redoubted friend, Thomas -Maxfield. He allowed them to carry him whither they would; at the bridge -end of the street the mob retreated and left him; but he took his stand -on the bridge, and striking up— - - “Angel of God, whate’er betide, - Thy summons I obey,” - -preached a useful and effective sermon to hundreds who remained to -listen, from the text, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” - -But the contributions of Watts and Wesley are so well known that it is -more important to notice here that as the Revival moved on, very soon -other remarkable lyrists appeared to contribute, if few, yet really -effective words. Of these none is more remarkable than the mighty -cobbler, Thomas Olivers, a “sturdy Welshman,” as Southey calls him. He -is not to be confounded with John Oliver, also one of the notabilities -of the Revival. Thomas was really an astonishing trophy of the movement; -before his conversion he was a thoroughly bad fellow, a kind of -wandering reprobate, an idle, dissipated man. He fell beneath the power -of Whitefield, whom he heard preach from the text, “Is not this a brand -plucked out of the fire?” He had made comic songs about Whitefield, and -sung them with applause in tap-rooms. As Whitefield came in his way, he -went with the purpose of obtaining fresh fuel for his ridicule. The -heart of the man was completely broken, and he felt so much compunction -for what he had done against the man for whom he now felt so deep a -reverence and awe, that he used to follow him in the streets, and though -he did not speak to him, he says he could scarcely refrain from kissing -the prints of his footsteps. And now, he says, at the beginning of his -new life, what we can well believe of an imagination so intense and -strong, “I saw God in everything: the heavens, the earth and all therein -showed me something of Him; yea, even from a drop of water, a blade of -grass, or a grain of sand, I received instruction.” He was about -seriously to enter into a settled and respectable way of business when -John Wesley heard of him; and although he was converted under -Whitefield, Wesley persuaded him to yield himself to his direction for -the work of preaching as one of his itinerant band, and sent him into -Cornwall—just the man we should think for Cornwall, fiery and -imaginative: off he went, in 1753. He was born in 1725. He testifies -that he was “unable to buy a horse, so, with my boots on my legs, my -great-coat on my back, and my bag with my books and linen across my -shoulders, I set out for Cornwall on foot.” Henceforth there were -forty-six years on earth before him, during which he witnessed a -magnificent confession before many witnesses. He became one of the -foremost controversialists when dissensions arose among the men of the -Revival. He acquired a knowledge of the languages, especially of Hebrew, -and was a great reader. Wesley appointed him as his editor and general -proofreader; but he could never be taught to punctuate properly, and the -punctilious Wesley could not tolerate his inaccuracies as they slipped -through the proof, so he did not retain this post long. But Wesley loved -him, and in 1799 he descended into Wesley’s own tomb, and his remains -lie there, in the cemetery of the City Road Chapel. He wrote more prose -than poetry; but, like St. Ambrose, he is made immortal by a single -hymn. He is the author of one of the most majestic hymns in all -hymnology. Byron and Scott wrote Hebrew melodies, but they will not bear -comparison with this one. While in London upon one occasion, he went -into the Jewish synagogue, and he heard sung there by a rabbi, Dr. -Leoni, an old air, a melody which so enchanted him and fixed itself in -his memory, that he went home, and instantly produced what he called “a -hymn to the God of Abraham,” arranged to the air he had heard. And thus -we possess that which we so frequently sing, - - “The God of Abraham praise!”[10] - -It is principally known by its first four verses; there are twelve. -“There is not,” says James Montgomery, “in our language a lyric of more -majestic style, more elevated thought, or more glorious imagery; * * * -like a stately pile of architecture, severe and simple in design; it -strikes less on the first view than after deliberate examination, * * * -the mind itself grows greater in contemplating it;” and he continues, -“On account of the peculiarity of the measure, none but a person of -equal musical and poetical taste could have produced the harmony -perceptible in the verse.” There will, perhaps, always be a doubt -whether Olivers was the author of the hymn, - - “Lo! He comes with clouds descending.” - -If Charles Wesley were the author, he undoubtedly derived the -inspiration of the piece from Olivers’ hymn, “The Last Judgment:”[11] it -is in the same metre, and probably Wesley took the thought and the -metre, and adapted it to popular service. What is undoubted is that -Olivers, who is the author of the metre, is also the author of the fine -old tune “Helmsley,” to which the hymn was usually sung until quite -recent times; the tune was originally called “Olivers.” - -Footnote 10: - - See Appendix - -Footnote 11: - - See Appendix - -It is but a natural step from Thomas Olivers to his great antagonist, -Augustus Toplady; he also is made immortal by a hymn. He wrote many fine -ones, full of melody, pathos, and affecting imagery. Toplady, as all our -readers know, was a clergyman, the Vicar of Broad Hembury, in -Devonshire. He took the strong Calvinistic side in the controversies -which arose in the course of the Great Revival; Olivers took the strong -Arminian side. They were not very civil to each other; and the scholarly -clergyman no doubt felt his dignity somewhat hurt by the rugged contact -with the cobbler; but the quarrels are forgotten now, and there is -scarcely a hymn-book in which the hymn of Olivers is not found within a -few pages of - - “Rock of Ages, cleft for me!” - -To this hymn has been given almost universally the palm as the finest -hymn in our language. Where there are so many, at once deeply expressive -in experience, and subdued and elevated in feeling, we perhaps may be -forgiven if we hesitate before praise so eminently high. Mr. Gladstone’s -translation into the Latin, in the estimation of eminent scholars, even -carries a more thrilling and penetrative awe.[12] But Toplady wrote many -other hymns quite equal in pathos and poetic merit. The characteristic -of “Rock of Ages” is its depth of penitential devotion. A volume might -be written on the history of this expressive hymn. Innumerable are the -multitudes whom these words have sustained when dying; they were among -the last which lingered on the lips of Prince Albert as he was passing -away; and to how many, through every variety of social distinction, have -they been at once the creed and consolation! It is by his hymns that -Toplady will be chiefly remembered. For years he was hovering along on -the borders of the grave, slowly dying of consumption; and he died in -1778, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. It was his especial wish -that he should be buried with more than quiet, that no announcement -should be made of the funeral, and that there should be no especial -service at his grave: it testifies, however, to the high regard in which -he was held that thousands followed him to his burial in Tottenham Court -Road Chapel; and when we know that his dear friend Rowland Hill -conducted the service, we can scarcely be surprised, or offended, that -he broke through the injunctions of his friend, and addressed the -multitude in affectionate commemoration of the sweet singer. - -Footnote 12: - - See Appendix. - -[Illustration: - - AUGUSTUS TOPLADY. -] - -Toplady we should regard as the chief singer of the Revival, after -Charles Wesley, although entirely of another order; not so social as -meditative, and reminding us, in many of his pieces, of the -characteristics we have attributed to Watts. His midnight hymn is a -piece of uncommon sublimity; portions of it seem almost unfit for -congregational singing; but for inward plaintive meditation, for reading -in the evening family prayer, when the hushed stillness of night is over -the household, and the pilgrim of life is about to commit himself to the -unconsciousness of sleep, the verses seem tenderly suggestive: - - “Thy ministering spirits descend, - And watch while Thy saints are asleep; - By day and by night they attend, - The heirs of salvation to keep. - Bright seraphs despatched from the throne, - Fly swift to their stations assigned; - And angels elect are sent down - To guard the elect of mankind. - - “Their worship no interval knows; - Their fervour is still on the wing; - And, while they protect my repose, - They chant to the praise of my King. - I, too, at the season ordained, - Their chorus forever shall join, - And love and adore without end, - Their gracious Creator and mine.” - -We have noticed in a previous chapter that when Whitefield separated -himself from Wesley, the Revival took two distinctly different routes. -We only refer to this again for the purpose of remarking that as Toplady -was intensely Calvinistic in his method of Divine grace, so his hymns, -also, reflect in all its fulness that creed; yet they are full of -tenderness, and well calculated frequently to arouse dormant devotion. -“Your harps, ye trembling saints;” “Emptied of earth I fain would be;” -“When languor and disease invade;” “Jesus, immutably the same;” “A -debtor to mercy alone,” and many another, leave nothing to be desired -either on the score of devotion, poetry, or melody. - -In a far humbler sphere, but representing the same faith and fervour as -Toplady, and also carried away young, was Cennick. In an article in the -_Christian Remembrancer_, on English hymnology, written very much for -the purpose of throwing contempt on all the hymn-writers of the Revival, -Cennick is spoken of as “a low and violent person; his hymns peculiarly -offensive, both as to matter and manner.” Some exceptions are made by -the reviewer for “Children of the Heavenly King.” We may presume, -therefore, that to this writer, “Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb,” is one -of the “peculiarly offensive.” This is not wonderful, when in the next -page we read that “the hymns of Newton are the very essence of -doggerel.” This sounds rather strange, as a verdict, to those who have -felt the particular charm of that much-loved hymn, “How sweet the name -of Jesus sounds!” It is not without a purpose that we refer to this -paper in the _Christian Remembrancer_—evidently by a very scholarly -hand—because its whole tone shows how the sacred song of the Revival -would be likely to be regarded by those who had no sympathy with its -evangelical teaching. The writer, for instance, speaking of Wesley’s -hymns, doubts whether any of them could possibly be included by any -chance in English hymnology! “Jesus, lover of my soul,” is said, “in -some _small_ degree to approximate to the model of a Church hymn!” Of -the Countess of Huntingdon’s hymn-book, the writer says, “We shall -certainly not notice the raving profanity!” It is not necessary further -either to sadden or to irritate the reader by similar expressions; but -the entire paper, and the criticisms we have cited, will show what was -likely to be the effect of the hymns of the Revival on many similar -minds of that time. In fact, the joy of the Revival work arose from -this, that no person, no priest, nor Church usage, was needed to -interpose between the soul and the Saviour. Faith in Christ, and His -immediate, personal presence with the soul seeking Him by faith, as it -was the burden of the best of the sermons, so it was, also, of all the -great hymns. - -The origin and the authors of several eminent hymns are certainly -obscure. To Edward Perronet must be assigned the authorship of the fine -coronation anthem of the Lamb that was slain: “All hail the power of -Jesus’ name!” - -Another, which has become a universal favourite, is “Beyond the -glittering starry globe.” This is a noble and inspiring hymn; only a few -verses are usually quoted in our hymn-books. Lord Selborne divides its -authorship between Fanch and Turner. We have seen it attributed to -Olivers; this is certainly a mistake. The _Quarterly Review_, in a very -able paper on hymnology, reproducing an old legend concerning it, traces -it to two brothers in a humble situation in life, one an itinerant -preacher, the other a porter. The preacher desired the porter to carry a -letter for him. “I can’t go,” said the porter, “I am writing a hymn.” -“You write a hymn, indeed! Nonsense! you go with the letter, and I will -finish the hymn.” He went, and returned, but the hymn was unfinished. -The preacher had taken it up at the third verse, and his muse had -forsaken him at the eighth. “Give me the pen,” said the porter, and he -wrote off, - - “They brought His chariot from above, - To bear Him to His throne; - Clapped their triumphant wings, and cried, - ‘The glorious work is done!’” - -Unfortunately the author of the paper in the _Quarterly Review_ appears -never to have seen the hymn in its entirety. The verse he cites is not -the eighth, but the twenty-second, and it has been mutilated almost -wherever quoted; the verse itself is part of an apostrophe to the -angels, recalling their ministrations round our Lord: - - “Tended His chariot up the sky, - And bore Him to His throne; - Then swept your golden harps and cried, - ‘The glorious work is done!’” - -Whoever wrote the hymn had the imagination of a poet, the fine pathos of -a believer, and a strong lyrical power of expression. - -Anecdotes of the origin of many of our great hymns of this period are as -interesting as they are almost innumerable; those of which we are -speaking are hymns of the Revival—to speak concisely—perhaps commenced -with the Wesleys, and closed with Cowper and Newton. It must not be -supposed that there were no singers save those whose verses found their -way into the Wesleyan or other great collections of hymns; there were -James Grant, Joseph Griggs, especially notable, Miss Steele, the author -of a great number of hymns of universal acceptance in all our churches, -and which are more like those of Doddridge than any other since his day. -Then there was John Stocker,—but we would particularly notice Job -Hupton, the author of a hymn which has never been included in any -hymn-book except _Our Hymn Book_, edited by the author of this volume, -but which is scarcely inferior to “Beyond the glittering starry sky.” - - “Come, ye saints, and raise an anthem, - Cleave the skies with shouts of praise, - Sing to Him who found a ransom, - Ancient of eternal days. - Bring your harps, and bring your odours, - Sweep the string and pour the lay; - View His works! behold His wonders! - Let hosannas crown the day!” - -The hymn is far too long for quotation. Job Hupton was a Baptist -minister in the neighbourhood of Beccles, where he died in 1849, in the -eighty-eighth year of his age, and the sixty-fifth of his ministry. - -Thus there was set free throughout the country a spirit of sacred song -which was new to the experience of the nation: it was boldly -evangelical; it was devoted, not to the eulogy of Church forms and days; -there was not a syllable of Mariolatry; but praise to Christ, earnest -meditation upon the state of man without His work, and the blessedness -of the soul which had risen to the saving apprehension of it. This forms -the whole substance of the Divine melody. It has seemed to some that the -most perfect hymn in the English language is, “Jesus! lover of my soul.” -Sentiments may differ, arising from modifications of experience, but -that hymn undoubtedly is the very essence of all the hymns which were -sung in the days of the Great Revival. For the first time there was -given to Christian experience that which met it at every turn. Watts -found such a choir, and such an audience for his devotions, as he had -never known in his life; and “Charles Wesley,” says Isaac Taylor, “has -been drawing thousands in his wake and onward, from earth to heaven.” -The hymns met and united all companies and all societies. The bridal -party returned from church, singing, - - “We kindly help each other, - Till all shall wear the starry crown.” - -If they gathered round the grave, they sang;—and what a variety of -glorious funereal hymns they had! But that was a great favourite: - - “There all the ship’s company meet, - Who sailed with their Saviour beneath; - With shoutings each other they greet, - And triumph o’er sorrow and death.” - -Few separations took place without that song, - - “Blest be the dear uniting love, - That will not let us part.” - -While others became such favourites that even almost every service had -to be hallowed by them; such as, - - “Jesus! the name high over all, - In hell, or earth, or sky;” - -while an equal favourite almost, was, - - “Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing - My great Redeemer’s praise!” - -They must soon have become very well known, for so early as 1748, when a -sad cluster of convicts, horse-stealers, highway robbers, burglars, -smugglers, and thieves, were led forth to execution, the turnkey of the -prison said he had never seen such people before. The Methodists had -been among them; they had all yielded themselves to the power of “the -truth as it is in Jesus,” and on their way to Tyburn they all sang -together, - - “Lamb of God! whose bleeding love - We now recall to mind, - Send the answer from above, - And let us mercy find; - Think on us, who think of Thee, - And every struggling soul release; - Oh! remember Calvary, - And let us go in peace!” - -The hymns found their way to sick beds. The old Earl of Derby, the -grandfather of the present peer, was dying at Knowsley. He had for his -housekeeper there a Mrs. Brass, a good and faithful Methodist; the old -Earl was fond of talking with her upon religious matters, and one day -she read to him the well-known hymn, “All ye that pass by, to Jesus draw -nigh.” When she came to the lines, - - “The Lord in the day of His anger did lay - Our sins on the Lamb, and he bore them away,” - -the Earl looked up and said, “Stop! don’t you think, Mrs. Brass, that -ought to be, ‘The Lord in the day of his _mercy_ did lay’?” - -The old lady did not admit the validity of his lordship’s theology; but -it very abundantly showed that his experience had passed through the -verse, and reached to the true meaning of the hymn. An old blind woman -was hearing Peter McOwan preach. He quoted these lines: - - “The Lord pours eyesight on the blind; - The Lord supports the fainting mind.” - -The poor old woman was not happy until she met the preacher, and she -said, “But are there really such sweet verses? Are you sure the book -contains such a hymn?” and he read the whole to her. It is one by Watts: - - “I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath.” - -Innumerable are the anecdotes of these hymns; they inaugurated really -the rise of English hymnology; and it is not too much to say that, as -compared with them, many more recent hymns are as tinsel compared with -gold. A writer truly says: “They sob, they swell, they meet the spirit -in its most hushed and plaintive mood. They roll and bear it aloft, in -its most inspired and prophetic moods, as on the surge of more than a -mighty organ swell; among the mines and quarries, and wild moors of -Cornwall, among the factories of Lancashire and Yorkshire, in chambers -of death, in the most joyous assemblages of the household, they have -relieved the hard lot, and sweetened the pleasant one; and even in other -lands soldiers and sailors, slaves and prisoners, have recited with what -joy these words have entered into their life.” - -Thus the great hymns of this period grew and became a religious power in -the land, strangely contradicting a verdict which Cardinal Wiseman -pronounced some years since, that “all Protestant devotion is dead.” -While we give all honour to the fine hymns of Denmark and Germany, many -of the best of which were translated with the movement, it may, with no -exaggeration, be said that the hymnology of England in the eighteenth -century is the finest and most complete which the history of the Church -has known. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - LAY PREACHING AND LAY PREACHERS. - - -There came with the work of the Revival a practice, without which it is -more than questionable if it would have obtained such a rapid and -abiding hold upon the various populations and districts of the country; -this was lay preaching. The designation must have a more inclusive -interpretation than we generally apply to it; we must understand by it -rather the work of those men who, in contradistinction to the great -leaders of the Revival—men of scholarship, of universities, and of -education—possessed none of these qualifications, or but in a more -slight and undisciplined degree. They were converted men, modified by -various temperaments; they one and all possessed an ardent zeal; but, in -many instances, we shall find that they were as much devoted to the work -of the ministry as those who had received a regular ordination. It is -singular that prejudices so strong should exist against lay preaching -and preachers, for the practice has surely received the sanction of the -most ancient usages of the Church, as even Dr. Southey admits, in his -notes to the _Life of Wesley_. Thus, in the history of the Church, this -phenomenon could scarcely be regarded as new. Orders of preaching -friars; “hedge-preachers,” “black, white, and grey,” with all their -company; disciples of Francis, Dominic, or Ignatius, had spread over -Europe during the dark and mediæval ages. Although this rousing element -of Church life had not found much expression in the churches of the -Reformation, yet with the impulse of the new Revival, up started these -men by multitudes. The reason of this was very simple. There is a -well-known little anecdote of some town missionary standing up in a -broad highway preaching to a multitude. He was arrested by a Roman -Catholic priest, who asked him from the edge of the crowd by what -authority he dared to stand there? and who had given him the right to -preach? The man had his New Testament in his hand; he rapidly turned to -the last chapter of it, and said, “I find it written here, ‘Let him that -heareth say, Come!’ I have heard, and I would say Come!” The anecdote -represents sufficiently the rise and progress of lay preaching in the -Revival. There first appeared, naturally, a simple set of men, who, in -their different spheres, would, perhaps, lead and direct a -prayer-meeting, and round it with some pious and gentle exhortation. We -have already pointed out the necessity soon felt for frequent and -reciprocative services; these were not the lay preachers to whom we -refer; but in this fraternal form of Church fellowship, the lay preacher -had his origin. - -Wesley imposed restrictions upon his helpers which he soon found himself -compelled to renounce. John Wesley was a strong adherent to the idea of -Church order. The first lay preacher in his communion who leapt over the -traces was Thomas Maxfield. It was at the Foundry in Moor Fields. Wesley -was in Bristol, and the intelligence was conveyed to him. He appears to -have regarded it as a serious and dangerous innovation. The good -Susannah Wesley, his mother—now past threescore years and ten—infirm and -feeble, was yet living in the Chapel House of the Foundry. To her John -hurried on his arrival in London; and after his affectionate salutations -and inquiries, he expressed such a manifest dissatisfaction and anxiety -that she inquired the cause. With some indignation and unusual -abruptness, he said, “Thomas Maxfield has turned preacher, I find;” and -then the wise and saintly woman gave him her advice. She reminded him -that, from her prejudices against lay preaching he could not suspect her -of favouring anything of the kind; “but take care,” she said, “what you -do respecting that young man, for he is as surely called of God to -preach as you are.” She advised her son to hear Maxfield for himself. He -did so, and at once buried all his prejudices. He exclaimed after the -sermon, “It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good!” and Thomas -Maxfield became the first of a host who spread all over the country. - -It may be supposed that the Countess of Huntingdon very naturally shared -all Wesley’s prejudices against lay preaching; but she heard Maxfield -preach, and she wrote of him, “God has raised one from the stones to sit -among the princes of the people. He is my astonishment; how is God’s -power shown in weakness!” and she soon set herself to the work of -supplying an order of men, of whom Maxfield was the first to lead the -way. By-and-by came another innovation: the lay evangelists at first -never went into the pulpit, but spoke from among the people, or from the -desk. The first who broke through this usage was Thomas Walsh; we will -say more of him presently. He was a man of deep humility, and his life -reveals entire and extraordinary consecration; but he believed himself -to be an ambassador for Christ, and he walked directly up into the -pulpit, never questioning, but quite disregarding the usual custom. The -majesty of his manner, his solemn, impressive, and commanding eloquence, -forbade all remark; and henceforth all the lay preachers followed his -example. There arose a band of extraordinary men. Let the reader refer -to the chronicles of their lives, and the effects of their labours, and -he will not suppose that he has seen anything in our day at all -approaching to what they were. - -Local preachers have now long been part of the great organisation of -Methodism. But in the period to which we refer, it must be remembered -that the pen had not commenced the exercise of its more popular -influence. There were few authors, few journalists, very few really -popular books; these men, then, with their various gifts of elevated -holiness, broad and rugged humour, or glowing imagination, went to and -fro among the people, rousing and instructing the dormant mind of the -country. Then it was Wesley’s great aim to sustain interest by variety. -Wesley himself said that he believed he should preach himself and his -congregation asleep if he were to confine his ministrations to one -pulpit for twelve months. We would take the liberty to say in reference -to this, that it would depend upon whether he kept his own mind fresh -and wakeful during the time. He writes, however: “We have found by long -and constant experience, that a frequent change of teachers is best; -this preacher has one talent, that another. No one whom I ever knew has -all the talents which are needful for beginning, continuing, and -perfecting the work in a whole congregation; neither,” he adds, “can he -find matter for preaching morning and evening, nor will the people come -to hear him; hence he grows cold, and so do the people; whereas if he -never stays more than a fortnight together in one place, he may find -matter enough, and the people will gladly hear him.” - -This certainly gives an idea but of a plain order of services; and, no -doubt, some of Wesley’s preachers were of the plainest. There was -Michael Fenwick, of whom Wesley says, “he was just made to travel with -me—an excellent groom, _valet de chambre_, nurse, and, upon occasion, a -tolerable preacher.” This good man was one day vain enough to complain -to Wesley, that although he was constantly travelling with him, his name -was never inserted in Wesley’s published _Journals_. In the next number -he found himself immortalised with his master there. “I left Epworth,” -writes Wesley, “with great satisfaction, and about one, preached at -Clayworth. I think none were unmoved but Michael Fenwick, who fell fast -asleep under an adjoining hayrick.” - -A higher type of man, but still of the very plain order of preachers, -was Joseph Bradford. He also was Wesley’s frequent travelling companion, -and he judged no service too servile by which he could show his -reverence for his master. But on one occasion Wesley directed him to -carry a packet of letters to the post. The occasion was very -extraordinary, and Bradford wished to hear Wesley’s sermon first. Wesley -was urgent and insisted that the letters must go. Bradford refused; he -would hear the sermon. “Then,” said Wesley, “you and I must part!” “Very -good, sir,” said Bradford. The service was over. They slept in the same -room. On rising in the morning, Wesley accosted his old friend and -companion, and asked if he had considered what had been said, that they -must part. “Yes, sir,” replied Bradford. “And must we part?” inquired -Wesley. “Please yourself, sir,” was the reply. “Will you ask my pardon?” -rejoined Wesley. “No, sir.” “You wont?” “No, sir.” “Then I will ask -yours,” replied the great man. It is said that Bradford melted under the -words, and wept like a child. But we must not convey the idea that the -early preachers were generally of this order. “In a great house there -are vessels to honour and vessels to dishonour.” “Vessels of dishonour” -assuredly were none of these men: but there were some who attained to a -greatness almost as remarkable as the greatness of the three, Whitefield -and the Wesleys. - -What a man was John Nelson! His was a life full of singular incidents. -It was truly apostolic, whether we consider its holy magnanimity, the -violence and vehemence of the cruel persecutions he encountered, or his -singular power over excited mobs; reminding us sometimes of Paul -fighting as with wild beasts at Ephesus, or standing with cunning tact, -and disarming at once captain and crowd on the steps of the Castle at -Jerusalem. Then, although he was but a poor working stonemason, he had a -high gentlemanly bearing, before which those who considered themselves -gentlemen, magistrates and others, fell back abashed and ashamed. He was -one of the prophets of Yorkshire; and many of the large Societies at -this day in Leeds, Halifax, and Bradford owe their foundation to him. It -seems wonderful to us now, that merely preaching the word of truth, and -especially as John Nelson preached it, with such a cheerful, radiant, -and even heavenly manner, should bring out mighty mobs to assault him. -The stories of his itinerancy are innumerable, and his life is really -one of the most romantic in these preaching annals. At Nottingham, while -he was preaching, the crowds threw squibs at him and round him; but, as -he was still pursuing his path of speech, a sergeant in the army pressed -up to him, with tears, saying, “In the presence of God and all this -company, I beg your pardon. I came here on purpose to mob you, but I -have been compelled to hear you; and I here declare I believe you to be -a servant of the living God!” He threw his arms round Nelson’s neck, -kissed him, and went away weeping; and we see him no more. Perhaps more -remarkable still was his reception at Grimsby. There the clergyman of -the parish hired a drummer to gather a great mob, as he said, “to defend -the rights of the Church.” The storm which raged round Nelson was wild -and ferocious; but it illustrates the power of this extraordinary man -over his rudest hearers, that after beating his drum for a long time, -the poor drummer threw it away, and stood listening, the tears running -down his cheeks. - -[Illustration: - - John Nelson at Nottingham. -] - -Nelson was a man of immense physical strength; his own trade had -fostered this, and before his conversion he had, no doubt, been feared -as a man who could hit out and hit hard. As the most effectual means of -silencing him, he was pressed for a soldier; but John was not only a -Methodist, he had adopted the Quaker notion that a Christian dare not -fight; and he seems to have been a real torment to the officers and men -of the regiment, who indeed marched him about different parts of the -country, but could not get him either to accept the king’s money or to -submit to drill. An officer put him in prison for rebuking his -profanity, and threatened to chastise him. Nelson says, “It caused a -sore temptation to arise in me; to think that a wicked, ignorant man -should thus torment me, and I able to tie his head and heels together. I -found an old man’s bone in me; but the Lord lifted up the standard -within, else should I have wrung his neck and set my foot upon him.” - -At length, after three months, the Countess of Huntingdon procured his -discharge. The regiment was in Newcastle. He preached there on the -evening of the day on which he was liberated, and it is testified that a -number of the soldiers from his regiment came to hear him, and parted -from him with tears. He was arrested as a vagrant, without any visible -means of living. A gentleman instantly stepped forward and offered five -hundred pounds bail; but the bail was refused. He was able to prove that -he was a high-charactered, industrious workman; but it availed nothing. -Crowds wept and prayed for him as he was borne through the streets. -“Fear not!” he cried, “oh, friends; God hath His way in the whirlwind, -and in the storm. Only pray that my faith fail not!” It was at Bradford. -They thrust him into a most filthy dungeon. The authorities would give -him no food. The people thrust in food, water, and candles. He shared -these with some wretched prisoners in the same cage, and he sang hymns, -and talked to them all night. He was marched off to York; but there the -excitement was so great when it was known that John Nelson was coming a -prisoner that armed troops were ordered out to guard him. He says, “Hell -from beneath was moved to meet me at my coming!” All the windows were -crowded with people—some in sympathy, but most cheering and huzzaing as -if some great political traitor had been arrested; but he says, “The -Lord made my brow like brass, so that I could look upon all the people -as grasshoppers, and pass through the city as if there had been none in -it but God and me.” - -Such was John Nelson. These anecdotes are sufficient to show the manner -of man he was. He has been truly called “the proto-martyr of Methodism.” -But it is not in a hint or two that all can be said which ought to be -said of this noble and extraordinary man. His conversion, perhaps, sank -down to deeper roots than in many instances. The thoughts of Methodism -found him perplexed with those agonizing questions which have tormented -men in all ages, until they have realized the truth as it is in Jesus. -His life was guilty of no immoralities; he had a happy, humble home, was -industrious, and receiving good wages; but as he walked to and fro among -the fields he was distressed, “for,” he said, “surely God never made man -to be such a riddle to himself, and to leave him so.” He heard Wesley -preach. “Then,” he says, “my heart beat like the pendulum of a clock, -and I thought his whole discourse was aimed at me;” and so, in short, he -became a Methodist, and a Methodist preacher; and among the noble names -in the history of the Church of Christ, in his own line and order, it -may be doubted whether a nobler name can be mentioned than that of John -Nelson. - -Quite another order of man, less human, but equally divine, was Thomas -Walsh. His parents were Romanists, and he was intended by them for the -Romish priesthood; and he appears to have been an intense Romanist -ascetic until about eighteen years of age. He had a thoughtful and -exceedingly intense nature, and his faith was no rest to him. In his -dilemma he heard a Methodist preacher speak one day from the text, “Come -unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you -rest.” It appears to have been the turning-point of a remarkable life. - -“The life of Thomas Walsh,” says Dr. Southey, “might almost convince a -Catholic that saints were to be found in other communions as well as in -the Church of Rome.” Walsh became a great biblical scholar; he was an -Irishman, he mastered the native Irish, that he might preach in it; but -Latin, Greek, and Hebrew became familiar to him; and of the Hebrew, -especially, it is said that he studied so deeply, that his memory was an -entire concordance of the whole Bible. His soul was as a flame of fire, -but it burnt out the body quickly. John Wesley says of him, “I do not -remember ever to have known a man who, in so few years as he remained -upon earth, was the instrument of converting so many sinners.” He became -mighty in his influence over the Roman Catholics. The priests said that -“Walsh had died some years ago, and that he who went about preaching, on -mountains and highways, in meadows, private houses, prisons, and ships, -was a devil who had assumed his shape.” This was the only way in which -they could account for the extraordinary influence he possessed. His -labours were greatly divided between Ireland and London, but everywhere -he bore down all before him by a kind of absorbed ecstasy of ardent -faith; but he died at the age of twenty-seven. While lying on his -death-bed he was oppressed with a sense of despair, even of his -salvation. The sufferings of his mind on this account were protracted -and intense; at last he broke out in an exclamation, “He is come! He is -come! My Beloved is mine, and I am His for ever!” and so he fell back -and died. Thomas Walsh is a great name still in the records of the lay -preachers of early Methodism. - -All orders of men rose: different from any we have mentioned was George -Story, whose quiet, but earnest and reasonable nature, seems to have -commanded the especial love of Southey. He appears never to have become -what some call an enthusiast; but he interestingly illustrates, that it -was not merely over the rugged and uninformed minds that the power of -the Revival exercised its influence. Very curiously, he appears to have -been converted by thinking about Eugene Aram, the well-known scholar, -whose name has become so celebrated in fiction and in poetry, and who -had a short time before been executed for murder at York. Story was -impressed by the importance of the acquisition of knowledge, and Aram’s -extraordinary attainments kindled in his mind a sense of admiration and -emulation; but, as he thought upon his life, he reasoned, “What did this -man’s learning profit him? It did not save him from becoming a thief and -a murderer, or even from attempting his own life.” It was an immense -suggestion to him; it led him upon another track of thinking. The -Methodists came through his village; he yielded himself to the -influence, and Dr. Southey thinks “there is not in the whole biography -of Methodism a more interesting or remarkable case than his.” He became -a great preacher, but disarmed and convinced men rather by his calm, -dispassionate elevation of manner, than by such weapons as the cheerful -_bonhomie_ of Nelson, or the fervid fire of Walsh. - -But we are, perhaps, conveying the idea that it was only beneath the -administration of John Wesley that these great lay preachers were to be -found. It was not so; but no doubt beneath that administration their -itinerancy became more systematic and organised. Whitefield does not -appear to have at all shared Wesley’s prejudices on this means of -usefulness; but those men who fell beneath the influence of Whitefield, -or the Countess, seem soon to meet us as settled ministers, in many, if -not in all instances. Among them there are few greater names in the -whole Revival than those of Captain Jonathan Scott and the renowned -Captain Toriel Joss. Captain Scott was a captain of dragoons, and one of -the heroes of Minden; he was converted by the instrumentality of William -Romaine, who, in spite of his prejudices against lay preaching, -encouraged him in his excursions, in which he spoke to immense crowds -with great effect. Fletcher, of Madeley, said, “his coat shames many a -black one.” He was a gentleman of an ancient and opulent family, and the -Countess, who, naturally, was delighted to see people of her own order -by her side, felt herself greatly strengthened by him. It was said, when -he preached at Leeds, the whole town turned out to hear him; and he was -one of the great preachers of the Tabernacle in Moorfields, during more -than twenty years. But yet a far more famous man was Toriel Joss. He was -a captain of the seas, and had led a life which somewhat reminds us of -Newton’s. He was a good and even great sailor, but he became a greater -preacher. Whitefield said of these two men, that “God, who sitteth upon -the flood, can bring a shark from the ocean, and a lion from the forest, -to show forth his praise.” Joss was a man of property, with a fair -prospect of considerable wealth, when he renounced the seas and became -one of the great lay preachers. Whitefield insisted that he should -abandon the chart, the compass, and the deck, and take to the pulpit. He -did so. In London his fame was second only to that of Whitefield -himself. He became Whitefield’s coadjutor at the Tabernacle, where, -first as associate pastor, and afterwards as pastor, he continued for -thirty years. The chapel at Tottenham Court Road was his chief field, -and John Berridge called him “Whitefield’s Archdeacon of Tottenham.” - -[Illustration: - - TABERNACLE, MOORFIELDS. -] - -We cannot particularise others: there were Sampson Staniforth, the -soldier, Alexander Mather, Christopher Hopper, John Haime, John -Parson—and these are only representative names. There were crowds of -them; they travelled to and fro, with hard fare, throughout the land. -Their excursions were not recreations or amusements. Attempt to think -what England was at that time. It is a fact that they often had to swim -through streams and wade through snows to keep their appointments; often -to sleep in summer in the open air, beneath the trees of a forest. -Sometimes a preacher was seen with a spade strapped to his back, to cut -a way for man and horse through the heavy snow-drifts. Highwaymen were -abroad, and there are many odd stories about their encounters with these -men; but, then, usually, they had nothing to lose. Rogers, in his _Lives -of the Early Preachers_, tells a characteristic story. One of these lay -preachers, as usual on horseback, was waylaid by three robbers; one of -them seized the bridle of his horse, the second put a pistol to his -head, the third began to pull him from the saddle—all, of course, -declaring that they would have his money or his life. The preacher -looked solemnly at them, and asked them “if they had prayed that -morning.” This confounded them a little, still they continued their work -of plunder. One pulled out a knife to rip the saddle-bag open; the -preacher said, “There are only some books and tracts there; as to money, -I have only twopence halfpenny in my pocket;” he took it out and gave it -them. “All that I have of value about me,” he said, “is my coat. I am a -servant of God; I am going on His errand to preach; but let me kneel -down and pray with you; that will do you more good than anything I can -give you.” One of them said, “I will have nothing to do with anything we -can get from this man!” They had taken his watch; they restored this, -and took up the bags and fastened them again on the horse. The preacher -thanked them for their great civility to him; “But now,” said he, “I -will pray!” and he fell upon his knees, and prayed with great power. Two -of the rascals, utterly frightened at this treatment, started off as -fast as their legs could carry them; the third—he who had first refused -to have anything to do with the job—continued on his knees with the -preacher; and when they parted company he promised that he would try to -lead a new life, and hoped to become a new man. - -Should the reader search the old magazines and documents in which are -enshrined the records of the early days of the Revival, he will find -many incidents showing what a romantic story is this of the -self-denials, the difficulties, and enthusiasm of these men, whose best -record is on high—most of them faithful men, like Alexander Coates, who, -after a life of singular length and usefulness in the work, went to his -rest. His talents were said to be extraordinary, both in preaching and -in conversation. Just as he was dying, one of his brethren called upon -him and said, “You don’t think you have followed a cunningly-devised -fable now?” “No, no, no!” said the dying man. “And what do you see?” -“Land ahead!” said the old man. They were his last words. Such were the -men of this Great Revival; so they lived their lives of faithful -usefulness, and so they passed away. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - A GALLERY OF REVIVALIST PORTRAITS. - - -If we were writing a sustained history of the Revival, we might devote -some pages, at this period, to notice the varied forms of satire and -ribaldry by which it was greeted. While the noble bands of preachers -were pursuing their way, instructing and awakening the popular mind of -the country, not only heartless and affected dilettanti, like Horace -Walpole, regarded it with the condescension of their supercilious -sneers, but for the more popular taste there was _The Spiritual -Quixote_, a book which even now has its readers, and in which Whitefield -and his followers were held up to ridicule; and Lackington, the great -bookseller, in his disgraceful, but entertaining autobiography, -attempted to cover the Societies of Wesley with his scurrility. It was -about the year 1750 that _The Minor_ was brought out on the stage of the -Haymarket Theatre; the author was that great comedian, but most -despicable and dissolute character, Foote. The play lies before us as we -write; we have taken it down to notice the really shameless buffoonery -and falsehood in which it indulges. Whitefield is especially libelled -and burlesqued. The Countess of Huntingdon waited personally on the Lord -Chamberlain, and besought him to suppress it; it was not much to the -credit of his lordship’s knowledge, that he declared, had he known the -evil influence of the thing before it was licensed, it should not have -been produced, but being licensed, it was beyond his control. Then the -good Countess waited on David Garrick; Garrick knew and admired -Whitefield; he received her with distinguished kindness and respect, and -it is to his honour that, through his influence, it was temporarily -suppressed. It seems a singular compensation that the author of this -piece, who permitted himself to indulge in the most disgraceful -insinuations against one of the holiest and purest of men, a few years -after was charged with a great crime, of which he was, no doubt, quite -innocent, and died a broken-hearted and beggared man. - -Another of these disgraceful stage libels, _The Hypocrite_, appeared at -Drury Lane in 1768; in it are the well-known characters of Dr. Cantwell, -and Mawworm, and old Lady Lambert. There is more of a kind of genius in -it than in _The Minor_, but it was all stolen property, and little more -than an appropriation from Molière’s _Tartuffe_ and Cibber’s _Nonjuror_. -All these things are forgotten now; but they are worthy of notice as -entering into the history of the Revival, and showing the malice which -was stirred in multitudes of minds against men and designs, on the -whole, so innocent and holy. Was it not written from of old, “The carnal -mind is enmity against God”? - -But as to the movement itself, companions-in-arms, and of a very high -order alike for valour and character, crowded to the field; we have -referred to several distinguished laymen; it is at least equally -important to notice that while the leaders of the Church were, as a -body, set in array against it—while archbishops and bishops of that day -frowned, or scoffed and scorned, there were a number of clergymen whose -piety, whose wit and eloquence, whose affluent humour, whose learning, -whose intrepidity and sleepless variety of labour, surround their names, -even now as then, with a charm of interest, making every life as it -comes before us a readable and delightful recreation. Some of them were -assuredly oddities; it is not long since we made a pilgrimage to -Everton, in Bedfordshire, to read the singular epitaph, on the tomb in -the churchyard, of one of the oddest and most extraordinary of all these -men. Even if our readers have read that epitaph, it will do them no harm -to read it again: - - - Here lie - The earthly remains of - JOHN BERRIDGE, - Late Vicar of Everton, - And an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ, - Who loved his Master, and His work, - And after running on His errands many years, - Was called up to wait on Him above. - Reader, - Art thou born again? - No salvation without a New Birth! - I was born in sin, February, 1716, - Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730, - Lived proudly on Faith and Works for Salvation - Till 1751. - Was admitted to Everton Vicarage, 1755. - Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756. - Fell asleep in Christ Jesus, January 22, 1793. - - -With the exception of the date of his death, it was written by the hand -that moulders beneath the stone; it is characteristic that its writer -caused himself to be buried in that part of the churchyard where, up to -that time, only those had been interred who had destroyed themselves, or -come to an ignominious end. Before his death he had often said that he -would take this effectual means of consecrating that unhallowed spot. - -This epitaph sufficiently shows that John Berridge was an original -character. Southey says of him that he was a buffoon and a fanatic. -Southey’s judgments about the men of the Revival were frequently as -shallow as they were unjust; he must have felt a sharp sting when, as -doubtless was the case, he heard the well-known anecdote of George IV., -who, on reading Richard Watson’s calm reply to Southey’s attacks on the -Methodist leaders, exclaimed, as he laid down the book, “Oh, my poor -Poet Laureate!” He deserved all that and a good deal more, if only for -the verdict we have quoted on Berridge. So far as scholarship may test a -man, John Berridge was most likely a far deeper scholar than Dr. -Southey; he was a distinguished member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and for -many years read and studied fourteen hours a day; but he was an -uncontrollable droll and humourist; pithy proverbs fell spontaneously -along all his speech. As one critic says of his style, “It was like -granulated salt.” As a preacher, he was equal to any multitudes; he -lived among farmers and graziers, and the twinkling of his eye, all -alive with shrewd cheerfulness, compelled attention even before he -opened his lips. The late Dr. Guthrie, not long before his death, -thought it worth his while to republish _The Christian World Unmasked; -pray Come and Peep_; and it is characteristic of Berridge throughout. - -After his conversion, his Bishop called him up and threatened to send -him to gaol for preaching out of his parish. Our readers may imagine -with such a man what sort of conference it was, and which of the two -would be likely to get the worst of it: “I tell you,” said the Bishop, -“if you continue preaching where you have no right, you are very likely -to be sent to Huntingdon Gaol.” “I have no more regard for a gaol than -other folks,” said he; “but I would rather go there with a good -conscience than be at liberty without one.” The conference is too long -for quotation, but Berridge held on his way; he became one of the most -beloved and intimate friends of the Countess of Huntingdon; and if he -shocked his bishop by preaching out of his own parish, he must have -roused his wrath by preaching in her ladyship’s chapel in London, and -throughout the country. His letters to the Countess are as -characteristic as his speech, or any other of his writings. Thus he -writes to her about young Rowland Hill, “I find you have got honest -Rowland down to Bath; he is a pretty young spaniel, fit for land or -water, and he has a wonderful yelp; he forsakes father and mother and -brethren, and gives up all for Jesus, and I believe he will prove a -useful labourer if he keeps clear of petticoat snares.” No doubt, -Berridge sometimes seemed not only racy, but rude; but his words were -wonderfully calculated to meet the average and level of an immense -congregation. While he lived on terms of fellowship with all the great -leaders of the movement, he was faithful as the vicar of his own parish, -and was the apostle of the whole region of Bedfordshire. - -With all his shrewd worldly wisdom, Berridge had a most benevolent hand; -he was rich, and devoted far more than the income of his vicarage to -helping his poor neighbours, supporting itinerant ministers, renting -houses and barns for preaching the Gospel, and, however far he travelled -to preach, always disbursing his expenses from his own pocket. How he -would have loved John Bunyan, and how John Bunyan would have loved him! -It is curious that within a few miles of the place where the illustrious -dreamer was so long imprisoned, one should arise out of the very Church -which persecuted Bunyan, to do for a long succession of years, on the -same ground, the work for which he was persecuted. - -[Illustration: - - Haworth Church. -] - -From the low Bedford level, what a flight to the wildest spot in wild -Yorkshire, Haworth, and its venerable old parish church, celebrated now -as a classic region, haunted by the memory of the author of _Jane Eyre_, -and all the Brontë family; but in the times of which we are writing, the -vicar, William Grimshaw, was quite as queer and quaint a creature as -Berridge. A wild spot now—a stern, grand place; desolate moors still -seeming to stretch all round it; though more easily reached in this day, -it must indeed have been a rough solitude when William Grimshaw became -its vicar, in 1742. He was born in 1708; he died in 1763. He was a man -something of the nature of the wild moors around him. When he became the -pastor of the parish, the people all round him were plunged in the most -sottish heathenism. The pastor was a kind of son of the desert, and he -became such an one as the Baptist, crying in the wilderness. The people -were rough, they perhaps needed a rough shepherd; they had one. The -character of Grimshaw is that of a rough, faithful, and not less -beautiful shepherd’s dog. On the Sabbath morning he would commence his -service, giving out the psalm, and having taken note of the absentees -from the congregation, would start off, while the psalm was being sung, -to drive in the loiterers, visiting the ale-houses, routing out the -drinkers, and literally compelling them to come into the parish church. -One Sabbath morning, a stranger riding through Haworth, seeing some men -scrambling over a garden wall, and some others leaping through a low -window, imagined the house was on fire. He inquired what was the matter. -One of them cried out, “The parson’s a coming!” and that explained the -riddle. Upon another occasion, as a man was passing through the village, -on the Sabbath day, on his way to call a doctor, his horse lost a shoe. -He found his way to the village smithy to have his loss repaired. The -blacksmith told him that it was the Lord’s day, and the work could not -be done unless the minister gave his permission. So they went to the -parson, who, of course, as the case was urgent and necessary, gave his -consent. But the story illustrates the mastery the vicar attained over -the rough minds around him. He was a man of a hardy mould. He was -intensely earnest. He not only effected a mighty moral change in his own -parish, but Haworth was visited every Sabbath by pilgrims from miles -round to listen to this singular, strong, mountain voice; so that the -church became unequal to the great congregations, and he often had to -preach in the churchyard, a desolate looking spot now, but alive with -mighty concourses then. It is said that his strong, pithy words haunted -men long after they were spoken, as the infidel nobleman, who, in an -affected manner, told him he was unable to see the truth of -Christianity. “The fault,” said the rough vicar, “is not so much in your -lordship’s head as in your heart.” - -[Illustration: - - GRIMSHAW’S HOUSE. -] - -Grimshaw was the first who kindled in the wild heights of Yorkshire the -flames of the Revival. His mind was stirred simultaneously with others, -but he does not appear to have received either from Whitefield or Wesley -the impulses which created his extraordinary character, though he, of -course, entered heartily into all their work. They visited Haworth, and -preached to immense concourses there. As to Grimshaw himself, in the -most irregular manner, he preached in the Methodist conventicles and -dissenting chapels in all the country round. He effected an entire -change in his own neighbourhood. He put down the races; he reformed the -village feasts, wakes, and fairs. He was often expecting suspension, and -at last he was cited before the Archbishop, who inquired of him as to -the number of his communicants. “How many,” said his grace, “had you -when you first went to Haworth?” “Twelve.” “And how many now?” “In the -summer, about twelve hundred.” The astonished Archbishop turned to his -assistants in the examination, and said, “I really cannot find fault -with Mr. Grimshaw when he brings so many people to the Lord’s Table.” -Southey is also complimentary, in his own way, to this singular -clergyman, and says, “He was certainly mad!” - -[Illustration: - - William Grimshaw. -] - -It was what Festus said to Paul; but the madness of the pastor of -Haworth was a blessing to the farms and cottages of those wild -moorlands. He was a child of nature in her most beautiful moods, -glorified by Divine grace. The freshness and buoyancy of the heath his -foot so lightly pressed, and the torrents which sung around him, were -but typical of his hardy naturalness and beauty of character. Truly it -has been said, it was not more natural that the gentle lover of nature -should lie at the foot of Helvellyn, than that this watchman of the -mountains should sleep at the foot of the hills amongst which he had so -faithfully laboured. He died comparatively young. His last words were -very characteristic. Robert Shaw, an old Methodist preacher, called upon -him; he said, “I will pray for you as long as I live, and if there is -praying in heaven, I will pray for you there; I am as happy as I can be -on earth, and as sure of glory as if I were in it.” His last words were, -“Here goes an unprofitable servant!” - -The wild Yorkshire of that day took up the Revival with a will; and -Henry Venn, of Huddersfield, we suppose, has even transcended by his -usefulness the fame of either Berridge or Grimshaw; he was born in 1724, -and died in 1797. His life was genial and fruitful, and to his church in -Huddersfield the people poured in droves to listen to him. It has been -said his life was like a field of wheat, or a fine summer day. And how -are these to be painted or put upon the canvas? He could scarcely be -called eccentric, excepting in the sense in which earnestness, holiness, -and usefulness are always eccentric. His influence may be said, in some -directions, to continue still. He was one of the indefatigable -coadjutors of the Countess in all her work, and towards the close of his -life he came to London to throw his influence round young Rowland Hill, -by preaching for some time in Surrey Chapel. - -In another district of Yorkshire, a mighty movement was going on, -commencing about 1734. Benjamin Ingham, whom we met some time since at -Oxford, as a member of the Holy Club, was living at Ossett, near -Dewsbury. He had married Lady Margaret Hastings, a younger sister of the -Countess of Huntingdon. He had received ordination in the Church of -England, but his irregularities had forced him out. Like the Wesleys, in -the earlier part of his history, he became enchanted with the devotional -life of the Moravians, and at this period he introduced with marvellous -results a modified Moravianism into the West Riding of Yorkshire. He -founded as many as eighty Societies; but he appears to have attempted to -carry out an impossible scheme, the union of the Moravian discipline and -doctrine with his idea of Congregationalism. His influence over the West -Riding for a long time was immense; but, most naturally, divisions -arose, and the purely Moravian element separated itself into its own -order of Church life, while the Methodist element was absorbed in the -great and growing Wesleyan Societies. He was a friend of Count -Zinzendorf, who was his guest for a long time at Ledstone House. The -shock which his Society sustained, and the death of Lady Margaret, his -admirable and beloved wife, were blows from which the good man never -recovered; but the effects of his usefulness continued, although he -passed; and if the reader ever visits the little Moravian Colony and -Institution of Fulneck, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, he may be pleased to -remember that this is also one of the offshoots of the Great Revival. - -It is a sudden leap from the West Riding of Yorkshire to Truro, the -charming little capital of Western Cornwall. We are here met by an -imperishable and beautiful name, that of Samuel Walker, the minister; he -was born in 1714, and died in 1761. His influence over his town was -great and abiding, and Walker of Truro is a name which to this day -retains its fragrance, as associated with the restoration of his town -from wild depravity to purity and exemplary piety. - -How impossible it is to do more than merely mention the names of men, -every action of whose lives was consecrated, and every breath an ardent -flame, all helping on and urging forward the great work of rousing a -careless world and a careless Church. What an influence had William -Romaine, who for a long time, it has been said, was one of the sights of -London; it was rather drolly put when it was said, “People came from the -country to see Garrick act and to hear Romaine preach!” Nor let our -readers suppose that he was a mere sensational orator; he was a great -scholar. We hear of him first as the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and -the editor of the four volumes of Calasio’s _Hebrew Concordance_; then -he caught the evangelic fire; he became one of the chaplains of the -Countess of Huntingdon, and, so far as the Church of the Establishment -was concerned, he was the most considerable light of London for a period -of nearly fifty years; and very singular was his history in this -relation, especially in some of the churches whose pulpits he filled. It -seems singular to us now how even his great talents could obtain for him -the place of morning lecturer at St. George’s, Hanover Square; but the -charge was soon urged against him that he vulgarised that most -fashionable of congregations, and most uncomfortably crowded the church. -He was appointed evening lecturer at St. Dunstan’s in Fleet Street; but -the rector barred his entrance into the pulpit, seating himself there -during the time of prayers, so that the preacher might be unable to -enter. Lord Mansfield decided that, after seven in the evening, the -church was not the rector’s, but that Mr. Romaine was entitled to the -use of it; then, at seven in the evening, the churchwardens closed the -church doors, and kept the congregation outside, wearying them in the -rain or in the cold. At length, the patience of the churchwardens gave -way before the persistency of the people and the preacher; but it was an -age of candles, and they refused to light the church, and Mr. Romaine -often preached in a crowded church by the light of one candle. They paid -him the merest minimum which he could demand, or which they were -compelled to pay; sometimes only eighteen pounds a year. But he was a -hardy man, and he lived on the plainest fare, and dressed in homespun -cloth. He was dragged repeatedly before courts of law, but he was as -difficult to manage here as in the church; he brought his judges to the -statutes, none of which he had broken. Every effort was made to expel -him from the Church, but he would not be cast out; and at last he -appears to have settled himself, as such men generally do, into an -irresistible fact. He became the Rector of St. Ann’s, Blackfriars. There -he preached those sermons which were shaped afterwards into the -favourite book of our forefathers, _The Life, Walk, and Triumph of -Faith_. Born in 1714, he died in 1795. His last years were clothed with -a pleasant serenity, although, perhaps, some have detected in his -character marks of a severity, probably the result of those conflicts -which, through so many years, he had with such remarkable consistency -sustained. - -[Illustration: - - ST. ANN’S, BLACKFRIARS. -] - -And surely we ought to mention, in this right noble band, John Newton; -but he brings us near to the time when the passion of the Revival was -settling itself into organisation and calm; when the fury of persecution -was ceasing; Methodism was becoming even a respectable and acknowledged -fact. John Newton was born in 1725, and died in 1807. All his sympathies -were with the theology and the activities of the revivalists; but before -he most singularly found himself the Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, and -St. Mary Woolchurch, he had led a life which, for its marvellous variety -of incident, reads like one of Defoe’s fictions. - -[Illustration: - - St. Mary Woolnoth. - John Newton. -] - -But his parlour in No. 8 Coleman Street Buildings, on a Friday evening, -was thronged by all the dignitaries of the evangelical movement of his -day. As he said, “I was a wild beast on the coast of Africa, but the -Lord caught me and tamed me; and now you come to see me as people go to -see the lions in the Tower.” A grand old man was John Newton, the young -sailor transformed into the saintly old rector; there he sat with few -traces of the parson about him, in his blue pea-jacket, and his black -neckerchief, liking still to retain something of the freedom of his old -blue seas; full of quaint wisdom, which never, like that of his friend -Berridge, became rude or droll; quietly sitting there and meditating; -his enthusiastic life apparently having subsided into stillness, while -the Hannah Mores, Wilberforces, Claudius Buchanans, and John Campbells, -went to him to find their enthusiasm confirmed. The friend of Cowper, -who surely deserves to be called the Poet Laureate of the -Revival—himself the author of some of the sweetest hymns we still sing; -the biographer of his own wonderful career, and of the life of his -friend and brother-in-arms, William Grimshaw; one of the finest of our -religious letter-writers; with capacities within him for almost -everything he might have thought it wise to undertake, he now seems to -us appropriately to close this small gallery we have attempted to -present. When the spirit of the Revival was either settling into -firmness and consolidation, or striking out into those new and -marvellous fields of labour—its natural outgrowth—which another chapter -may present succinctly to the eye, John Newton, by his great experience -of men, his profound faith, his steady hand and clear eye, became the -wise adviser and fosterer of schemes whose gigantic enterprise would -certainly have astonished even his capacious intelligence. - -In closing this chapter it is quite worth while to notice that, various -as were the characters of these men, and of their innumerable comrades, -to whom we do homage, although we have no space even to mention their -names, their strength arose from the certainty and the confidence with -which they spoke; there was nothing tentative about their teaching. That -great scholar, Sir William Hamilton, says that “assurance is the -_punctum saliens_, that is the strong point of Luther’s system;” so it -was with all these men, “We speak that we do know, and testify that we -have seen;” it was the full assurance of knowledge; and it gave them -authority over the men with whom they wrestled, whether in public or -private. Whitefield and Wesley alike, and all their followers, had -strong faith in God. They were believers in the personal regard of God -for the souls of men; and every idea of prayer supposes some such -personal regard, whether offered by the highest of high Calvinists, or -the simplest primitive Methodist; the whole spirit of the Revival turned -on this; these men, as they strongly believed, were able, by the strong -attractive force of their own nature, to compel other minds to their -convictions. Their history strongly illustrates that that teaching which -oscillates to and fro in a pendulous uncertainty is powerless to reform -character or influence mind. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - BLOSSOMS IN THE WILDERNESS. - - -The preceding chapters have shown that the Great Revival was creating -over the wild moral wastes of England a pure and spiritual atmosphere, -and its movements and organisations were taking root in every direction. -Voltaire, and that pedantic cluster of conceited infidels, the -Bolingbrokes, Middletons, and Mandevilles, Chubbs, Woolstons, and -Collinses, who prophesied that Christian faith was fast vanishing from -the earth, were slightly premature. It is, indeed, interesting to notice -the contrast in this period between England and the then most unhappy -sister-kingdom of France: there, indeed, Christian faith did seem to be -trodden underfoot of men. While a great silent, hallowed revolution was -going on in one, all things were preparing for a tremendous revolution -in the other. It was just about the time that the Revival was leavening -English society that Lord Chesterfield summed up what he had noticed in -France, in the following words: “In short, all the symptoms which I have -ever met with in history previous to great changes and revolutions in -government, now exist and daily increase in France.” The words were -spoken several years before that terrible Revolution came, which -conducted the King, the Queen, and almost all the aristocracy, -respectability, and lingering piety of the nation to the scaffold. It -was a wonderful compensation. A few years before, a sovereign had cast -away from his nation, and from around his throne, all the social -elements which could guard and give dignity to it; how natural, then, -that the whole _canaille_ of the kingdom should rush upon the throne of -his successor, and cast it and its occupant into the bonfire of the -Reign of Terror! - -In Britain, from some cause, all was different. This period of the -Revival has been truly called the starting-point of the modern religious -history of that land; and, somehow, all things were singularly combining -to give to the nation a new-born happiness, to create new facilities for -mental growth and culture, and to enlarge and to fill their cup of -national joy. It will be noticed that these things did not descend to -the nation generally from the highest places of the land. With the -exception of the sovereign, we cannot see many instances of a lively -interest in the moral well-being of the people. Other exceptions there -were, but they were very few. From the people themselves, and from the -causes we have described, originated and spread those means which, -amidst the wild agitations of revolution, as they came foaming over the -Channel, and which were rather aided than repressed by the unwisdom of -many of the governments and magistrates, calmed and enlightened the -public mind, and secured the order of society, and the stability of the -throne. - -The historians of Wesleyanism—we will say it respectfully, but still -very firmly—have been too uniformly disposed to see in their own society -the centre and the spring of all those amazing means of social -regeneration to which the period of the Revival gave birth. Dr. Abel -Stevens specially seems to regard Methodism and Wesleyanism as -conterminous. It would seem from him that the work of the -printing-office, the book or the tract society, schools and missions, -and the various means of social amelioration or redemption, all have -their origin in Wesleyanism. We may give the largest honour to the -venerable name of Wesley, and accept this history by Dr. Stevens as the -best, yet as an American he did not fully know what had been done by -others not in the Connexion. There was an immense field of Methodism -which did not fall beneath the dominion of Wesley, and had no relation -to the Wesleyan Conference. The same spirit touched simultaneously many -minds, quite separated by ecclesiastical and social relations, but all -wrought up to the same end. These pages have been greatly devoted to -reminiscences of the great preachers, and illustrations of the preaching -power of the Revival, but our readers know that the Revival did not end -in preaching. These voices stirred the slumbering mind of the nation -like a thunder-peal, but they roused to work and practical effort. The -great characteristic of all that came out of the movement may be summed -up in the often-quoted expression, “A single eye to the glory of God.” -As one of the clergymen of Yorkshire, earnest and active in those times, -was wont to say, “I do love those one-eyed Christians.” - -We shall have occasion to mention the name of Robert Raikes, and that -name reminds us not only of Gloucester, but of Gloucestershire; many -circumstances gave to that most charming county a conspicuous place. -Lying in the immediate neighbourhood of Bath, it attracted the attention -of the Countess of Huntingdon. “As sure as God is in Gloucestershire,” -was an old proverb, first used in monastic days, then applied to the -Reformation time, when Tyndale, the first translator of the English New -Testament, had his home in the lovely village of North Nibley; but it -became yet more true when Whitefield preached to the immense concourses -on Stinchcombe Hill; when Rodborough and Ebley, and the valley of the -Stroud Water were lit up with Revival beacons, and when Rowland Hill -established his vicarage at Wotton-under-Edge; then, in its immediate -neighbourhood, arose that beautiful Christian worker, the close friend -of George Whitefield, Cornelius Winter; and from his labours came forth -his most eminent pupil, and great preacher, William Jay. - -And the Revival took effect on distinct circles which certainly seemed -outside of the Methodist movement, but which yet, assuredly, belonged to -it; the Clapham Sect, for instance. “The Clapham Sect” is a designation -originating in the facetious and satiric brain of Sydney Smith, than -whom the Revival never had a more unjust, ungenerous, or ungracious -critic; but the pages of the _Edinburgh Review_, in which the flippant -sting of speech first appeared, years afterwards consecrated the term -and made it historical in the elegant essay of Sir James Stephen. By his -pen the sect, with all its leaders, acts, and consequences, are -pleasantly described in the _Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography_; and -surely this was as much the result of the Great Revival as the -“evangelical succession” which calls forth the exercise in previous -pages of the same interesting pen; it was all a natural evangelical -succession, that of which we have spoken before, as enthusiasm for -humanity growing out of enthusiasm for Divine truth. Men who have become -fairly impressed by a sense of their own immortality and its redemption -in Christ, become interested in the temporal well-being and the eternal -welfare of others. It has always been so, and is so still, that men who -have not a sense of man’s immortal welfare have usually cared but little -about his temporal interests. Hospitals and churches, orphanages and -missionary societies, usually grow out of the same spiritual root. - -We scarcely need ask our readers to accompany us to the pleasant little -village of Clapham, and its sweet sequestered Common, then so far -removed from the great metropolis; surrounded by the homes of wealthy -men, merchants, statesmen, eminent preachers, all of them infected with -the spirit of the Revival, and all of them noteworthy in the story of -those means which were to shiver the chains of the slave, to carry light -to dark heathen minds, and to hand out the Bible to English villages and -far-off nations. We have been desirous of conveying the impression that -those were times of a singular and almost simultaneous spiritual -upheaval; it was as if, in different regions of the great lake of -humanity, submerged islands suddenly appeared from beneath the waves; -and it is not too much to say that all those various means which have so -tended to beautify and bless the world, schemes of education, schemes -for the improvement of prison discipline, schemes of missionary -enterprise for the extension of Christian influence in the East Indies, -the destruction of slavery in the West Indies, and the abolition of the -slave trade throughout the British Empire; Bible societies and Tract -societies, and, in fact, the whole munificent machinery and organisation -of our day, sprang forth from that revival of the last century. It seems -now like a magnificent burst of enthusiasm; yet, ultimately it was based -upon only two or three great elements of faith: the spiritual world was -an intense reality; the soul of every man, woman, and child on the face -of the earth had an endowment of immortality; they were precious to the -Redeemer, they ought, therefore, to be precious to all the followers of -the Redeemer. Charged with these truths, their spirits inflamed to a -holy enthusiasm by them, from parlours and drawing-rooms, from the lowly -homes and cottages of England, all these new professors appeared to be -in search of occasions for doing good; the schemes worked themselves -through all the varieties of human temperament and imperfection; but, -looking back, it must surely be admitted that they achieved glorious -results. - -[Illustration: - - John Thornton. -] - -If the reader, impressed by veneration, should make a pilgrimage to -Clapham Common, and inquire from some one of the oldest inhabitants -which was the house in which John Shore, the great Lord Teignmouth, the -first President of the Bible Society, lived, his soul within him might -be a little vexed to be informed that yonder large building at the -extreme corner of the common, the great Roman Catholic Redemptionist -College, is the house. There, were canvassed and brooded over a number -of the schemes to which we have referred. Thither from his own house, -close to the well-known “Plough”—its site now covered by suburban -shops—went the great Zachary Macaulay, sometimes accompanied by his son, -a bright, intelligent lad, afterwards known as Thomas Babington -Macaulay. John Shore had been Governor of India, at Calcutta. On the -common resided also, for some time, William Wilberforce. These were the -great statesmen who were desirous of organising great plans, from which -the consummating prayer of David in the 72nd Psalm should be realised. -Then there was another house on the common, the mansion of John -Thornton, which seemed to share with that of Lord Teignmouth the honours -of these Divine committees of ways and means. Before the establishment -of the Bible Society, Mr. Thornton had been in the habit of spending two -thousand pounds a year in the distribution of Bibles and Testaments—a -very Bible Society in himself. It is, perhaps, not too much to say, -there was scarcely a thought which had for its object the well-being of -the human family but it found its representation and discussion in those -palatial abodes on Clapham Common. There were Granville Sharp and Thomas -Clarkson; thither, how often went cheery old John Newton, to whom, first -of all, on arriving in London, went every holy wayfarer from the -provinces, wayfarers who soon found their entrance beneath his -protecting wing, and cheery introduction to these pleasant circles. -Beneath the incentives of his animating words, the fervid earnestness of -Claudius Buchanan found its pathway of power, and _The Star of the -East_—his great sermon on “Missions to India,”—was first seen shining -over Clapham Common; and it was the same genial tongue which encouraged -that fine, but almost forgotten man, John Campbell, in the enterprise of -his spirit, to pierce into the deserts of Africa. We may notice how -great ideas perpetuate themselves into generations, when we remember -that it was John Campbell who first took out Robert Moffat, and settled -him down in the field of his wonderful labours. - -Sir James Stephen, in his admirable paper, is far from exhausting all -the memories of that Clapham Sect. There was another house, not in -Clapham, but not far removed—Hatcham House, as we remember it—a noble -mansion, standing in its park, opposite where the old lane turned off -from the main road to Peckham. There lived Joseph Hardcastle—certainly -one of the Clapham Sect—Wilberforce’s close and intimate friend, a -munificent merchant prince, in whose offices in the City were held for a -long time all the earliest committee meetings of the Bible Society, the -Religious Tract Society, and the London Missionary Society, and from -whom appear to have emanated the first suggestions for the limitation of -the powers of the East India Company in supporting and sanctioning, by -the English Government, Hindoo infanticide and idolatry. Among all the -glorious names of the Clapham Sect, not one shines out more beautifully -than that of this noble Christian gentleman. - -Perhaps a natural delicacy withheld Sir James Stephen from chronicling -the story of his own father, Sir George Stephen; and there was Thomas -Gisborne, most charming of English preachers of the Church of England -evangelical school; and Sir Robert Grant, whose hymns are still among -the sweetest in our national psalmody. But we can do no more than thus -say that it was from hence that the spirit of the Revival rose in new -strength, and taking to itself the wings of the morning, spread to the -uttermost parts of the earth. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER X - - THE REVIVAL BECOMES EDUCATIONAL.—ROBERT RAIKES. - - -In the year 1880 was celebrated in England and America the centenary of -Sunday-schools. The life and labours of Robert Raikes, whose name has -long been familiar as “a household word” in connection with such -institutions, were reviewed, and fresh interest added to that early work -for the young. - -[Illustration: - - ROBERT RAIKES AND HIS SCHOLARS. -] - -Gloucestershire, if not one of the largest, is certainly one of the -fairest—as, indeed, its name is said to imply: from _Glaw_, an old -British word signifying “fair”—it is one of the fairest, and it ought to -be one of the most famous, counties of England. Many are its -distinguished worthies: John de Trevisa was Vicar of Berkeley, in -Gloucestershire, and a contemporary with John Wyclif, and, like him, he -had a strong aversion to the practices of the Church of Rome, and an -earnest desire to make the Scriptures known to his parishioners; and in -Nibley, in Gloucestershire, was born, and lived, William Tyndale, in -whose noble heart the great idea sprang up that Christian Englishmen -should read the New Testament in their own mother-tongue, and who said -to a celebrated priest, “If God spares my life, I will take care that a -plough-boy shall know more of the Scriptures than you do.” The story of -the great translator and martyr is most interesting. Gloucestershire has -been famous, too, for its contributions to the noble army of martyrs, -notably, not only James Baynham, but, in Gloucester, its bishop, John -Hooper, was in 1555 burnt to death. In Berkeley the very distinguished -physician, and first promulgator of the doctrine of vaccination, Dr. -Edward Jenner, the son of the vicar, was born; and from the Old Bell, in -Gloucester, went forth the wonderful preacher George Whitefield, to -arouse the sleeping Church in England and America from its lethargy. The -quaint old proverb to which we have already alluded—“As sure as God is -in Gloucestershire”—was very complimentary, but not very correct; it -arose from the amazing ecclesiastical wealth of the county, which was so -rich that it attracted the notice of the papal court, and four Italian -bishops held it in succession for fifty years; one of these, Giulio de -Medici, became Pope Clement VII., succeeding Pope Leo X. in the papacy -in 1523. This eminent ecclesiastical fame no doubt originated the -proverb; but it acquired a tone of reality and truth rather from the -martyrdom of its bishop than from the elevation of his predecessor to -the papal tiara; rather from Tyndale, William Sarton, and his brother -weaver-martyrs, than from its costly and magnificent endowments; from -Whitefield and Jenner rather than from its crowd of priests and friars. - -Thus Gloucestershire has certainly considerable eminence among English -counties. To other distinguished names must be added that of Robert -Raikes, who must ever be regarded as the founder of Sabbath-schools. It -is not intended by this that there had never been any attempts made to -gather the children on the Sabbath for some kind of religious -instruction—although such attempts were very few, and a diligent search -has probably brought them all [?] under our knowledge; but the example -and the influence of Raikes gave to the idea the character of a -movement; it stirred the whole country, from the throne itself, the King -and Queen, the bishops, and the clergy; all classes of ministers and -laymen became interested in what was evidently an easy and happy method -of seizing upon the multitudes of lost children who in that day were -“perishing for lack of knowledge.” - -Mr. Joseph Stratford, in his _Biographical Sketches of the Great and -Good Men in Gloucestershire_, and Mr. Alfred Gregory, in his _Life of -Robert Raikes_—to which works we must confess our obligation for much of -the information contained in this chapter—have both done honour to the -several humbler and more obscure labourers whose hearts were moved to -attempt the work to which Raikes gave a national importance, and which -from his hands, and from his time, became henceforth a perpetual -institution in the Church work of every denomination of Christian -believers and labourers. The Rev. Joseph Alleine, the author of _The -Alarm to the Unconverted_, an eminent Nonconformist minister of Taunton, -adopted the plan of gathering the young people together for instruction -on the Lord’s day. Even in Gloucestershire, before Raikes was born, in -the village of Flaxley, on the borders of the Forest of Dean—Flaxley, of -which the poet Bloomfield sings: - - “’Mid depths of shade gay sunbeams broke - Through noble Flaxley’s bowers of oak; - Where many a cottage, trim and gay, - Whispered delight through all the way:” - -in the old Cistercian Abbey, Mrs. Catharine Boevey, the lady of the -abbey, had one of the earliest and pleasantest Sabbath-schools. Her -monument in Flaxley Church, erected after her death in 1726, records her -“clothing and feeding her indigent neighbours, and teaching their -children, some of whom she entertained at her house, and examined them -herself.” Six of the poor children, it is elsewhere stated, “by turns -dined at her residence on Sundays, and were afterwards heard say the -Catechism.” - -We read of a humbler labourer, realising, perhaps, more the idea of a -Sabbath-school teacher, in Bolton, in Lancashire, James Hey, or “Old -Jemmy o’ th’ Hey.” Old Jemmy, Mr. Gregory tells us, employed the working -days of the week in winding bobbins for weavers, and on Sundays he -taught the boys and girls of the neighbourhood to read. His school -assembled twice each Sunday, in the cottage of a neighbour, and the time -of commencing was announced, not by the ringing of a bell, but by an -excellent substitute, an old brass pestle and mortar. After a while, Mr. -Adam Compton, a paper manufacturer in the neighbourhood, began to supply -Jemmy with books, and subscriptions in money were given him; he was thus -enabled to form three branch establishments, the teachers of which were -paid one shilling each Sunday for their services. Besides these there -are several other instances: in 1763 the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey -established something like a Sunday-school at Catterick, in Yorkshire; -at High Wycombe, in 1769, Miss Hannah Ball, a young Methodist lady, -formed a Sunday-school in her town; and at Macclesfield that admirable -and excellent man, the Rev. David Simpson, originated a similar plan of -usefulness; and, contemporary with Mr. Raikes, in the old Whitefield -Tabernacle, at Dursley, in Gloucestershire, we find Mr. William King, a -woollen card-maker, attempting the work of teaching on a Sunday, and -coming into Gloucester to take counsel with Mr. Raikes as to the best -way of carrying it forward. Such, scattered over the face of the -country, at great distances, and in no way representing a general plan -of useful labour, were the hints and efforts before the idea took what -may be called an apostolic shape in the person of Robert Raikes. - -Notwithstanding the instances we have given, Mr. Raikes must really be -regarded as the founder of Sunday-schools as an extended organisation. -With him they became more than a notion, or a mere piece of local -effort; and his position and profession, and the high respect in which -he was held in the city in which he lived, all alike enabled him to give -publicity to the plan: and before he commenced this movement, he was -known as a philanthropist; indeed, John Howard himself bears something -like the same relation to prison philanthropy which Raikes bears to -Sunday-schools. No one doubts that Howard was the great apostle of -prisons; but it seems that before he commenced his great prison crusade, -Raikes had laboured diligently to reform the Gloucester gaol. The -condition of the prisoners was most pitiable, and Raikes, nearly twenty -years before he commenced the Sunday-school system, had been working -among them, attempting their material, moral, and spiritual improvement, -by which he had earned for himself the designation of the “Teacher of -the Poor.” Howard visited Raikes in Gloucester, and bears his testimony -to the blessedness and benevolence of his labours in the prison there; -and the gaol appears not unnaturally to have suggested the idea of the -Sunday-school to the benevolent-hearted man. It was a dreadful state of -society. Some idea may be formed of it from a paragraph in the -_Gloucester Journal_ for June, 1783, the paper of which Raikes was the -editor and proprietor: it is mentioned that no less than sixty-six -persons were committed to the Castle in one week, and Mr. Raikes adds, -“The prison is already so full that all the gaoler’s stock of fetters is -occupied, and the smiths are hard at work casting new ones.” He goes on -to say: “The people sent in are neither disappointed soldiers nor -sailors, but chiefly frequenters of ale-houses and skittle-alleys.” -Then, in another paragraph, he goes on to remark, “The ships about to -sail for Botany Bay will carry about one thousand miserable creatures, -who might have lived perfectly happy in this country had they been early -taught good principles, and to avoid the danger of associating with -those who make sobriety and industry the objects of their ridicule.” - -From sentences like these it is easy to see the direction in which the -mind of the good man was moving, before he commenced the work which has -given such a happy and abiding perpetuity to his name. He gathered the -children; the streets were full of noise and disturbances every Sunday. -In a little while, says the Rev. Dr. Glass, Mr. Raikes found himself -surrounded by such a set of little ragamuffins as would have disgusted -other men less zealous to do good, and less earnest to disseminate -comfort, exhortation, and benefit to all around him, than the founder of -Sunday-schools. He prevented their running about in wild disorder -through the streets. By and by, he arranged that a number of them should -meet him at seven o’clock on the Sunday morning in the cathedral close, -when he and they all went into the cathedral together to an early -service. The increase of the numbers was rapid; Mr. Raikes was looked up -to as the commander-in-chief of this ragged regiment. It is testified -that a change took place and passed over the streets of the old -Gloucester city on the Sunday. A glance at the features of Mr. Raikes -will assure the reader that he was an amiable and gentle man, but that -by no means implies always a weak one. He appears to have had plenty of -strength, self-possession, and knowledge of the world. He also belonged -to, and moved in, good society; and this is not without its influence. -As he told the King, in the course of a long interview, when the King -and Queen sent for him to Windsor, to talk over his system with him, in -order that they might, in some sense, be his disciples, and adopt and -recommend his plan: it was “botanising in human nature.” “All that I -require,” said Raikes, to the parents of the children, “are clean hands, -clean faces, and their hair combed.” To many who were barefooted, after -they had shown some regularity of attendance, he gave shoes, and others -he clothed. Yes, it was “botanising in human nature;” and very many -anecdotes show what flowers sprang up out of the black soil in the path -of the good man. - -All the stories told of Raikes show that the law of kindness was usually -on his lips. A sulky, stubborn girl had resisted all reproofs and -correction, and had refused to ask forgiveness of her mother. In the -presence of the mother, Raikes said to the girl, “Well, if you have no -regard for yourself, I have much for you. You will be ruined and lost if -you do not become a good girl; and if you will not humble yourself, I -must humble myself on your behalf and make a beginning for you;” and -then, with great solemnity, he entreated the mother to forgive the girl, -using such words that he overcame the girl’s pride. The stubborn -creature actually fell on her knees, and begged her mother’s -forgiveness, and never gave Mr. Raikes or her mother trouble afterwards. -It is a very simple anecdote; but it shows the Divine spirit in the -method of the man; and the more closely we come into a personal -knowledge of his character, the more admirable and lovable it seems. -Thus literally true and beautiful are the words of the hymn: - - “Like a lone husbandman, forlorn, - The man of Gloucester went, - Bearing his seeds of precious corn; - And God the blessing sent. - - Now, watered long by faith and prayer, - From year to year it grows, - Till heath, and hill, and desert bare, - Do blossom as the rose.” - -Mr. Raikes was a Churchman; he was so happy as to have, near to his own -parish of St. Mary-le-Crypt, in Gloucester, an intimate friend, the -Rector of St. Aldate’s—a neighbouring parish in the same city—the Rev. -Thomas Stock, whose monument in the church truly testifies that “to him, -in conjunction with Robert Raikes, Esquire, is justly attributed the -honour of having planned and instituted the first Sunday-school in the -kingdom.” Mr. Stock was but a young man in 1780, for he died in 1803, -then only fifty-four years of age; he must have been, at the time of the -first institution of Sunday-schools, a young man of fine and tender -instincts. He appears, simultaneously with Mr. Raikes’s movement, to -have formed a Sunday-school in his own parish, taking upon himself the -superintendence of it, and the responsibility of such expenses as it -involved. But Mr. Stock says, in a letter written in 1788, “The progress -of the institution through the kingdom is justly attributed to the -constant representations which Mr. Raikes made in his own paper of the -benefits which he saw would probably arise from it.” At the time Mr. -Raikes began the work, he was about forty-four years of age; it was a -great thing in that day to possess a respectable journal, a newspaper of -acknowledged character and influence; to this, very likely, we owe it, -in some considerable measure, that the work in Gloucester became -extensively known and spread, and expanded into a great movement. But he -does not appear to have used the columns of his newspaper for the -purpose of calling attention to the usefulness and desirability of the -work until after it had been in operation about three years; in 1783 and -1784, very modestly he commends the system to general adoption. - -[Illustration: - - Robert Raikes. -] - -It is remarkable that in the course of two or three years, several -bishops—the Bishop of Gloucester, in the cathedral, the Bishops of -Chester and Salisbury, in their charges to the clergy of their -dioceses—strongly commended the plan. All orders of mind poured around -the movement their commendation; even Adam Smith, whom no one will think -likely to have fallen into exaggerated expressions where Christian -activity is concerned, said, “No plan has promised to effect a change of -manners with equal ease and simplicity, since the days of the apostles.” -The poet Cowper declared that he knew of no nobler means by which a -reformation of the lower classes could be effected. Some attempts have -been made to claim for John Wesley the honour of inaugurating the -Sunday-school system; considering the intensely practical character of -that venerated man, and how much he was in advance of his times in most -of his activities, it is a wonder that he did not; but his venerable -memory has honours, certainly, in all sufficiency. He wrote his first -commendation of Sunday-schools in the _Arminian Magazine_ of 1784. He -says, “I find these schools spring up wherever I go; perhaps God may -have a deeper end therein than men are aware of; who knows but that some -of these schools may become nurseries for Christians?” Prophetic as -these words are, this is fainter and tardier praise than we should have -expected from him; but in 1787 he writes more warmly, expresses his -belief that these schools will be one great means of reviving religion -throughout the kingdom, and expresses “wonder that Satan has not sent -out some able champion against them.” In 1788 he says: “I verily think -that these schools are one of the noblest specimens of charity which -have been set on foot in England since the days of William the -Conqueror.” - -Some estimate may be formed of the rapidity with which the movement -spread, when we find that in this year, 1787, the number of children -taught in Sunday-schools in Manchester alone, on the testimony of the -very eminent John Nichols, the great printer and anecdotist, was no -fewer than five thousand. It was in this year also, 1787, that Mr. -Raikes was visiting some relatives in the neighbourhood of Windsor. He -must have attained to the dignity of a celebrity; nor is this wonderful, -when we remember the universal acceptance with which his great idea of -Sunday-schools had been honoured. The Queen invited him to visit her, -and inquired of him, he says, “by what accident a thought which promised -so much benefit to the lower order of people as the institution of -Sunday-schools, was suggested to his mind?” The visit was a long one; he -spent two hours with the Queen—the King also, we believe, being present -most of the time—not so much in expounding the system, for that was -simple enough, but they were curious as to what he had observed in the -change and improvement of the characters among whom he worked; and we -believe that it was then he told the King, in the words we have already -quoted, that he regarded his work as a kind of “botanising in human -nature;” this was a favourite phrase of his in describing the work. The -result of this visit was, that the Queen established a Sunday-school in -Windsor, and also a school of industry at Brentford, which the King and -Queen occasionally visited. It may be taken as an illustration of the -native modesty of Mr. Raikes’s own character that he never referred in -his paper to this distinguished notice of royalty. - -Do our readers know anything of Mrs. Sarah Trimmer? A hundred years ago, -there was, probably, not a better-known woman in England; and although -her works have long ceased to exercise any influence, we suppose none, -in her time, were more eminently useful. Pious, devoted, earnestly -evangelical, if we speak of her as a kind of lesser Hannah More, the -remark must apply to her intellectual character rather than to her -reputation or her usefulness. Almost as soon as the Sunday-school idea -was announced, she stepped forward as its most able and intrepid -advocate; her _Economy of Charity_ exercised a large influence, and she -published a number of books, which, at that time, were admirably suited -to the level of the capacity which the Sunday-school teacher desired to -reach; she was also a great favourite with the King and Queen, and -appears to have visited them on the easy terms of friendship. The -intense interest she felt in Sunday-schools is manifest in innumerable -pages of the two volumes which record her life; certainly, she was often -at the ear of the royal pair, to whisper any good and pleasant thing -connected with the progress of her favourite thought. She repeatedly -expresses her obligation to Mr. Raikes; but her biographer only -expresses the simple truth when he says: “To Mr. Raikes, of Gloucester, -the nation is, in the first place, indebted for the happy idea of -collecting the children of the poor together on the Sabbath, and giving -them instruction suited to the sacredness of the day; but, perhaps, no -publication on this subject was of more utility than the _Economy of -Charity_. The influence of the work was very visible when it first made -its appearance, and proved a source of unspeakable gratification to the -author.” - -It is not consistent with the aim of this book to enter at greater -length into the life of Robert Raikes; we have said sufficient to show -that the term which has been applied to him of “founder of -Sunday-schools,” is not misapplied. He was a simple and good man, on -whose heart, as into a fruitful soil, an idea fell, and it became a -realised conviction. Look at his portrait, and instantly there comes to -your mind Cowper’s well-known description of one of his friends, - - “An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin, - Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.” - -No words can better describe him—not a tint of fanaticism seems to shade -his character; he had a warm enthusiasm for ends and aims which -commended themselves to his judgment. It is pleasant to know that, as he -lived when the agitation for the abolition of the slave trade was -commencing, he gave to the movement his hearty blessings and best -wishes. At sixty-seven years of age he retired from business; no doubt a -very well-to-do man, for he was the owner of two freehold estates near -Gloucester, and he received an annuity of three hundred pounds from the -_Gloucester Journal_. He died at his house in Bell Lane, in the city of -Gloucester, where he had taken up his residence when he retired from -active life; he died suddenly, in his seventy-sixth year, in 1811. Then -the family vault in St. Mary-le-Crypt, which sixty years before had -received his father’s ashes, received the body of the gentle -philanthropist. He had kept up his Sunday-school work and interest to -the close; and he left instructions that his Sunday-school children -should be invited to follow him to the grave, and that each of them -should receive a shilling and a plum cake. On the tablet over the place -where he sleeps an appropriate verse of Scripture well describes him: -“When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it -gave witness to me: because I delivered the poor that cried, and the -fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that -was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow’s heart to sing -for joy.” - -It seems very questionable whether the slightest shade can cross the -memory of this plain, simply useful, and unostentatious man. And it -ought to be said that Anne Raikes, who rests in the same grave, appears -to have been every way the worthy companion of her husband. She was the -daughter of Thomas Trigg, Esq., of Newnham, in Gloucestershire; the -sister of Sir Thomas Trigg and Admiral John Trigg. They were married in -1767. She shared in all her husband’s large and charitable intentions, -and when he died he left the whole of his property to her. She survived -him seventeen years, and died in 1828, at the age of eighty-five. - -[Illustration: - - RAIKES’S HOUSE, GLOUCESTER. -] - -The visitor to Gloucester will be surely struck by a quaint old house in -Southgate Street—still standing almost unaltered, save that the basement -is now divided into two shops. A few years since the old oak timbers -were braced, stained, and varnished. It is a fine specimen of the better -class of English residences of a hundred and fifty years since, and is -still remarkable in the old city, owing very much to the good taste -which governed their renovation. This was the printing-office of Robert -Raikes, a notice in the _Gloucester Journal_, dated August 19, 1758, -announcing his removal from Blackfriars Square to this house in -Southgate Street. The house now is in the occupation of Mrs. Watson. The -house where Raikes lived and died is nearly opposite. It will not be -difficult for the spectator to realise the pleasant image of the old -gentleman, dressed, after the fashion of the day, in his blue coat with -gold buttons, buff waistcoat, drab kerseymere breeches, white stockings, -and low shoes, passing beneath those ancient gables, and engaged in -those various public and private duties which we have attempted to -record. A century has passed away since then, and the simple lessons the -philanthropist attempted to impart to the young waifs and strays he -gathered about him have expanded into more comprehensive departments of -knowledge. The originator of Sunday-schools would be astonished were he -to step into almost any of those which have branched out from his -leading idea. It is still expanding; it is one of the most real and -intense activities of the Universal Church; but among the immense crowds -of those who, in England and America, are conducting Sunday-school -classes, it is, perhaps, not too much to say, that in not one is there a -more simple and earnest desire to do good than that which illuminated -the life, and lends a sweet and charming interest to the memory, of -Robert Raikes. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - THE ROMANTIC STORY OF SILAS TOLD. - - -Dr. Abel Stevens, in his _History of Methodism_, says, “I congratulate -myself on the opportunity of reviving the memory of Silas Told;” and -speaks of the little biography in which Silas himself records his -adventures as “a record told with frank and affecting simplicity, in a -style of terse and flowing English Defoe might have envied.” - -Such a testimony is well calculated to excite the curiosity of an -interested reader, especially as the two or three incidents mentioned -only serve to whet the appetite for more of the like description. The -little volume to which he refers has been for some years in the -possession of the author of this volume. It is indeed an astonishing -book; its alleged likeness to Defoe’s charmingly various style of -recital of adventures by sea and by land is no exaggeration, whilst as a -piece of real biography it may claim, and quite sustain, a place side by -side with the romantic and adventurous career of John Newton; but the -wild wonderfulness of the story of Silas seems to leave Newton’s in the -shade. Like Newton, Told was also a seer of visions and a dreamer of -dreams, and a believer, in special providences; and well might he -believe in such who was led certainly along as singular a path as any -mortal could tread. The only other memorial besides his own which has, -we believe, been penned of him—a brief recapitulations-well describes -him as honest, simple, and tender. Silas Told accompanied, in that awful -day, numbers of persons to the gallows, and attempted to console -sufferers and victims in circumstances of most harrowing and tragic -solemnity: he certainly furnished comfortable help and light when no -others were willing or able to sympathise or to help. John Wesley loved -him, and when Silas died he buried him, and says of him in his -_Journal_: “On the 20th of December, 1778, I buried what was mortal of -honest Silas Told. For many years he attended the malefactors in Newgate -without fee or reward; and I suppose no man, for this hundred years, has -been so successful in that melancholy office. God had given him peculiar -talents for it, and he had amazing success therein; the greatest part of -those whom he attended died in peace, and many of them in the triumph of -faith.” Such was Silas Told. - -But before we come to those characteristic circumstances to which Wesley -refers, we must follow him through some of the wild scenes of his sailor -life. He was born in Bristol in 1711; his parents were respectable and -creditable people, but of somewhat faded families. His grandfather had -been an eminent physician in Bunhill Row, London; his mother was from -Exeter. * * * - -Silas was educated in the noble foundation school of Edward Colston in -Bristol. The life of this excellent philanthropist was so remarkable, -and in many particulars so like his own, that we cannot wonder that he -stops for some pages in his early story to recite some of the remarkable -phenomena in Colston’s life. Silas’s childhood was singular, and the -stories he tells are especially noticeable, because in after-life the -turn of his character seems to have been especially real and practical. -Thus he tells how, when a child, wandering with his sister in the King’s -Wood, near Bristol, they lost their way, and were filled with the utmost -consternation, when suddenly, although no house was in view, nor, as -they thought, near, a dog came up behind them, and drove them clear out -of the wood into a path with which they were acquainted; especially it -was remarkable that the dog never barked at them, but when they looked -round about for the dog he was nowhere to be seen. Careless children out -for their own pleasure, they sauntered on their way again, and again -lost their way in the wood—were again bewildered, and in greater -perplexity than before, when, on a sudden looking up, they saw the same -dog making towards them; they ran from him in fright, but he followed -them, drove them out of the labyrinths, and did not leave them until -they could not possibly lose their way again. Simple Silas says, “I then -turned about to look for the dog, but saw no more of him, although we -were now upon an open common. This was the Lord’s doings, and marvellous -in our eyes.” - -When he was twelve years of age, he appears to have been quite -singularly influenced by the reading of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_; and -late in life, when writing his biography, he briefly, but significantly, -attempts to reproduce the intense enjoyment he received—the book -evidently caught and coloured his whole imagination. At this time, too, -he was very nearly drowned, and while drowning, so far from having any -sense of terror, he had no sense nor idea of the things of this world, -but that it appeared to him he rushingly emerged out of thick darkness -into what appeared to him a glorious city, lustrous and brilliant, the -light of which seemed to illuminate the darkness through which he had -urged his way. It was as if the city had a floor like glass, and yet he -was sure that neither city nor floor had any substance; also he saw -people there; the inhabitants arrayed in robes of what seemed the finest -substance, but flowing from their necks to their feet; and yet he was -sensible too that they had no material substance; they moved, but did -not labour as in walking, but glided as if carried along by the wind; -and he testifies how he felt a wonderful joy and peace, and he never -forgot the impression through life, although soon recalled to the world -in which he was to sorrow and suffer so much. It is quite easy to see -John Bunyan in all this; but while he was thus pleasantly happy in his -visionary or intro-visionary state, a benevolent and tender-hearted -Dutchman, who had been among some haymakers in a field on the banks of -the river, was striking out after him among the willow-bushes and sedges -of the stream, from whence he was brought, body and soul, back to the -world again. Such are the glimpses of the childhood of Silas. - -Then shortly comes a dismal transition from strange providences in the -wood, and enchanting visions beneath the waves, to the singularly severe -sufferings of a seafaring life. The ships in that day have left a grim -and ugly reputation surviving still. The term “sea-devil” has often been -used as descriptive of the masters of ships in that time. Silas seems to -have sailed under some of the worst specimens of this order. About the -age of fourteen he was bound apprentice to Captain Moses Lilly, and -started for his first voyage from Bristol to Jamaica. “Here,” he says, -“I may date my first sufferings.” He says the first of his afflictions -“was sea-sickness, which held me till my arrival in Jamaica;” and -considering that it was a voyage of fourteen weeks, it was a fair spell -of entertainment from that pleasant companion. They were short of water, -they were put on short allowance of food, and when having obtained their -freight, while lying in Kingston harbour, their vessel, and seventy-six -sail of ships, many of them very large, but all riding with three -anchors ahead, were all scattered by an astonishing hurricane, and all -the vessels in Port Royal shared the same fate. He tells how the corpses -of the drowned sailors strewed the shores, and how, immediately after -the subsidence of the hurricane, a pestilential sickness swept away -thousands of the natives. “Every morning,” he says, “I have observed -between thirty and forty corpses carried past my window; being very near -death myself, I expected every day to approach with the messenger of my -dissolution.” - -During this time he appears to have been lying in a warehouse, with no -person to take care of him except a negro, who every day brought to him, -where he was laid in his hammock, Jesuit’s bark. - -“At length,” he says, “my master gave me up, and I wandered up and down -the town, almost parched with the insufferable blaze of the sun, till I -resolved to lay me down and die, as I had neither money nor friend; -accordingly, I fixed upon a dunghill in the east end of the town of -Kingston, and being in such a weak condition, I pondered much upon Job’s -case, and considered mine similar to that of his; however, I was fully -resigned to death, nor had I the slightest expectation of relief from -any quarter; yet the kind providence of God was over me, and raised me -up a friend in an entire stranger. A London captain coming by was struck -with the sordid object, came up to me, and, in a very compassionate -manner, asked me if I was sensible of any friend upon the island from -whom I could obtain relief; he likewise asked me to whom I belonged. I -answered, to Captain Moses Lilly, and had been cast away in the late -hurricane. This captain appeared to have some knowledge of my master, -and, cursing him for a barbarous villain, told me he would compel him to -take proper care of me. About a quarter of an hour after this, my master -arrived, whom I had not seen before for six weeks, and took me to a -public-house kept by, a Mrs. Hutchinson, and there ordered me to be -taken proper care of. However, he soon quitted the island, and directed -his course for England, leaving me behind at his sick quarters; and, if -it should please God to permit my recovery, I was commanded to take my -passage to England in the _Montserrat_, Captain David Jones, a very -fatherly, tender-hearted man: this was the first alleviation of my -misery. Now the captain sent his son on shore, in order to receive me on -board. When I came alongside, Captain Jones, standing on the ship’s -gunwale, addressed me after a very humane and compassionate manner, with -expressions to the following effect: ‘Come, poor child, into the cabin, -and you shall want nothing that the ship affords; go, and my son shall -prepare for you, in the first place, a basin of good egg-flip, and -anything else that maybe conducive to your relief.’ But I, being very -bad with my fever and ague, could neither eat nor drink.” - -A very pleasant captain, this seems, to have sailed with; but poor Silas -had very little of his company. However, the good captain and his -boatswain put their experiences together, and the poor boy was restored -to health, and after some singular adventures he reached Bristol. -Arriving there, however, Captain Lilly transferred him to a Captain -Timothy Tucker, of whom Silas bears the pleasing testimony, “A greater -villain, I firmly believe, never existed, although at home he assumed -the character and temper of a saint.” The wretch actually stole a white -woman from her own country to sell her to the black prince of Bonny, on -the African coast. They had not been long at sea before this delightful -person gave Silas a taste of his temper. Thinking the boy had taken too -much bread from the cask, he went to the cabin and brought back with him -his large horsewhip, “and exercised it,” says Silas, “about my body in -so unmerciful a manner, that not only the clothes on my back were cut to -pieces, but every sailor declared they could see my bones; and then he -threw me all along the deck, and jumped many times upon the pit of my -stomach, in order to endanger my life; and had not the people laid hold -of my two legs, and thrown me under the windlass, after the manner they -throw dead cats or dogs, he would have ended his despotic cruelty in -murder.” This free and easy mode of recreation was much indulged in by -seafaring officers in that time, but this Tucker appears to have been -really what Silas calls him, “a blood-thirsty devil;” and stories of -murder, and the incredible cruelties of the slave-trade lend their -horrible fascination to the narrative of Silas Told. How would it be -possible to work the commerce of the slave-trade without such characters -as this Tucker, who presents much more the appearance of a lawless -pirate than of the noble character we call a sailor? - -Those readers who would like to follow poor Silas through the entire -details of his miseries on ship-board, his hairbreadth escapes from -peril and shipwreck, must read them in Silas’s own book, if they can -find it; but we may attempt to give some little account of his wreck -upon the American coast, in New England. Few stories can be more -charming than the picture he gives of his wanderings with his companions -after their escape from the wreck, not because he and they were -destitute, and all but naked, but because of the pleasant glimpses we -have of the simple, hospitable, home life in those beautiful old New -England days—hospitality of the most romantic and free-handed -description. - -We will select two pictures, as illustrating something of the character -of New England settlements in those very early days of their history. -Silas and his companions were cast on shore, and had found refuge in a -tavern seven miles from the beach; he had no clothing; but the landlord -of the tavern gave him a pair of red breeches, the last he had after -supplying the rest. Silas goes on: “Ebenezer Allen, Governor of the -island, and who dwelt about six miles from the tavern, hearing of our -distress, made all possible haste to relieve us; and when he arrived at -the tavern, accompanied by his two eldest sons, he took Captain Seaborn, -his black servant, Joseph and myself through partiality, and escorted us -home to his own house. Between eleven and twelve at night we reached the -Governor’s mansion, all of us ashamed to be seen; we would fain have hid -ourselves in any dark hole or corner, as it was a truly magnificent -building, with wings on each side thereof, but, to our astonishment, we -were received into the great parlour, where were sitting by the fireside -two fine, portly ladies, attending the spit, which was burdened with a -very heavy quarter of house-lamb. Observing a large mahogany table to be -spread with a fine damask cloth, and every knife, fork, and plate to be -laid in a genteel mode, I was apprehensive that it was intended for the -entertainment of some persons of note or distinction, or, at least, for -a family supper. In a short time the joint was taken up, and laid on the -table, yet nobody sat down to eat; and as we were almost hid in one -corner of the room, the ladies turned round and said, ‘Poor men, why -don’t you come to supper?’ I replied, ‘Madam, we had no idea it was -prepared for us.’ The ladies then entreated us to eat without any fear -of them, assuring us that it was prepared for none others; and none of -us having eaten anything for near six and thirty hours before, we picked -the bones of the whole quarter, to which we had plenty of rich old cider -to drink: after supper we went to bed, and enjoyed so profound a sleep -that the next morning it was difficult for the old gentleman to awake -us. The following day I became the partaker of several second-hand -garments, and, as I was happily possessed of a little learning, it -caused me to be more abundantly caressed by the whole family, and -therefore I fared sumptuously every day. - -“This unexpected change of circumstances and diet I undoubtedly -experienced in a very uncommon manner; but as I was strictly trained up -a Churchman, I could not support the idea of a Dissenter, although, God -knows, I had well-nigh by this time dissented from all that is truly -good. This proved a bar to my promotion, and my strong propensity to -sail for England to see my mother prevented my acceptance of the -greatest offer I ever received in my life before; for when the day came -that we were to quit the island, and to cross the sound over to a town -called Sandwich, on the main continent, the young esquire took me apart -from my associates, and earnestly entreated me to tarry with them, -saying that if I would accede to their proposals nothing should be -lacking to render my situation equivalent to the rest of the family. As -there were very few white men on the island, I was fixed upon, if -willing, to espouse one of the Governor’s daughters. I had been informed -that the Governor was immensely rich, having on the island two thousand -head of cattle and twenty thousand sheep, and every acre of land thereon -belonging to himself. However, I could not be prevailed upon to accept -the offer; therefore the Governor furnished us with forty shillings -each, and gave us a pass over to the town of Sandwich.” - -Such passages as this show the severe experiences through which Silas -passed; they illustrate the education he was receiving for that life of -singular earnestness and tenderness which was to close and crown his -career; but we have made the extract here for the purpose of giving some -idea of that cheerful, hospitable, home life of New England in those -then almost wild regions which are now covered with the population of -towns. - -Here is another instance, which occurred at Hanover, in the United -States, through which district Silas and his companions appear to have -been wending their way, seeking a return to England. “One Sunday, as my -companions and self were crossing the churchyard at the time of Divine -service, a well-dressed gentleman came out of the church and said, -‘Gentlemen, we do not suffer any person in this country to travel on the -Lord’s day.’ We gave him to understand that it was necessity which -constrained us to walk that way, as we had all been shipwrecked on St. -Martin’s [Martha’s (?)] Vineyard, and were journeying to Boston. The -gentleman was still dissatisfied, but quitted our company and went into -church. When we had gone a little farther, a large white house proved -the object of our attention. The door being wide open, we reasonably -imagined it was not in an unguarded state, without servants or others; -but as we all went into the kitchen, nobody appeared to be within, nor -was there an individual either above or below. However, I advised my -companions to tarry in the house until some person or other should -arrive. They did so, and in a short time afterwards two ladies, richly -dressed, with a footman following them, came in through the kitchen; -and, notwithstanding they turned round and saw us, who in so dirty and -disagreeable a garb and appearance might have terrified them -exceedingly, yet neither of them was observed to take any notice of us, -nor did either of them ask us any questions touching the cause of so -great an intrusion. - -“About a quarter of an hour afterwards, a footman entered the kitchen -with a cloth and a large two-quart silver tankard full of rich cider, -also a loaf and cheese; but we, not knowing it was prepared for us, did -not attempt to partake thereof. At length the ladies coming into the -kitchen, and viewing us in our former position, desired to know the -reason of our malady, seeing we were not refreshing ourselves; whereupon -I urged the others to join with me in the acceptance of so hospitable a -proposal. After this the ladies commenced a similar inquiry into our -situation. I gave them as particular an account of every recent -vicissitude that befell us as I was capable of, with a genuine, relation -of our being shipwrecked, and the sole reasons of our travelling into -that country; likewise begged that they would excuse our impertinence, -as they were already informed of the cause; we were then emboldened to -ask the ladies if they could furnish us with a lodging that evening. -They replied it was uncertain whether our wishes could be accomplished -there, but that if we proceeded somewhat farther we should doubtless be -entertained and genteelly accommodated by their brother—a Quaker—whose -house was not more than a distance of seven miles. We thanked the -ladies, and set forward, and at about eight o’clock arrived at their -brother’s house. Fatigued with our journey, we hastened into the parlour -and delivered our message; whereupon a gentleman gave us to understand, -by his free and liberal conduct, that he was the Quaker referred to by -the aforesaid ladies, who, total strangers as we were, used us with a -degree of hospitality impossible to be exceeded; indeed, I could venture -to say that the accommodations we met with at the Quaker’s house, seeing -they were imparted to us with such affectionate sympathy, greatly -outweighed those we formerly experienced. - -“After our banquet, the gentleman took us up into a fine spacious -bed-chamber, with desirable bedding and very costly chintz curtains. We -enjoyed a sound night’s rest, and arose between seven and eight the next -morning, and were entertained with a good breakfast; returned many -thanks for the unrestrained friendship and liberality, and departed -therefrom, fully purposed to direct our course for Boston, which was not -more than seven miles farther. Here all the land was strewed with -plenty, the orchards were replete with apple-trees and pears; they had -cider-presses in the centre of their orchards, and great quantities of -fine cider, and any person might become a partaker thereof for the mere -trouble of asking. We soon entered Boston, a commodious, beautiful city, -with seventeen spired meetings, the dissenting religion being then -established in that part of the world. I resided here for the space of -four months, and lodged with Captain Seaborn at Deacon Townshend’s; -deacon of the North Meeting, and by trade a blacksmith.” He gives a -glowing and beautiful description of the high moral and religious -character of Boston; here also he met with a stroke of good fortune in -receiving some arrears of salvage for a vessel he had assisted in saving -before his last wreck. Such are specimens of the interest and -entertainment afforded in the earlier parts of this pleasant piece of -autobiography. But we must hasten past his adventures, both in the -island of Antigua and among the islands of the Mediterranean. - -It is not wonderful that the great sufferings and toils of Silas should, -even at a very early period of life, prostrate his health, and subject -him to repeated vehement attacks of illness. He was but twenty-three -when he married; still, however, a sailor, and destined yet for some -wild experiences on the seas. Not long, however. A married life disposed -him for a home life, and he accepted, while still a very young man, the -position of a schoolmaster, beneath the patronage of a Lady Luther, in -the county of Essex. He was not in this position very long. Silas, -although an unconverted man, must have had strong religious feelings; -and the clergyman of the parish, fond of smoking and drinking with -him—and it may well be conceived what an entertaining companion Silas -must have been in those days, with his budget of adventures—ridiculed -him for his faith in the Scriptures and his belief in Bible theology. -This so shocked Silas, that, making no special profession of religion, -he yet separated himself from the clergyman’s company, and shortly after -he left that neighbourhood, and again sought his fortune, but without -any very cheerful prospects, in London. - -It was in 1740 that a young blacksmith introduced him to the people whom -he had hitherto hated and despised—the Methodists. He heard John Wesley -preach at the Foundry in the Moor Fields from the text, “I write unto -you, little children, for your sins are forgiven you.” This set his soul -on fire; he became a Methodist, notwithstanding the very vehement -opposition of his wife, to whom he appears to have been very tenderly -attached, and who herself was a very motherly and virtuous woman, but -altogether indisposed to the new notions, as many people considered -them. He improved in circumstances, and became a responsible managing -clerk on a wharf at Wapping. While there Mr. Wesley repeatedly and -earnestly pressed him to take charge of the charity school he had -established at the Foundry. After long hesitation he did so; and it was -here that while attending a service at five o’clock in the morning, he -heard Mr. Wesley preach from the text, “I was sick, and in prison, and -ye visited me not.” By a most remarkable application of this charge to -himself, Silas testifies that his mind was stirred with a strange -compunction, as he thought that he had never cared for, or attempted to -ameliorate the condition, or to minister to the souls of the crowds of -those unhappy malefactors who then almost weekly expiated their -offences, very often of the most trivial description, on the gallows. It -seems that the hearing that sermon proved to be a most remarkable -turning-point in the life of Silas. Through it he became most eminently -useful during a very remarkable and painful career; and his after-life -is surrounded by such a succession of romantic incidents that they at -once equal, if they do not transcend, and strangely contrast with his -wild adventures on the seas. - -And here we may pause a moment to reflect how every man’s work derives -its character from what he was before. What thousands of sailors, in -that day, passed through all the trials which Silas passed, leaving them -still only rough sailor men! In him all the roughness seemed only to -strike down to depths of wonderful compassion and tenderness. Singular -was the university in which he graduated to become so great and powerful -a preacher! How he preached we do not know, but his words must have been -warm and touching, faithful and loving, judging from their results; and -as to his pulpit, we do not hear that it was in chapels or churches—his -audience was very much confined to the condemned cell, and to the cart -from whence the poor victims were “turned off,” as it was called in -those days. In this work he found his singular niche. How long it often -takes for a man to find his place in the work that is given him to do; -and when the place is found, sometimes, how long it takes to fit nicely -and admirably into the work itself! what sharp angles have, to be rubbed -away, what difficulties to be overcome! It is wonderful, with all the -horrible experiences through which this man had passed, and spectacles -of cruelty so revolting that they seem almost to shake our faith, not -merely in man, but even in a just and overruling God, that every -sentiment of religion and tenderness had not been eradicated from his -nature; but it would appear that the old gracious influences of -childhood—the days of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and the wonderful vision -when drowning beneath the waters, had never been effaced through all his -strange and chequered career, although certainly not untainted by the -sins of the ordinary sailor’s life. The work in which he was now to be -engaged needed a very tender and affectionate nature; but ordinary -tenderness starts back and is repelled by cruel and repulsive scenes. -Told’s education on the seas, like that of a surgeon in a hospital, -enabled him to look on harrowing sights of suffering without wincing, or -losing in his tender interest his own self-possession. - -It ought not to be forgotten that John Howard, the great prison -philanthropist, belongs to the epoch of the Great Revival. Of him Edmund -Burke said, “He had visited all Europe in a circumnavigation of charity, -not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of -temples; not to collect medals or to collate manuscripts, but to dive -into the depths of dungeons and to plunge into the infections of -hospitals.” About the year 1760,[13] when he began his consecrated work, -Silas Told, as a prison philanthropist upon a smaller, but equally -earnest scale, attempted to console the prisoners of Newgate. - -Footnote 13: - - See Appendix. - -Shortly after hearing that sermon to which we have alluded, a messenger -came to him at the school to tell him that there were ten malefactors -lying under sentence of death in Newgate, some of them in a state of -considerable terror and alarm, and imploring him to find some one to -visit them. Here was the call to the work. The coincidences were -remarkable: John Wesley’s sermon, his own aroused and tender state of -mind produced by the sermon, and the occasion for the active and -practical exercise of his feeling. So opportunities would meet us of -turning suggestions into usefulness, if we watched for them. - -The English laws were barbarous in those days; truly it has been said -that a fearfully heavyweight of blood rests upon the conscience of -England for the state of the law in those times. Few of those who have -given such honour to the noble labours of John Howard and the loving -ministrations of Elizabeth Fry ever heard of Silas Told. In a smaller -sphere than the first of these, and in a much more intensely painful -manner than the second, he anticipated the labours of both. He instantly -responded to this first call to Newgate. Two of the ten malefactors were -reprieved; he attended the remaining eight to the gallows. He had so -influenced the hearts of all of them in their cell that their obduracy -was broken down and softened—so great had been his power over them, that -locked up together in one cell the night before their execution, they -had spent it in prayer and solemn conversation. “At length they were -ordered into the cart, and I was prevailed upon to go with them. When we -were in the cart I addressed myself to each of them separately. The -first was Mr. Atkins, the son of a glazier in the city, a youth nineteen -years of age. I said to him, ‘My dear, are you afraid to die?’ He said, -‘No, sir; really I am not.’ I asked him wherefore he was not afraid to -die? and he said, ‘I have laid my soul at the feet of Jesus, therefore I -am not afraid to die.’ I then spake to Mr. Gardner, a journeyman -carpenter; he made a very comfortable report of the true peace of God -which he found reigning in his heart. The last person to whom I spoke -was one Thompson, a very illiterate young man; but he assured me he was -perfectly happy in his Saviour, and continued so until his last moments. -This was the first time of my visiting the malefactors in Newgate, and -then it was not without much shame and fear, because I clearly perceived -the greater part of the populace considered me as one of the sufferers.” - -The most remarkable of this cluster was one John Lancaster—for what -offence he was sentenced to death does not appear; but the entire -account Silas gives of him, both in the prison and at the place of -execution, exhibits a fine, tender, and really holy character. The -attendant sheriff himself burst into tears before the beautiful -demeanour of this young man. However, so it was, that he was without any -friend in London to procure for his body a proper interment; and the -story of Silas admits us into a pretty spectacle of the times. After the -poor bodies were cut down, Lancaster’s was seized by a surgeons’ mob, -who intended to carry it over to Paddington. It was Silas’s first -experience, as we have seen; and he describes the whole scene as rather -like a great fair than an awful execution. In this confusion the body of -Lancaster had been seized, the crowd dispersed—all save some old woman, -who sold gin, and Silas himself, very likely smitten into extraordinary -meditation by a spectacle so new to him—when a company of eight sailors -appeared on the scene, with truncheons in their hands, who said they had -come to see the execution, and gazed with very menacing faces on the -vacated gallows from whence the bodies had been cut down. “Gentlemen,” -said the old woman, “I suppose you want the man that the surgeons have -got?” “Ay,” said the sailors, “where is he?” The old woman gave them to -understand that the body had been carried away to Paddington, and she -pointed them to the direct road. Away the sailors hastened—it may be -presumed that Lancaster was a sailor, and some old comrade of these men. -They demanded his body from the surgeons’ mob, and obtained it. What -they intended to do with it scarcely transpires; it is most likely that -they had intended a rescue at the foot of the gallows, and arrived too -late. However, hoisting it on their shoulders, away they marched with it -off to Islington, and thence round to Shoreditch; thence to a place -called Coventry’s Fields. By this time they were getting fairly wearied -out with their burden, and by unanimous consent they agreed to lay it on -the step of the first door they came to: this done, they started off. It -created some stir in the street, which brought down an old woman who -lived in the house to the step of the door, and who exclaimed, as she -saw the body, in a loud, agitated voice, “Lord! this is my son John -Lancaster!” It is probable that the old woman was a Methodist, for to -Silas Told and the Methodists she was indebted for a decent and -respectable burial for her son in a good strong coffin and decent -shroud. Silas and his wife went to see him whilst he was lying so, -previous to his burial. There was no alteration of his visage, no marks -of violence, and says Told, “A pleasant smile appeared on his -countenance, and he lay as in sweet sleep.” A singularly romantic story, -for it seems the sailors did not know at all to whom he belonged; and -what an insight into the social condition of London at that time! - -Told did not give up his connection with his school at the Foundry, but -he devoted himself, sanctioned by John Wesley and his Church fellowship, -to the preaching and ministering to all the poor felons and malefactors -in London, including also, in this exercise of love, the work-houses for -twelve miles round London; he believed he had a message of tender -sympathy for those who were of this order, “sick and in prison.” It -seems strange to us, who know how much he had suffered himself, that the -old sailor possessed such a loving, tender, and affectionate heart; and -yet he tells how, in the earlier part of these very years, he was -haunted by irritating doubts and alarms: then came to him old mystical -revelations, such as those he had known when drowning, reminding us of -similar instances in the lives of John Howe and John Flavel; and the -noble man was strengthened. - -He went on for twenty years in the way we have described; and the -interest of his autobiography compels the wish that it were much longer; -for, of course, the largest amount of his precious life of labour was -not set down, and cannot be recalled; and readers who are fond of -romance will find his name in connection with some of the most -remarkable executions of his time. - -A singular circumstance was this: Four gentlemen—Mr. Brett, the son of -an eminent divine in Dublin; Whalley, a gentleman of considerable -fortune, possessed of three country-seats of his own; Dupree, “in every -particular,” says Silas, “a complete gentleman;” and Morgan, an officer -on board one of His Majesty’s ships of war—after dinner, upon the -occasion of their being at an election for the members for Chelmsford, -proposed to start forth, and, by way of recreation, rob somebody on the -highway. Away they went, and chanced upon a farmer, whom they eased of a -considerable sum of money. The farmer followed them into Chelmsford; -they were all secured, and next day removed to London; they took their -trials, and were sentenced, and left for execution. Told visited them -all in prison. Morgan was engaged to be married to Lady Elizabeth -Hamilton, the sister of the Duke of Hamilton. She repeatedly visited her -affianced husband in the cell, and Told was with them at most of their -interviews. It was supposed that, from the rank of the prisoners, and -the character of their offence, there would be no difficulty in -obtaining a reprieve; but the King was quite inexorable; he said, “his -subjects were not to be in bodily fear in order that men might gratify -their drunken whims.” Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, however, thrust herself -several times before the King; wept, threw herself on her knees, and -behaved altogether in such a manner that the King said, “Lady Betsy, -there is no standing your importunity any further; I will spare his -life, but on one condition—that he is not acquainted therewith until he -arrives at the place of execution;” and it was so. The other three -unfortunates were executed, and Lady Elizabeth, in her coach, received -her lover into it as he stepped from the cart. It is a sad story, but it -must have been a sweet satisfaction to the lady. - -Far more dreadful were some cases which engaged the tender heart of -Silas. A young man, named Coleman, was tried for an aggravated assault -on a young woman. The young woman herself declared that Coleman was not -the man; but he had enemies who pressed apparent circumstances against -him, and urged them on the young woman, to induce her to change her -opinion. She never wavered; yet, singular to say, he was convicted and -executed. A short time after the real criminal was discovered, by his -own confession; he was also tried, condemned, and executed, and the -perjured witnesses against poor Coleman sentenced to stand in the -pillory. - -But one of the most pitiful and dreadful cases in Silas Told’s -experience was that of Mary Edmondson, a sweet young girl, tried upon -mere circumstantial evidence, and executed on Kennington Common, for the -supposed murder of her aunt at Rotherhithe. She appears to have been -most brutally treated; the mob believed her to be guilty, and received -her with shocking execrations. Whether Silas had a prejudice against her -or not, we cannot say; it is not likely that he had a prejudice against -any suffering soul; but it so happened, he says, as he had not visited -her in her imprisonment, so he entertained no idea of seeing her suffer. -But as he was passing through the Borough, a pious cheesemonger, named -Skinner, called him into his shop, tenderly expressed deep interest in -her present and future state, and besought him to see her; so his first -interview with her was only just as she was going forth to her sad end. - -Silas shall tell the story himself: “When she was brought into the room, -she stood with her back against the wainscot, but appeared perfectly -resigned to the will of God. I then addressed myself to her, saying, ‘My -dear, for God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, for the sake of your own -precious soul, do not die with a lie in your mouth; you are, in a few -moments, to appear in the presence of the holy God, who is of purer eyes -than to behold iniquity. Oh, consider what an eternity of misery must be -the position of all who die in their sins!’ She heard me with much -meekness and simplicity, but answered that she had already advanced the -truth, and must persevere in the same spirit to her last moments.” -Efforts were made to prevent Told from accompanying her any farther, and -the rioters were so exasperated against her that Told seems only to have -been safe by keeping near to the sheriff along the whole way. The -sheriff also told him that he would be giving a great satisfaction to -the whole nation, could he only bring her to a confession. “Now, as we -were proceeding on the road, the sheriff’s horse being close to the -cart, I looked up at her from under the horse’s bridle, and I said, ‘My -dear, look to Jesus.’ This quickened her spirit, insomuch that although -she had not looked about her before, she turned herself round to me, and -said, ‘Sir, I bless God I can look to Jesus—to my comfort.’” - -Arrived at the place of execution, he spoke to her again solemnly, “Did -you not commit the act? Had you no concern therein? Were you not -interested in the murder?” She said, “I am as clear of the whole affair -as I was the day my mother brought me into the world.” She was very -young, she had all the aspects of innocence about her. The sheriff burst -into tears, and turned his head away, exclaiming, “Good God! it is a -second Coleman’s case!” - -At this moment her cousin stepped up into the cart, and sought to kiss -her. She turned her face away, and pushed him off. She had before -charged him with being the murderer—and he was. When subsequently taken -up for another crime, he confessed the committal of this. Her aunt had -left to Mary, in the event of her death, more money than to this wretch. -The executioner drew the cart away, and Mary’s body—leaning the poor -head, in her last moments, on Silas’s shoulder—dear old Silas, her only -comfort in that terrible hour—fell into the arms of death. But he tells -how she was cold and still before the cart was drawn away. - -But perhaps a still more pitiful case was that of poor Anderson, who was -hanged for stealing sixpence: he was a labouring man, and had been of -irreproachable character. He and his wife—far gone with child—were -destitute of money, clothes, and food. He said to his wife, “My dear, I -will go out, down to the quays; it may be that the Lord will provide me -with a loaf of bread.” All his efforts were fruitless, but passing -through Hoxton Fields, he met two washerwomen. He did not bid them stop, -but he said to one, “Mistress, I want money.” She gave him twopence. He -said to the other, “You have money, I know you have.” She said, “I have -fourpence.” He took that. Insensible of what might follow, as of what he -had done, he walked down into Old Street: there, the two women having -followed him gave him in charge of a constable. He was tried, sentenced -to death, and for this he died. “Never,” says Told, “through the years I -have attended the prisoners, have I seen such meek, loving, patient -spirits as this man and his wife.” Told attended him to execution, and -sought to comfort the poor fellow by promising him to look after his -wife; and most tenderly did Told and his wife redeem the promise, for -they took her for a short time into their own home. Told obtained a -housekeeper’s situation for her, and she became a creditable and -respected woman. He bound her daughter apprentice to a weaver, and she, -probably, turned out well, although he says, “I have never seen her but -twice since, which is many years ago.” - -Our readers will, perhaps, think that it is time we drew these harrowing -stories to a close; but there are many more of them in this brief, but -most interesting, although forgotten autobiography. They are recited -with much pathos. We have the story of Harris, the flying highwayman; of -Bolland, a sheriff’s officer, who was executed for forging a note, -although he had refunded the money, and twice afterwards paid the sum of -the bill to secure himself. A young gentleman, named Slocomb, defrauded -his father of three hundred pounds; his father would not in any way -stir, or remit his claim, to save him. Told attended him and thought -highly of him, not only because he expressed himself with so much -resignation, but because he never indulged a complaint against him whom -Told calls “that lump of adamant, his father.” With him was executed -another young gentleman, named Powell, for forgery. Silas Told also -attended that cruel woman, Elizabeth Brownrigg, who was executed for the -atrocious murder of her apprentices. And of all the malefactors whom he -attended she seems to us the most unsatisfactory. - -We trust our readers will not be displeased to receive these items from -the biography of a very remarkable, a singularly romantic and chequered, -as well as singularly useful career. References to Silas Told will be -found in most of the biographies of Wesley. Southey passes him by with a -very slight allusion. Tyerman dwells on his memory with a little more -tenderness; but, with the exception of Stevens, none has touched with -real interest upon this extraordinary though obscure man, and his -romantic life and labours in a very strange path of Christian -benevolence and usefulness. He was known, far and near, as the -“prisoners’ chaplain,” although an unpaid one. He closed his life in -1778, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. As we have seen, John Wesley -appropriately officiated at his funeral, and pronounced an affectionate -encomium over the remains of his honoured old friend and -fellow-labourer. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. - - -Illustrating what we have said before, it remains to be noticed, that -nearly all the great societies sprang into existence almost -simultaneously. The foremost among these,[14] founded in 1792, was the -Baptist Missionary Society. It appears to have arisen from a suggestion -of William Carey, the celebrated Northamptonshire shoemaker, who -proposed as an inquiry to an association of Northamptonshire ministers, -“whether it were not practicable and obligatory to attempt the -conversion of the heathen.” It is certainly still a moot question -whether Le Verrier or Adams first laid the hand of science on the planet -Neptune; but it seems quite certain that, when one of God’s great -thoughts is throbbing in the heart of one of His apostles, the same -impulse and passion is stirring another, perhaps others, in remote and -faraway scenes. Altogether unknown to William Carey, that same year the -great Claudius Buchanan was dreaming his divine dreams about the -conquest of India for Christ, in St. Mary’s College, Cambridge.[15] -Undoubtedly the honour of the first consolidation of the thought into a -missionary enterprise must be given to William Carey and his little band -of obscure believers. - -Footnote 14: - - It is not implied that these were the first modern missionary - agencies. The Moravians had already sent the Gospel into many regions. - There were Swedish and Danish Missionary Societies also at work. In - 1649 a Society for Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus - Christ in New England had been formed, and about 1697 the “Society for - Promoting Christian Knowledge” and the “Society for the Propagation of - the Gospel in Foreign Parts” were established. See page 256 and foot - note. - -Footnote 15: - - See Appendix. - -[Illustration: - - William Carey. -] - -At the close of Carey’s address, to which we have referred, a collection -was made for the purpose of attempting a missionary crusade upon -Hindostan, amounting to £13 2s. 6d. = $65.60. The wits made fine work of -this: the reader may still turn to Sydney Smith’s paper in the -_Edinburgh Review_, in which the idea and the effort are satirised as -that of “an army of maniacs setting forth to the conquest of India.” But -this humble effort resulted in magnificent achievements; Carey and his -illustrious coadjutors, Ward and Marshman, set forth, and became -stupendous Oriental scholars, translating the Word of Life into many -Indian dialects. Then came tempests of abuse and scurrility at home from -eminent pens. We experience a shame in reading them; but it shows the -catholicity of spirit pervading the minds of Christ’s real followers, -that Lord Teignmouth, and William Wilberforce, and Dr. Buchanan, were -amongst the ablest and most earnest defenders of the noble Baptist -missionaries. We are able to see now that this mission may be said to -have saved India to the British Empire. It not only created the scholars -to whom we have referred, and the bands of holy labourers, but also the -sagacity of Lord Lawrence, and the consecrated courage of Sir Henry -Havelock. We are prepared, therefore, to maintain that England is -indebted more to William Carey and his £13 2s 6d. than to the cunning of -Clive and the rapacity of Warren Hastings. - -Another child of the Revival was born in 1795—the London Missionary -Society. But it would be idle to attempt to enumerate the names either -of its founders, its missionaries, or their fields of labour; let the -reader turn to the names of the founders, and he will find they were -nearly all enthusiasts who had been baptised into the spirit of the -Revival—Rowland Hill, Matthew Wilks, Alexander Waugh, William Kingsbury, -and, notably, Thomas Haweis, the Rector of Aldwinckle and chaplain to -the Countess of Huntingdon. Nor must we omit the name of David -Bogue,[16] that strong and eloquent intelligence, whose admirable and -suggestive work on _The Divine Authority of the_ _New Testament_, sent -to Napoleon in his exile at St. Helena by the Viscountess Duncan, was, -after the Emperor’s death, returned to the author full of annotations, -thus seeming to give some clue to those religious conversations, in -which the illustrious exile certainly astonishes us, not long before his -departure. - -Footnote 16: - - See Appendix. - -It is the London Missionary Society which has covered the largest -surface of the earth with its missions, and it is not invidious to say -that its records register a larger range of conquests over heathenism -and idolatry than could be chronicled in any age since the first -apostles went upon their way. We have only to remember the Sandwich -Islands,[17] and the crowds of islands in the Southern Seas, with their -chief civiliser, the martyr of Erromanga; Africa, from the Cape along -through the deep interior, with Moffatt and Livingstone, whose -celebrated motto was, “The end of the geographical feat is the beginning -of the missionary enterprise;” China and Robert Morison; Madagascar and -William Ellis, and many other regions and names to justify our verdict. - -Footnote 17: - - (The civilisation and Christian character of these Islands is largely, - due to the labours of the missionaries of the American Board of - Commissioners for Foreign Missions.—ED.) - -In 1799 the Church Missionary Society came into existence. “What!” said -the passionate and earnest Rev. Melville Horne, in attempting to arouse -the clergy to missionary enthusiasm; “have Carey and the Baptists had -more forgiven than we, that they should love more? Have the fervent -Methodists and patient Moravians been extortionate publicans, that they -should expend their all in a cause which we decline? Have our -Independent brethren persecuted the Church more, that they should now be -more zealous in propagating the faith which it once destroyed?” And so -the Church Missionary Society arose;[18] and in 1804, the Bible Society; -in 1805, the British and Foreign School Society; in 1799, the Religious -Tract Society, which, since its foundation, has probably circulated not -less than five hundred millions of publications. The Wesleyan Missionary -Society—which claims in date to take precedence of all in its foundation -in the year 1769—was not formally constituted till 1817.[19] - -Footnote 18: - - See Appendix - -Footnote 19: - - (The great missionary organizations of America belong to the early - part of this century. The First day or Sunday-school Society was - formed in 1791; the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign - Missions in 1810; the American Baptist Missionary Union in 1814; - Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society in 1819; the Philadelphia Adult - and Sunday-school Union (which, in 1824, was merged in the American - Sunday-school Union) in 1817; the Protestant Episcopal Board of - Missions in 1821. Of Continental Societies, the Moravian Missionary - Society was formed in 1732; the Netherlands Missionary Society in - 1797; the Basle Evangelical Mission in 1816. Appendix.—ED.) - -Every one of these, and many other such associations, alike show the -vivid and vigorous spirit which was abroad seeking to secure the empire -of the world to the cause of Divine truth and love. - -And, meantime, what works were going on at home? Education and -intelligence were widely spreading; simple academies were forming, like -that founded by the Countess of Huntingdon at Trevecca, where the minds -of young men were being moulded and informed to become the intelligent -vehicles of the Gospel message—eminently that of the great and good -Cornelius Winter, in Gloucestershire; and that of David Bogue at -Gosport; while, in the north of England, arose the small but very -effective colleges of Bradford and Rotherham; and the now handsome -Lancashire Independent College had its origin in the vestry of Mosley -Street Chapel, where the sainted William Roby, as tutor, gathered around -him a number of young men, and armed them with intellectual appliances -for the work of the ministry. - -Some of the earliest efforts of Methodism, and some of the most -successful, had been in the gaols, and among the malefactors of the -country—notably in the wonderful labours of Silas Told, whose -extraordinary story has been recited in these pages. Silas passed away, -but an angel of light moved through the cells of Newgate in the person -of Elizabeth Fry, as beautiful and commanding in her presence as she was -holy in her sweet and fervid zeal. Now began thoughts too about the -waifs and strays of the population—the helpless and forgotten; and John -Townshend, an Independent minister, laid the foundation of the first -Deaf and Dumb Asylum, the noble institution of London. - -In the world of politics, also, the men of the Revival were exercising -their influence, and procuring charters of freedom for the mind of the -nation. Has it not been ever true that civil and religious liberty have -flourished side by side? A blight cannot pass over one without withering -the other. The honour of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts is -due to the Great Revival: the Toleration Act of those days was really -more oppressive on pious members of the Church of England than on -Dissenters; they could not obtain, as Dissenters could, a licence for -holding religious services in their houses, because they were members of -the Church of England. - -William Wilberforce owed his first religious impressions to the -preaching of Whitefield; with all his fine liberality of heart, he -became an ardent member of the communion of the Church of England. It -seems incredible to us now that he lived constantly in the -expectation—we will not say fear—of indictments against him, for holding -prayer-meetings and religious services at his house in Kensington Gore. -Lord Barham, the father of the late amiable and excellent Baptist Noel, -was fined forty pounds, on two informations of his neighbour, the Earl -of Romney, for a breach of the statute in like services. That such a -state of things as this was changed to the free and happy ordinances now -in force, was owing to the spirit which was abroad, giving not only -freedom to the soul of the man, but dignity and independence to the -social life of the citizen. Everywhere, and in every department of life, -the spirit of the Revival moved over the face of the waters, dividing -the light from the darkness, and thus God said, “Let there be light, and -there was light.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - AFTERMATH. - - -The effects of that great awakening which we have thus attempted -concisely, but fairly, to delineate, are with us still; the strength is -diffused, the tone and colour are modified. One chief purpose has guided -the pen of the writer throughout: it has been to show that the immense -regeneration effected in English manners and society during the later -years of the last century and the first of the present, was the result -of a secret, silent, most subtle spiritual force, awakening the minds -and hearts of men in most opposite parts of the nation, and in widely -different social circumstances. We would give all honour where honour is -due, remembering that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from -above.” There are writers whose special admiration is given to some -favourite sect, some effective movement, or some especially beloved -name; but a dispassionate view, an entrance—if we may be permitted so to -speak of it—into the camera, the chamber of the times, presents to the -eye a long succession of actors, and brings out into the clear light a -wonderful variety of influences all simultaneously at work to redeem -society from its darkness, and to give it a higher degree of spiritual -purity and mental and moral dignity. - -The first great workers were passing away, most of them, as is usually -the case, dying on Pisgah, seeing most distinctly the future results of -their work, but scarcely permitted to enter upon the full realisation of -it. In 1791, in the eighty-fourth year of her age, died the revered -Countess of Huntingdon; her last words, “My work is done; I have nothing -to do but to go to my Father!” No chronicle of convent or of -canonisation, nor any story of biography, can record, a more simple, -saintly, and utterly unselfish life. To the last unwearied, she was -daily occupied in writing long letters, arranging for her many -ministers, disposing of her chapel trusts; sometimes feeling that her -rank, and certain suppositions as to the extent of her wealth, made her -an object upon which men were not indisposed to exercise their rapacity. -Still, as compared with the state of society when she commenced her -work, in this her closing year, she must have looked over a hopeful and -promising future, as sweet and enchanting as the ineffably lovely -scenery upon which her eyes opened at Castle Doddington, and the -neighbouring beauties of her first wedded home. - -[Illustration: - - JOHN WESLEY’S TOMB, CITY ROAD, LONDON. -] - -In 1791, John Wesley, in his eighty-eighth year, entered into his rest, -faithfully murmuring, as well as weakness and stammering lips could -articulate, “The best of all is, God is with us!” Abel Stevens says, -“His life stands out in the history of the world, unquestionably -pre-eminent in religious labours above that of any other man since the -apostolic age.” It is not necessary, in order to do Wesley sufficient -honour, to indulge in such invidious comparisons. It is significant, -however, that the last straggling syllables which ever fell from the pen -in his beloved hand, were in a letter to William Wilberforce, cheering -him on in his efforts for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. -Charles Wesley had preceded his brother to his rest in 1788, in the -eightieth year of his age. - -[Illustration: - - JOHN WESLEY. M.A. - BORN JUNE 17, 1703; DIED MARCH 2, 1791. - CHARLES WESLEY. M.A. - BORN DECEMBER 18, 1708; DIED MARCH 29, 1788. - “THE BEST OF ALL IS, GOD IS WITH US.” - “I LOOK UPON ALL THE WORLD AS MY PARISH.” - The Wesley Monument. -] - -Thus the earlier labourers were passing away, and the work of the -Revival was passing into other forms, illustrating how not only “one -generation passeth away, and another cometh,” but also how, as the -workers pass, the work abides. It would be very pleasant to spend some -time in noticing the interior of many old halls, which were now opening, -at once for the entertainment of evangelists, and for Divine service; -prejudices were dying out, and so far from the new religious life -proving inimical to the repose of the country, it was found to be -probably its surest security and friend; and while the efforts were -growing for carrying to far-distant regions the truth which enlightens -and saves, anecdotes are not wanting to show that it was this very -spirit which created a tender interest in maintaining and devising means -to make more secure the minister’s happiness at home. - -From many points of view William Wilberforce maybe regarded as the -central man of the Revival in its new and crowning aspect; as he bore -the standard of England at that great funeral which did honour to all -that was mortal of his friend William Pitt, on its way to the vaults of -the old Abbey, so, as his predecessors departed, it devolved on him to -bear the standard of those truths and principles which had effected the -great change, and which were to effect, if possible, yet greater -changes. By his sweet, winning, and if silvery, yet enchaining and -overwhelming eloquence, by his conversation, which cannot have been, -from the traditions which are preserved of it, less than wonderful, and -by his lucid and practical pen, he continued to give eminent effect to -the Revival, and to procure for its doctrines acceptance in the highest -circles of society. It is perhaps difficult now to understand the cause -of the wonderful influence produced by his _Practical View of -Christianity_; that book itself illustrates how the seeds of things are -transmitted through many generations. It is a long way to look back to -the poor pedlar who called at the farm door of Richard Baxter’s father -in Eaton-Constantine, and sold there Richard Sibbs’s _Bruised Reed_, but -that was the birth-hour of that great and transcendently glorious book, -_The Saint’s Everlasting Rest_. _The Saint’s Everlasting Rest_ was the -inspiration of Philip Doddridge, and to it we owe his _Rise and Progress -of Religion in the Soul_. Wilberforce read that book, and it moved him -to the desire to speak out its earnestness, pathos, and solemnity in -tones suitable to the spirit of the Great Revival which had been going -on around him. A young clergyman read the result of Wilberforce’s wish -in his _Practical View of Christianity_, and he testifies, “To that book -I owe a debt of gratitude; to my unsought and unexpected introduction to -it, I owe the first sacred impressions which I ever received as to the -spiritual nature of the Gospel system, the vital character of personal -religion, the corruption of the human heart, and the way of salvation by -Jesus Christ.” And all this was very shortly given to the world in those -beautiful pieces, which it surely must be ever a pleasure to read, -whether, for their tender delineation of the most important truths, or -the exquisite language, and the delightful charm of natural scenery and -pathetic reflection in which the experiences of _The Young Cottager_, -_The Dairyman’s Daughter_, and other “short and simple annals of the -poor,” are conveyed through the fascinating pen of Legh Richmond. - -In this eminently lovely and lovable life we meet with one on whom, -assuredly, the mantle of the old clerical fathers of the Revival had -fallen. He was a Churchman and a clergyman, he loved and honoured his -Church and its services exceedingly; but it seems impossible to detect, -in any single act of his life or word of his writings, a tinge of -acerbity or bitterness. The quiet and mellowed charm of his tracts—which -are certainly among the finest pieces of writing in that way which we -possess—appear to have pervaded his whole life. Brading, in the Isle of -Wight, has been marvellously transformed since he was the vicar of its -simple little church; the old parsonage, where little Jane talked with -her pastor, is now only a memory, and no longer, as we saw it first many -years since, a feature in the charming landscape; and the little -epitaphs which the vicar himself wrote for the stones, or wooden -memorials over the graves of his parishioners, are all obliterated by -time. Several years since we sought in vain for the sweet verse on his -own infant daughter, although about thirty-five years since we read it -there: - - “This early bud, so young and fair, - Called hence by early doom, - Just came to show how sweet a flower - In Paradise should bloom.” - -But these little papers of this excellent man circulated wherever the -English language was spoken or read, and the spirit of their pages -penetrated farther than the pages themselves; while they seem to present -in a more pleasant, winning and portable form the spirit of the Revival, -divested of much of the ruggedness which had, naturally, characterized -its earlier pens. - -Indeed, if some generalisation were needed to express the phase into -which the Revival was passing, at this, the earlier part of the present -century, it should be called the “literary.” Eminent names were -appearing, and eminent pens, to gather up the elements of faith which -had moved the minds and tongues of men in past years, and to arrest the -conscience through the eye. This opens up a field so large that we -cannot do justice to it in these brief sketches. To name here only one -other writer;—Thomas Scott, the commentator on the Bible, and author of -_The Force of Truth_, is acknowledged to have exerted an influence the -greatness of which has been described in glowing terms by men such as -Sir. James Stephen and John Henry Newman. - -[Illustration: - - CHARLES SIMEON. -] - -No idea can be formed by those of the present generation of the immense -influence Charles Simeon exercised over the mind of the Church of -England. He was the leader of the growing evangelical party in the -Church; his doctrines were exactly those which had been the favourite on -the lips of Whitefield, Berridge, Grimshaw, and Newton. His family was -ancient and respectable, he was the son of a Berkshire squire. He had -been educated at Eton, and afterwards at King’s College, Cambridge; he -became very wealthy. His accession to the life of the Revival seemed -like an immense addition of natural influence: he was faithful and -earnest, and, in the habits of his mind and character, exactly what we -understand by the thorough English gentleman; almost may it be said that -he made the Revival “gentlemanly” in clergymen. He opened the course of -his fifty-six years’ ministry in Cambridge amidst a storm of -persecution; the church wardens attempted to crush him, the pews of his -church were locked up, and he was even locked out of the building. -Through all this he passed, and he became, for the greater part of the -long period we have mentioned, the most noted preacher of his town and -university; and he published, certainly, in his _Horæ Homileticæ_ a -greater number of attempts at opening texts in the form of sermons, than -had ever been given to the world. Simeon devoted his own fortune and -means for the purchase of advowsons, in order that the pulpits of -churches might be filled by the representatives of his own opinions. No -history of the Revival can be complete without noticing this phase, -which scattered over England, far more extensively than can be here -described, a new order of clergyman, who have maintained in their -circles evangelical truth, and have held no inconsiderable sway over the -mind of the country. - -We only know history through men; events are only possible through men, -of whose mind and activity they are the manifestation. This brief -succession of sketches has been very greatly a series of portraits -standing out prominently from the scenery to which the character gave -effect; but of this singular, almost simultaneous movement, how much has -been left unrecorded! It remains unquestionably true that no adequate -and perfectly impartial review of the Revival has ever yet been written. - -[Illustration: - - Boston Elm. -] - -The story of the Revival in Wales, what it found there, and what it -effected, is one of its most interesting chapters. How deep was the -slumber when, about 1735-37, Howell Harris began to traverse the -Principality, exhorting his neighbours concerning the interests of their -souls! another illustration that it was not from one single spring that -the streams of the Revival poured over the land. It was rather like some -great mountain, such as Plinlimmon, from whose high centre, elevated -among the clouds, leap forth five rivers, meandering among the rocks in -their brook-like way, until at last they pour themselves along the -lowlands in broad and even magnificent streams, either uniting as the -Severn and the Wye, or finding their separate way to the ocean. -Whitefield found his way to Wales, but Howell Harris was already pouring -out his consecrated life there; to his assistance came the voice of -Rowlands, “the thunderer,” as he was called. Scientific sermon-makers -would say that Harris was no great preacher; but he has been described -as the most successful and wonderful one who ever ascended pulpit or -platform in the Principality. By the mingling of his tears and his -terrors, in seven years he roused the whole country from one end to the -other, north and south; communicating the impulse of his zeal to many -like-minded men, by whose impassioned words and indefatigable labours -the work was continued with signal and lasting results.[20] - -Footnote 20: - - See a series of papers on “Welsh Preaching and Preachers” in the - _Sunday at Home_, for 1876. - -If the first throbbings of the coming Revival were felt in Northampton, -in America, in 1734, beneath the truly awful words of the great Jonathan -Edwards, it was from England it derived its sustenance, and assumed -organisation and shape. The Boston Elm, a venerable tree near the centre -of Boston Park, or common, whose decayed limbs are still held together -by clamps or rivets of iron, while a railing defends it from rude hands, -is an object as sacred to the traditions of Methodism in the United -States, as is Gwennap Pit to those of Methodism in Western England. -There Jesse Lee, the first founder of Methodism in New England, -commenced the work in 1790, which has issued in an organisation even -more extensive and gigantic than that which is associated with the -Conference in England. As the United States have inherited from the -mother country their language, their literature, and their principles of -law, so also those great agitations of spiritual life to which we have -concisely referred, crossed the Atlantic, and spread themselves with -power there.[21] - -Footnote 21: - - See Chapter XIV., The Revival in the New World. - -It is not within our province to attempt to enumerate all the sects, -each with its larger or lesser proportion of spiritual power, religious -activity, and general acceptance among the people, to which the Revival -gave birth;—such as the large body of the Bible Christians of the West -of England; the Primitive Methodists of the North, those who called -themselves the New Connection Methodists, or the United Free Church -Association. All these, and others, are branches from the great central -stem. Neither is it in our province to notice how the same universal -agitation of religious feeling, at exactly the same time, gave birth to -other forms, not regarded with so much complacency;—such as the rugged -and faulty faith and following of that curious creature, William -Huntington, who, singular to say, found also his best biographer in -Robert Southey; or the strangely multifarious works and rationalistic -development of Baron Swedenborg, which have, at least, the merit of -giving a more spiritual rendering to the Christian system than that -which was found in the prevalent Arianism of the period of their -publication. Turn wherever we may, it is the same. There was a deeper -upheaving of the religious life, and far more widely spread, than -perhaps any age of the world since the time of the apostles had known -before. - -A change passed over the whole of English society. That social state -which we find described in the pages of Fielding and Smollett, and less -respectable writers, passed away, and passed away, we trust, for ever. -The language of impurity indulged with freedom by the dramatists of the -period when the Revival arose, and read, and read aloud, by ladies and -young girls in drawing-rooms, or by parlour firesides, became shameful -and dishonoured. In the course of fifty years, society, if not entirely -purged—for when may we hope for that blessedness?—was purified. A sense -of religious decorum, and some idea of religious duty, took possession -of homes and minds which were not at all impressed, either by the -doctrines or the discipline of Methodism. All this arose from the new -life which had been created. - -It was a fruitful soil upon which the revivalists worked. There was a -reverence for the Bible as the word of God, a faith often held very -ignorantly, but it pervaded the land. The Book was there in every parish -church, and in every hamlet; it became a kind of nexus of union for true -minds when they felt the power of Divine principles. Thus, when, as the -Revival strengthened itself, the great Evangelic party—a term which -seems to us less open to exception than “the Methodist party,” because -far more inclusive—met with the members of the Society of Friends, they -found that, with some substantial differences, they had principles in -common. The Quakers had been long in the land, but excepting in their -own persons—and they were few in number—they had not given much effect -to their principles. Methodism roused the country; Quakerism, with its -more quiet thought, gave suggestions, plans, largely supplied money. The -great works which these two have since unitedly accomplished of -educating the nation, and shaking off the chain of the slave abroad, -neither could have accomplished singly; the conscience of the country -was prepared by Evangelic sentiment. In taking up and working out the -great ideas of the Revival, we have never been indifferent to the share -due to members of the Society of Friends. We have already spoken of -Elizabeth Fry, to whom many of the princes of Europe in turn paid -honour, to whom with singular simplicity they listened as they heard her -preach. There are many names on which we should like a little to dwell; -missionaries as arduous and earnest as any we have mentioned, such as -Stephen Grellet, Thomas Shillitoe, and Thomas Chalkley. But this would -enter into a larger plan than we dare to entertain. Our object now is -only to say, how greatly other nations, and the world at large, have -benefited by the awakening the conscience, the setting free the mind, -the education of the character, by bringing all into immediate contact -with the Word of God and the truth which it unveils. - -Situated as we are now, amidst the movements and agitations of uncertain -seas of thought, wondering as to the future, with strong adjurations on -every hand to renounce the Word of Life, and to trust ourselves to the -filmy rationalism of modern speculation; while we feel that for the -future, and for those seas over which we look there are no tide-tables, -we may, at least, safely affirm this, that the Bible carries us beyond -the highest water-mark; that, as societies have constructed themselves -out of its principles they have built safely, not only for eternal hope, -but for human and social happiness also; and we may safely ask human -thought—which, unaided and unenlightened by revelation, has had a pretty -fair field for the exercise and display of its power in the history of -the world—to show to us a single chapter in all the ages of its history, -which has effected so much for human, spiritual, intellectual, and -social well-being, as that which records the results of the Great -Revival of the Last Century. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - THE REVIVAL IN THE NEW WORLD. - - [BY THE EDITOR.] - - -The labours of Whitefield had a remarkable influence upon the extension -of the Great Revival in the colonies of America. In these days of -mammoth steamships and rapid railways, equipped with drawing-room -coaches, travelling has become a pleasant pastime; but a century and a -half ago, when the sailing vessel and the old lumbering stage-coach were -the most rapid and the chief means of public conveyance, and when these -were often uncertain and irregular, subjecting the traveller to frequent -and annoying delays, if not disappointments, it must have been a -formidable undertaking to cross the Atlantic and to journey through a -new country, almost a wilderness, such long distances as from Georgia to -Massachusetts. Yet Whitefield, with a zeal and a holy desire in “hunting -for souls,” made seven visits to America, crossing the ocean in -sailing-vessels thirteen times (“one voyage lasting eleven weeks”), and -travelled on his preaching tours almost constantly. In one of these -visits he went upwards of 1,100 miles through this then sparsely settled -country, and endured hardships and exposures from which a far stronger -and more vigorous constitution might well shrink. - -As in England, so in the American colonies, the decay of vital godliness -which preceded the great awakening had been long and deep. It began in -the latter part of the 17th century, and its progress was observed with -alarm by many of the notable and godly men of the day. Governor -Stoughton, previous to resigning the pulpit for the bench, proclaimed, -at Boston, that “many had become like Joash after the death of -Jehoiada—rotten, hypocritical, and a lie!” The venerable Torrey of -Weymouth, in a sermon before the legislature, exclaimed, “There is -already a great death upon religion; little more left than a name to -live. It is dying as to the being of it, by the general failure of the -work of conversion.” - -Mather, in 1700, asserts: “If the begun apostasy should proceed as fast -the next thirty years as it has done these last, it will come to that in -New England (except the gospel itself depart with the order of it) that -churches must be gathered out of churches.” President Willard also -published a sermon in the same year on “The Perils of the Times -Displayed,” in which he asks, “Whence is there such a prevalency of so -many immoralities amongst professors? Why so little success of the -gospel? How few thorough conversions to be observed; how scarce and -seldom! * * * It has been a frequent observation that if one generation -begins to decline, the next that follows usually grows worse; and so on, -until God pours out his spirit again upon them.” - -It was thirty years before the dawn of the great awakening began to -appear, even in the colony of Massachusetts; but there were many godly -men in various portions of the American colonies who had not yet bowed -the knee to the Baal of worldliness, and who earnestly sought, by great -fidelity in the presentation of the truth, to arrest the evil tendency -of the times. Among them was that greatest of American theologians, -Jonathan Edwards. Beholding the melancholy state of religion, not only -at Northampton, but in the surrounding regions, and that this evil -tendency was corrupting the Church, he began to preach with greater -boldness, more especially with the purpose of keeping error out of the -Church than with the design of awakening sinners. He was a man, however, -whose convictions were exceedingly strong, and who preached the truth, -not simply for the purpose of gaining a worldly victory, but because he -loved the truth and the Spirit wrought mightily by it. A surprising work -of grace attended his preaching. There was a melting down of all classes -and ages, in an overwhelming solicitude about salvation; an absorbing -sense of eternal realities and self-abasement and self-condemnation; a -spirit of secret and social prayer, followed by a concern for the souls -of others; and this awakening was so sudden and solemn, that in many -instances it produced loud outcries, and in some cases convulsions. -Doubtless this great awakening was as much a surprise to Edwards as to -those to whom he ministered. Naturally, such a wonderful work could not -be confined to Northampton alone; it began to extend to other places in -the colony. Remarkable and widespread as this work of grace was, -however, it does not seem to have penetrated through New England -generally, until after the arrival of Whitefield. The effect of -Whitefield’s preaching in Boston, says his biographer, was amazing. Old -Mr. Walter, the successor of Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, declared -it was Puritanism revived. So great was the interest that his farewell -sermon was attended by twenty thousand persons. “Such a power and -presence of God with a preacher, and in religious assemblies,” says Dr. -Colman, “I never saw before. Every day gives me fresh proofs of Christ -speaking in him.” And this interest, great as it was, seemed, if -possible, exceeded at Northampton when Whitefield met Edwards and -reminded his people of the days of old. A like success attended -Whitefield’s ministry in the town and college of New Haven, and at -Harvard College the effect was remarkable. Secretary Willard, writing to -Whitefield, says: “That which forebodes the most lasting advantage is -the new state of things in the college, where the impressions of -religion have been and still are very general, and many in a judgment of -charity brought home to Christ. Divers gentlemen’s sons that were sent -there only for a more polite education, are now so full of zeal for the -cause of Christ and the love of souls as to devote themselves entirely -to the study of divinity.” And Dr. Colman wrote Whitefield, of -Cambridge: “The college is entirely changed; the students are full of -God, and will, I hope, come out blessings in their generation, and I -trust are so now to each other. The voice of prayer and praise fills -their chambers, and sincerity, fervency, and joy, with seriousness of -heart, sit visible on their faces.” - -On his return to Boston, in 1745, Whitefield himself gives a similar -testimony in regard to the remarkable results of the Revival. He was -followed in his labours there by Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian from -New Jersey. That this was not an overdrawn picture of the work may be -inferred from a public testimony given by three of the leading ministers -in Boston, the Rev. Messrs. Prince, Webb, and Cooper. Among other -things, they said, “The wondrous work of God at this day making its -triumphant progress through the land has forced many men of clear minds, -strong powers, considerable knowledge, and firmly riveted in * * * * -Socinian tenets, to give them all up at once and yield to the adorable -sovereignty and irresistibility of the Divine Spirit in His saving -operations on the souls of men. For to see such men as these, some of -them of licentious lives, long inured in a course of vice and of high -spirits, coming to the preaching of the Word, some only out of -curiosity, and mere design to get matter of cavilling and banter, all at -once, in opposition to their inward resolutions and resistances, to fall -under an unexpected and hated power, to have all the strength of their -resolution and resistance taken away, to have such inward views of the -horrid wickedness not only of their lives but of their hearts, with -their exceeding great and immediate danger of eternal misery as has -amazed their souls and thrown them into distress unutterable, yea, -forced them to cry out in the assemblies with the greatest agonies, and -then, in two or three days, and sometimes sooner, to have such -unexpected and raised views of the infinite grace and love of God in -Christ, as have enabled them to believe in Him; lifted them at once out -of their distress; filled their hearts with admiration and joy -unspeakable and full of glory, breaking forth in their shining -countenances and transporting voices to the surprise of those about -them, kindling up at once into a flame of love to God in utter -detestation of their former courses and vicious habits,” fairly -characterises this wonderful work of God. - -Gilbert Tennent, who was pressed into the field by Whitefield, was born -in Ireland, and brought to this country by his father, and was educated -for the ministry. As a preacher he was, in his vigorous days, equalled -by few. His reasoning powers were strong, his language was forcible and -often sublime, and his manner of address warm and earnest. His eloquence -was, however, rather bold and awful than soft and persuasive, he was -most pungent in his address to the conscience. When he wished to alarm -the sinner, he could represent in the most awful manner the terrors of -the Lord. With admirable dexterity he exposed the false hope of the -hypocrite, and searched the corrupt heart to the bottom. Such were some -of the qualifications of the man whom Whitefield chose to continue his -work in America. He entered on his new labours with almost rustic -simplicity, wearing his hair undressed and a large great-coat girt with -a leathern girdle. He was of lofty stature and dignified and grave -aspect. His career as a preacher in New Jersey had been remarkable, and -now in New England his ministry was hardly less successful than that of -Whitefield. He actually shook the country as with an earthquake. -Wherever he came hypocrisy and Pharisaism either fell before him or -gnashed their teeth against him. Cold orthodoxy also started from her -downy cushion to imitate or to denounce him. So testifies the author of -the “_Life and Times of Whitefield_.” - -Whitefield’s first reception in New York was not particularly -flattering. He was refused the use of both the church and the -court-house. “The commissary of the Bishop,” he says, “was full of anger -and resentment, and denied me the use of his pulpit before I asked him -for it.” He replied, “I will preach in the fields, for all places are -alike to me.” At a subsequent visit he preached there seven weeks with -great acceptableness and success. Even his first labours were not wholly -in vain. Dr. Pemberton wrote to him that many were deeply affected, and -some who had been loose and profligate were ashamed and set upon -thorough reformation. The printers also at New York, as at Philadelphia, -applied to him for sermons to publish, assuring him “that hundreds had -called for them, and that thousands would purchase them.” Of his later -visit he says, “Such flocking of all ranks I never saw before.” At New -York many of the most respectable gentlemen and merchants went home with -him after his sermons to hear something more of the kingdom of Christ. - -“At Philadelphia,” says Philip, in his Life and Times of Whitefield, -“his welcome was cordial. Ministers and laymen of all denominations -visited him, inviting him to preach. He was especially pleased to find -that they preferred sermons when not delivered within church walls. It -was well they did, for his fame had reached the city before he arrived -and this collected crowds which no church could contain. The court-house -steps became his pulpit, and neither he nor the people wearied, although -the cold winds of November blew upon them night after night.” Previous -to one of his visits in Philadelphia, a place was erected in which -Whitefield could preach, and its managers offered him £800 annually, -with liberty to travel six months in a year wherever he chose, if he -would become their pastor. Though pleased with the offer he promptly -declined it. He was more pleased to learn that in consequence of a -former visit there were so many under soul-sickness that even Gilbert -Tennent’s feet were blistered with walking from place to place to see -them. - -Of his work in Maryland he writes, that he found those who had never -heard of redeeming grace. The harvest is promising. “Have Marylanders -also received the grace of God? Amazing love. Maryland is yielding -converts to Jesus; the Gospel is moving southwards.” - -He frequently visited New Jersey (Princeton) College, and there won many -young and bright witnesses for Christ. Hearing that sixteen students had -been converted at a former visit, he again went thither to fan the flame -he had kindled among the students, and says that he had four sweet -seasons which resembled old times. His spirits rose at the sight of the -young soldiers who were to fight when he fell. - -Although at times prejudice ran high against the Indians, Whitefield -espoused their cause as a philanthropist, and preached to them through -interpreters at the Indian school of Lebanon, under Dr. Wheelock, where -the sight of a promising nursery for future missionaries greatly -inspired him. And at one of the stations maintained by the sainted -Brainerd, he preached, found converted Indians, and saw nearly fifty -young ones in one school learning a Bible catechism. In the Indian -school at Lebanon he became so interested that he appealed to the public -and collected £120 at one meeting for its maintenance. Wherever he went -he saw the Redeemer’s stately steps in the great congregations which he -addressed. - -If there was any one point about which Whitefield’s interest centered in -America, it was in the orphan asylum which he aided in establishing in -Georgia. This was his “Bethesda.” The prosperity of the orphan home was -engraved upon his heart as with the point of a diamond, and it was ever -vividly present to him wherever he went. At one of his visits on parting -with the inmates he says: “Oh, what a sweet meeting I had with my dear -friends! What God has prepared for me I know not; but surely I cannot -expect a greater happiness until I embrace the saints in glory! When I -parted my heart was ready to break with sorrow, but now it almost bursts -with joy. Oh, how did each in turn hang upon my neck, kiss and weep over -me with tears of joy! And my own soul was so full of the sense of God’s -love, when I embraced one friend in particular, that I thought I should -have expired in the place. I felt my soul so full of the sense of Divine -goodness that I wanted words to express myself. When we came to public -worship, young and old were all dissolved in tears. After service -several of my parishioners, all of my family, and the little children -returned home crying along the street, and some could not avoid praying -very loud. Being very weak in body I laid myself upon a bed, but finding -so many in a weeping condition I rose and betook myself to prayer again, -but had I not lifted up my voice very high the groans and cries of the -children would have prevented me from being heard. This continued for -near an hour, till at last, finding their concern rather to increase -than to abate, I desired all to retire. Then some or other might be -heard praying earnestly in every corner of the house. It happened at -this time to thunder and lighten, which added very much to the solemnity -of the night. * * * I mention the orphans in particular, that their -benefactors may rejoice at what God is doing for their souls.” - -It is evident that Whitefield had a very tender heart towards all -children. One of his most effective sermons at Webb’s Chapel, Boston, -was occasioned by the touching remark of a dying boy, who had heard him -the day before. The boy was taken ill after the sermon, and said, “I -want to go to Mr. Whitefield’s God”—and expired. This touched the secret -place of both the thunder and the tears of Whitefield. He says, “It -encouraged me to speak to the little ones, but oh, how were the old -people affected when I said, ‘Little children, if your parents will not -come to Christ, do you come and go to heaven without them.’” After this -awful appeal no wonder that there were but few dry eyes. - -Another remarkable evidence of the extent and power of the Revival, and -of the versatility of Mr. Whitefield’s talents, is shown in the effect -produced upon the negro mind. The intensest interest prevailed among -even the poorest slaves. Upon one occasion Whitefield was very ill, and -in the hands of the physician to the time when he was expected to -preach. Suddenly he exclaimed, “My pains are suspended; by the help of -God I will go and preach, and then come home and die!” With some -difficulty he reached the pulpit. All were surprised, and looked as -though they saw one risen from the dead. He says of himself, “I was as -pale as death, and told them they must look upon me as a dying man come -to bear my dying testimony to the truths I had formerly preached to -them. All seemed melted, and were drowned in tears. The cry after me -when I left the pulpit was like the cry of sincere mourners when -attending the funeral of a dear departed friend. Upon my coming home, I -was laid upon a bed upon the ground near the fire, and I heard them say, -‘He is gone!’ but God was pleased to order it otherwise. I gradually -recovered. At this time a poor negro woman insisted upon seeing him when -he began to recover. She came in and sat on the ground, and looked -earnestly into his face; then she said, in broken accents: “Massa, you -jest go to hebben’s gate; but Jesus Christ said, ‘Get you down, get you -down; you musn’t come here yet; go first and call some more poor -negroes.’” Many colored people came to him asking, “Have I a soul?” Many -societies for prayer and mutual instruction were set up. Mr. Seward, a -travelling companion of Whitefield,; relates that a drinking club, -whereof a clergyman was a member, had a negro boy attending them, who -used to mimic people for their diversion. They called on him to mimic -Whitefield, which he was very unwilling to do; but they insisted upon -it. He stood up and said:—“I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, -unless you repent you will all be damned.” Seward adds, “This unexpected -speech broke up the club, which has never met since.” - -At Savannah, Charleston, and other southern cities, the Great Revival -had a remarkable success. Josiah Smith, an Independent minister of -Charleston, published a sermon on the character and preaching of -Whitefield, defending his doctrines, his personal character, and -describing his manner of preaching. Of Whitefield’s power he says: “He -is certainly a finished preacher; a noble negligence ran through his -style; the passion and flame of his inspiration will, I trust, be long -felt by many. How was his tongue like the pen of a ready writer, touched -as with a coal from the altar! With what a flow of words, what a ready -profusion of language did he speak to us upon the concerns of our souls! -In what a flaming light did he set _our_ eternity before us! How -earnestly he pressed Christ upon us! The awe, the silence, the -attention, which sat upon the faces of the great audience was an -argument, how he could reign over all their powers. Many thought he -spake as never man spake before him. So charmed were the people with the -manner of his address that they shut up their shops, forgot their -secular business, and the oftener he preached the keener edge he seemed -to put upon their desires to hear him again. How awfully—with what -thunder and sound—did he discharge the artillery of heaven upon us! -Eternal themes, the tremendous solemnities of our religion were all -alive upon his tongue. He struck at the politest and most modish of our -vices, and at the most fashionable entertainments, regardless of every -one’s presence but His in whose name he spake with this authority. And I -dare warrant if none should go to these diversions until they had -answered the solemn questions he put to their consciences, our theatres -would soon sink and perish.” Mr. Smith adds that £600 were contributed -in Charleston to the orphan house. - -The wonderful quickening which the Great Revival gave to benevolent and -charitable enterprises deserves at least a passing allusion. Besides -sending forth into mission work such men as David Brainerd, and even -Jonathan Edwards himself, it also laid the foundation more securely of -many of our Christian colleges, and of not a few of our orphan asylums. -Whitefield founded his Bethesda upon a tract of land covering about 500 -acres, ten miles from Savannah, and laid out the plan of the building, -employed workmen, hired a large house, took in 24 orphans, incurred at -once the heavy responsibilities of a large family and a larger -institution, encouraged, as he says, by the example of Professor -Francke. Yet on looking back to this first undertaking he said: “I -forgot that Professor Francke built in a populous country and that I was -building at the very tail end of the world, which rendered it by far the -most expensive part of all his Majesty’s dominions; but had I received -more and ventured less, I should have suffered less and others more.” He -undertook to provide for his 40 orphans and 60 servants and workmen with -no fears nor misgivings of heart. “Near a hundred mouths,” he writes, -“are daily to be supplied with food. The expense is great, but our great -and good God, I am persuaded, will enable me to defray it.” He spent a -winter at Bethesda in 1764, and of the success of his orphanage he says, -“Peace and plenty reign at Bethesda; all things go on successfully. God -has given me great favour in the sight of the governor, council, and -assembly. A memorial was presented for an additional grant of land -consisting of about 2,000 acres, and was immediately complied with. -Every heart seems to leap for joy at the prospect of its future utility -to this and the neighbouring colonies.” - -This great religious movement did not progress without stirring up much -bitterness. It was even asserted by President Clap, of New Haven, that -he came into New England to turn out the generality of their ministers, -and to replace them with ministers from England, Ireland, and Scotland. -“Such a thought,” replies Whitefield, “never entered my heart, neither -has, as I know of, my preaching any such tendency.” It is said of one -minister that he went merely to pick a hole in Whitefield’s coat, but -confessed that God picked a hole in his heart, and afterward healed it -by the blood of Christ. After one of his visits not less than twenty -ministers in the neighbourhood of Boston did not hesitate to call -Whitefield their spiritual father, tracing their conversion to his -preaching. These men immediately entered upon a similar work, spreading -the great awakening throughout that colony. - -In the progress of this work under Whitefield and others, there were -frequent outbursts of wit and grim humor. Thus when pastors were shy of -giving Whitefield and his associates a place in their pulpits and the -people voted to allow them to preach in their churches, Whitefield said, -“The _lord_-brethren of New England could tyrannize as well as the -_lord_-bishops of Old England.” The caricatures issued from Boston in -regard to the work were designated as half-penny squibs; and a good old -Puritan of the city said, “they did not weigh much.” - -Of the religion of America Whitefield writes: “I am more and more in -love with the good old Puritans. I am pleased at the thought of sitting -down hereafter with the venerable Cotton, Norton, Eliot, and that great -cloud of witnesses who first crossed the western ocean for the sake of -the sacred gospel and the faith once delivered to the saints. At present -my soul is so filled that I can scarce proceed.” Again he writes: “It is -too much for one man to be received as I have been by thousands. The -thoughts of it lay me low but I cannot get low enough. I would willingly -sink into nothing before the blessed Jesus—my all in all.” And again, “I -love those that thunder out the Word. The Christian world is in a deep -sleep, nothing but a loud voice can awaken them out of it. Had we a -thousand hands and tongues there is employment enough for them all. -People are everywhere ready to perish for lack of knowledge.” To an aged -veteran he writes from North Carolina, “I am here hunting in the -woods—these ungospelized wilds—for sinners. It is pleasant work, though -my body is weak and crazy. But after a short fermentation in the grave, -it will be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body. The thought of -this rejoices my soul and makes me long to leap my seventy years. I -sometimes think all will go to heaven before me. Pray for me as a dying -man, but, oh, pray that I may not go off as a snuff. I would fain die -blazing—not with human glory, but with the love of Jesus.” Such was the -spirit filling the great souls of those who were God’s instruments in -spreading the revival in America. Mr. Whitefield died at Newburyport, -Massachusetts, Sept. 30, 1770, having preached the day before at Exeter, -and his body rests in a crypt or tomb beneath the Presbyterian church at -that place. - -Of the effects of the Great Revival in America, Dr. Abel Stevens says, -“The Congregational churches of New England, the Presbyterians and -Baptists of the Middle States, and the mixed colonies of the South, owe -their late religious life and energy mostly to the impulse given by his -[Whitefield’s] powerful ministrations.” * * * In Pennsylvania and New -Jersey, where Frelinghuysen, Blair, Rowland, and the two Tennents had -been labouring with evangelistic zeal, he was received as a prophet of -God, and it was then that the Presbyterian Church took that attitude of -evangelical power and aggression which has ever since characterized it. - -A single incident will illustrate the effect of the Revival upon -unbelievers and skeptics. A noted officer of Philadelphia, who had long -been almost an atheist, crept into the crowd one night to hear a sermon -on the visit of Nicodemus to Christ. When he came home, his wife not -knowing where he had been, wished he had heard what she had been -hearing. He said nothing. Another and another of his family came in and -made a similar remark till he burst into tears and said, “I have been -hearing him and approve of his sermon.” He afterwards became a sincere -Christian with the spirit of a martyr. - -These etchings of a few scenes and fewer facts indicate the scope, the -depth, and the sweep of the Great Revival of the 18th century in -America. No attempt has been made to sum up its results, nor has it come -within the purpose of this work to give an inward history of the -movement, nor to explain the philosophy of it. These intricate questions -may be left to philosophers; the Christian delights to know the facts; -he will cheerfully wait for the future life to unfold all the mystery -and philosophy of the plan and work of salvation. Then, as Whitefield -exclaims, “What amazing mysteries will be unfolded when each link in the -golden chain of providence and grace shall be seen and scanned by -beatified spirits in the kingdom of heaven! Then all will appear -symmetry and harmony, and even the most intricate and seemingly most -contrary dispensations, will be evidenced to be the result of infinite -and consummate wisdom, power, and love. Above all, there the believer -will see the infinite depths of that mystery of godliness, ‘God -manifested in the flesh,’ and join with that blessed choir, who, with a -restless unweariedness, are ever singing the song of Moses and the -Lamb.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - -------------- - - - APPENDIX A (PAGES 9 AND 97). - -The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from -the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not -content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, -they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for -whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too -minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was, with them, the -great end of existence. They rejected, with contempt, the ceremonious -homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. -Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an -obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, -and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt -for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and -the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the -boundless interval which separated the whole race from Him on whom their -own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority -but His favor; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the -accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were -unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply -read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the -registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their -steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of -ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not -made with hands; their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade -away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles or priests they looked -down with contempt, for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious -measure, and eloquent in a more sublime language—nobles by right of an -earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The -very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible -importance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of light and -darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before -Heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue -when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which -short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained -on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and -decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed His will by the pen of -the Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no -common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed -by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. -It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been -rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the -sufferings of her expiring God. - -Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men: the one all -self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, -inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his -Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional -retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans and tears. He was -half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of -angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the -Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like -Vane, he thought himself entrusted with the sceptre of the millennial -year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God -had hid His face from him. But when he took his seat in the council, or -girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had -left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the -godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their -groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had -little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate, or on -the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military -affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some -writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which -were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their -feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One -overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition -and fear. Death had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. They had -their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not -for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had -cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised -them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might -lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They -went through the world, like Sir Artegal’s iron man Talus with his -flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human -beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible -to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, -not to be withstood by any barrier.—_Macaulay’s Essay on Milton._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX B (PAGE 21). - -“‘The Vicar of Wakefield’ is a domestic epic. Its hero is a country -parson—simple, pious and pure-hearted—a humourist in his way, a little -vain of his learning, a little proud of his fine family—sometimes rather -sententious, never pedantic, and a dogmatist only on the one favorite -topic of monogamy, which crops out now and then above the surface of his -character, only to give it a new charm. Its world is a rural district, -beyond whose limits the action rarely passes, and that only on great -occasions. Domestic affections and joys, relieved by its cares, its -foibles, and its little failings, cluster around the parsonage, till the -storms from the outward world invade its holiness and trouble its peace. -Then comes sorrow and suffering; and we have the hero, like the -patriarchal prince of the land of Uz, when the Lord ‘put forth His hand -and touched all that He had,’ meeting each new affliction with meekness -and with patience—rising from each new trial with renewed reliance upon -God, till the lowest depth of his earthly suffering becomes the highest -elevation of his moral strength.” - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX C (PAGE 28). - -The most interesting phases which the Reformation anywhere assumes, -especially for us English, is that of Puritanism. In Luther’s own -country, Protestantism soon dwindled into a rather barren affair, not a -religion or faith, but rather now a theological jangling of argument, -the proper seat of it not the heart; the essence of it skeptical -contention; which, indeed, has jangled more and more, down to Voltairism -itself; through Gustavus Adolphus contentions onward to -French-Revolution cries! But on our island there arose a Puritanism, -which even got itself established as a Presbyterianism and national -church among the Scotch; which came forth as a real business of the -heart; and has produced in the world very notable fruit. In some senses -one may say it is the only phase of Protestantism that ever got to the -rank of being a faith, a true communication with Heaven, and of -exhibiting itself in history as such. We must spare a few words for -Knox; himself a brave and remarkable man; but still more important as -chief priest and founder, which one may consider him to be, of the faith -that became Scotland’s, New England’s, Oliver Cromwell’s. History will -have something to say about this for some time to come! - -We may censure Puritanism as we please; and no one of us, I suppose, but -would find it a very rough, defective thing; but we, and all men, may -understand that it was a genuine thing; for nature has adopted it, and -it has grown and grows. I say sometimes that all goes by wager of battle -in this world; that _strength_, well understood, is the measure of all -worth. Give a thing time; if it can succeed, it is a right thing. Look -now at American Saxondom; and at that little fact of the sailing of the -Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft Haven, in Holland! Were we -of open sense, as the Greeks were, we had found a poem here; one of -nature’s own poems, such as she writes in broad facts over great -continents. For it was properly the beginning of America: there were -straggling settlers in America before, some material as of a body was -there; but the soul of it was first this. These poor men, driven out of -their own country, not able well to live in Holland, determined on -settling in the New World. Black, untamed forests are there, and wild, -savage creatures; but not so cruel as star-chamber hangmen. They thought -the earth would yield them food, if they tilled honestly; the -everlasting Heaven would stretch there, too, overhead; they should be -left in peace, to prepare for Eternity by living well in this world of -time; worshipping in what they thought the true, not the idolatrous way. -They clubbed their small means together; hired a ship, the little ship -Mayflower, and made ready to set sail. In _Neal’s History of the -Puritans_ is an account of the ceremony of their departure; solemnity, -we might call it, rather, for it was a real act of worship. Their -minister went down with them to the beach, and their brethren, whom they -were to leave behind; all joined in solemn prayer that God would have -pity on His poor children, and go with them into that waste wilderness, -for He also had made that, He was there also as well as here. Hah! These -men, I think, had a work! The weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes -strong one day, if it be a true thing. Puritanism was only despicable, -laughable then; but nobody can manage to laugh at it now. Puritanism has -got weapons and sinews; it has fire-arms, war navies; it has cunning in -its ten fingers, strength in its right arm: it can steer ships, fell -forests, remove mountains; it is one of the strongest things under this -sun at present!—_Carlyle on Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in -History._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX D (PAGE 36). - -It has been said of Lady Huntingdon that “almost from infancy an -uncommon seriousness shaded the natural gladness of her childhood,” and -that, without any positive religious instruction, for none knew her -“inward sorrows,” when she was a “little girl, nor were there any around -her who could have led her to the balm there is in Gilead,” she devoutly -and diligently searched the Scriptures, if haply she might find that -precious something which her soul craved. - -During the first years of her married life (she was married at the age -of 21 and in the year 1728), “her chief endeavor * * * was to maintain a -conscience void of offense. She strove to fulfill the various duties of -her position with scrupulous exactness; she was sincere, just and -upright; she prayed, fasted and gave alms; she was courteous, -considerate and charitable.” - -Her husband, Lord Huntingdon, had a sister, Lady Margaret Hastings, who, -under the preaching of Mr. Ingham, in Ledstone Church in Yorkshire, was -converted. Afterwards, when visiting her brother, these words were -uttered by her: “Since I have known and believed in the Lord Jesus for -salvation, I have been as happy as an angel.” The expression was strange -to Lady Huntingdon—it alarmed her—she sought to work out a righteousness -of her own, but the effort only widened the breach between herself and -God. “Thus harassed by inward conflicts, Lady Huntingdon was thrown upon -a sick bed, and after many days and nights seemed hastening to the -grave. The fear of death fell terribly upon her.” - -In that condition the words of Lady Margaret recurred with a new -meaning. “I too will wholly cast myself on Jesus Christ for life and -salvation,” was her last refuge; and from her bed she lifted up her -heart to God for pardon and mercy through the blood of His Son. “Lord, I -believe; help Thou mine unbelief,” was her prayer. Doubt and distress -vanished and joy and peace filled her bosom.—_From “Lady Huntingdon and -her Friends.” Compiled by Mrs. Helen C. Knight._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX E (PAGE 71). - -“It is easier to justify the heads of the restored Clergy upon this -point [want of uniformity or unity in the Church of England], than to -excuse them for appropriating to themselves the wealth which, in -consequence of the long protracted calamities of the nation, was placed -at their disposal. The leases of the church lands had almost all fallen -in; there had been no renewal for twenty years, and the fines which were -now raised amounted to about a million and a half. Some of this money -was expended in repairing, as far as was reparable, that havoc in -churches and cathedrals which the fanatics had made in their abominable -reign; some also was disposed of in ransoming English slaves from the -Barbary pirates; but the greater part went to enrich individuals and -build up families, instead of being employed, as it ought to have been, -in improving the condition of the inferior clergy. Queen Anne applied -the tenths and first fruits to this most desirable object; but the -effect of her augmentation was slow and imperceptible: they continued in -a state of degrading poverty, and that poverty was another cause of the -declining influence of the Church, and the increasing irreligion of the -people. - -A further cause is to be found in the relaxation of discipline. In the -Romish days it had been grossly abused; and latterly also it had been -brought into general abhorrence and contempt by the tyrannical measures -of Laud on one side, and the absurd vigor of Puritanism on the other. -The clergy had lost that authority which may always command at least the -appearance of respect; and they had lost that respect also by which the -place of authority may sometimes so much more worthily be supplied. For -the loss of power they were not censurable; but if they possessed little -of that influence which the minister who diligently and conscientiously -discharges his duty will certainly acquire, it is manifest that, as a -body, they must have been culpably remiss. From the Restoration to the -accession of the House of Hanover, the English Church could boast of -some of its brightest ornaments and ablest defenders; men who have -neither been surpassed in piety, nor in erudition, nor in industry, nor -in eloquence, nor in strength and subtlety of mind: and when the design -for re-establishing popery in these kingdoms was systematically pursued, -to them we are indebted for that calm and steady resistance, by which -our liberties, civil as well as religious, were preserved. But in the -great majority of the clergy zeal was awanting. The excellent Leighton -spoke of the Church as a fair carcass without a spirit; in doctrine, in -worship, and in the main part of its government, he thought it the best -constituted in the world, but one of the most corrupt in its -administration. And Burnet observes, that in his time our clergy had -less authority, and were under more contempt, than those of any other -church in Europe; for they were much the most remiss in their labors, -and the least severe in their lives. It was not that their lives were -scandalous; he entirely acquitted them of any such imputation; but they -were not exemplary as it became them to be: and in the sincerity and -grief of a pious and reflecting mind, he pronounced that they should -never regain the influence which they had lost, till they lived better -and labored more.”—_Southey’s Life of Wesley._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX F (PAGES 73 AND 98). - -“The observant Frenchman to whom we have several times referred, M. -Grosley, says of the ‘sect of the Methodists,’ ‘this establishment has -borne all the persecutions that it could possibly apprehend in a country -as much disposed to persecution as England is the reverse.’ The light -literature of forty years overflows with ridicule of Methodism. The -preachers are pelted by the mob; the converts are held up to execration -as fanatics or hypocrites. Yet Methodism held the ground it had gained. -It had gone forth to utter the words of truth to men little above the -beasts that perish, and it had brought them to regard themselves, as -akin to humanity. The time would come when its earnestness would awaken -the Church itself from its somnolency, and the educated classes would -not be ashamed to be religious. There was wild enthusiasm enough in some -of the followers of Whitefield and Wesley; much self seeking; zeal -verging upon profaneness; moral conduct, strongly opposed to pious -profession. But these earnest men left a mark upon their time which can -never be effaced. The obscure young students at Oxford in 1736, who were -first called ‘Sacramentarians,’ then ‘Bible moths,’ and finally -‘Methodists, to whom the regular pulpits were closed, and who went forth -to preach in the fields—who separated from the Church more in form than -in reality—produced a moral revolution in England which probably saved -us from the fate of nations wholly abandoned to their own -devices.”—_From Knight’s History of England._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGES 97 AND 98). - (_See Appendix A and F._) - - -------------- - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 114). - -“The ‘two brothers in song’ (John and Charles Wesley) began their issue -of ‘Hymns and Sacred Songs’ in 1739, and continued at intervals to -supply Christian singers for half a century. Thirty-eight publications -appeared one after the other: now under the name of one brother, now -under that of the other; some with both names, and others nameless. The -two hymnists appear to have agreed that, in the volumes which bore their -joint names, they would not distinguish their hymns.”—_The Epworth -Singers and other poets of Methodism, by the Rev. S. W. Christophers, -Redruth, Cornwall._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (NOTE, PAGE 118). - - The God of Abraham praise, - Who reigns enthron’d above; - Ancient of everlasting days, - And God of love: - Jehovah—great I Am— - By earth and Heavens confest; - I bow and bless the sacred name, - For ever bless’d. - - The God of Abraham praise, - At whose supreme command - From earth I rise, and seek the joys - At His right hand: - I all on earth forsake, - Its wisdom, fame and power, - And Him my only portion make, - My Shield and Tower. - - The God of Abraham praise, - Whose all-sufficient grace - Shall guide me all my happy days, - In all my ways: - He calls a worm His friend! - He calls Himself my God! - And He shall save me to the end, - Thro’ Jesus’ blood. - - He by Himself hath sworn! - I on His oath depend, - I shall, on eagle’s wings up-borne, - To Heaven ascend; - I shall behold His face, - I shall His power adore, - And sing the wonders of His grace - For evermore. - - Tho’ nature’s strength decay, - And earth and hell withstand, - To Canaan’s bounds I urge my way - At His command: - The wat’ry deep I pass, - With Jesus in my view; - And thro’ the howling wilderness - My way pursue. - - The goodly land I see, - With peace and plenty bless’d; - A land of sacred liberty, - And endless rest. - There milk and honey flow, - And oil and wine abound, - And trees of life forever grow, - With mercy crown’d. - - There dwells the Lord our King, - The Lord our Righteousness, - Triumphant o’er the world and sin, - The Prince of Peace; - On Sion’s sacred heights - His Kingdom still maintains; - And glorious with the saints in light, - Forever reigns. - - He keeps His own secure, - He guards them by His side, - Arrays in garments white and pure - His spotless bride. - With streams of sacred bliss, - With groves of living joys, - With all the fruits of Paradise - He still supplies. - - Before the great Three—One - They all exulting stand; - And tell the wonders He hath done, - Thro’ all their land: - The list’ning spheres attend, - And swell the growing fame; - And sing, in songs which never end, - The wondrous name. - - The God who reigns on high, - The great Archangels sing, - And “Holy, holy, holy,” cry, - Almighty King! - Who was, and is, the same! - And evermore shall be; - Jehovah—Father—great I Am! - We worship Thee. - - Before the Saviour’s face - The ransom’d nations bow; - O’erwhelmed at His Almighty grace, - Forever new: - He shows His prints of love— - They kindle—to a flame! - And sound through all the worlds above, - The slaughter’d Lamb. - - The whole triumphant host - Give thanks to God on high; - “Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!” - They ever cry: - Hail, Abraham’s God—and _mine_! - I join the heavenly lays, - All might and majesty are Thine, - And endless praise. - -Thomas Olivers, the author of the above hymn, lived to see the issue of -at least thirty editions of it. - - - -------------- - - - APPENDIX (PAGE 118). - THE LAST JUDGMENT. - BY THOMAS OLIVERS. - - Come, immortal King of Glory, - Now in Majesty appear, - Bid the nations stand before Thee, - Each his final doom to hear, - - Come to judgment, - Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come. - - Speak the word, and lo! all nature - Flies before Thy glorious face, - Angels sing your great Creator, - Saints proclaim His sovereign grace, - While ye praise Him, - Lift your heads and see Him come. - - See His beauty all resplendent, - View Him in His glory shine, - See His majesty transcendent, - Seated on His throne sublime: - Angels praise Him, - Saints and angels praise the Lamb. - - Shout aloud, ye heavenly choirs, - Trumpet forth Jehovah’s praise; - Trumpets, voices, hearts and lyres! - Speak the wonders of His grace! - Sound before Him - Endless praises to His name. - - Ransom’d sinners, see His ensign - Waving thro’ the purpled air! - ‘Midst ten thousand lightnings daring, - Jesus’ praises to declare; - How tremendous - Is this dreadful, joyful day. - - Crowns and sceptres fall before Him, - Kings and conquerors own His sway, - Fearless potentates are trembling, - While they see His lightnings play: - How triumphant - Is the world’s Redeemer now. - - Noon-day beauty in its lustre - Doth in Jesus’ aspect shine, - Blazing comets are not fiercer - Than the flaming eyes Divine: - O, how dreadful - Doth the Crucified appear. - - Hear His voice as mighty thunder, - Sounding in eternal roar! - Far surpassing many waters - Echoing wide from shore to shore: - Hear His accents - Through th’ unfathom’d deep resound: - - “Come,” He saith, “ye heirs of glory, - Come, the purchase of my blood; - Bless’d ye are, and bless’d ye shall be, - Now ascend the mount of God; - Angels guard them - To the realms of endless day.” - - See ten thousand flaming seraphs - From their thrones as lightnings fly; - “Take,” they cry, “your seats above us, - Nearest Him who rules the sky: - Favorite sinners, - How rewarded are you now!” - - Haste and taste celestial pleasure; - Haste and reap immortal joys; - Haste and drink the crystal river; - Lift on high your choral voice, - While archangels - Shout aloud the great Amen. - - But the angry Lamb’s determin’d - Every evil to descry; - They who have His love rejected - Shall before His vengeance fly, - When He drives them - To their everlasting doom. - - Now, in awful expectation, - See the countless millions stand; - Dread, dismay, and sore vexation, - Seize the helpless, hopeless band; - Baleful thunders, - Stop and hear Jehovah’s voice! - - “Go from me,” He saith, “ye cursed— - Ye for whom I bled in vain— - Ye who have my grace refused— - Hasten to eternal pain!” - How victorious - Is the conquering _Son of Man_! - - See, in solemn pomp ascending, - Jesus and His glorious train; - Countless myriads now attend Him, - Rising to th’ imperial plain; - Hallelujah! - To the bless’d Immanuel’s name! - - In full triumph see them marching - Through the gates of massy light; - While the city walls are sparkling - With meridian’s glory bright; - How stupendous - Are the glories of the Lamb! - - On His throne of radiant azure, - High above all heights He reigns— - Reigns amidst immortal pleasure, - While refulgent glory flames; - How diffusive - Shines the golden blaze around! - - All the heavenly powers adore Him, - Circling round his orient seat; - Ransom’d saints with angels vying, - Loudest praises to repeat; - How exalted - Is His praise, and how profound! - - Every throne and every mansion, - All ye heavenly arches ring; - Echo to the Lord salvation, - Glory to our glorious King! - Boundless praises - All ye heavenly orbs resound. - - Praise be to the Father given, - Praise to the Incarnate Son, - Praise the Spirit, one and Seven, - Praise the mystic Three in One; - Hallelujah! - Everlasting praise be Thine! - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 120). - ROCK OF AGES—IN LATIN. - BY W. E. GLADSTONE. - - Jesus, pro me perforatus, - Condar intra Tuum latus, - Tu per lympham profluentem, - Tu per sanguinem tepentem, - In peccata me redunda, - Tolle culpam, sordes munda. - - Coram Te, nec justus forem - Quamvis totâ si laborem, - Nec si fide nunquam cesso, - Fletu stillans indefesso: - Tibi soli tantum munus; - Salva me, Salvator unus! - - Nil in manu mecum fero, - Sed me versus crucem gero; - Vestimenta nudus oro, - Opem debilis imploro; - Fontem Christi quæro immundus - Nisi laves, moribundus. - - Dum hos artus vita regit; - Quando nox sepulchro tegit; - Mortuos cum stare jubes, - Sedens Judex inter nubes; - Jesus, pro me perforatus, - Condar intra Tuum latus. - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 236). - -From the “Memoirs of Howard, compiled from his diary, his confidential -letters, and other authentic documents, by James Baldwin Brown,” it -appears that in the year 1755, on a voyage to Portugal, the vessel in -which he was, was captured by a French privateer, and carried into -Brest, where he and the other passengers, along with the crew, were cast -into a filthy dungeon, and there kept a considerable time without -nourishment. There they lay for six days and nights. The floor, with -nothing but straw upon it, was their sleeping place. He was afterwards -removed to Morlaix, and thence to Carpaix, where he was two months upon -parole. At the latter place “he corresponded with the English prisoners -at Brest, Morlaix and Dinnan; and had sufficient evidence of their being -treated with such barbarity that many hundreds had perished; and that -thirty-six were buried in a hole at Dinnan in one day.” - -Through his benevolent and timely interference on their behalf, when he -himself had regained his freedom, the prisoners of war in these three -prisons were released and sent home to England in the first cartel -ships. - -Till the year 1773 it does not appear that he was actively engaged in -any philanthropic work on behalf of prisoners. In the year 1730 there -had been a commission of enquiry in the House of Commons on the state of -prisons, and condition of their inmates, but nothing seems to have -followed from it, and it was not till March, 1774, when Howard received -the thanks of the House for the information which, he communicated to -them on the subject, that the great work assumed shape. In 1773, having -been appointed sheriff of Bedford, the distress of prisoners came under -his notice. He engaged himself in a most minute inspection, and the -consequence was the devotion of every faculty of his existence to the -correction of the abuses existing in similar institutions as the friend -of those who had no friend. - -In that Christlike work he continued till his death, on 20th January, -1790, at Cherson, Russian Tartary, having in the meantime inspected -prisons in England, Scotland and Ireland, France, Holland, Flanders, -Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the -Netherlands, Malta, Turkey, Prussia and Russia. - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 253). - -At Michaelmas time, 1791, Mr. Buchanan was admitted a member of Queen’s -College, Cambridge, having left London on the 24th October. He was then -25 years of age. In consequence of a letter from his mother he attended -the preaching of John Newton, with whom he kept up a correspondence when -at college. In one of his replies to Mr. Newton he wrote: “You ask me -whether I would prefer preaching the Gospel to the fame of learning? Ay, -that would I, gladly, were I convinced it was the will of God, that I -should depart this night for Nova Zembla, or the Antipodes, to testify -of Him. I would not wait for an admit or a college exit.” Some time in -the year 1794, the first proposal appears to have been made to him to go -out to India, and on this occasion he wrote Mr. Newton, saying, “I have -only time to say, that with respect to my going to India, I must decline -giving an opinion. * * * It is with great pleasure I submit this matter -to the determination of yourself and Mr. Thornton and Mr. Grant. All I -wish to ascertain is the will of God.” In a subsequent letter he wrote, -“I am equally ready to preach the Gospel in the next village, or at the -end of the earth.” - -After taking his degree of B.A., he was ordained a deacon by the Bishop -of London on 20th September, 1795, when he became Mr. Newton’s curate, -which he held till March, 1796, when he was appointed one of the -chaplains to the East India Company. Soon after, he received priest’s -orders, and on 11th August, 1796, sailed from Portsmouth, England, for -Calcutta, where he landed 10th March, 1797. In May following he -proceeded to the military station of Barackpore. But it was not till the -beginning of the present century that he fairly developed his plans for -the extension of the Redeemer’s Kingdom in India.—_From Memoirs of Rev. -Claudius Buchanan._ - - - -------------- - - APPENDIX (PAGE 254). - -In the month of September, 1794, a paper was published in the -_Evangelical Magazine_, urging the formation of a mission to the heathen -on the broadest possible basis. The writer of that paper was the Rev. -David Bogue, D.D., of Gosport, Hampshire, and two months after its -appearance a conference, attended by representatives from several -Evangelical bodies, was held to take action in the matter. The result -was an address to ministers and members of various churches, and the -appointment of a committee to diffuse information upon the subject. -Thereafter, and in September, 1795, a large and influential meeting, -extending over three days, at which the Rev. Dr. Harris preached from -Mark xv: 16, and the Rev. J. Burder and the Rev. Rowland Hill and many -others took part. At that meeting the society was formed, and it was -resolved, with reference to its agents and their converts, “That it -should be entirely left with those whom God might call into the -fellowship of His Son among them, to assume for themselves such a form -of church government as to them shall appear most agreeable to the Word -of God.” - -The Rev. David Bogue, D.D., has therefore well been styled “the father -and founder” of the institution. - - - -------------- - - - - - APPENDIX (PAGE 256). - -At a meeting held in Leeds, 5th October, 1813, it was resolved to -constitute a society to be called “The Methodist Missionary Society for -the Leeds District,” of which branches were to be formed in the several -circuits, whose duty it should be to collect subscriptions in behalf of -missions and to remit them to an already existing committee in London. -It was from this point that, by general consent, the origin of the -Wesleyan Missionary Society is reckoned. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - INDEX. - - - Academy, Doddridge’s, 29 - Lady Huntingdon’s, 257 - - Aftermath, 260 - - Age before the Revival, The 32 - - Albert, Prince, 120 - - Alleine, Rev. Joseph, 197 - - Allen, Ebenezer, Governor of Martha’s Vineyard, 226 - - America, Awakening in, 28, 73, 85, 281 - - American Baptist Missionary Union, 256 - - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 255, 256 - - American Revival, 28, 73, 85, 281 - Sunday-school Union, 256 - - Amusements, 15 - - Anabaptists, 52 - - Ancaster, Duchess of 37, 41 - - - Anecdotes, 17–20, 37, 39, 41, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 69, 70, 72, 76, - 82–84, 87, 89, 94, 96, 100, 103, 109, 112, 113, 115, 116, 125, 129, - 130, 133–135, 137, 138, 140, 143–145, 148, 151, 153, 158, 159, 161, - 166, 172, 177, 183, 194, 198, 200, 202, 218, 234, 236, 239, 243, - 245, 247, 255, 256, 266, 288, 291, 293, 294, 298, 300, 301 - - Aram, Eugene, 147 - - Armenianism, 60 - - Arrests, 102 - - Atheism, Prevalence of, 15 - - Austrian Exiles, 28 - - - Baptist Missionary Society, 250 - Union, American, 256 - - Band-Meetings, etc., Origin of, 100 - - Basle Evangelical Mission, 256 - - Baynham, James, 195 - - Baxter, Richard, 266 - - Benson, Bishop, 69, 70 - - Bernard of Clairvaux, 114 - Cluny, 114 - - Berridge, John, 150, 157, 169, 177, 270 - - Bible, The, the Power of God, 7, 279, 286 - Reverenced, 277 - Translated for India, 253 - - Bible Society, The 186, 189, 191, 256 - - Blomfield, Bishop, 18 - - Bloomfield, 197 - - Blossoms in the Wilderness, 180 - - Bogue, David, 254, 257, 320 - - Bolingbroke, Lord, 41, 60, 180 - - Borlase, Dr., 102 - - Boston in 1730, 232 - Elm, 275 - State of Society in, 282 - - Bradford, Joseph, 138 - - Britain’s Obligations to Missions for India, 254 - - British and Foreign School Society, 256 - - _British Quarterly_, 52, 92 - - Brontë Family, 160 - - _Bruised Reed_, 266 - - Buchanan, Claudius, 178, 190, 253, 254, 319 - - Buckingham, Duchess of, 38, 39 - - Bunyan, John, 160 - - Burke, Edmund, 236 - - Butler, Bishop, 22 - - Byron, 117 - - - Calvin’s Institutes, 61 - - Calvinistic Methodists, 101 - - Campbell, John, 178, 190 - - Captains of Ships in 18th Century, 221, 224 - - Cardigan, Lady, 42 - - Carey, William, 250 - - Carlyle, Thomas, 28, 305 - - Cennick, John, 123 - - Chatsworth, 49 - - Cheerfulness and Joy Significant of Revival, 98, 99, 101, 109, 124 - - Chesterfield, Lord, 41, 180 - - Christian Remembrances, 123 - - “_Christian World Unmasked, The_; _Pray Come and Peep_,”, 158 - - Christianity, Effect of, 98, 185 - - Chrysostom, 52 - - Church of England, Evangelical Party in, 269 - Religion in, 15, 18, 233 - Disabilities against Members of, 258 - Opposition to Methodism, 99 - Opposition to Revival, 22, 70, 156, 159, 172, 270 - Southey on the Clergy of the, 308 - - Church Signs and Counter-signs, 99 - - Church’s, Rev. Thomas, Denunciation of Evil, 21 - - Chubbs, 180 - - Church Missionary Society, 255 - - City Road Chapel, 91 - - Clapham Sect, 184, 189, 191 - - Clarkson, Thomas, 190 - - Clergy, Corruption of, 18 - - Coates, Alexander, 153 - - Colman, Dr., Testimony of, 285 - - Colliers, The, 75 - - Collins, 180 - - Colston, Edward, 218 - - Colston’s School, Bristol, 218 - - Compton, Adam, 198 - - Congregationalism, 170 - - Controversialists of Revival, 117, 119 - - Conversions, 219, 234, 238, 258, 266, 267, 284, 290 - - Cornwall, 116, 131, 171 - - Cottage Visitation, 50 - - Cowper, William, 126, 178, 207, 211 - - Cradle of London Methodism, 91 - - Crime in 18th Century, 14, 16, 21, 242 - - Criminals, Condition of, 200, 237, 239, 244 - - Criminal Law in 18th Century, 14, 237, 242, 244, 247, 248, 259 - - - Danish Hymns, 131 - Missionary Society, 250 - - Darkness before Dawn, 7, 107 - - Dawn, First Streaks of, 24 - - Deaf and Dumb Asylum, 258 - - Defoe, 177, 216 - - Deism, Prevalence of, 15 - - Derby, Earl of, 129 - - Dissenters, Disabilities of, 258 - - Dissent in, Boston, in 1730, 232 - - Divine authority of the New Testament, The, 255 - - Doddridge, Philip, 28, 31, 110, 113, 126, 267 - his Academy, 29 - his Friends, 36, 58 - his Hymns, 29 - - Drawing-Room Preaching, 37, 38, 40 - Effect of, 43 - - Drury Lane, 155 - - Dying Words, 169, 261, 262, 300 - - - East India Company, 191 - - Economy of Charity, 210 - - _Edinburgh Review_, 69, 184, 253 - - Education, Neglect of, 16 - Spreading, 257 - - Edwards, Jonathan, 28, 275, 283, 296 - - Effect of Rejection of Gospel, 7 - - Eighteenth Century Revival, 9, 277 - - Emerson, quoted, 12 - - England and France Contrasted, 23, 180 - - England, State of Religion in, 23 - - Epitaphs, 156, 197, 212, 268 - - Episcopal Board of Missions, Methodist, 256 - Protestant, 256 - - Epworth, 43, 53, 94, 97 - - Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography, 184 - - Everton, 156 - - Excitement of the Revival, 68 - - Executions at Tyburn in 1738, 14 - - Exiles in England, 28 - - Experiences of Christians expressed in Song, 128 - - Eyre, Jane, 160 - - - Fair-Preaching, 83 - - Fenwick, Michael, 137 - - Ferrars, Lady, 40 - - Field-Preaching, 68, 89, 101, 104 - - First Day or Sunday-school Society, 256 - - Flaxley, 197 - - Fletcher of Madsley, 149 - - Florence, 7 - - Foote, the Actor, 154 - - Founders of London Missionary Society, 254 - - Foundry, The Moorfields, 91 - - France, 7, 180 - - Free Church of England, 101 - - French Protestants in England, 25 - - Fry, Elizabeth, 237, 258, 278 - - - Gambold, John, 50, 64 - - Garrick, David, 155, 172 - - George II, 181 - - George IV, 158 - - Gerhardt, Paul, 113 - - German Empire, 7 - Hymns, 131 - - Germain, Lady Betty, 41 - - Gisborne, Thomas, 192 - - Gladstone, W. E., 119, 317 - - Gloucestershire, 183, 193, 213 - - God’s Method of Diffusing the Truth, 12, 13 - - Goethe, 28, 305 - - Goldsmith, 21 - - Gospel Preached in Song, 114 - - Grant, James, 126 - Sir Robert, 192 - - Gregory, Alfred, 196 - - Greenfield, Edward, 102 - - Griggs, Joseph, 126 - - Grimshaw, William, 160, 169, 178, 270 - - Guthrie, Dr., 158 - - Gwennap Pit, 103, 275 - - - Haime, John, 151 - - Hamilton, Duchess of, 41 - Lady Elizabeth, 243 - Sir William, 179 - - Hardcastle, Joseph, 191 - - Hardships, 221 - - Harris, Howell, 272 - - Harvard College, Religion in, 285 - - Hastings, Lady Margaret, 170, 171 - - Haweis, Thomas, 254 - - Haworth, 160 - - Haymarket Theatre, 154 - - Helmsley, 119 - - Herbert, George, 110 - - Hervey, James, 50, 57, 60 - Writings, 63 - - Hey, James (Old Jemmie o’ the Hey), 198 - - Hill, Rowland, 120, 159, 170, 254 - - Holy Club, The, 51, 54, 57, 60, 65, 170 - Spirit, The, the Power, 85 - - Hooper, John, 195 - - Hopper, Christopher, 151 - - Horne, Dr., 66 - - Hospitality in New England, 225, 229, 231 - - Hostility to Revival, 21, 32, 61, 77, 288 - - Howard, John, 236, 318 - - Hymns, 115, 118, 119, 122, 125–130, 203, 311, 313 - Character of, 127, 131 - Influence of, 98, 99, 101, 109, 112, 129 - of Doddridge, 29, 110 - of Watts, 29, 31, 110 - of Wesley, 112 - - Hymnists of the Revival, 109, 121, 123, 126, 192 - - Huddersfield, 169 - - Huguenots, The, 24, 98 - Descendants in England, 26 - Influence on Revival, 26 - Settlement in England, 26 - - Huntingdon, Lady, 20, 35, 46, 50, 64, 66, 69, 91, 101, 124, 135, 143, - 148, 155, 159, 169, 172, 183, 254, 257, 261, 307 - - Huntingdon, William, 276 - - Hupton, Job, 127 - - - Independents, 256 - - Indians, Cause of, Espoused by Whitefield, 290 - - Ingham, Benjamin, 50, 170 - - Itinerancy, by Wesley, 93 - - Itinerant Preachers, 116, 160 - - - Jay, William, 184 - - Jenner, Dr. Edward, 195 - - Johnson, Samuel, 55 - - Joss, Toriel, 149 - - Juvenal, 52 - - - Kempis, Thomas à., 55, 59 - - Kingsbury, William, 254 - - Kirk, John, Author of “Mother of the Wesleys”, 44 - - - Lackington, 154 - - Lancashire, 131 - Independent College, 257 - - Lanterns, New Lights and Old, 48 - - Lavington, Bishop, 70 - - Law, William, 53 - - Lay Preaching, 132, 136, 139, 147–149, 151 - - Lecky on the Effect of the Revival, 10 - - Lee, Jesse, 275 - - Literature, State of, at beginning of 18th Century. How Affected by - Revival, 16, 269 - - Livingstone, 255 - - Local Preachers, 136 - Wesley’s Reasons for, 136 - - London Missionary Society, 191, 254, 255, 319 - - Love of Souls, 101, 185, 186, 281 - - Luther, 7, 57, 110, 114, 179 - - Lyttleton, Lord, 17, 40, 42 - - - Macaulay, 86, 97, 99, 189 - Tribute to Puritans, 9, 97, 303–305 - - McOwan, Peter, 130 - - Mann, Sir Horace, 40 - - Mansfield, Lord, 172 - - Marlborough, Duchess of, 37, 39, 42 - - Marshman and Ward, 253 - - Martyrs, 195 - - Maxfield, Thomas, 115, 134 - - Melcombe, Lord, 42 - - Methodism, 182, 257, 275, 278 - in New England, 275 - - Methodists acknowledged, 177, 256 - and Puritans Compared, 98 - - Methodists and Quakers, 278 - - Methodist Band-Meetings, etc., 100 - - Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, 256 - - Methodists, Beginning of, 45, 52, 80, 91 - Calvinistic and Wesleyan, 101 - - Methodists, Creed of, 100 - Early, 98, 102, 309 - Effect of, 35, 129 - Efforts of Earliest, 257 - Expelled from Oxford, 66 - Growth of, 40, 170 - in United States, 275 - Held as Opposed to Church of England, 66, 70, 94, 99 - Hymnals, 32 - Manifestations of, 85 - Origin of Name, 52, 60, 309 - Regarded as Enemies, 21, 70, 94, 99, 139, 143, 144, 233, 309 - - Methodists, Sects of, 276 - - Middleton, 180 - - Milton, 110 - - _Minor, The_, 154 - - Mission Enterprises, 186, 250, 256 - to Africa, 191, 255 - to China, 255 - to India, 190, 253 - to Madagascar, 255 - to South Seas, 255 - - Missionary Societies, 250, 256, 320 - - Moffat, Robert, 191, 255 - - Molière, 155 - - Montague, Duchess of, 42 - - Montgomery, James, 118 - - Moorfields, London, 84, 91, 134, 149, 233 - - Morality at Beginning of 18th Century, 16 - - Moravians, The, 35, 64, 113, 170, 250, 256 - - More, Hannah, 178, 210 - - Morgan, 50 - - Mystery of Life, The, 65 - - - Napoleon at St. Helena, 255 - - Nash, Beau, Overcome by Wesley, 87 - - Nelson, John, 139 - - Netherlands Missionary Society, 256 - - Newman, John Henry, 269 - - Newton, John, 123, 126, 149, 174, 190, 216, 217, 270 - - Noel, Baptist, 259 - - Nonconformists, Religion Among, 15 - - - Oliver, John, 115 - - Olivers, Thomas, 115, 125, 311, 313 - - One-eyed Christians, 183 - - Orphan Asylum in Georgia, 291, 296 - - Oxford, 48, 65 - Forecasting Future of Union, 48 - - Oxford Methodists, 49 - Society, 54 - - - Parson, John, 151 - - Perronet, Edward, 125 - - Persecution, 102, 139, 143, 270 - - Philadelphia Adult and Sunday-school Union, 256 - - Pilgrim’s Progress, The, 219, 236 - - Pitt, William, 42, 266 - - Politics Influenced by Revival, 258 - - Pope, 38 - - Portraits of Revivalists, 154, 271 - - Power of Song, 114 - - _Practical View of Christianity_, 266, 267 - - Prayer, 102 - - Preacher and Robbers, The, 151 - - Preaching at Beginning of 18th Century, 61 - by Laymen, 132, 136, 139, 147, 148, 149, 151 - in Drawing-Room, 37, 38, 40 - Effect of, 7, 98, 99, 101, 107, 139, 143 - - Prejudices Against Lay Preachers, 132 - - Prison Philanthropy, 199, 217, 234, 236, 241, 246, 248, 258, 318 - - Promoting Christian Knowledge, Society for, 250 - - Propagation of Gospel, Society for, in New England, 250 - - Propagation of Gospel, Society for, in Foreign Parts, 250 - - Protestant Episcopal Board of Missions, 256 - - Puritans, The, 8, 9, 35, 52, 98, 303, 305 - Macaulay’s estimate of, 9, 97, 303 - and Methodists Compared, 98 - - - Quakers, The, 35, 231, 278 - - _Quarterly Review_, 125, 126 - - Quietists, 55 - - Quixote, the Spiritual, 154 - - - Raikes, Anne, 213 - - Raikes, Robert, 183, 193, 194, 196, 201, 211, 214 - at Windsor, 202, 208 - House at Gloucester, 213 - - Raymont of Pegnafort, 93 - - Reciprocation the Soul of Methodism, 100 - - Redruth, Cornwall, 103 - - Reformation, The, 8 - - Reign of Terror, 181 - - Rejection of Gospel, its Effect on Nations, 7 - - Religion, State of - at Beginning of 18th Century, 10, 22, 23, 107 - State of and After Revival Contrasted, 13, 277 - - Religious Tract Society, 191, 256 - - Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts, 258 - - Revival, The, Anecdotes of (See Anecdotes.) - - Revival Beacons, 184 - Becomes Educational, 193, 257, 278 - Beginning of, 24, 28, 35, 39, 49, 57, 73, 181, 186 - Cheerfulness and Joy of, 98, 99, 101, 109, 124 - Conservative, 86 - Dawn of, 24, 48, 49 - Depth of, 277 - Done Most for Well-being of Mankind, 280 - Effect on Literature, 260 - Effect of on World at Large, 279, 293 - Effects of, 8, 10, 13, 107, 115, 129, 132, 147, 166, 171, 180, 183, - 186, 258, 259, 260, 269, 277, 279, 285, 293, 296, 300 - Evangelical in England, 8, 271, - Fair-Preaching, 83 - Field-Preaching, 68, 89, 101, 104 - Foremost Names in, 46, 154 - Fruit of, 180, 186 - - Revival, Growth of, 73, 265 - Hostility to, 21, 22, 32, 61, 77, 94, 102, 154, 156, 159, 172, 288, - 298 - Importance of, 10 - in Wales, 272 - in America, 275, 281, 288, 295, 300 - at Kingswood, 77 - Lay Preaching, 132, 135, 139, 147, 148, 149, 151 - Sects Formed, 276 - Singers of, 109, 121, 123, 126, 192, 310 - Spiritual, 114, 285 - - Revivalist Portraits, 154, 271 - - Richmond Legh, 267 - - Ridicule of Revivalists, 154, 253, 298 - - Rise and Progress in the Soul, 267 - - Ritual Absent in Revival, 114 - - Rock of Ages, 119 - - Rockingham, Lady, 40 - - Rogers’ Lives of Early Preachers, 151 - - Romaine, William, 149, 172 - - Roman Catholics, 133, 145, 193 - - Romelly, Sir Samuel, 26 - - Romish Stories and Incidents in Work of Wesley, 133, 145 - - Romney, Earl, 259 - - Rosary, The, 99 - - Rowlands, 272 - - - Sabbath Observance, 17, 229 - - Sacred Song, Power of, 109, 113, 127 - - Sailors’ Hardships, etc., 221, 224, 240 - - _Saints Everlasting Rest_, 267 - - Salvation by Grace the Grand Doctrine of the Revival, 60, 186, 270, 284 - - Sandwich Islands, 255 - - Sandys, 110 - - Sarton, William, 195 - - Saunderson, Lady Frances, 37 - - Savonarola, 7 - - Schools, Sunday, 16, 196–199, 201, 204 - - School, Sunday, Commended, 207, 208 - Effect of, 201, 215 - First Day or Society, 256 - Growth of, 208, 209, 215 - - Scott, Captain Jonathan, 149 - Thomas, 269 - Walter, Sir, 117 - - Sects Rising from Revival: Bible Christians of West of England, 276 - Primitive Methodists Of the North, 276 - New Connection Methodists, 276 - United Free Church Association, 276 - - Selborne, Lord, Referred to, 125 - - Sharp, Granville, 190 - - Shaw, Robert, 169 - - Ships of 18th Century, 220 - - Shirley, Lady Fanny, 64 - Mr. (Lady Huntingdon’s Cousin), 20 - - Sidney, Sir Philip, 110 - - Simeon, Charles, 269 - - Singers of the Revival, 109, 121, 123, 126, 192, 310 - - Slave Abolition, 186, 211, 265, 278 - - Smiles, Dr., referred to, 24 - - Smith, Adam, 207 - Sydney, 184, 253 - - Society, State of, at beginning of 18th Century, 10, 16, 24, 75, 277, - 282, 294 - State of and after Revival, Contrasted, 13, 277 - - Somerset, Duchess of, 36 - - Songs Used in Great National Movements, 109 - - Southey, 71, 83, 89, 93, 115, 130, 133, 146, 147, 157, 166, 249, 276, - 308 - - Spain, 7 - - Spencer, 52 - - St. Ambrose, 117 - - St. Ann’s, Black Friars, London, 174 - - St. George’s, Hanover Square, London, 172 - - Stage Libels against the Revivalists, 154 - - Staniforth, Sampson, 151 - - Stanhope, Earl, Testimony to Wesley, 10 - - Starting Point, The, of Modern Religious History, 181 - - Steam Engine, The, 12 - - Steele, Miss, 126 - - Stephen, Sir James, 83, 184, 191, 192, 269 - Sir George, 192 - - Stevens, Dr. Abel, 27, 83, 182, 216, 249, 262, 300 - - Stocker, John, 127 - - Stock, Thomas, 204 - - Story, George, 147 - - Stratford, Joseph, 196 - - Streaks of Dawn, First, 24 - - Suffolk, Countess of, 40 - - Swedenborg, 276 - - Swedish Missionary Society, 250 - - - Taylor, Isaac, 45, 83, 128 - - Teachers, Character of at Beginning of 18th Century, 17 - - Te Deum, 114 - - Teignmouth, Lord, 189, 254 - - Tennent, Gilbert, 286, 287, 290 - - “_The Last Judgment_”, 118 - - Thomson, Mr., The Vicar of St. Gennys, 70 - - Thornton, John, 190 - - Ticket, The, 99 - - Told, Silas, 216, 257 - his Preaching and his Work, 235 - - Toleration Act, 258 - - Toplady, Augustus, 119, 121 - - Tottenham Court Chapel, 120, 150 - - Townshend, Lady, 37 - John, 258 - Lord, 42 - - Tractarian Movement, The, 48 - - Tract Societies, 186, 191 - - Trevisa, John De, 193 - - Trimmer, Sarah, Mrs., 209 - - Trophies of Revival, 115 - - Turnpikes in England, 93 - - Tyerman, Mr., referred to, 27, 43, 249 - - Tyndale, William, 183, 193 - - - Venn, Henry, 169 - - Vicar of Wakefield, 21, 267, 305 - - Voltaire, 51, 180 - - - Wales, 272 - - Walker, Samuel, 171 - - Walpole, Horace, 39, 43, 79, 83, 154 - - Walsh, Thomas, 135, 145 - - Warburton, Bishop, on Wesley, 22 - - Ward and Marshman, 253 - - Watson, Richard, 158 - - Watt, James, 12 - - Watts, Isaac, 29, 110, 122, 128 - Friends of, 36 - his Mother, 26 - Hymns of, 29, 113 - Literary Labors, 29 - - Waugh, Alexander, 254 - - Welsh Preaching and Preachers, 275 - - Wesleyan Methodists, 101 - Missionary Society, 256, 320 - - Wesleyan Societies, 170, 182 - - Wesleyanism, Historians of, 182 - - Wesley, Charles, 45, 50, 57, 118, 121, 128, 265 - - Wesley, John, 21, 26, 46, 50, 53, 80, 92, 122, 136, 165, 179, 182, 207 - as an Administrator, 82, 86 - and Church Polity, 82, 86 - and Bradford, 138 - and Fenwick, 137 - and Nelson, 145 - and Silas Told, 217, 233, 237, 249 - and Walsh, 146 - and Whitefield Compared, 69, 80, 86, 87, 89, 148 - and Field-Preaching, 89 - - Wesley, John, - and Methodists Regarded as Enemies, 21, 94, 99 - and Hervey’s Teaching, 59 - at Epworth, 43, 53, 94, 95 - at the Foundry, Moorfields (City Road Chapel), 91 - at Glasgow, 11 - at Gwennap Pit, 103 - at Oxford, 50, 53 - at York, 96 - Compared with Calvin, 69 - Conversion, Time of, 58 - Creed, 100 - Death of, 262 - Early Religious Experiences, 53 - Effect of His Preaching on Himself, 82 - Effect of His Preaching on Others, 82, 87, 96, 114 - Estimate of by Macaulay, 86, 89 - Expelled from Church of England, 68, 69 - Expelled from Oxford, 65 - Hymns, 112, 113, 114, 124, 126 - Influence of, 10, 26, 182 - Itinerancy, 93 - on Sabbath-Schools, 208 - Parish, the World, 91 - Power over Others, 82, 87, 137 - Preaching in Epworth Church-yard, 95 - Restrictions on Lay Preachers, 134 - Tomb, 262 - Translations, 113 - Victory of, over Nash, 87 - - Wesley, Samuel, 43, 53 - Susannah, 44, 134 - her Sayings, 45 - - Weston, Favel, 58, 62 - - Wilberforce, William, 178, 189, 191, 254, 258, 265, 266 - - Wilderness, Blossoms in, 180 - - Wilks, Matthew, 254 - - Winter, Cornelius, 184, 257 - - Wiseman, Cardinal, 131 - - White, Rev George, Vicar of Colne, 71 - - Whitefield, George, 32, 46, 52, 60, 69, 73, 86, 122, 148, 165, 179, - 184, 195, 258, 270, 284 - and the Children, 292 - Among the Indians, 290 - and the Poor Woman, 56 - and Wesley Compared, 69, 80, 86, 87, 89, 148 - and the Recruiting Sergeant, 84 - Among the Nobility, 36, 38, 41, 79 - Among the Roughs, 83, 115 - at Boston, New England, 284, 285 - at Cambridge, New England, 28 - at Harvard, 285 - at Kingswood, Bristol, 73 - at Princeton, 290 - at Gloucester, 73 - at New Haven, 285 - at Oxford, 49, 54 - at the Tower of London, 73 - Compared with Luther, 69 - Description of his Preaching During Thunder Storm, 79 - Early Religious Experience, 55 - - Whitefield, George, - Effect of his Preaching on Himself, 80, 81, 294 - Effect on Others, 43, 76, 79, 82–84, 87, 115, 284, 294, 295, 301 - First Meeting Charles Wesley, 56 - in Georgia, 291 - Journeys, 281 - in New York, 288 - in America, 73, 85, 281 - in Wales, 272 - in London, 81 - in Maryland, 290 - in Moorfields, London, 84 - in Philadelphia, 289 - on Toriel Joss and Newton, 149 - Preaching of, 73, 295 - on Religion in America, 299 - Orphan Asylum in Georgia, 291, 296 - Regarded as a Fanatic, 83 - Ridiculed, 154 - The First in the Opening of the Methodist Movement, 80 - Treatment of Those Who Opposed Themselves to Him, 78, 298 - Watts’ Blessing of, 32 - - Williams, John (Martyr of Erromanga) 255 - - Woolston, 180 - - Work Done in the Revival, 66 - - Wyclif, John, 193 - - - Xavier, Francis, 93 - - - York, Wesley at, 96 - - Yorkshire, 131, 139, 160, 170 - - Yorkshire, Apostles of, 139 - - Young Cottager, The, 267 - - - Zinzendorf, Count, Hymns of, 113, 171 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - 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} - .blackletter {font-family: "Old English Text MT", Gothic, serif; } - </style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Revival of the Eighteenth -Century: with a supplemental chapte, by Edwin Paxton Hood - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century: with a supplemental chapter on the revival in America - -Author: Edwin Paxton Hood - -Release Date: December 31, 2019 [EBook #61062] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT REVIVAL OF 18TH CENTURY *** - - - - -Produced by Brian Wilson, Peter Vachuska, Barry Abrahamsen, -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net Last Edit of Project Info - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class="blackletter">The Great Revival.—Frontispiece.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i00-page-0-frontispiece.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>The Foundry, Moorfields.</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div> - <h1 class='c002'>THE<br /> <br /><span class='xxlarge'>GREAT REVIVAL</span><br /> <br /><span class='small'>OF</span><br /> <br /> <span class='xlarge'>THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.</span></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class='small'>BY</span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'>REV. EDWIN PAXTON HOOD,</span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='small'>AUTHOR OF</span></div> - <div class='c000'><i>“Isaac Watts: his Life and Writings, his Home and Friends,” etc.</i></div> - <div class='c003'><i>With a Supplemental Chapter on the Revival in America.</i></div> - <div class='c003'>PHILADELPHIA:</div> - <div>AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,</div> - <div><span class='sc'>1122 Chestnut Street</span>.</div> - <div class='c000'>NEW YORK. CHICAGO.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c004'>EDITOR’S NOTE.</h2> -</div> -<hr class='c005' /> -<p class='c006'>The only changes made in revising this work are in the local -allusions to England as “our country,” etc., and in a few -phrases and expressions naturally arising from the original preparation -of the chapters for successive numbers of a magazine. -If any reader thinks that the Author’s enthusiasm in his subject -has caused him to ascribe too great influence to the “Methodist -movement,” and not to give due recognition to other potent -agencies in the “great awakening” of the last century, let him -remember that this volume does not profess to give a <i>complete</i>, -but only a <i>partial</i> history of the Great Revival. Indeed, the -Author’s graphic pictures relate chiefly to the movement, as it -swept over London and the great mining centres of England, -where the truth, as proclaimed by the great leaders, Whitefield, -the Wesleys, and their co-laborers, won its greatest victories, -and where Methodism has ever continued to render some of its -most valiant and glorious services for Christ. It is not to be -inferred that in Scotland, Ireland, and in the American colonies, -as in many portions of England, other organizations, dissenting -societies and churches were not a power in spreading the Great -Revival movement.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A brief chapter has been added at the close, sketching some -phases of the revival in the American colonies, under the labors -of Edwards, Whitefield, the Tennents, and their associates. -Whatever other material has been added by the Editor is indicated -by brackets, thus leaving the distinguished Author’s views -and expressions intact.</p> - -<p class='c007'>An Index has also been added, to increase the permanent -value of the book to the reader. If the history of the remarkable -“religious awakenings” of the eighteenth century were -more diligently studied, and the holy enthusiasm and wonderful -zeal of those great leaders in “hunting for souls” were to -inspire workers of this century, what marvellous conquests and -victories should we witness for the Son of God!</p> - -<p class='c007'><i>Philadelphia, March, 1882.</i></p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c004'>PREFACE.</h2> -</div> -<hr class='c005' /> -<p class='c006'>The author of the following pages begs that -they may be read kindly—and, he will venture -to say, <i>not</i> critically. Originally published as -a series of papers in the <i>Sunday at Home</i>, * * * -they are only <i>Vignettes</i>—etchings. The History -of the great Religious Movement of the Eighteenth -Century yet remains unwritten; not -often has the world known such a marvellous -awakening of religious thought; and, as we are -further removed in time, so, perhaps, we are -better able to judge of the momentous circumstances, -could we but seize the point of view.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c004'>CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> -<hr class='c005' /> -<table class='table0' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='11%' /> -<col width='76%' /> -<col width='11%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'><span class='xsmall'>CHAP. </span></td> - <td class='c010'><span class='xsmall'> PAGE.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>I.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Darkness Before the Dawn</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch01'>7</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>II.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>First Streaks of Dawn</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch02'>24</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>III.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Oxford: New Lights and Old Lanterns</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch03'>48</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>IV.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cast Out from the Church—Taking to the Fields</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch04'>68</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>V.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Revival Conservative</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch05'>86</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>VI.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Singers of the Revival</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch06'>109</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>VII.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Lay Preaching and Lay Preachers</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch07'>132</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>VIII.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>A Gallery of Revivalist Portraits</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch08'>154</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>IX.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Blossoms in the Wilderness</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch09'>180</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>X.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Revival Becomes Educational—Robert Raikes</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch10'>193</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>XI.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Romantic Story of Silas Told</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch11'>216</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>XII.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Missionary Societies</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch12'>250</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>XIII.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Aftermath</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch13'>260</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'><span class='fss'>XIV.</span></td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Revival in the New World</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch14'>281</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Appendices</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#app-a'>303</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Index</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#index'>321</a></td> - </tr> -</table> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span><span class='xxlarge'>THE GREAT REVIVAL.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c011' /> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch01' class='c004'>CHAPTER I<br /> <br /><span class='small'>DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>It cannot be too often remembered or repeated -that when the Bible has been brought -face to face with the conscience of corrupt -society, in every age it has shown itself to be -that which it professes, and which its believers -declare it to be—“the great power of God.” It -proved itself thus amidst the hoary and decaying -corruptions of the ancient civilisation, when -its truths were first published to the Roman -Empire; it proclaimed its power to the impure -but polished society of Florence, when Savonarola -preached his wonderful sermons in St. -Mark’s; and effected the same results throughout -the whole German Empire, when Bible -truth sounded forth from Luther’s trumpet-tones. -The same principle is illustrated where -the great evangelical truths of the New Testament -entered nations, as in Spain or France, -only to be rejected. From that rejection and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>the martyrdoms of the first believers; those -nations have never recovered themselves even -to this hour; and of the two nations, that in -which the rejection was the most haughty and -cruel, has suffered most from its renunciation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>England has passed through three great -evangelical revivals.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The first, the period of the <span class='sc'>Reformation</span>, -whose force was latent there, even before the -waves of the great German revolution reached -its shores, and called forth the pen of a monarch, -and that monarch a haughty Tudor, to enter -the lists of disputation with the lowly-born son -of a miner of Hartz Mountains. What that -Reformation effected in England we all very -well know; the changes it wrought in opinion, -the martyrs who passed away in their chariots -of fire in vindication of its doctrines, the great -writers and preachers to whose works and -names we frequently and lovingly refer.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then came the second great evangelical -revival, the period of <span class='sc'>Puritanism</span>,<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c012'><b>[1]</b></a> whose -central interests gather round the great civil -wars. This was the time, and these were the -opinions which produced some of the most -massive and magnificent writers of our language; -the whole mind of the country was -stirred to its deepest heart by faith in those -truths, which to believe enobles human nature, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>and enables it to endure “as seeing Him who -is invisible.” There can be no doubt that it -produced some of the grandest and noblest -minds, whether for service by sword or pen, in -the pulpit or the cabinet, that the world has -known. Lord Macaulay’s magnificently glowing -description of the English Puritan, and how -he attained, by his evangelical opinions, his -stature of strength, will be familiar to all readers -who know his essay on Milton.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f1'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-a'>A</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>But the present aim is to gather up some of -the facts and impressions, and briefly to recite -some of the influences of the third great evangelical -revival in the Eighteenth Century. We -are guilty of no exaggeration in saying that -these have been equally deserving historic -fame with either of the preceding. The story -has less, perhaps, to excite some of our most -passionate human interests; it had not to make -its way through stakes and scaffolds, although -it could recite many tales of persecution; it -unsheathed no sword, the weapons of its warfare -were not carnal; and on the whole, it -may be said its doctrine distilled “as the dew;” -yet it is not too much to say that from the revival -of the last century came forth that wonderfully -manifold reticulation and holy machinery -of piety and benevolence, we find in such -active operation around us to-day.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>All impartial historians of the period place this -most remarkable religious impulse in the rank of -the very foremost phenomena of the times. The -calm and able historian, Earl Stanhope, speaking -of it, as “despised at its commencement,” -continues, “with less immediate importance -than wars or political changes, it endures long -after not only the result but the memory of -these has passed away, and thousands” (his -lordship ought to have said millions) “who -never heard of Fontenoy or Walpole, continue -to follow the precepts, and venerate the name -of John Wesley.” While the latest, a still more -able and equally impartial and quiet historian, -Mr. Lecky, says, “Our splendid victories by -land and sea must yield in real importance to -this religious revolution; it exercised a profound -and lasting influence upon the spirit of -the Established Church of England, upon the -amount and distribution of the moral forces of -that nation, and even upon the course of its -political history.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Shall we, then, first attempt to obtain some -adequate idea of what this Revival effected, by -a slight effort to realise what sort of world and -state of society it was into which the Revival -came? One writer truly remarks, “Never has -century risen on christian England so void of -soul and faith as that which opened with Queen -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>Anne, and which reached its misty noon beneath -the second George, a dewless night succeeded -by a dewless dawn. There was no -freshness in the past and no promise in the -future; the Puritans were buried, the Methodists -were not born.” It is unquestionably true -that black, bad and corrupt as society was, for -the most part, all round, in the eighteenth -century, intellectual and spiritual forces broke -forth, simultaneously we had almost said, and -believing, as we do, in the Providence which -governed the rise of both, we may say, consentaneously, -which have left far behind all social -regenerations which the pen of history has recited -before. Of almost all the fruits we enjoy, -it may be said the seeds were planted then; -even those which, like the printing-press or the -gospel, had been planted ages before, were so -transplanted as to flourish with a new vigour.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our eye has been taught to rest on an interesting -incident. It was in 1757 John Wesley, -travelling and preaching, then about fifty years -of age, but still with nearly forty years of work -before him, arrived in Glasgow. He saw in the -University its library and its pictures; but, had -he possessed the vision of a Hebrew seer he -might have glanced up from the quadrangle of -the college to the humble rooms, up a spiral -staircase, of a young workman, over whose -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>lodging was the sign and information that -they were tenanted by a “mathematical instrument -maker to the University.” This young -man, living there upon a poor fare, and eking -out a poor subsistence, with many thoughts -burdening his mind, was destined to be the -founder of the greatest commercial and material -revolution the world has known: through -him seems to have been fulfilled the wonderfully -significant prophecy of Nahum: “The -chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall -jostle one against another in the broad ways: -they shall seem like torches, they shall run -like the lightnings.” This young man was -James Watt, who gave to the world the steam -engine. A few years after he gave his mighty -invention to Birmingham; and the world has -never been the same world since. “By that -invention,” says Emerson, “one man can do the -work of two hundred and fifty men;” and in -Manchester alone and in its vicinity there are -probably sixty thousand boilers, and the aggregate -power of a million horses.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Let not the allusion seem out of place. That -age was the seed-time of the present harvest -fields; in that time those great religious ideas -which have wrought such an astonishing revolution, -acquired body and form; and we ought -to notice how, when God sets free some new -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>idea, He also calls into existence the new vehicle -for its diffusion. He did not trust the early -christian faith to the old Latin races, to the -selfish and æsthetic Greek, or to the merely -conservative Hebrew; He “hissed,” in the -graphic language of the old Bible, for a new -race, and gave the New Testament to the -Teutonic people, who have ever been its chief -guardians and expositors; and thus, in all reviews -of the development and unfolding of the -religious life in the times of which we speak, -we have to notice how the material and the -spiritual changes have re-acted on each other, -while both have brought a change which has -indeed “made all things new.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Contrasting the state of society after the rise -of the Great Revival with what it was before, -the present with the past, it is quite obvious -that something has brought about a general -decency and decorum of manners, a tenderness -and benevolence of sentiment, a religious interest -in, and observance of, pious usages, not to -speak of a depth of religious life and conviction, -and a general purity and nobility of literary -taste, which did not exist before. All these -must be credited to this great movement. It is -not in the nature of steam engines, whether -stationary or locomotive, nor in printing -presses, or Staffordshire potteries, undirected -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>by spiritual forces, to raise the morals or to -improve the manners of mankind.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If sometimes in the presence of the spectacles -of ignorance, crime, irreligion, and corruption -in our own day, we are filled with a sense of -despair for the prospects of society, it may be -well to take a retrospect of what society was in -England at the commencement of the last century. -When George III. ascended the throne -the population of England was not much over -five millions; at the commencement of the -present century it was nearly eleven millions; -but with the intensely crowded population of -the present day, the cancerous elements of society, -the dangerous, pauperised, and criminal -classes are in far less proportion, not merely -relatively, but really. It was a small country, -and possessed few inhabitants. There are few -circumstances which can give us much pleasure -in the review. National distress was constantly -making itself bitterly felt; it was the age of -mobs and riots. The state of the criminal law -was cruel in the extreme. Blackstone calculates -that for no fewer than one hundred and -sixty offences, some of them of the most frivolous -description, the judge was bound to pronounce -sentence of death. Crime, of course, -flourished. During the year 1738 no fewer -than fifty-two criminals were hanged at Tyburn. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>During that and the preceding years, twelve -thousand persons had been convicted, within -the Bills of Mortality, for smuggling gin and -selling it without licence. The amusements of -all classes of people were exactly of that order -calculated to create a cruel disposition, and -thus to encourage crime; bear-baiting, bull-baiting, -prize-fighting, cock-fighting: on a -Shrove Tuesday it was dangerous to pass down -any public street. This was the day selected -for the barbarity of tying a harmless cock to a -stake, there to be battered to death by throwing -a stick at it from a certain distance. The -grim humour of the people took this form of -expressing the national hatred to the French, -from the Latin name for the cock, <i>Gallus</i>. It -was in truth a barbarous pun.</p> - -<p class='c007'>With abundant wealth and means of happiness, -the people fell far short of what we should -consider comfort now. Life and liberty were -cheap, and a prevalent Deism or Atheism was -united to a wild licentiousness of manners, brutalising -all classes of society. For the most -part, the Church of England had so shamefully -forgotten or neglected her duty—this is admitted -now by all her most ardent ministers—while -the Noncomformists had sunk generally -into so cold an indifferentism in devotion, and -so hard and sceptical a frame in theology, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>every interest in the land was surrendered to -profligacy and recklessness, and, in thoughtful -minds, to despair. Society in general was -spiritually dead. The literature of England, -with two or three famous exceptions, suffered a -temporary eclipse. Such as it was, it was perverted -from all high purposes, and was utterly -alien to all purity and moral dignity. A good -idea of the moral tone of the times might be -obtained by running the eye over a few volumes -of the old plays of this period, many of -them even written by ladies; it is amazing to -us now to think not only that they could be -tolerated, but even applauded. The gaols were -filled with culprits; but this did not prevent the -heaths, moors, and forests from swarming with -highwaymen, and the cities with burglars. In -the remote regions of England, such as Cornwall -in the west, Yorkshire and Northumberland -in the north, and especially in the midland -Staffordshire, the manners were wild and savage, -passing all conception and description. -We have to conceive of a state of society divested -of all the educational, philanthropic, and -benevolent activities of modern times. There -were no Sunday-schools, and few day-schools; -here and there, some fortunate neighbourhood -possessed a grammar-school from some old -foundation. Or, perhaps some solitary chapel, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>retreating into a bye-lane in the metropolitan -city, or the country town, or, more probably, -far away from any town, stood at some confluence -of roads, a monument of old intolerance; -but, as we said, religious life was in fact dead, -or lying in a trance.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As to the religious teachers of those times, -we know of no period in our history concerning -which it might so appropriately be said, in the -words of the prophet, “The pastors” are “become -brutish, and have not sought the Lord.” -In the life of a singular man, but not a good one, -Thomas Lord Lyttleton, in a letter dated 1775, -we have a most graphic portrait of a country -clergyman, a friend of Lyttleton, who went by -the designation of “Parson Adams.” We suppose -him to be no bad representative of the average -parson of that day—coarse, profane, jocular, -irreligious. On a Saturday evening he told -Lyttleton, his host, that he should send his -flocks to grass on the approaching Sabbath. -“The next morning,” says Lyttleton, “we -hinted to him that the company did not wish -to restrain him from attending the Divine service -of the parish; but he declared that it -would be adding contempt to neglect if, when -he had absented himself from his own church -he should go to any other. This curious etiquette -he strictly observed; and we passed a Sabbath -contrary, I fear, both to law and to gospel.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>If we desire to obtain some knowledge of -what the Church of England was, as represented -by her clergy when George III. was king, -we should go to her own records; and for the -later years of his reign, notably to the life of -that learned, active, and amiable man, Dr. -Blomfield, Bishop of London, whose memory -was a wonderful repository of anecdotes, not -tending to elevate the clergy of those times in -popular estimation. Intoxication was a vice -very characteristic of the cloth: on one occasion -the bishop reproved one of his Chester -clergy for drunkenness: he replied, “But, my -lord, I never was drunk on duty.” “On duty!” -exclaimed the bishop; “and pray, sir, when is -a clergyman not on duty?” “True,” said the -other; “my lord, I never thought of that.” -The bishop went into a poor man’s cottage in -one of the valleys in the Lake district, and -asked whether his clergyman ever visited him. -The poor man replied that he did very frequently. -The bishop was delighted, and expressed -his gratification at this pastoral oversight; -and this led to the discovery that -there were a good many foxes on the hills -behind the house, which gave the occasion for -the frequency of calls which could scarcely be -considered pastoral. The chaplain and son-in-law -of Bishop North examined candidates for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>orders in a tent on a cricket-field, he being -engaged as one of the players; the chaplain of -Bishop Douglas examined whilst shaving; -Bishop Watson never resided in his diocese -during an episcopate of thirty-four years.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And those who preached seem rarely to have -been of a very edifying order of preachers; -Bishop Blomfield used to relate how, in his -boyhood, when at Bury St. Edmund’s, the Marquis -of Bristol had given a number of scarlet -cloaks to some poor old women; they all appeared -at church on the following Sunday, resplendent -in their new and bright array, and -the clergyman made the donation of the marquis -the subject of his discourse, announcing -his text with a graceful wave of his hand towards -the poor old bodies who were sitting there -all together: “Even Solomon, in all his glory, -was not arrayed like one of these!” This -worthy seems to have been very capable of -such things: on another occasion a dole of potatoes -was distributed by the local authorities -in Bury, and this also was improved in a sermon. -“He had himself,” the bishop says, “a -very corpulent frame, and pompous manner, -and a habit of rolling from side to side while he -delivered himself of his breathing thoughts and -burning words; on the occasion of the potato -dole, he chose for his singularly appropriate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>text (Exodus xvi. 15): ‘And when the children -of Israel saw it, they said one to another, -It is manna;’ and thence he proceeded to -discourse to the recipients of the potatoes on -the warning furnished by the Israelites against -the sin of gluttony, and the wickedness of taking -more than their share.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>When that admirable man, Mr. Shirley, began -his evangelistic ministry as the friend and -coadjutor of his cousin, the Countess of Huntingdon, -a curate went to the archbishop to -complain of his unclerical proceedings: “Oh, -your grace, I have something of great importance -to communicate; it will astonish you!” -“Indeed, what can it be?” said the archbishop. -“Why, my lord,” replied he, throwing into his -countenance an expression of horror, and expecting -the archbishop to be petrified with astonishment, -“he actually wears white stockings!” -“Very unclerical indeed,” said the archbishop, -apparently much surprised; he drew -his chair near to the curate, and with peculiar -earnestness, and in a sort of confidential whisper, -said, “Now tell me—I ask this with peculiar -feelings of interest—does Mr. Shirley wear -them over his boots?” “Why, no, your grace, -I cannot say he does.” “Well, sir, the first -time you ever hear of Mr. Shirley wearing them -over his boots, be so good as to warn me, and -I shall know how to deal with him!”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>We would not, on the other hand, be unjust. -We may well believe that there were hamlets -and villages where country clergymen realised -their duties and fulfilled them, and not only deserved -all the merit of Goldsmith’s charming -picture,<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c012'><b>[2]</b></a> but were faithful ministers of the New -Testament too. But our words and illustrations -refer to the average character presented -to us by the Church; and this, again, is illustrated -by the vehement hostility presented on -all hands to the first indications of the Great -Revival. For instance, the Rev. Dr. Thomas -Church, Vicar of Battersea, in a well-known -sermon on charity schools, deplored and denounced -the enormous wickedness of the times; -after saying, “Our streets are grievously infested; -every day we see the most dreadful -confusions, daring villanies, dangers, and mischiefs, -arising from the want of sentiments of -piety,” he continues: “For our own sakes and -our posterity’s everything should be encouraged -which will contribute to suppressing these evils, -and keep the poor from stealing, lying, drunkenness, -cruelty, or taking God’s name in vain. -While we feel our disease, ’tis madness to set -aside any remedy which has power to check its -fury.” Having said this, with a perfectly startling -inconsistency he turns round, and addressing -himself to Wesley and the Methodists, he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>says, “We cannot but regard you as our most -dangerous enemies.”</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f2'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-b'>B</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>When the Great Revival arose, the Church of -England set herself, everywhere, in full array -against it; she possessed but few great minds. -The massive intellects of Butler and Berkeley -belonged to the immediately preceding age. -The most active intellect on the bench of bishops -was, no doubt, that of Warburton; and it -is sad to think that he descended to a tone of -scurrility and injustice in his attack on Wesley, -which, if worthy of his really quarrelsome temper, -was altogether unworthy of his position -and his powers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, whether we derive our impressions -from the so-called Church of that time, or from -society at large, we obtain the evidences of a -deplorable recklessness of all ordinary principles -of religion, honour, or decorum. Bishop -Butler had written, in the “Advertisement” to -his <i>Analogy</i>, and he appears to have been referring -to the clerical and educated opinion of -his time: “It is come, I know not how, to be -taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity -is not so much as a subject of inquiry; -but that it is, now at length, discovered to be -fictitious;” and he wrote his great work for the -purpose of arguing the reasonableness of the -christian religion, even on the principles of the -Deism prevalent everywhere around him in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>Church and society. Addison had declared -that there was “less appearance of religion in -England than in any neighbouring state or -kingdom, whether Protestant or Catholic;” and -Montesquieu came to the country, and having -made his notes, published, probably with some -French exaggeration, that there was “no religion -in England, and that the subject, if mentioned -in society, excited nothing but laughter.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such was the state of England, when, as we -must think, by the special providence of God, -the voices were heard crying in the wilderness. -From the earlier years of the last century they -continued sounding with such clearness and -strength, from the centre to the remotest -corners of the kingdom; from, the coasts, -where the Cornish wrecker pursued his strange -craft of crime, along all the highways and -hedges, where rudeness and violence of every -description made their occasions for theft, outrage, -and cruelty, until the whole English nation -became, as if instinctively, alive with a -new-born soul, and not in vision, but in reality, -something was beheld like that seen by the -prophet in the valley of vision—dry bones -clothed with flesh, and standing up “an exceeding -great army,” no longer on the side of -corruption and death, but ready with song and -speech, and consistent living, to take their -place on the side of the Lord.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span> - <h2 id='ch02' class='c004'>CHAPTER II<br /> <br /><span class='small'>FIRST STREAKS OF DAWN.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>In the history of the circumstances which -brought about the Great Revival, we must not -fail to notice those which were in action even before -the great apostles of the Revival appeared. -We have already given what may almost be -called a silhouette of society, an outline, for -the most part, all dark; and yet in the same -period there were relieving tints, just as sometimes, -upon a silhouette-portrait, you have seen -an attempt to throw in some resemblance to -the features by a touch of gold.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Chief among these is one we do not remember -ever to have seen noticed in this connection—the -curious invasion of our country by the -French at the close of the seventeenth century. -That cruel exodus which poured itself upon -our shores in the great and even horrible persecution -of the Protestants of France, when the -blind bigotry of Louis XIV. revoked the Edict -of Nantes, was to us, as a nation, a really incalculable -blessing. It is quite singular, in reading -Dr. Smiles’s <i>Huguenots</i>, to notice the large -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>variety of names of illustrious exiles, eminent for -learning, science, character, and rank, who found -a refuge here. The folly of the King of France -expelled the chief captains of industry; they -came hither and established their manufactures -in different departments, creating and carrying -on new modes of industry. Also great numbers -of Protestant clergymen settled here, and -formed respectable French churches; some of -the most eminent ministers of our various denominations -at this moment are descendants -of those men. Their descendants are in our -peerage; they are on our bench of bishops; -they are at the bar; they stand high in the -ranks of commerce. At the commencement -of the eighteenth century, their ancestors were -settled on English shores; in all instances -men who had fled from comfort and domestic -peace, in many instances from affluence and -fame, rather than be false to their conscience -or to their Saviour. The cruelties of that dreadful -persecution which banished from France -almost every human element it was desirable -to retain in it, while they were, no doubt, there -the great ultimate cause of the French Revolution, -brought to England what must have been -even as the very seasoning of society, the salt -of our earth in the subsequent age of corruption. -Most of the children of these men -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>were brought up in the discipline of religious -households, such as that which Sir Samuel -Romilly—himself one of the descendants of an -earlier band of refugees. Dr. Watts’s mother -was a child of a French exile. Clusters of -them grew up in many neighbourhoods in the -country, notably in Southampton, Norwich, -Canterbury, in many parts of London, where -Spitalfields especially was a French colony. -When the Revival commenced, these were -ready to aid its various movements by their -character and influence. Some fell into the -Wesleyan ranks, though, probably, most, like -the eminent scholar and preacher, William -Romaine, one of the sons of the exile, maintained -the more Calvinistic faith, reflecting -most nearly the old creed of the Huguenot.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This surmise of the influence of that noble -invasion upon the national well-being of Britain -is justified by inference from the facts. It -is very interesting to attempt to realise the -religious life of eminent activity and usefulness -sustained in different parts of the country before -the Revival dawned, and which must have -had an influence in fostering it when it arose. -And, indeed, while we would desire to give all -grateful honour to the extraordinary men (especially -to such a man as John Wesley, who -achieved so much through a life in which the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>length and the usefulness were equal to each -other, since only when he died did he cease to -animate by his personal influence the immense -organisation he had formed), yet it seems really -impossible to regard any one mind as the seed -and source of the great movement. It was as -if some cyclone of spiritual power swept all -round the nation—or, as if a subtle, unseen train -had been laid by many men, simultaneously, in -many counties, and the spark was struck, and -the whole was suddenly wrapped in a Divine -flame.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Dr. Abel Stevens, in his most interesting, -indeed, charming history of Methodism, from -his point of view, gives to his own beloved -leader and Church the credit of the entire -movement; so also does Mr. Tyerman, in his -elaborate life of Wesley. But this is quite -contrary to all dispassionate dealing with -facts; there were many men and many means -in quiet operation, some of these even before -Wesley was born, of which his prehensile mind -availed itself to draw them into his gigantic -work; and there were many which had operated, -and continued to operate, which would not -fit themselves into his exact, and somewhat -exacting, groove of Church life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We have said it was as if a cyclone of spiritual -power were steadily sweeping round the minds -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>of men and nations, for there were undoubted -gusts of remarkable spiritual life in both hemispheres, -at least fifty years before Methodism -had distinctly asserted itself as a fact. Most -remarkable was the “Great Awakening” in -America, in Massachusetts—especially at -Northampton (that is a remarkable story, which -will always be associated with the name of -Jonathan Edwards).<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c012'><b>[3]</b></a> We have referred to the -exodus of the persecuted from France; equally -remarkable was another exodus of persecuted -Protestants from Salzburg, in Austria. The -madness of the Church of Rome again cast -forth an immense host of the holiest and most -industrious citizens. At the call of conscience -they marched forth in a body, taking joyfully -the spoiling of their goods rather than disavow -their faith: such men with their families are a -treasure to any nation amongst whom they may -settle. Thomas Carlyle has paid a glowing -historical eulogy to the memory of these men, -and the exodus has furnished Goethe with the -subject of one of his most charming poems.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f3'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span>See Appendix <a href='#app-c'>C</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Philip Doddridge’s work was almost done before -the Methodist movement was known. It -seems to us that no adequate honour has ever yet -been paid to that most beautiful and remarkably -inclusive life. It was public, it was known -and noticed, but it was passed almost in retreat -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>in Northampton. That he was a preacher and -pastor of a Church was but a slight portion of -the life which succumbed, yet in the prime of -his days, to consumption. His academy for -the education of young ministers seems to us, -even now, something like a model of what such -an academy should be; his lectures to his students -are remarkably full and scholarly and -complete. From thence went forth men like -the saintly Risdon Darracott, the scholarly and -suggestive Hugh Farmer, Benjamin Fawcett, -and Andrew Kippis. The hymns of Doddridge -were among the earliest, as they are still -among the sweetest, of that kind of offering to -our modern Church; their clear, elevated, -thrush-like sweetness, like the more uplifted -seraphic trumpet tones of Watts, broke in upon -a time when there was no sacred song worthy -of the name in the Church, and anticipated the -hour when the melodious acclamations of the -people should be one of the most cherished elements -of Christian service.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id003'> -<img src='images/i01-page-30-isaacwatts.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>ISAAC WATTS.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>And Isaac Watts was, by far, the senior of -Doddridge; he lived very much the life of a -hermit. Although the pastor of a city church, -he was sequestered and withdrawn from public -life in Theobalds, or Stoke Newington, where, -however, he prosecuted a course of sacred labor -of a marvellously manifold description, inter-meddling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>with every kind of learning, and consecrating -it all to the great end of the christian -ministry and the producing of books, which, -whether as catechisms for children, treatises for -the formation of mental character, philosophic -essays grappling with the difficulties of scholarly -minds, or “comfortable words” to “rock -the cradle of declining age,” were all to become -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>of value when the nation should awake to a real -spiritual power. They are mostly laid aside -now; but they have served more than one -generation well; and he, beyond question, was -the first who taught the Protestant Christian -Church in England to sing. His hymns and -psalms were sounding on when John Wesley -was yet a child, and numbers of them were appropriated -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>in the first Methodist hymn-book. -But Watts and Doddridge, by the conditions -of their physical and mental being, were unfitted -for popular leaders. Perhaps, also, it must -be admitted that they had not that which has -been called the “instinct for souls;” they were -concerned rather to illustrate and expound the -truth of God, and to “adorn the doctrine of -God our Saviour,” by their lives, than to flash -new convictions into the hearts of men. It is -characteristic that, good and great as they -were, they were both at first inimical to the -Great Revival; it seemed to them a suspicious -movement. The aged Watts cautioned his -younger friend Doddridge against encouraging -it, especially the preaching of Whitefield; yet -they both lived to give their whole hearts to it; -and some of Watts’s last words were in blessing, -when, near death, he received a visit from the -great evangelist.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i02-page-31-philipdoddridge.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>PHILIP DODDRIDGE.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Thus we need to notice a little carefully the -age immediately preceding the rise of what we -call Methodism, in order to understand what -Methodism really effected; we have seen that -the dreadful condition of society was not inconsistent -with the existence over the country of -eminently holy men, and of even hallowed -christian families and circles. If space allowed, -it would be very pleasant to step into, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>sketch the life of many an interior; and it would -scarcely be a work of fancy, but of authentic -knowledge. There were yet many which almost -retained the character of Puritan households, -and among them several baronial halls. -Nor ought we to forget that those consistent: -and high-minded Christian folk, the Quakers -[Friends], were a much larger body then than -now, although, like the Shunammite lady, they -especially dwelt among their own people. The -Moravians also were in England; but all existed -like little scattered hamlet patches of spiritual -life; they were respectably conservative of their -own usages. Methodism brought enthusiasm -to religion, and the instinct for souls, united to -a power of organisation hitherto unknown to -the religious life.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i03-page-33-doddridgehouse.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>Doddridge’s House, Northampton.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>At what hour shall we fix the earliest dawn -of the Great Revival? Among the earliest -tints of the “morning spread upon the mountains,” -which was to descend into the valley, and -illuminate all the plains, was the conversion of -that extraordinary woman, Selina Shirley, the -Countess of Huntingdon; it is scarcely too -much to call her the Mother of the Revival; it -is not too much to apply to her the language of -the great Hebrew song—“The inhabitants of -the villages ceased, they ceased until that I -arose: I arose a mother in Israel.” She illustrates -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>the difference of which we spoke just -now, for there can be no doubt that she had a -passionate instinct for souls, to do good to -souls, to save souls. Her injunctions for the -destruction of all her private papers have been -so far complied with as to leave the earlier history -of her mind, and the circumstances which -brought about her conversion, for the most part -unknown. It is certain that she was on terms -of intimate friendship with both Watts and -Doddridge, but especially with Doddridge. -Another intimate friend of the Countess was -Watts’s very close friend, the Duchess of Somerset; -and thus the links of the story seem to -run, like that old and well-known instance of -communicated influence, when Andrew found -his own brother, Simon, and these in turn found -Philip and Nathaniel. It was very natural that, -beholding the state of society about her, she -should be interested, first, as it seems, for those -of her own order; it was at a later time, when -she became acquainted with Whitefield, that he -justified her drawing-room assemblies, by reminding -her—not, perhaps, with exact critical -propriety—of the text in Galatians, where Paul -mentioned how he preached “privately to those -of reputation.”<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c012'><b>[4]</b></a> For some time this appears to -have been the aim of the good Countess, much in -accordance with that pretty saying of hers, that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>“there was a text in which she blessed God for -the insertion of the letter M: ‘not <i>m</i>any noble.’” -The beautiful Countess was a heroine in her -own line from the earliest days of her conversion. -Belonging to one of the noblest families -of England, she had an entrance to the highest -circles, and her heart felt very pitiful for, especially, -the women of fashion around her, brokenhearted -with disappointment, or sick with <i>ennui</i>.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f4'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-d'>D</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Among these was Sarah, the great Duchess -of Marlborough, apparently one of the intimate -friends of the Countess; her letters are most -characteristic. She mentions that the Duchess -of Ancaster, Lady Townshend, and others, -had just heard Mr. Whitefield preach, and -“What they said of the sermon has made me -lament ever since that I did not hear it; it -might have been the means of doing me some -good, for good, alas! I do want; but where -among the corrupt sons and daughters of Adam -am I to find it?” She goes on: “Dear, good -Lady Huntingdon, I have no comfort in my -own family; I hope you will shortly come and -see me; I always feel more happy and more -contented after an hour’s conversation with -you; when alone, my reflections and recollection -almost kill me. Now there is Lady Frances -Saunderson’s great rout to-morrow night; -all the world will be there, and I must go. I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>hate that woman as much as I hate a physician, -but I must go, if for no other purpose than to -mortify and spite her. This is very wicked, I -know, but I confess all my little peccadilloes to -you, for I know your goodness will lead you to -be mild and forgiving; and perhaps my wicked -heart may gain some good from you in the end.” -And then she closes her note with some remarks -on “that crooked, perverse little wretch -at Twickenham,” by which pleasant designation -she means the poet, Pope.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another, and another order of character, was -the Duchess of Buckingham; she came to hear -Whitefield preach in the drawing-room, and -was quite scandalised. In a letter to the -Countess, she says, “The doctrines are most -repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence: -it is monstrous to be told that you have -a heart as sinful as the common wretches that -crawl the earth; this is highly offensive and -insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your -ladyship should relish any sentiments so much -at variance with high rank and good breeding.” -Such were some of the materials the Countess -attempted to gather in her drawing-rooms, if -possible to cure the aching of empty hearts. If -the two duchesses met together, it is very likely -they would be antipathetic to each other; a -prouder old lady than Sarah, the English empire -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>did not contain, but she was proud that -she was the wife and widow of the great Marlborough. -The Duchess of Buckingham was -equally proud that she was the natural daughter -of James II. When her son, the Duke of -Buckingham, died, she sent to the old Duchess -of Marlborough to borrow the magnificent car -which had borne John Churchill’s body to the -Abbey, and the fiery old Duchess sent her back -word, “It had carried Lord Marlborough, and -should never be profaned by any other corpse.” -The message was not likely to act as an <i>entente -cordiale</i> in such society as we have described.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The mention of these names will show the -reader that we are speaking of a time when the -Revival had not wrought itself into a great -movement. The Countess continued to make -enthusiastic efforts for those of her own order—we -are afraid, with a few distinguished exceptions, -without any great amount of success; -but certainly, were it possible for us to look -into the drawing-room in South Audley Street, -in those closing years of the reign of George II., -we might well be astonished at the brilliancy -of the concourse, and the finding ourselves -in the company of some of the most distinguished -names of the highest rank and fashion -of the period. It was the age of that cold, sardonic -sneerer, Horace Walpole; he writes to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>Florence, to his friend Sir Horace Mann, in his -scoffing fashion: “If you ever think of returning -to England, you must prepare yourself with -Methodism; this sect increases as fast as almost -any religious nonsense ever did; Lady Fanny -Shirley has chosen this way of bestowing the -dregs of her beauty, and Lyttleton is very near -making the same sacrifice of the dregs of all -those various characters that he has worn. The -Methodists love your big sinners as proper subjects -to work upon, and indeed they have a -plentiful harvest.” Then he satirises Lady -Ferrars, whom he styles “General, my Lady -Dowager Ferrars.” But, indeed, it is impossible -to enumerate the names of all, or any proportion -of the number who attended this brilliant -circle. Sometimes unhappy events took place; -Mr. Whitefield was sometimes too dreadfully, -although unconsciously, faithful. Lady Rockingham, -who really seems to have been inclined -to do good, begged the Countess to permit -her to bring the Countess of Suffolk, well -known as the powerful mistress of George II. -Whitefield “knew nothing of the matter;” but -some arrow “drawn at a venture,” and which -probably might have as well fitted many -another lady about the court or in that very -room, exactly hit the Countess. However -much she fidgeted with irritation, she sat out -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>the service in silence; but, as soon as it was -over, the beautiful fury burst forth in all the -stormful speech of a termagant or virago. She -abused Lady Huntingdon; she declared that -the whole service had been a premeditated -attack upon herself. Her relatives, Lady Bertie, -the celebrated Lady Betty Germain, the -Duchess of Ancaster, one of the most beautiful -women in England, and who, afterwards, with -the Duchess of Hamilton, conducted the future -queen of George III. to England’s shores, expostulated -with her, commanded her to be -silent, and attempted to explain her mistake; -they insisted that she should apologise to Lady -Huntingdon for her behaviour, and, in an ungracious -manner, she did so; but we learn that -she never honoured the assembly again with -her presence.</p> - -<p class='c007'>What a singular assembly from time to time! -the square dark face of that old gentleman, -painfully hobbling in on his crutched stick—face -once as handsome as that of St. John, now -the disappointed, moody features of the massive, -but sceptical intelligence of Bolingbroke; -poor worn-out old Chesterfield, cold and courtly, -yet seeming so genial and humane, coming -again and again, and yet again; those reckless -wits, and leaders of the <i>ton</i> and all high -society, Bubb Doddington, afterwards Lord -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>Melcombe, and George Selwyn; the Duchess of -Montague, with her young daughter; Lady -Cardigan, often there, if her mother, Sarah -of Marlborough, were but seldom a visitor. -Charles Townshend, the great minister, often -came; and his friend, Lord Lyttleton, who -really must have been in sympathy with some -of the objects of the assembly, if we may judge -from his <i>Essay on the Conversion of St. Paul</i>, a -piece of writing which will never lose its value. -There you might have seen even the great -commoner, William Pitt, afterwards Earl of -Chatham; but we can understand why he would -be there to listen to the manifold notes of an -eloquence singularly resembling, in many particulars, -his own. And, in fact, where such persons -were present, we might be sure that the -entire nobility of the country was represented. -It might be tempting to loiter amidst these -scenes a little longer. It was an experiment -made by the Countess; she probably found it -almost a failure, and, in the course of a few -years, turned her attention to the larger ideas -connected with the evangelisation of England, -and the training of young men for the work of -the ministry. She long outlived all those -brilliant hosts she had gathered round her in -the prime of life. But we cannot doubt that -some good was effected by this preaching to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>“people of reputation.” Courtiers like Walpole -sneered, but it saved the movement to a -great degree, when it became popular, from -being suspected as the result of political faction; -and probably, as all these nobles and -gentry passed away to their various country -seats, when they heard of the preachers in -their neighbourhoods, and received the complaints -of the bishops and their clergy, with -some contempt for the messengers, they were -able to feel, and to say, that there was nothing -much more dreadful than the love of God and -His good will to men in their message.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It seems a very sudden leap from the saloons -of the West End to a Lincolnshire kitchen; but -in the kitchen of that most romantic old vicarage -of Epworth, it has been truly said, the -most vigorous form of Methodism had its origin. -There, at the close of the seventeenth century, -and the commencement of the eighteenth, -lived and laboured old Samuel Wesley, the -father of John and Charles Wesley. Samuel -was in every sense a wonderful man, more wonderful -than most people know, though Mr. -Tyerman has done his best to set him forth in -a very clear and pleasant light, in his very entertaining -biography. Scholar, preacher, pastor, -and poet was Samuel Wesley; he led a life full -of romantic incident, and full of troubles, of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>which the two most notable are debts and -ghosts: debts, we must say, in passing, which -had more to do with unavoidable calamity -than with any personal imprudence. The -good man would have been shocked, and have -counted it one of his sorest troubles, could he, -in some real horoscope, have forecast what -“Jackey,” his son John, was to be. But it was -his wife, Susannah Wesley, patient housewife, -much-enduring, much-suffering woman, Mary -and Martha in one, saint as sacredly sweet as -any who have seemed worthy of a place in any -calendar of saints, Catholic or Protestant, -mother of children, all of whom were remarkable—two -of them wonderful, and a third highly -eminent—it was Susannah Wesley, whose -instinct for souls led her to look abroad over all -the parish in which she lived, with a tender, -spiritual affection; in her husband’s absence, -turning the large kitchen into a church, inviting -her poor neighbours into it, and, somewhat -at first to the distress of her husband, preaching -to and praying with them there. This brief -reference can only memorialise her name; read -John Kirk’s little volume, and learn to love -and revere “the mother of the Wesleys!” The -freedom and elevation of her religious life, and -her practical sagacity, it is not difficult to see, -must have given hints and ideas which took -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>shape and body in the large movement of which -her son John came to be regarded, and is still -regarded, as the patriarch. Thus Isaac Taylor -says, “The Wesleys’ mother was the mother -of Methodism in a religious and moral sense, -for her courage, her submissiveness to authority, -the high tone of her mind, its independence, -and its self-control, the warmth of her devotional -feelings, and the practical direction given -to them, came up, and were visibly repeated -in the character and conduct of her sons.” -Later on in life she became one of the wisest -advisers of her son, in his employment of the -auxiliaries to his own usefulness. Perhaps, if -we could see spirits as they are, we might see -in this woman a higher and loftier type of life -than in either of those who first received life -from her bosom; some of her quiet words have -all the passion and sweetness of Charles’s -hymns. Our space will not permit many quotations, -but take the following words, and the -sweet meditation in prose of the much-enduring, -and often patiently suffering lady in the -old world country vicarage, which read like -many of her son’s notes in verse: “If to esteem -and have the highest reverence for Thee; if -constantly and sincerely to acknowledge Thee -the supreme, and only desirable good, be to love -Thee, <span class='sc'>I do love Thee</span>! If to rejoice in Thy essential -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>majesty and glory; if to feel a vital joy -overspread and cheer the heart at each perception -of Thy blessedness, at every thought that -Thou art God, and that all things are in Thy -power; that there is none superior or equal to -Thee, be to love Thee, <span class='sc'>I do love Thee</span>! If -comparatively to despise and undervalue all the -world contains, which is esteemed great, fair, -or good; if earnestly and constantly to desire -Thee, Thy favour, Thy acceptance, Thyself, -rather than any, or all things Thou hast created, -be to love Thee, <span class='sc'>I do love Thee</span>!” At length -she died as she had lived, her last words to her -sons breathing the spirit of her singular life: -“Children, as soon as I am released, sing a -psalm of praise to God!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus, from the polite circles of London, from -the obscure old farm-like vicarage, the rude and -rough old English home, events were preparing -themselves. John Wesley was born in 1703; -the Countess of Huntingdon in 1707: near in -their birth time, how far apart the scenery and -the circumstances in which their eyes first -opened to the light. Whitefield was born -later, amidst the still less auspicious scenery of -the old Bell Inn, at Gloucester, in 1714. These -were undoubtedly among the foremost names -in the great palpitation of thought, feeling, and -holy action the country was to experience. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>Future chapters will show a number of other -names, which were simultaneously coming -forth and educating for the great conflict. So -it has always been, and singularly so, as illustrating -the order of Providence, and the way in -which it gives a new personality to the men -whom it designs to aid its purposes. In every -part of the country, all unknown to each other, -in families separated by position and taste, by -birth and circumstances, a band of workers was -preparing to produce an entire moral change in -the features of the country.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span> - <h2 id='ch03' class='c004'>CHAPTER III<br /> <br /><span class='small'>OXFORD: NEW LIGHTS AND OLD LANTERNS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>It is remarkable that one of the very earliest -movements of the new evangelical succession -should manifest itself in Oxford—many minded -Oxford—whose distant spires and antique towers -have looked down through so many ages -upon the varying opinions which have surged -up around and within her walls. Lord Bacon -has somewhere said that the opinions, feelings, -and thoughts of the young men of any present -generation forecast the whole popular mind of -the future age. No remark can be more true, -as exhibited generally in fact. Thus it is not -too much to say that Oxford has usually been -a barometer of coming opinions: either by her -adhesion or antagonism to them, she has indicated -the pathway of the nearing weather, either -for calm or storm. It was so in the dark ages, -with the old scholastic philosophy; it was so -in the times immediately succeeding them: in -our own day, the great Tractarian movement, -with all its influences Rome-ward, arose in -Oxford; later still, the strong tendencies of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>high intellectual infidelity, and denial of the -sacred prerogatives and rights of the Holy -Scriptures, sent forth some of their earliest -notes from Oxford. Oxford has been likened -to the magnificent conservatory at Chatsworth, -where art combines with nature, and achieves -all that wealth and taste could command; -but the air is heavy and close, and rich as -the forms and colours are around the spectator, -there is depression and repression, even -a sense of oppression, upon the spirits, and we -are glad to escape into the breezy chase, and -among the old trees again. This is hardly -true of Oxford; no doubt the air is hushed, and -the influences combine to weigh down the mere -visitor by a sense of the hoariness of the past, -and the black antiquity and frost of ages; but -somehow there is a mind in Oxford which is -always alive—not merely a scholarly knowledge, -but a subtle apprehension of the coming -winds—even as certain creatures forebode and -know the coming storm before the rain falls or -the thunder rolls.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We may presume that most of our readers -are acquainted with the designation, “the Oxford -Methodists;” but, perhaps, some are not -aware that the term was applied to a cluster of -young students, who, in a time when the university -was delivered over to the usual dissoluteness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>and godless indifference of the age, -met together in each other’s rooms for the -purpose of sustaining each other in the determination -to live a holy life, and to bring their -mutual help to the reading and opening of the -Word of God. From different parts of the -country they met together there; when they -went forth, their works, their spheres were -different; but the power and the beauty of the -old college days seem to have accompanied -them through life; they realised the Divine life -as a real power from that commencement to the -close of their career, although it is equally -interesting to notice how the framework of -their opinions changed. Some of their names -are comparatively unknown now, but John and -Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and James -Hervey, are well known; nor is John Gambold -unknown, nor Benjamin Ingham, who married -into the family of the Countess of Huntingdon, -of whom we will speak a little more particularly -when we visit the wild Yorkshire of those days; -nor Morgan of Christ Church, whose influence -is described as the most beautiful of all, a -young man of delicate constitution and intense -enthusiasm, who visited and talked with the -prisoners in the neighbourhood, visited the -cottages around to read and pray, left his -memory as a blessing upon his companions, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>and was very early called away to his reward. -This obscure life seems to have been one most -honoured in that which came to be called by -the wits of Oxford, “The Holy Club.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was just about this time that Voltaire was -predicting that, in the next generation, Christianity -would be overthrown and unknown -throughout the whole civilised world. Christianity -has lived through, and long outlived -many such predictions. Voltaire had said, “It -took twelve men to set up Christianity; it -would only take one” (conceitedly referring to -himself) “to overthrow it;” but the work of -those whom he called the “twelve men” is -still of some account in the world—their words -are still of some authority, and there are very few -people on the face of the earth at this moment -who know much of, and fewer still who care -much for the wit of the vain old infidel. That -Voltaire’s prediction was not fulfilled, under -the Providential influence of that Divine Spirit -who never leaves us in our low estate, was greatly -owing to this obscure and despised “Holy -Club” of Oxford. These young men were feeling -their way, groping, as they afterwards admitted, -and somewhat in the dark, after those -experiences, which, as they were to be assurances -to themselves, should be also their most -certain means of usefulness to others.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>They were also called Methodists. It is -singular, but neither the precise etymology nor -the first appropriation of the term Methodist -has, we believe, ever been distinctly or satisfactorily -settled. Some have derived it from -an allusion in Juvenal to a quack physician, -some to a passage from the writings of Chrysostom, -who says, “to be a methodist is to be -beguiled,” and which was employed in a -pamphlet against Mr. Whitefield. Like some -other phrases, it is not easy to settle its first -import or importation into our language. Certainly -it is much older than the times to which -this book especially refers. It seems to be -even contemporary with the term Puritan, -since we find Spencer, the librarian of Sion -College under Cromwell, writing, “Where are -now our Anabaptists and plain pack-staff -Methodists, who esteem all flowers of rhetoric -in sermons no better than stinking weeds?” A -writer in the <i>British Quarterly</i> tells a curious -story how once in a parish church in Huntingdonshire, -he was listening to a clergyman, -notorious alike by his private character and -vehement intolerance, who was entertaining -his audience, on a week evening, by a discourse -from the text, Ephesians iv. 14, “Whereby -they lie in wait to deceive.” He said to his -people, “Now, you do not know Greek; I know -<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>Greek, and I am going to tell you what this -text really says; it says, ‘they lie in wait to -make you Methodists.’ The word used here is -<i>Methodeian</i>, that is really the word that is used, -and that is really what Paul said, ‘They lie in -wait to make you Methodists’—a Methodist -means a deceiver, and one who deludes, cheats, -and beguiles.” The Grecian scholar was a -little at fault in his next allusion, for he proceeded -to quote that other text, “We are -not ignorant of his devices,” and seemed to be -under the impression that “device” was the -same word as that on which he had expended -his criticism. “Now,” said he, “you may be -ignorant, because you do not know Greek, but -we are not ignorant of his devices, that is, of -his methods, his deceivers, that is, his Methodists.” -In such empty wit and ignorant punning -it is very likely that the term had its origin.</p> - -<p class='c007'>John Wesley passed through a long, singular, -and what we may call a parti-coloured experience, -before his mind came out into the -light. In those days his mind was a singular -combination of High Churchism, amounting to -what we should call Ritualism now, and mysticism, -both of which influences he brought -from Epworth: the first from his father, the -second from the strong fascination of the writings -of William Law. He found, however, in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>the “Holy Club” that which helped him. He -tells us how, when at Epworth, he travelled -many miles to see a “serious man,” and to take -counsel from him. “Sir,” said this person, as -if the right word were given to him at the right -moment, exactly meeting the necessities of the -man standing before him, “Sir, you wish to -serve God and to go to heaven: remember you -cannot serve Him alone; you must therefore -find companions, or make them. The Bible -knows nothing of solitary religion.” It must -be admitted that the enthusiasm of the mystics -has always been rather personal than social; -but the society at Oxford was almost monastic, -nor is it wonderful that, with the spectacle of -the dissolute life around them, these earnest -men adopted rules of the severest self-denial -and asceticism. John Wesley arrived in Oxford -first in 1720; he left for some time. Returning -home to assist his father, he became, as we -know, to his father’s immense exultation, Fellow -of Lincoln College.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In 1733 George Whitefield arrived at Oxford, -then in his nineteenth year. Like most of this -band, Whitefield was, if not really, comparatively -poor, and dependent upon help to enable -him to pursue his studies; not so poor, perhaps, -as an illustrious predecessor in the same college -(Pembroke), who had left only the year -<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>before, one Samuel Johnson, the state of whose -shoes excited so much commiseration in some -benevolent heart, that a pair of new ones was -placed outside his rooms, only, however, creating -surprise in the morning, when he was seen -indignantly kicking them up and down the -passage. Whitefield was not troubled by such -over-sensitive and delicate feelings; men are -made differently. Johnson’s rugged independence -did its work; and the easy facility and -amiable disposition, which could receive favours -without a sense of degradation, were very -essential to what Whitefield was to be. He, -however, when he came to Oxford, was caught -in the same glamour of mysticism as John Wesley. -But in this case it was Thomas à-Kempis -who had besieged the soul of the young -enthusiast; he was miserable, his life, his heart -and mind were crushed beneath this altogether -inhuman and unattainable standard for salvation. -He was a Quietist—what a paradox!—Whitefield -a Quietist! He was seeking salvation -by works of righteousness which he could -do. He was practising the severest austerities -and renouncing the claims of an external world; -he was living an internal life which God did not -intend should bring to him either rest or calm; -for, in that case, how could he ever have stirred -the deep foundations of universal sympathy?</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>But that heart, whose very mould was tenderness, -was easily called aside by the sight of -suffering; and there is an interesting story, -how, at this time, in one of his walks by the -banks of the river, in such a frame of mind -as we have described, he met a poor woman -whose appearance was discomposed. Naturally -enough, he talked with her, and found that her -husband was in the gaol in Oxford, that she -had run away from home, unable to endure any -longer the crying of her children from hunger, -and that she even then meditated drowning -herself. He gave her immediate relief, but -arranged with her to meet him, and see her -husband together in the evening at the prison. -He appears to have done them both -good, ministering to their temporal necessities; -he prayed with them, brought them to the -knowledge of the grace which saves, and late -on in life he says, “They are both now living, -and I trust will be my joy and crown of rejoicing -in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Happy is -the man to whose life such an incident as this -is given; it calls life away from its dreary -introspections, and sets it upon a trail of outwardness, -which is spiritual health; no one -can attain to much religious happiness until he -knows that he has been the means of good to -some suffering soul. Faith grows in us by the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>revelation that we have been used to do good -to others.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was about this time that Charles Wesley -met Whitefield moodily walking through the -college corridors. The misery of his appearance -struck him, and he invited him to his -rooms to breakfast. The memory of the meeting -never passed away; Charles Wesley refers -to it in his elegy on Whitefield. In a short -time he leaped forth into spiritual freedom, and -almost immediately became, youth as he was, -preacher, and we may almost say, apostle. -The change in his mind seems to have been as -instantaneous and as luminous as Luther’s at -Erfurt. Whitefield was at work, commencing -upon his own great scale, long before the Wesleys. -John had to go to America, and to be -entangled there by his High Church notions; -and then there were his Moravian proclivities, -so that, altogether, years passed by before he -found his way out into a light so clear as to be -able to reflect it on the minds of others.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To some of the members of this “Holy Club,” -we shall not be able to refer again; we must, -therefore, mention them now. Especially is -some reference due to James Hervey; his name -is now rather a legend and tradition than an -active influence in our religious literature; but -how popular once, do not the oldest memories -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>amongst us well know? On some important -points of doctrine he parted company from his -friends and fellow-students, the Wesleys. John -Wesley used to declare that he himself was not -converted till his thirty-seventh year, so that -we must modify any impressions we may have -from similar declarations made by the amiable -Vicar of Weston Favel: the term conversion, -used in such a sense, in all probability means -simply a change in the point of view, an alteration -of opinion, giving a more clear apprehension -of truth. Hervey was always infirm in -health, tall, spectral; and, while possessing a -mind teeming with pleasing and poetic fancies, -and a power of perceiving happy analogies, we -should regard him as singularly wanting in that -fine solvent of all true genius, geniality. Hence, -all his letters read like sermons; but his poor, infirm -frame was the tabernacle of an intensely fervent -soul. Shortly after his settlement in his village -in Northamptonshire he was recommended -by his physician to follow the plough, that he -might receive the scent of the fresh earth; a curious -recommendation, but it led to a conversation -with the ploughman, which completely overturned -the young scholar’s scheme of theology. -The ploughman was a member of the Church -of Dr. Doddridge, afterwards one of Hervey’s -most intimate friends. As they walked together, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>the young minister asked the old -ploughman what he thought was the hardest -thing in religion? The ploughman very respectfully -returned the question. Hervey replied, -“I think the hardest thing in religion is -to deny sinful self,” and he proceeded, at some -length, of course, to dilate upon and expound -the difficulty, from which our readers will see -that, at this time, his mind must have been -under the same influences as those we meet in -<i>The Imitation</i> of Thomas à-Kempis. “No, -sir,” said the old ploughman, “the hardest -thing in religion is to deny righteous self,” and -he proceeded to unfold the principles of his -faith. At the time, Hervey thought the -ploughman a fool, but the conversation was not -forgotten, and he declares that it was this -view of things which created for him a new -creed. Our readers, perhaps, know his <i>Theron -and Aspasia</i>: we owe that book to the conversation -with the ploughman; all its pages, alive -with descriptions of natural scenery, historical -and classical allusion, and glittering with chromatic -fancy through the three thick volumes, -are written for the purpose of unfolding and -enforcing—to put it in old theological phraseology—the -imputed and imparted righteousness -of Christ, the great point of divergence in teaching -between Hervey and John Wesley.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>Thus the term Methodism cannot, any more -than Christianity, be contented with, or contained -in one particular line of opinion. Thus, -for instance, among the members of the “Holy -Club” we find the two Wesleys and others distinctly -Arminian—the apostles of that form of -thought which especially teaches us that we -must attain to the grace of God; while Whitefield -first, and Hervey afterwards, became the -teachers of that doctrine which announces the -irresistible grace of God as that which is outside -of us, and comes down upon us. No doubt -the doctrines were too sharply separated by -their respective leaders. In the ultimate issue, -both believed alike that all was of grace, and -all of God; but experience makes every man’s -point of view; as he feels, so he sees. The -grand thought about all these men in this -Great Revival was that they believed in, and -untiringly and with immense confidence announced, -that which smote upon the minds of -their hearers almost like a new revelation; in -an age of indifference and Deism they declared -that “the grace of God hath appeared unto all -men.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is a very interesting anecdote showing -how, about this time, even the massive and -sardonic intellect of Lord Bolingbroke almost -gave way. He was called upon once by a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>High Church dignitary, his intimate friend, Dr. -Church, Vicar of Battersea, and Prebendary of -St. Paul’s, to whom we have already referred as -from the first opposed to the Revival, and, to -the doctor’s amazement, he found Bolingbroke -reading Calvin’s <i>Institutes</i>. The peer asked -the preacher, the infidel the professed Christian, -what he thought of it. “Oh,” said the -doctor, “we think nothing of such antiquated -stuff; we think it enough to preach the importance -of morality and virtue, and have long -given up all that talk about Divine grace.” -Bolingbroke’s face and eyes were a study at all -times, but we could wish to have seen him turn -in his chair, and fix his eyes on the vicar as he -said: “Look you, doctor. You know I don’t -believe the Bible to be a Divine revelation, but -those who do can never defend it but upon the -principle of the doctrine of Divine grace. To say -the truth, there have been times when I have been -almost persuaded to believe it upon this view of -things; and there is one argument I have felt -which has gone very far with me on behalf of its -authenticity, which is, that the belief in it -exists upon earth even when committed to the -care of such as you, who pretend to believe in -it, and yet deny the only principle upon which -it is defensible.” The worn-out statesman and -hard-headed old peer hit the question of his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>own day, and forecast all the sceptical strife of -ours; for all such questions are summed in one, -Is there supernatural grace, and has that grace -appeared unto men? This was the one faith -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>of all these revivalists. The world was eager -to hear it, for the aching heart of the world -longs to believe that it is true. The conversation -we have recited shows that even Bolingbroke -wished that it might be true.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i04-page-62-westonfavelchurch.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>WESTON FAVEL CHURCH,<br />(<i>Where James Hervey Preached.</i>)</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The new creed of Hervey changed the whole -character of his preaching. The little church -of Weston Favel, a short distance from the -town of Northampton, became quite a shrine -for pilgrimages; he was often compelled to -preach in the churchyard. He was assuredly an -intense lover of natural scenery, a student of -natural theology of the old school. His writing -is now said to be meretricious and gaudy. -One critic says that children will always prefer -a red to a white sugar-plum, and that the tea -is nicer to them when they drink it from a -cup painted with coloured flowers; and this, -perhaps, not unfairly, describes the style of -Hervey; we have prettiness rather than power, -elegant disquisition rather than nervous expression, -which is all the more wonderful, as he -must have been an accomplished Latin scholar. -But he had a mind of gorgeous fullness, and his -splendid conceptions bore him into a train of -what now seem almost glittering extravagances. -Hervey was in the manner of his life -a sickly recluse, and we easily call up the figure -of the old bachelor—for he never married—alternately -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>watching his saucepan of gruel on -the fire, and his favourite microscope on the -study table. He was greatly beloved by the -Countess of Huntingdon, perhaps yet more by -Lady Fanny Shirley—the subject of Walpole’s -sneer. He was, no doubt, the writer of the -movement, and its thoughts in his books must -have seemed like “butter in a lordly dish.” -But his course was comparatively brief; his -work was accomplished at the age of forty-five. -He died in his chair, his last words, “Lord, -now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, -for mine eyes have seen Thy most comfortable -salvation;” shortly after, “The conflict is over; -all is done;” the last words of all, “Precious -salvation.” And so passed away one of the -most amiable and accomplished of all the revivalists.</p> - -<p class='c007'>John Gambold, although ever an excellent -and admirable man, lived the life rather of a -secluded mystic, than that of an active reformer. -He became a minister of the Church of England, -but afterwards left that communion, not -from any dissensions either from the doctrines -or the discipline of the Church, but simply -because he found his spiritual relationships -more in harmony with those of the Moravians, -of whose Church he died a bishop. We presume -few readers are acquainted with his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>poetical works; nor are there many words -among them of remarkable strength. <i>The -Mystery of Life</i> is certainly pleasingly impressive; -and his epitaph on himself deserves -quotation:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Ask not, ‘Who ended here his span?’</div> - <div class='line in1'>His name, reproach, and praise, was Man.</div> - <div class='line in1'>‘Did no great deeds adorn his course?’</div> - <div class='line in1'>No deed of his but showed him worse:</div> - <div class='line in1'>One thing was great, which God supplied,</div> - <div class='line in1'>He suffered human life—and died.</div> - <div class='line in1'>‘What points of knowledge did he gain?’</div> - <div class='line in1'>That life was sacred all—and vain:</div> - <div class='line in1'>‘Sacred, how high? and vain, how low?’</div> - <div class='line in1'>He knew not here, but died to know.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Such were some of the men who went forth -from Oxford. Meantime, as the flame of revival -was spreading, Oxford again starts into singular -notice; how the “Holy Club” escaped -official censure and condemnation seems -strange, but in 1768 the members of a similar -club were, for meeting together for prayer and -reading the Scriptures, all summarily expelled -from the university. Their number was seven. -Several of the heads of houses spoke in their -favour, the principal of their own hall, Dr. -Dixon, moved an amendment against their expulsion, -on the ground of their admirable conduct -and exemplary piety. Not a word was -alleged against them, only that some of them -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>were the sons of tradesmen, and that all of them -“held Methodistical tenets, taking upon them -to pray, read and expound the Scriptures, and -sing hymns at private houses.” These practices -were considered as hostile to the Articles and -interests of the Church of England, and sentence -was pronounced against them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of course this expulsion created a great agitation -at the time; and as the moral character -of the young men was so perfectly unimpeachable, -it no doubt greatly aided the cause of the -Revival. Dr. Horne, Bishop of Norwich, author -of the Commentary <i>On the Psalms</i>—no Methodist, -although an admirable and evangelical -man—denounced the measure in a pamphlet -in the strongest terms. The well-known wit -and Baptist minister of Devonshire Square in -London, Macgowan, lashed the transaction in -his piece called <i>The Shaver</i>. All the young -men seem to have turned out well. Some, like -Thomas Jones, who afterwards became curate -of Clifton, and married the sister of Lady -Austen, Cowper’s friend—found admission into -the Church of England; the others instantly -found help from the Countess of Huntingdon, -who sent them to finish their studies at her -college in Trevecca, and afterwards secured -them places in connection with her work of -evangelisation. The transaction gives a singular -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>idea of what Oxford was in 1768, and prepares -us for the vehement persecutions by -which the representatives of Oxford all over -the country armed themselves to resist the -Revival, whilst it justifies our designation of -this chapter, “New Lights and Old Lanterns.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span> - <h2 id='ch04' class='c004'>CHAPTER IV<br /> <br /><span class='small'>CAST OUT FROM THE CHURCH—TAKING TO THE FIELDS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>It was field-preaching, preaching in the open -air, which first gave national distinctiveness to -the Revival, and constituted it a movement. -Assuredly any occasions of excitement we have -known, give no idea whatever of the immense -agitations which speedily rolled over the country, -from one end to the other, when these great -revivalists began their work in the fields. And -the excitement continued, rolling on through -London, and through the counties of England, -from the west to the north, not for days, weeks, -or months merely, but through long years, until -the religious life of the land was entirely rekindled, -and its morals and manners re-moulded; -and all this, especially in its origination, -without money, no large sums being subscribed -or guaranteed to sustain the work. The work -was done, not only without might or power, but -assuredly in the very teeth of the malevolence -of might and of power; nor is it too much to -say that it probably would not have been done, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>could not have been done, had the churches, -chapels, and great cathedrals been thrown open -to the preachers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It seems a singular thing to say, but we -should speak of Whitefield as the Luther of this -Great Revival, and of Wesley as its Calvin. -Both in the quality of their work and in their -relation in point of time, this analogy is not so -unnatural as it perhaps seems at first. The impetuosity -and passion, the vehemence and -sleepless vigilance of Whitefield first broke -open the way; the calm, cautious, frequently -even nervously timid intelligence of Wesley -organised the work.</p> - -<p class='c007'>How could a writer, in a recent number of -the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, say: “It is a great -mistake to complain, as so many do, that the -Church cast out the Wesleys. We have seen -at the beginning how kindly, and even cordially, -they were treated by the leading members -of the episcopate.” Surely any history of -Methodism contradicts this statement. Bishop -Benson, indeed, ordained Whitefield, but he -bitterly lamented to the Countess of Huntingdon -that he had done so, attributing to him -what seemed to the Bishop the mischief of the -evangelical movement. “My lord,” said the -Countess, “mark my words: when you are on -your dying bed, that will be one of the few ordinations -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>you will reflect upon with complaisance.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The words were, in a remarkable degree, -prophetic; when the Bishop was on his death-bed -he sent ten guineas to Mr. Whitefield as a -token of his “regard, veneration, and affection,” -and begged the great field-preacher to -remember him in prayer. If the bishops were -kind and cordial to the first Methodists, they -certainly took a singular way of dissembling -their love. For instance, Bishop Lavington, -of Exeter, whose well-known two volumes on -Methodism are really a curiosity of episcopal -scurrility, was in a passion with everything that -looked like Whitefieldism in his diocese. Mr. -Thomson, the Vicar of St. Gennys, was a dissipated -clergyman, a character of known immorality; -he was a rich man, and not dependent -upon his vicarage. In the midst of his sinful -life conscience was arrested; he became converted; -he countenanced and threw open his -pulpit to Mr. Whitefield; he became now as remarkable -for his devout life and fervent gospel -preaching as he had been before for his ungodliness. -What made it all the worse was, that -he was a man of real genius. Now all his -brethren in the ministry disowned him, and -closed their pulpits against him; and presently -Bishop Lavington summoned him to appear -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>before him to answer the charges made against -him by his brethren for his Methodistical practices. -“Sir,” said the Bishop, in the course of -conversation, “if you pursue these practices, -and countenance Whitefield, I will strip your -gown from off you.” Mr. Thomson had on his -gown at the time—more frequently worn by -ministers of the Church then than now. To -the amazement of the Bishop, Mr. Thomson -exclaimed, “I will save your lordship the -trouble!” He took off his gown, dropped it at -the Bishop’s feet, saying, “My lord, I can -preach without a gown!” and before the Bishop -could recover from his astonishment he was -gone. This was an instance, however, in -which the Bishop was so decidedly in the -wrong that he sent for the vicar again, apologised -to him; and the circumstance, indeed, -led to the entertainment by the Bishop of -views which were somewhat milder with reference -to Methodism than those which still give -notoriety to his name.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i05-page-74-georgewhitefield.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>GEORGE WHITEFIELD.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Southey<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c012'><b>[5]</b></a>, in his certainly not impartial volumes, -admits that, for the most part, the condition -of the clergy was dreadful; it is not wonderful -that they closed their churches against -the innovators. There was, for instance, the -Vicar of Colne, the Rev. George White; when -the preachers came into his neighbourhood, it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>was his usual practice to call his parishioners -together by the beat of a drum, to issue a -proclamation at the market-cross, and enlist a -mob for the defence of the Church against the -Methodists. Here is a copy of the proclamation, -a curiosity in its way: “Notice is hereby -given that if any man be mindful to enlist in -His Majesty’s service, under the command of -the Rev. Mr. George White, Commander-in-Chief, -and John Bannister, Lieutenant-General -of His Majesty’s forces for the defence of the -Church of England, and the support of the -manufactory in and about Colne, both which -are now in danger, let him repair to the drumhead -at the Cross, where each man shall receive -a pint of ale in advance, and all other -proper encouragements.” Such are some of the -instances, which might be multiplied to any -extent, showing the reception given to the revivalists -by the clergy of the time. But let no -reader suppose that, in reciting these things, -we are willingly dwelling upon facts not creditable -to the Church, or that we forget how -many of her most admirable members have -made an abundant <i>amende honorable</i> by their -eulogies since; nor are we forgetting that Nonconformist -chapels, whose cold respectability -of service and theology were sadly outraged by -the new teachers, were not more readily -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>opened than the churches were to men with -whom the Word of the Lord was as a fire, or -as a hammer to break the rock in pieces.<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c012'><b>[6]</b></a> -Whitefield soon felt his power. Immediately -after his ordination, he in some way became for -a time an occasional supply at the chapel in the -Tower; he found a straggling congregation of -twenty or thirty hearers; after a service or two -the place was overflowing, and remained so. -During his short residence in that neighbourhood -the youth continued throughout the -whole week preaching to the soldiers, preaching -to prisoners, holding services on Sunday -mornings for young men before the ordinary -service. He was still ostensibly at Oxford; a -profitable living was offered to him in London, -and instantly declined. He went to Gloucester, -to Bristol, to Kingswood. Of course it is -impossible to follow Whitefield step by step -through his career; we can only rapidly bring -out a crayon sketch of the chief features of his -work. He made voyages to Georgia; voyaging -was no pastime in those days, and he spent a -great amount of time in transit to and fro on -the seas; our business with him is chiefly as -the first field-preacher; and Kingswood, near -Bristol, appears to have been the first place -where this great work was to be tried. It was -then, what it is still, a region of rough collieries, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>the Black Country of the West; the people -themselves were of the roughest order. Whitefield -spoke at Bristol, to some friends, of his -probable speedy embarkation to preach the -Gospel among the Indians of America; and -they said to him, “What need of going abroad -to do this? Have we not Indians enough at -home? If you have a mind to convert Indians, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>there are colliers enough in Kingswood!” A -savage race! As to taking to the fields in this -instance, it was simply a necessity; there were -no churches from whence the preacher could be -ejected. Try to realize it: the heathen society, -indoctrinated only in brutal sports; the rough, -black labour only typical of the rough, black -minds, the rough, black souls. Surely he must -have been a very brave man; nor was he one -at all of that order of apostles whose native -roughness is well fitted, it seems, to challenge -roughness to civility.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f5'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-e'>E</a>.</p> -</div> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f6'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. </span>Appendix <a href='#app-f'>F</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Whitefield was a perfect gentleman, of manners -most affectionate and amiable; altogether -the most unlikely creature, it seems, to rise triumphant -over the execrations of a mighty mob. -The oratory of Whitefield seems to us almost -the greatest mystery in the history of eloquence: -his voice must have been wonderful; -its strength was overwhelming, but it was not -a roar; its modulations and inflections were -equal to its strength, so that it had the all-commanding -tones of a bell in its clearness, and -all the modulations of an organ in its variety -and sweetness. Kingswood only stands as a -representative of crowds of other such places, -where savages fell before the enchantment of -his sweet music. Read any accounts of him, -and it will be seen that we do not exaggerate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>in speaking of him as the very Orpheus of the -pulpit. Assuredly, as it has been said Orpheus, -by the power of his music, drew trees, stones, -the frozen mountain-tops, and the floods to -bow to his melody, so men, “stockish, hard, -and full of rage,” felt a change pass over their -nature, as they came under the spell of Whitefield. -Yet, perhaps, he would not have gone -to Kingswood had he not been inhibited from -preaching in the Bristol churches. He had -preached in St. Mary Redcliff, and the following -day had preached opening sermons in the -parish church of SS. Philip and Jacob, and then -he was called before the Chancellor of the diocese, -who asked him for his licence by which he -was permitted to preach in that diocese. Whitefield -said he was an ordained minister of the -Church of England, and as to the special licence, -it was obsolete. “Why did you not ask,” he said, -“for the licence of the clergyman who preached -for you last Thursday?” The Chancellor replied, -“That is no business of yours.” Whitefield -said, “There is a canon forbidding clergymen -to frequent taverns and play at cards, -why is that not enforced?” The Chancellor -evaded this, but charged Whitefield with -preaching false doctrine; Whitefield replied that -he preached what he knew to be the truth, and -he would continue to preach. “Then,” said the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>Chancellor, “I will excommunicate you!” The -end of it was that all the city churches were -shut against him. “But,” he says, “if they -were all open, they would not contain half -the people who come to hear. So at three in -the afternoon I went to Kingswood among the -colliers.” Whitefield laid his case in a very respectful -letter, before the Bishop, but on he -went. As to Kingswood, tears poured down -the black faces of the colliers; the great audiences -are described as being drenched in -tears. Whitefield himself was in a passion of -tears. “How can I help weeping,” he said to -them, “when you have not wept for yourselves?” -And they began to weep. Thus in 1739 began -the mighty work at Kingswood, which has been -a great Methodist colony from that day to this. -That was a good morning’s work for the cause -of Christ when the Chancellor shut the doors -of the churches of Bristol against the brave -and beautiful preacher, and threatened to excommunicate -him. Was it not said of old, -“Thou makest the wrath of man to praise -Thee”?</p> - -<p class='c007'>Now, then, see him girt and road-ready; we -might be sure that the example of the Chancellor -of Bristol would be pretty generally -followed. The old ecclesiastical corporations -set themselves in array against him; but how -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>futile the endeavour! Their canons and -rubrics were like the building of hedges to -confine an eagle, and they only left him without -a choice—without any choice but to fulfil -his instinct for souls, and to soar. Other “little -brief authorities,” mayors, aldermen, and such -like, issued their fulminations. Coming to -Basingstoke, the mayor, one John Abbott, -inhibited him. John Abbott seems to have -been a burly butcher. The intercourse and -correspondence between the two is very -humorously characteristic; but, although it -gives an insight as to the antagonism which -frequently awaited Whitefield, it is too long to -quote in this brief sketch. The butcher-mayor -was coarse and insolent; Whitefield never lost -his sweet graciousness; writing to abusive -butchers or abusive bishops, as in his reply to -Lavington, he never lost his temper, never -indulged in satire, never exhibits any great -marks of genius, writes straight to the point, -simply vindicates himself and his course, never -retracts, never apologises, goes straight on.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is no other instance of a preacher who -was so equally at home and equally impressive -and commanding in the most various and -dissimilar circles and scenes; it is significant of -the notice he excited that his name occurs so -frequently in the correspondence of that cold -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>and heartless man and flippant sneerer, Horace -Walpole, whose allusions to him are usually -disgraceful; but so it was, he was equally commanding -in the polished and select circles of -the drawing-room, surrounded by dukes and -duchesses, great statesmen and philosophers, -or in the large old tabernacle or parish church, -surrounded by more orderly and saintly worshippers, -or in nature’s vast and grand cathedrals, -with twenty or thirty thousand people -around him.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From the day when he went to Kingswood, -we may run a rapid eye along the perspective -of his career—in fields, on heaths, and on commons, -it was the same everywhere; from his -intense life we might find many scenes for -description: take one or two. On the breast -of the mountain, the trees and hedges full of -people, hushed to profound silence, the open -firmament above him, the prospect of adjacent -fields—the sight of thousands on thousands of -people; some in coaches, some on horseback, -and all affected, or drenched in tears. Sometimes -evening approaches, and then he says, -“Beneath the twilight it was too much for me, -and quite overcame me.” There was one -night never to be forgotten. While he was -preaching it lightened exceedingly; his spirit -rose on the tempest; his voice tolled out the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>doom and decay hanging over all nature; he -preached the warnings and the consolations of -the coming of the Son of man. The thunder -broke over his head, the lightning shone along -the preacher’s path, it ran along the ground in -wild glares from one part of heaven to the -other; the whole audience shook like the -leaves of a forest in the wind, whilst high -amidst the thunders and the lightnings, the -preacher’s voice rose, exclaiming, “Oh; my -friends, the wrath of God! the wrath of God!” -Then his spirit seemed to pass serenely right -through the tempest, and he talked of Christ, -who swept the wrath away; and then he told -how he longed for the time when Christ should -be revealed, amidst the flaming fire, consuming -all natural things. “Oh,” exclaimed he, “that -my soul may be in a like flame when He shall -come to call me!” Can we realize what his -soul must have been who could burn with such -seraphic ardours in the midst of such scenes?</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i06-page-81-whitefieldpreaching.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>WHITEFIELD PREACHING IN LONDON.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>So he opened the way everywhere, by his -field-preaching, for John Wesley. Truly it has -been said, “Whitefield, and not Wesley, is the -prominent figure in the opening of the Methodist -movement;” and the time we must assign -to this first popular agitation is the winter of -1738-39. The two men were immensely different. -To Whitefield the preaching was no light -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>work; it was not talking. After one of his -sermons, drenched through, he would lie down, -spent, sobbing, exhausted, death-like: John -Wesley, after one of his most effective sermons, -in which he also had shaken men’s souls, would -just quietly mount his little pony, and ride off -to the next village or town, reading his book as -he went, or stopping by the way to pluck -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>curious flowers or simples from the hedges; -the poise of their spirits was so different. All -great movements need two men, Moses and -Aaron; the prophet Elijah must go before, “to -restore all things.” Whitefield lived in the -immediate neighbourhood and breathed the air -of essential truth; Wesley looked at men, and -saw how all remained undone until the work -took coherency and shape. As he says, “I was -convinced that preaching like an apostle, without -joining together those that are awakened, -and training them up in the ways of God, is -only begetting children for the murderer.” -Whitefield preached like an apostle; the scenes -we have described appear charming rural -scenes, in which men’s hearts were bowed and -hushed before him; but there were widely -different scenes when he defied the devil, and -sought to win his victims away, even in fairs -and wakes—the most wild and dissolute periodical -pests and nuisances of the age. Rough -human nature went down before him, as in the -instance of the man who came with heavy -stones to pelt him, and suddenly found his -hands as it were tied, and himself in tears, -and, at the close, went up to the preacher, and -said, “I came here only to break your head, -and you have broken my heart!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But the roughs of London seem to have been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>worse than the roughs of Kingswood; and we -cannot wonder that men like Walpole, and -even polite and refined religious men, thought -that a man who could go right into St. Bartholomew’s -Fair, in Moorfields, and Finsbury, -take his station among drummers, trumpeters, -merry-andrews, harlequins, and all kinds of -wild beasts, must be “mad”; it must have -seemed the height of fanaticism, like preaching -to a real Gadarene swinery. All the historians -of the movement—Sir James Stephen, Dr. -Abel Stevens, Dr. Southey, Isaac Taylor, and -others, recite with admiration the story of the -way in which he wrestled successfully with the -merry-andrews. He began to preach at six -o’clock in the morning; stones, dirt, rotten -eggs were hurled at him. “My soul was -among lions,” he says; but the marvellous -voice overcame, and he went on speaking, and -we know how tenderly he would speak to -them, of their own miseries, and the dangers of -their own sins; the great multitude—it was -between twenty and thirty thousand—“became -like lambs;” he finished, went away, and, -in the wilder time—in the afternoon—he came -again. In the meantime there had been organisations -to put him down: here was a man with -a long heavy whip to strike the preacher; -there was a recruiting sergeant who had been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>engaged with drum and fife to interrupt him. -As he appeared on the outskirts of the crowd, -Whitefield, who well knew how to catch the -humour of the people too, exclaimed, “Make -way for the king’s officer!” and the mob divided, -while, to his surprise, the recruiting officer, with -his drum, found himself immediately beneath -Whitefield; it was easy to manage him now. -The crowd around roared like wild beasts; it -must have been a tremendous scene. Will it -be believed—it seems incredible—that he continued -there, preaching, praying, singing, until -the night fell? He won a decided victory, and -the next day received no fewer than a thousand -notes from persons, “brands plucked from the -burning,” who spoke of the convictions through -which they had passed, and implored the -preacher to remember them in his prayers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This was in Moorfields, in which neighbourhood -since, the followers both of Wesley and -of Whitefield have found their tabernacles and -most eminent fields of usefulness. Many have -attempted fair-preaching since Whitefield’s -day, but not, we believe, with much success; -it needs a remarkable combination of powers to -make such efforts successful. Whitefield was -able to attempt to outbid the showmen, merry-andrews, -and harlequins, and he succeeded. -No wonder they called him a fanatic; he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>might have said, “If we be beside ourselves, it -is for God, that by all means we may save -some!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But what we have been especially desirous -that our readers should note is, that these more -vehement manifestations of Methodism were -not the result of any methodised plan, but were -a simple yielding to, and taking possession of -circumstances; it was as if “the Spirit of the -Lord” came down upon the leaders, and “carried -them whither they knew not.”</p> - -<hr class='c017' /> - -<p class='c007'>[For an account of Whitefield’s labours in -America, and the spread of the Great Revival -there, the reader is referred to the supplemental -chapter at the end of this volume.]</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span> - <h2 id='ch05' class='c004'>CHAPTER V<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE REVIVAL CONSERVATIVE.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>Lord Macaulay’s verdict upon John Wesley, -that he possessed a “genius for government -not inferior to that of Richelieu,” received -immediate demonstration when he came -actively into the movement, and has been -abundantly confirmed since his death, in the -history of the society which he founded. It -has been said that all institutions are the prolonged -shadow of one mind, and that by the -inclusiveness, or power of perpetuity in the institution, -we may know the mind of the -founder. Much of our last chapter was devoted -to some attempt to realise the place and power -of Whitefield;<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c012'><b>[7]</b></a> what he was in relation to the -Revival may be defined by the remark, often -made, and by capable critics, that while there -have been multitudes of better sermon-makers, -it is uncertain whether the Church ever had so -great a pulpit orator. In Wesley’s mind everything -became structural and organic; he was a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>mighty master of administration; but he also -followed Whitefield’s example, and took to the -fields; and very great, indeed, amazing results, -followed his ministry.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f7'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. </span>See Chapter <a href='#ch14'>XIV</a>. for his place and power in America.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Many of the incidents which are impressive -and amusing show the difference between the -men. Whitefield overwhelmed the people: -Wesley met insolence and antagonism by some -sharp, concise, and cuttingly appropriate retort, -which was remarkable, considering his -stature. But both his presence and his words -must have been unusually commanding: “Be -silent, or begone,” he turned round sharply -and said once to some violent disturbers, and -they were obedient to the command.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Wesley’s rencontre with Beau Nash at Bath -is a fair illustration of his quiet and almost obscurely -sarcastic method of confounding a -troublesome person. Preaching in the open air -at Bath, the King of Bath, the Master of the -Ceremonies, Nash, was so unwise as to attempt -to put down the apostolic man. Nash’s character -was bad; it was that of an idle, heartless, -licentious dangler on the skirts of high society. -He appeared in the crowd, and authoritatively -asked Wesley by what right he dared to stand -there. The congregation was not wholly of -the poor; there were a number of fashionable -and noble persons present, and among them -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>many with whom this attack had been pre-arranged, -and who expected to see the discomfiture -of the Methodist by the courtly and -fashionable old dandy. Wesley replied to the -question simply and quietly that he stood there -by the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed to -him “by the present Archbishop of Canterbury, -when he laid hands on me and said, -‘Take thou authority to preach the Gospel!’” -Nash began to bustle and to be turbulent, and -he exclaimed, “This is contrary to Act of Parliament; -this is a conventicle.” “Sir,” said -Wesley, “the Act you refer to applies to seditious -meetings: here is no sedition, no shadow -of sedition; the meeting is not, therefore, contrary -to the Act.” Nash stormed, “I say it is; -besides, your preaching frightens people out of -their wits.” “Sir,” said Wesley, “give me -leave to ask, Did you ever hear me preach?” -“No!” “How, then, can you judge of what you -have never heard?” “Sir, by common report.” -“Common report is not enough,” said Wesley; -“again give me leave to ask is your name not -Nash?” “My name is Nash.” And then the -reader must imagine Wesley’s thin, clear, -piercing voice, cutting through the crowd: -“Sir, I dare not judge of <i>you</i> by common report.” -There does not seem much in it, but -the effect was overwhelming. Nash tried to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>bully it out a little; but, to make his discomfiture -complete, the people took up the case, and -especially one old woman, whose daughter had -come to grief through the fop, in her way so set -forth his sins that he was glad to retreat in dismay. -On another occasion, when attempts -were made to assault Wesley, there was some -uncertainty about his person, and the assailants -were saying, “Which is he? which is -he?” he stood still as he was walking down -the crowded street, turned upon them, and -said, “I am he;” and they instantly fell back, -awed into involuntary silence and respect.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is characteristic that while Whitefield -simply took to the work of field-preaching, and -preaching in the open air, and troubled himself -very little about finding or giving reasons for -the irregularity of the proceeding, Wesley defended -the practice with formidable arguments. -It is remarkable that the practice should have -been deemed so irregular, or should need vindication, -considering that our Lord had given -to it the sanction of His example, and that it -had been adopted by the apostles and fathers, -the greatest of the Catholic preachers, and the -reformers of every age. A history of field and -street-preaching would form a large and interesting -chapter of Church history. Southey -quotes a very happy series of arguments from -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>one of Wesley’s appeals: “What need is -there,” he says, speaking for his antagonists, -“of this preaching in the fields and streets? -Are there not churches enough to preach in?” -“No, my friend, there are not, not for us to -preach in. You forget we are not suffered to -preach there, else we should prefer them to any -place whatever.” “Well, there are ministers -enough without you.” “Ministers enough, and -churches enough! For what? To reclaim all -the sinners within the four seas? and one plain -reason why these sinners are never reclaimed -is this: they never come into a church. Will -you say, as some tender-hearted Christians I -have heard, ‘Then it is their own fault; let -them die and be damned!’ I grant it may be -their own fault, but the Saviour of souls came -after us, and so we ought to seek to save that -which is lost.” He went on to confess the -irregularity, but he retorted that those persons -who compelled him to be irregular had no right -to censure him for irregularity. “Will they -throw a man into the dirt,” said he, “and beat -him because he is dirty? Of all men living -those clergymen ought not to complain who -believe I preach the Gospel; if they will not ask -me to preach in their churches, they are -accountable for my preaching in the fields.” -This is a fair illustration of the neat shrewdness, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>the compact, incisive common sense of Wesley’s -mind. Thus he argued himself into that -sphere of labour which justified him in after -years in saying, without any extravagance, -“The world is my parish.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>We have said the Revival became conservative. -It is true the Countess of Huntingdon -did much to make it so; but it assumed a shape -of vitality, and a force of coherent strength, -chiefly from the touch of Wesley’s administrative -mind. The present City Road Chapel, -which was opened in 1776, opposite Bunhill -Fields Burial Ground, is probably the first -illustration of this fact; it stands where stood -the Foundry—time-honoured spot in the history -of Methodism. It stood in Moorfields; the -City Road was a mere lane then. The building -had been used by government for casting -cannon; it was a rude ruin. Wesley purchased -it and the site at the very commencement of -his work, in 1739; he turned it into a temple. -As the years passed on it became the cradle of -London Methodism, accommodating fifteen -hundred people. Until within twenty years of -Wesley’s purchase this had been a kind of -Woolwich Arsenal to the government; it became -a temple of peace, and here came “band-rooms,” -school-rooms, book-rooms—the first -saplings of Methodist usefulness.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span> -<img src='images/i07-page-92-johnwesley.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>JOHN WESLEY.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It has been truly said by a writer in the <i>British -Quarterly</i>, that the most romantic lives of -the saints of the Roman Catholic calendar do -not present a more startling succession of -incidents than those which meet us in the life -and labours of Wesley. Romish stories claim -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>that Blessed Raymond, of Pegnafort, spread -his cloak upon the sea to transport him across -the water, sailing one hundred and sixty miles -in six hours, and entering his convent through -closed doors! The devout and zealous Francis -Xavier spent three whole days in two different -places at the same time, preaching all the -while! Rome shines out in transactions like -these: Wesley does not; but he seems to -have been almost ubiquitous, and he moves -with a rapidity reminding us of that flying -angel who had the everlasting Gospel to preach, -and he shines alike in his conflicts with nature -and the still wilder tempests caused by the -passions of men. We read of his travelling, -through the long wintry hours, two hundred -and eighty miles on horseback, in six days; it -was a wonderful feat in those times. When -Wesley first began his itinerancy there were no -turnpikes in the country; but before he closed -his career, he had probably paid more, says -Dr. Southey, for turnpikes, than any other man -in England, for no other man in England -travelled so much. His were no pleasant -journeys, as of summer days; he travelled -through the fens of Lincolnshire when the -waters were out; and over the fells of Northumberland -when they were covered with snow. -Speaking of one tremendous journey, through -<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>dreadful weather, he says, “Many a rough -journey have I had before; but one like this I -never had, between wind and hail, and rain, -and ice, and snow, and driving sleet, and -piercing cold; but it is past. Those days will -return no more, and are therefore as though -they had never been.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“‘And pain, like pleasure, is a dream!’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>How singular was his visit to Epworth, -where he found the church of his childhood, his -father’s church, the church of his own first -ministrations, closed against him! The minister -of the church was a drunkard; he had -been under great obligations, both to Wesley -himself and to the Wesley family, but he -assailed him with the most offensive brutality; -and when Wesley, denied the pulpit, signified -his intention of simply partaking of the Lord’s -Supper with the parishioners on the following -Sunday, the coarse man sent word, “Tell Mr. -Wesley I shall not give him the Sacrament, for -he is not <i>fit</i>.” It seems to have cut Mr. Wesley -very deeply. “It was fit,” he says, “that -he who repelled me from the 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 my father had shown to his, as -well as personally to himself.” He stayed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>there, however, eight days, and preached every -evening in the churchyard, standing on his -father’s tomb; truly a singular sight, the living -son, the prophet of his age, surely little short -of inspired, preaching from his dead father’s -grave with such pathos and power as we may -well conceive. “I am well assured,” he says, -“I did far more good to my old Lincolnshire -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>parishioners by preaching three days on my -father’s tomb than I did by preaching three -years in his pulpit!”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i08-page-95-wesleypreaching.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>WESLEY PREACHING IN EPWORTH CHURCHYARD.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>As he travelled to and fro, odd mistakes -sometimes happened. Arrived at York, he -went into the church in St. Saviour’s Gate; the -rector, one Mr. Cordeau, had often warned his -congregation against going to hear “that -vagabond Wesley” preach. It was usual in that -day for ministers of the Establishment to wear -the cassock or gown, just as everywhere in -France we see the French abbés. Wesley -had on his gown, like a university man in -a university town. Mr. Cordeau, not knowing -who he was, offered him his pulpit; Wesley -was quite willing, and always ready. -Sermons leaped impromptu from his lips, -and this sermon was an impressive one; at -its close the clerk asked the rector if he knew -who the preacher was. “No.” “Why, sir, it -was that vagabond Wesley!” “Ah, indeed!” -said the astonished clergyman; “well, never -mind, we have had a good sermon.” The -anecdotes of the incidents which waited upon -the preacher in his travels are of every order of -humorous, affecting, and romantic interest; they -are spread over a large variety of volumes, and -even still need to be gathered, framed, and -hung in the light of some effective chronicle.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span> -<img src='images/i09-page-97-epworthchurch.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>EPWORTH CHURCH.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The brilliant passage in which Lord Macaulay -portrays, as with the pencil of a Vandyke, -the features of the great English Puritans, is -worthy of attention. Perhaps, even had the -great essayist attempted the task, he had -scarcely the requisite sympathies to give an -effective portrait or portraits of the early -Methodists; indeed, their characters are different, -as different as a portrait from the pencil of -Denner to one from that of Vandyke, or of -Velasquez; but as Denner is wonderful too, although -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>so homely, so the Methodist is a study. -The early Methodist was, perhaps, usually a -very simple, what we should call an ignorant, -man, but he had “the true Light which lighteth -every man that cometh into the world.” He -was not such an one as the early Puritan<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c012'><b>[8]</b></a> or the -ancient Huguenot, those children of the camp -and of the sword, Nonconformist Templars and -Crusaders, whose theology had trained them -for the battle-field, teaching them to frown defiance -on kings, and to treat with contempt the -proudest nobles, if they were merely unsanctified -men. The Methodist was not such an one -as the stern Ironside of Cromwell; as he lived -in a more cheerful age, so he was the subject of -a more cheerful piety; he was as loyal as he was -lowly. He had been forgotten or neglected by -all the priests and Levites of the land; but a -voice had reached him, and raised him to the -rank of a living, conscious, immortal soul. He -also was one for whom Christ died. A new life -had created new interests in him; and Christianity, -really believed, does ennoble a man—how -can it do otherwise? It gives self-respect -to a man, it shows to him a new purpose and -business in life; moreover, it creates a spirit of -holy cheerfulness and joy; and thus came about -that state of mind which Wesley made subservient -to organisation—the necessity for meetings -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>and reciprocations. It has been said that -every church must have some sign or counter-sign, -some symbol to make it popularly successful. -St. Dominic gave to his order the Rosary; -John Wesley gave to his Society the Ticket. -There were no chapels, or but few, and none to -open their doors to these strange new pilgrims -to the celestial city. We have seen that the -churches were closed against them. Lord -Macaulay says, had John Wesley risen in the -Church of Rome, she would have thrown her -arms round him, only regarding him as the -founder of a new order, with certain peculiarities -calculated to increase and to extend her -empire, and in due time have given to him the -honours of canonisation.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f8'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. </span>See Appendix <a href='#app-a'>A</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The English clergy as a body gathered up -their garments and shrunk from all contact -with the Methodists as from a pestilence. What -could be done? Something must be done to -prevent them from falling back into the world. -Piety needs habit, and must become habitual to -be safe, even as the fine-twined linen of the -veil, and the ark of the covenant, and the -cherubim shadowing the mercy-seat, were shut -in and all their glory defended by the rude coverings -of badger-skins. John Wesley knew that -the safety of the converted would be in frequent -meetings for singing and prayer and conversation. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>Reciprocation is the soul of Methodism; -so they assembled in each others’ -houses, in rude and lonely but convenient -rooms, by farm-house ingles, in lone hamlets. -Thus was created a homely piety, often rugged -enough, no doubt, but full of beautiful and -pathetic instincts. So grew what came to be -called band-meetings, class-meetings, love-feasts, -and all the innumerable means by which -the Methodist Society worked, until it became -like a wheel within a wheel; simple enough, -however, in the days to which we are referring. -“Look to the Lord, and faithfully attend all -the means of grace appointed in the Society.” -Such was, practically, the whole of Methodism. -So that famous old lady, whose bright example -has so often been held up on Methodist platforms, -when called upon to state the items of -her creed, did so very sufficiently when she -summed it up in the four particulars of “repentance -towards God; faith in the Lord Jesus -Christ; a penny a week; and a shilling a -quarter.” Wesley seems to have summed the -Methodist creed more simply still: “Belief in -the Lord Jesus Christ, and an earnest desire to -flee from the wrath to come.” This was his -condition of Church fellowship. When the -faith became more consciously objective, it too -was seized by the passionate instinct, the desire t -<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>o save souls. This drove the early Methodists -out on great occasions to call vast multitudes -together on heaths, on moors. Perhaps—but -this was at a later time—some country -gentleman threw open his old hall to the -preachers; though the more aristocratic phase -of the Methodist movement fell into the Calvinistic -rather than into the Wesleyan ranks, -and subsided into the organisation of the -Countess of Huntingdon, which was, in fact, a -kind of Free Church of England. The followers -of Wesley sought the sequestration of -nature, or in cities and towns they took to the -streets or the broad ways and outlying fields. -In some neighbourhoods a little room was built, -containing the germ of what in a few years became -a large Wesleyan Society. The burden -of all these meetings, and all their intercourse, -whether in speech or song, was the sweetness -and fulness of Jesus. They had intense faith in -the love of God shed abroad in the heart; and -their great interest was in souls on the brink of -perdition. They knew little of spiritual difficulties -or speculative despair; their conflict was -with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and in -this person, whose features have lately become -somewhat dim, and who has wrapped himself -in a new cloak of darkness, they did really believe. -Wesley dealt with sin as sin, and with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>souls as souls; he and his band of preachers had -little regard to proprieties, and it was not a -polished time; so, ungraceful and undignified, -the face weary, and the hand heavy with toil, -they seemed out of breath pursuing souls. The -strength of all these men was that they had a -definite creed, and they sought to guard it by a -definite Church life. The early Methodist had -also cultivated the mighty instinct of prayer, -about which he had no philosophy, but believing -that God heard him, he quite simply indulged -in it as a passion, and in this to him -there was at once a meaning and a joy. We -are not under the necessity of vindicating -every phase of the great movement, we are -simply writing down some particulars of its -history, and how it was that it grew and prevailed. -God’s ministry goes on by various -means, ordinary and extraordinary; that is the -difference between rivers and rains, between -dews and lightnings.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A very interesting chapter, perhaps a volume, -might be compiled from the old records of the -mere anecdotes—the very humours—of the persecution -attending on the Revival. Thus, in -Cornwall, Edward Greenfield, a tanner, with a -wife and seven children, was arrested under a -warrant granted by Dr. Borlase, the eminent -antiquary, who was, however, a bitter foe to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>Methodism. It was inquired what was the -objection to Greenfield, a peaceable, inoffensive -man; and the answer was, “The man is well -enough, but the gentlemen round about can’t -bear his impudence; why, he says he knows -his sins are forgiven!” The story is well -known how, in one place, a whole waggon-load -of Methodists were taken before the magistrates; -but when the question was asked in -court what they had done, a profound silence -fell over the assembly, for no one was prepared -with a charge against them, till somebody -exclaimed, “They pretended to be -better than other people, and prayed from -morning till night!” And another voice -shouted out, “And they’ve <i>convarted</i> my wife; -till she went among they, she had a tongue of -her own, and now she’s as quiet as a lamb!” -“Take them all back, take them all back,” said -the sensible magistrate, “and let them convert -all the scolds in the town!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is a spot in Cornwall which may be -said to be consecrated and set apart to the -memory of Wesley; it is in the immediate -neighbourhood of Redruth, a wild, bare, rugged-looking -region now, very suggestive of its -savage aspect upwards of a hundred years -since. The spot to which we refer is the -Gwennap Pit; it is a wild amphitheatre, cut out -<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>among the hills, capable of holding about thirty -thousand persons. Its natural walls slant upwards, -and the place has altogether wonderful -properties for the carrying the human voice. -Wesley began to preach in this spot in 1762. -When he first visited Cornwall, the savage -mobs of what used to be called “West Barbary,” -howled and roared upon him like lions or -wild beasts; in his later years of visitation, no -emperor or sovereign prince could have been -received with more reverence and affection. The -streets were lined and the windows of the -houses thronged with gazing crowds, to see -him as he walked along; and no wonder, for -Cornwall was one of the chief territories of that -singular ecclesiastical kingdom of which he -was the founder. When he first went into -Cornwall, it was really a region of savage -irreligion and heathenism. The reader of his -life often finds, usually about once a year, the -visit to Gwennap Pit recorded: he preached his -first sermon there, as we have said, in 1762; at -the age of eighty-six he preached his last in -1789. There, from time to time, they poured -in from all the country round to see and to -listen to the words of this truly reverend -father.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i10-page-106-wesleypreaching.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'><span class="blackletter">The Great Revival.</span><br />Wesley Preaching in Gwennap Pit.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The traditions of Methodism have few more -imposing scenes. Gwennap Pit was, perhaps, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>Wesley’s most famous cathedral; a magnificent -church, if we may apply that term to a building -of nature, among the wild moors; it was -thronged by hushed and devout worshippers. -Until Wesley went among these people, the -whole immense population might have said, “No -man cared for our souls;” now they poured in to -see him there: wild miners from the immediate -neighbourhood, fishermen from the coast, men -who until their conversion had pursued the -wrecker’s remorseless and criminal career, -smugglers, more quiet men and their families -less savage, but not less ignorant, from their -shieling, or lowly farmstead on the distant -heath. A strange throng, if we think of it, -men who had never used God’s name except in -an oath, and who had never breathed a prayer -except for the special providence of a shipwreck, -and who with wicked barbarity had kindled -their delusive lights along the coasts, to fascinate -unfortunate ships to the cruel cliffs! But -a Divine power had passed over them, and they -were changed, with their families; and hither -they came to gladden the heart of the old -patriarch in the wild glen—a strange spot, and -not unbeautiful, roofed over by the blue heavens. -Amidst the broom, the twittering birds, -the heath flower, and the scantling of trees, -amidst the venerable rocks, it must have been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>wonderful to hear the thirty thousand voices -welling up, and singing Wesley’s words:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Suffice that for the season past,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Hell’s horrid language filled our tongues;</div> - <div class='line in1'>We all Thy words behind us cast,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And loudly sang the drunkard’s songs.</div> - <div class='line in1'>But, oh, the power of grace Divine!</div> - <div class='line in1'>In hymns we now our voices raise,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Loudly in strange hosannahs join,</div> - <div class='line in1'>While blasphemies are turned to praise!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Such was one of the triumphs of the Great -Revival.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span> - <h2 id='ch06' class='c004'>CHAPTER VI<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE SINGERS OF THE REVIVAL.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>Chief of all the auxiliary circumstances -which aided the Great Revival, beyond a question, -was this: that it taught the people of -England, for the first time, the real power of -sacred song. That man in the north of England -who, when taken, by a companion who -had been converted, to a great Methodist -preaching, and being asked at the close of the -service how he had enjoyed it, replied, “Weel, -I didna care sae mich aboot the preaching, but, -eh, man! yon ballants were grand,” was no -doubt a representative character. And the -great and subduing power of large bodies of -people, moved as with one heart and one voice, -must have greatly aided to produce those -effects which we are attempting to realise. -All great national movements have acknowledged -and used the power of song. For man -is a born singer, and if he cannot sing himself -he likes to feel the power of those who can. It -has been so in political movements: there were -the songs of the Roundheads and the Cavaliers. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>And the greatest religious movements through -all the Christian ages have acknowledged the -power of sacred song, even from the days of -the apostles, and from the time of St. Ambrose -in Milan. Luther soon found that he must -teach the people to sing. That is a pleasant -little story, how once, as he was sitting at his -window, he heard a blind beggar sing. It was -something about the grace of God, and Luther -says the strain brought tears into his eyes. -Then, he says, the thought suddenly flashed -into his mind, “If I could only make gospel -songs which people could sing, and which -would spread themselves up and down the -cities!” He directly set to work upon this -inspiration, and let fly song after song, each -like a lark mounting towards heaven’s gate, full -of New Testament music. “He took care,” -says one writer, in mentioning the incident, -“that each song should have some rememberable -word or refrain; such as ‘Jesus,’ ‘Believe -and be saved,’ ‘Come unto Me,’ ‘Gospel,’ -‘Grace,’ ‘Worthy is the Lamb,’ and so on.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Until Watts and Doddridge appeared, England -had no popular sacred melodies. Amongst -the works of the poets, such as Sir Philip Sidney, -Milton, Sandys, George Herbert, and -others, a few were scattered up and down; but -they mostly lacked the subtle element which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>constitutes a hymn. For, just as a man may be -a great poet, and utterly fail in the power -to write a good song, so a man may be a -great sacred poet, and yet miss the faculty -which makes the hymn-writer. It is singular, -it is almost indefinable. The subtle -something which catches the essential elements -of a great human experience, and gives it -lyrical expression, takes that which other men -put into creeds, sermons, theological essays, -and sets it flying, as we just now said, like -“the lark to heaven’s gate.” It ought never to -be forgotten that Watts was, in fact, the -creator of the English hymn. He wrote many -lines which good taste can in no case approve; -but here again the old proverb holds true, -“The house that is building does not look like -the house that is built.” And the great number -of following writers, while they have felt -the inspiration he gave to the Church, have -moulded their lines by a more fastidious taste, -which, if it has sometimes improved the metre -or the sentiment, has possibly diminished in -the strength. We will venture to say that even -now there is a greater average of majesty of -thought and expression in Watts’s hymns than -in any other of our great hymn-writers; -although, in some cases, we find here and there -a piece which may equal, and some one or two -<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>which are said to surpass, the flights of the -sweet singer of Stoke Newington. But the -hymns of Watts, as a whole, were not so well -fitted to a great and popular revival, to the -expression of a tumultuous and passionate experience, -as some we shall notice. They were, -as a whole, especially wanting in the social -element, and the finest of them sound like -notes from the harp of some solitary angel. -One cannot give to them the designation which -the Wesleys gave to large sections of their -hymns, “suitable for experience meetings.” -Praise rather than experience is the characteristic -of Watts, although there are noble -exceptions. Our readers will perhaps remember -a well-known and pleasing instance in a -letter from Doddridge to his aged friend. -Doddridge had been preaching on a summer -evening in some plain old village chapel in -Northamptonshire, when at the close of the -service was “given out,” as we say, that hymn -commencing:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Give me the wings of faith to rise.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>We can suppose the melody to which it was -sung to have been very rude; but it was, perhaps, -new to the people, and the preacher was -affected as he saw how, over the congregation, -the people were singing earnestly, and melted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>to tears while they sang; and at the close of -the service many old people gathered round -Doddridge, their hearts all alive with the hymn, -and they wished it were possible, only for once, -to look upon the face of the dear old Dr. Watts. -Doddridge was so pleased that he thought his -old friend would be pleased also, and so he -wrote the account of the little incident in a -letter to him. In many other parts of the -country, no doubt, the people were waiting and -wishful for popular sacred harmonies. And -when the Great Revival came, and congregations -met by thousands, and multitudes who -had been accustomed to song, thoughtless, -foolish, very often sinful and licentious, still -needed to sing (for song and human nature are -inseparable, apparently, so far as we know anything -about it, in the next world as well as in -this), it was necessary that, as they had been -“brought up out of the horrible pit and miry -clay,” “a new song of praise” should be put in -the mouth. John Wesley had heard much of -Moravian singing. He took Count Zinzendorf’s -hymns, translated them, and immensely improved -them; he was the first who introduced -into our psalmody the noble words of Paul -Gerhardt. Some of the finest of all the hymns -in the Wesleyan collection are these translations. -Watts was unsparingly used. Wesley’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>first effort to meet this necessity of the Revival -was the publication of his collection in 1739.<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c012'><b>[9]</b></a> -And thus, most likely without knowing the -anecdote of Luther we have quoted above, -Wesley and his coadjutors did exactly what -the Reformer had done. They gave effect to the -Revival by the ordinance of song, and preached -the Gospel in sweet words, and often recurring -Gospel refrains.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f9'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-114'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The remark is true that there was no art, no -splendid form of worship or ritual; early Methodism -and the entire evangelic movement were -as free from all this as Clairvaux in the Valley of -Wormwood, when Bernard ministered there -with all his monks around him, or as Cluny -when Bernard de Morlaix chanted his “Jerusalem -the Golden.” Like all great religious -movements which have shaken men’s souls, this -was purely spiritual, or if it had a secular expression -it was not artificial. Loud amens resounded -as the preacher spoke or prayed, and -then the hearty gushes of, perhaps, not melodious -song united all hearts in some litany or -Te Deum in new-born verse from some of the -singers of the last revival. Amongst infuriated -mobs, we read how Wesley found a retreat in -song, and overpowered the multitude with what -we, perhaps, should not regard melody. Thus, -when at Bengeworth in 1740, where Wesley -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>was set upon by a crowd, and it was proposed -by one that they should take him away and -duck him, he broke out into singing with his -redoubted friend, Thomas Maxfield. He allowed -them to carry him whither they would; -at the bridge end of the street the mob retreated -and left him; but he took his stand on the -bridge, and striking up—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Angel of God, whate’er betide,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Thy summons I obey,”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>preached a useful and effective sermon to hundreds -who remained to listen, from the text, -“If God be for us, who can be against us?”</p> -<p class='c007'>But the contributions of Watts and Wesley -are so well known that it is more important to -notice here that as the Revival moved on, very -soon other remarkable lyrists appeared to contribute, -if few, yet really effective words. Of -these none is more remarkable than the mighty -cobbler, Thomas Olivers, a “sturdy Welshman,” -as Southey calls him. He is not to be -confounded with John Oliver, also one of the -notabilities of the Revival. Thomas was really -an astonishing trophy of the movement; before -his conversion he was a thoroughly bad fellow, -a kind of wandering reprobate, an idle, dissipated -man. He fell beneath the power of -Whitefield, whom he heard preach from the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>text, “Is not this a brand plucked out of the -fire?” He had made comic songs about Whitefield, -and sung them with applause in tap-rooms. -As Whitefield came in his way, he went -with the purpose of obtaining fresh fuel for his -ridicule. The heart of the man was completely -broken, and he felt so much compunction for -what he had done against the man for whom -he now felt so deep a reverence and awe, that -he used to follow him in the streets, and though -he did not speak to him, he says he could -scarcely refrain from kissing the prints of his -footsteps. And now, he says, at the beginning -of his new life, what we can well believe -of an imagination so intense and strong, “I saw -God in everything: the heavens, the earth and -all therein showed me something of Him; yea, -even from a drop of water, a blade of grass, or -a grain of sand, I received instruction.” He was -about seriously to enter into a settled and respectable -way of business when John Wesley -heard of him; and although he was converted -under Whitefield, Wesley persuaded him to -yield himself to his direction for the work of -preaching as one of his itinerant band, and sent -him into Cornwall—just the man we should -think for Cornwall, fiery and imaginative: off -he went, in 1753. He was born in 1725. He -testifies that he was “unable to buy a horse, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>so, with my boots on my legs, my great-coat -on my back, and my bag with my books and -linen across my shoulders, I set out for Cornwall -on foot.” Henceforth there were forty-six -years on earth before him, during which he witnessed -a magnificent confession before many -witnesses. He became one of the foremost -controversialists when dissensions arose among -the men of the Revival. He acquired a knowledge -of the languages, especially of Hebrew, -and was a great reader. Wesley appointed -him as his editor and general proofreader; but -he could never be taught to punctuate properly, -and the punctilious Wesley could not tolerate -his inaccuracies as they slipped through the -proof, so he did not retain this post long. But -Wesley loved him, and in 1799 he descended -into Wesley’s own tomb, and his remains lie -there, in the cemetery of the City Road Chapel. -He wrote more prose than poetry; but, like -St. Ambrose, he is made immortal by a single -hymn. He is the author of one of the most -majestic hymns in all hymnology. Byron and -Scott wrote Hebrew melodies, but they will -not bear comparison with this one. While in -London upon one occasion, he went into the -Jewish synagogue, and he heard sung there by -a rabbi, Dr. Leoni, an old air, a melody which -so enchanted him and fixed itself in his memory, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>that he went home, and instantly produced -what he called “a hymn to the God of Abraham,” -arranged to the air he had heard. And -thus we possess that which we so frequently -sing,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The God of Abraham praise!”<a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c012'><b>[10]</b></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>It is principally known by its first four verses; -there are twelve. “There is not,” says James -Montgomery, “in our language a lyric of more -majestic style, more elevated thought, or more -glorious imagery; * * * like a stately pile of -architecture, severe and simple in design; it -strikes less on the first view than after deliberate -examination, * * * the mind itself grows -greater in contemplating it;” and he continues, -“On account of the peculiarity of the measure, -none but a person of equal musical and poetical -taste could have produced the harmony perceptible -in the verse.” There will, perhaps, -always be a doubt whether Olivers was the -author of the hymn,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Lo! He comes with clouds descending.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>If Charles Wesley were the author, he undoubtedly -derived the inspiration of the piece from -Olivers’ hymn, “The Last Judgment:”<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c012'><b>[11]</b></a> it is in -the same metre, and probably Wesley took the -thought and the metre, and adapted it to popular -service. What is undoubted is that Olivers, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>who is the author of the metre, is also the author -of the fine old tune “Helmsley,” to which -the hymn was usually sung until quite recent -times; the tune was originally called “Olivers.”</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f10'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-118'>Appendix</a></p> -</div> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f11'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-118'>Appendix</a></p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It is but a natural step from Thomas Olivers -to his great antagonist, Augustus Toplady; he -also is made immortal by a hymn. He wrote -many fine ones, full of melody, pathos, and -affecting imagery. Toplady, as all our readers -know, was a clergyman, the Vicar of Broad -Hembury, in Devonshire. He took the strong -Calvinistic side in the controversies which -arose in the course of the Great Revival; -Olivers took the strong Arminian side. They -were not very civil to each other; and the -scholarly clergyman no doubt felt his dignity -somewhat hurt by the rugged contact with the -cobbler; but the quarrels are forgotten now, -and there is scarcely a hymn-book in which the -hymn of Olivers is not found within a few pages -of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Rock of Ages, cleft for me!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>To this hymn has been given almost universally -the palm as the finest hymn in our -language. Where there are so many, at once -deeply expressive in experience, and subdued -and elevated in feeling, we perhaps may be forgiven -if we hesitate before praise so eminently -high. Mr. Gladstone’s translation into the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>Latin, in the estimation of eminent scholars, -even carries a more thrilling and penetrative -awe.<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c012'><b>[12]</b></a> But Toplady wrote many other hymns -quite equal in pathos and poetic merit. The -characteristic of “Rock of Ages” is its depth of -penitential devotion. A volume might be written -on the history of this expressive hymn. Innumerable -are the multitudes whom these words -have sustained when dying; they were among -the last which lingered on the lips of Prince -Albert as he was passing away; and to how -many, through every variety of social distinction, -have they been at once the creed and consolation! -It is by his hymns that Toplady will -be chiefly remembered. For years he was hovering -along on the borders of the grave, slowly -dying of consumption; and he died in 1778, in -the thirty-eighth year of his age. It was his -especial wish that he should be buried with -more than quiet, that no announcement should -be made of the funeral, and that there should -be no especial service at his grave: it testifies, -however, to the high regard in which he was -held that thousands followed him to his burial -in Tottenham Court Road Chapel; and when -we know that his dear friend Rowland Hill -conducted the service, we can scarcely be surprised, -or offended, that he broke through the -injunctions of his friend, and addressed the multitude -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>in affectionate commemoration of the -sweet singer.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f12'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-120'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i11-page-121-augustustoplady.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>AUGUSTUS TOPLADY.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Toplady we should regard as the chief singer -of the Revival, after Charles Wesley, although -entirely of another order; not so social as meditative, -and reminding us, in many of his pieces, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>of the characteristics we have attributed to -Watts. His midnight hymn is a piece of uncommon -sublimity; portions of it seem almost -unfit for congregational singing; but for inward -plaintive meditation, for reading in the evening -family prayer, when the hushed stillness of night -is over the household, and the pilgrim of life -is about to commit himself to the unconsciousness -of sleep, the verses seem tenderly suggestive:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Thy ministering spirits descend,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And watch while Thy saints are asleep;</div> - <div class='line in1'>By day and by night they attend,</div> - <div class='line in2'>The heirs of salvation to keep.</div> - <div class='line in1'>Bright seraphs despatched from the throne,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Fly swift to their stations assigned;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And angels elect are sent down</div> - <div class='line in2'>To guard the elect of mankind.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Their worship no interval knows;</div> - <div class='line in2'>Their fervour is still on the wing;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And, while they protect my repose,</div> - <div class='line in2'>They chant to the praise of my King.</div> - <div class='line in1'>I, too, at the season ordained,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Their chorus forever shall join,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And love and adore without end,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Their gracious Creator and mine.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>We have noticed in a previous chapter that -when Whitefield separated himself from Wesley, -the Revival took two distinctly different -routes. We only refer to this again for the -purpose of remarking that as Toplady was intensely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>Calvinistic in his method of Divine -grace, so his hymns, also, reflect in all its fulness -that creed; yet they are full of tenderness, -and well calculated frequently to arouse dormant -devotion. “Your harps, ye trembling -saints;” “Emptied of earth I fain would be;” -“When languor and disease invade;” “Jesus, -immutably the same;” “A debtor to mercy -alone,” and many another, leave nothing to be -desired either on the score of devotion, poetry, -or melody.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In a far humbler sphere, but representing the -same faith and fervour as Toplady, and also -carried away young, was Cennick. In an article -in the <i>Christian Remembrancer</i>, on English -hymnology, written very much for the purpose -of throwing contempt on all the hymn-writers -of the Revival, Cennick is spoken of as “a low -and violent person; his hymns peculiarly offensive, -both as to matter and manner.” Some exceptions -are made by the reviewer for “Children -of the Heavenly King.” We may presume, -therefore, that to this writer, “Thou dear Redeemer, -dying Lamb,” is one of the “peculiarly -offensive.” This is not wonderful, when in the -next page we read that “the hymns of Newton -are the very essence of doggerel.” This sounds -rather strange, as a verdict, to those who have -felt the particular charm of that much-loved -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>hymn, “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds!” -It is not without a purpose that we refer to -this paper in the <i>Christian Remembrancer</i>—evidently -by a very scholarly hand—because its -whole tone shows how the sacred song of the -Revival would be likely to be regarded by -those who had no sympathy with its evangelical -teaching. The writer, for instance, speaking -of Wesley’s hymns, doubts whether any of -them could possibly be included by any chance -in English hymnology! “Jesus, lover of my -soul,” is said, “in some <i>small</i> degree to approximate -to the model of a Church hymn!” -Of the Countess of Huntingdon’s hymn-book, -the writer says, “We shall certainly not notice -the raving profanity!” It is not necessary further -either to sadden or to irritate the reader -by similar expressions; but the entire paper, -and the criticisms we have cited, will show -what was likely to be the effect of the hymns -of the Revival on many similar minds of that -time. In fact, the joy of the Revival work -arose from this, that no person, no priest, nor -Church usage, was needed to interpose between -the soul and the Saviour. Faith in -Christ, and His immediate, personal presence -with the soul seeking Him by faith, as it was -the burden of the best of the sermons, so it -was, also, of all the great hymns.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>The origin and the authors of several eminent -hymns are certainly obscure. To Edward -Perronet must be assigned the authorship of -the fine coronation anthem of the Lamb that -was slain: “All hail the power of Jesus’ name!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another, which has become a universal favourite, -is “Beyond the glittering starry globe.” -This is a noble and inspiring hymn; only a few -verses are usually quoted in our hymn-books. -Lord Selborne divides its authorship between -Fanch and Turner. We have seen it attributed -to Olivers; this is certainly a mistake. The -<i>Quarterly Review</i>, in a very able paper on -hymnology, reproducing an old legend concerning -it, traces it to two brothers in a -humble situation in life, one an itinerant -preacher, the other a porter. The preacher desired -the porter to carry a letter for him. “I -can’t go,” said the porter, “I am writing a -hymn.” “You write a hymn, indeed! Nonsense! -you go with the letter, and I will finish -the hymn.” He went, and returned, but the -hymn was unfinished. The preacher had taken -it up at the third verse, and his muse had forsaken -him at the eighth. “Give me the pen,” -said the porter, and he wrote off,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“They brought His chariot from above,</div> - <div class='line in2'>To bear Him to His throne;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Clapped their triumphant wings, and cried,</div> - <div class='line in2'>‘The glorious work is done!’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>Unfortunately the author of the paper in the -<i>Quarterly Review</i> appears never to have seen -the hymn in its entirety. The verse he cites is -not the eighth, but the twenty-second, and it -has been mutilated almost wherever quoted; -the verse itself is part of an apostrophe to the -angels, recalling their ministrations round our -Lord:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Tended His chariot up the sky,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And bore Him to His throne;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Then swept your golden harps and cried,</div> - <div class='line in2'>‘The glorious work is done!’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Whoever wrote the hymn had the imagination -of a poet, the fine pathos of a believer, and -a strong lyrical power of expression.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Anecdotes of the origin of many of our great -hymns of this period are as interesting as they -are almost innumerable; those of which we are -speaking are hymns of the Revival—to speak -concisely—perhaps commenced with the Wesleys, -and closed with Cowper and Newton. It -must not be supposed that there were no -singers save those whose verses found their -way into the Wesleyan or other great collections -of hymns; there were James Grant, -Joseph Griggs, especially notable, Miss Steele, -the author of a great number of hymns of -universal acceptance in all our churches, and -which are more like those of Doddridge than -<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>any other since his day. Then there was John -Stocker,—but we would particularly notice Job -Hupton, the author of a hymn which has never -been included in any hymn-book except <i>Our -Hymn Book</i>, edited by the author of this volume, -but which is scarcely inferior to “Beyond the -glittering starry sky.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Come, ye saints, and raise an anthem,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Cleave the skies with shouts of praise,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Sing to Him who found a ransom,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Ancient of eternal days.</div> - <div class='line in1'>Bring your harps, and bring your odours,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Sweep the string and pour the lay;</div> - <div class='line in1'>View His works! behold His wonders!</div> - <div class='line in2'>Let hosannas crown the day!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>The hymn is far too long for quotation. Job -Hupton was a Baptist minister in the neighbourhood -of Beccles, where he died in 1849, in -the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the -sixty-fifth of his ministry.</p> -<p class='c007'>Thus there was set free throughout the country -a spirit of sacred song which was new to -the experience of the nation: it was boldly -evangelical; it was devoted, not to the eulogy -of Church forms and days; there was not a -syllable of Mariolatry; but praise to Christ, -earnest meditation upon the state of man -without His work, and the blessedness of the -soul which had risen to the saving apprehension -of it. This forms the whole substance of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>the Divine melody. It has seemed to some that -the most perfect hymn in the English language -is, “Jesus! lover of my soul.” Sentiments -may differ, arising from modifications of experience, -but that hymn undoubtedly is the very -essence of all the hymns which were sung in -the days of the Great Revival. For the first -time there was given to Christian experience that -which met it at every turn. Watts found such -a choir, and such an audience for his devotions, -as he had never known in his life; and “Charles -Wesley,” says Isaac Taylor, “has been drawing -thousands in his wake and onward, from earth -to heaven.” The hymns met and united all -companies and all societies. The bridal party -returned from church, singing,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“We kindly help each other,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Till all shall wear the starry crown.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>If they gathered round the grave, they sang;—and -what a variety of glorious funereal hymns -they had! But that was a great favourite:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“There all the ship’s company meet,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Who sailed with their Saviour beneath;</div> - <div class='line in1'>With shoutings each other they greet,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And triumph o’er sorrow and death.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>Few separations took place without that song,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Blest be the dear uniting love,</div> - <div class='line in1'>That will not let us part.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'><span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>While others became such favourites that even -almost every service had to be hallowed by -them; such as,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Jesus! the name high over all,</div> - <div class='line in1'>In hell, or earth, or sky;”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>while an equal favourite almost, was,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing</div> - <div class='line in1'>My great Redeemer’s praise!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>They must soon have become very well known, -for so early as 1748, when a sad cluster of convicts, -horse-stealers, highway robbers, burglars, smugglers, -and thieves, were led forth to execution, -the turnkey of the prison said he had never seen -such people before. The Methodists had been -among them; they had all yielded themselves -to the power of “the truth as it is in Jesus,” -and on their way to Tyburn they all sang -together,</p> -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Lamb of God! whose bleeding love</div> - <div class='line in2'>We now recall to mind,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Send the answer from above,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And let us mercy find;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Think on us, who think of Thee,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And every struggling soul release;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Oh! remember Calvary,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And let us go in peace!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>The hymns found their way to sick beds. -The old Earl of Derby, the grandfather of the -present peer, was dying at Knowsley. He had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>for his housekeeper there a Mrs. Brass, a good -and faithful Methodist; the old Earl was fond of -talking with her upon religious matters, and -one day she read to him the well-known hymn, -“All ye that pass by, to Jesus draw nigh.” -When she came to the lines,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The Lord in the day of His anger did lay</div> - <div class='line in1'>Our sins on the Lamb, and he bore them away,”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>the Earl looked up and said, “Stop! don’t -you think, Mrs. Brass, that ought to be, ‘The -Lord in the day of his <i>mercy</i> did lay’?”</p> -<p class='c007'>The old lady did not admit the validity of -his lordship’s theology; but it very abundantly -showed that his experience had passed through -the verse, and reached to the true meaning of -the hymn. An old blind woman was hearing -Peter McOwan preach. He quoted these lines:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The Lord pours eyesight on the blind;</div> - <div class='line in1'>The Lord supports the fainting mind.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>The poor old woman was not happy until she -met the preacher, and she said, “But are there -really such sweet verses? Are you sure the -book contains such a hymn?” and he read the -whole to her. It is one by Watts:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Innumerable are the anecdotes of these -hymns; they inaugurated really the rise of English -<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>hymnology; and it is not too much to say -that, as compared with them, many more recent -hymns are as tinsel compared with gold. -A writer truly says: “They sob, they swell, -they meet the spirit in its most hushed and -plaintive mood. They roll and bear it aloft, in -its most inspired and prophetic moods, as on -the surge of more than a mighty organ swell; -among the mines and quarries, and wild moors -of Cornwall, among the factories of Lancashire -and Yorkshire, in chambers of death, in the -most joyous assemblages of the household, -they have relieved the hard lot, and sweetened -the pleasant one; and even in other lands soldiers -and sailors, slaves and prisoners, have recited -with what joy these words have entered -into their life.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus the great hymns of this period grew -and became a religious power in the land, -strangely contradicting a verdict which Cardinal -Wiseman pronounced some years since, -that “all Protestant devotion is dead.” While -we give all honour to the fine hymns of Denmark -and Germany, many of the best of which -were translated with the movement, it may, -with no exaggeration, be said that the hymnology -of England in the eighteenth century is -the finest and most complete which the history -of the Church has known.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span> - <h2 id='ch07' class='c004'>CHAPTER VII<br /> <br /><span class='small'>LAY PREACHING AND LAY PREACHERS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>There came with the work of the Revival a -practice, without which it is more than questionable -if it would have obtained such a rapid -and abiding hold upon the various populations -and districts of the country; this was lay -preaching. The designation must have a more -inclusive interpretation than we generally apply -to it; we must understand by it rather the -work of those men who, in contradistinction -to the great leaders of the Revival—men of -scholarship, of universities, and of education—possessed -none of these qualifications, or but in -a more slight and undisciplined degree. They -were converted men, modified by various temperaments; -they one and all possessed an ardent -zeal; but, in many instances, we shall -find that they were as much devoted to the -work of the ministry as those who had received -a regular ordination. It is singular that prejudices -so strong should exist against lay preaching -and preachers, for the practice has surely -received the sanction of the most ancient -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>usages of the Church, as even Dr. Southey admits, -in his notes to the <i>Life of Wesley</i>. Thus, -in the history of the Church, this phenomenon -could scarcely be regarded as new. Orders of -preaching friars; “hedge-preachers,” “black, -white, and grey,” with all their company; disciples -of Francis, Dominic, or Ignatius, had -spread over Europe during the dark and -mediæval ages. Although this rousing element -of Church life had not found much expression -in the churches of the Reformation, yet with -the impulse of the new Revival, up started -these men by multitudes. The reason of this -was very simple. There is a well-known little -anecdote of some town missionary standing up -in a broad highway preaching to a multitude. -He was arrested by a Roman Catholic priest, -who asked him from the edge of the crowd by -what authority he dared to stand there? and -who had given him the right to preach? The -man had his New Testament in his hand; he -rapidly turned to the last chapter of it, and -said, “I find it written here, ‘Let him that -heareth say, Come!’ I have heard, and I would -say Come!” The anecdote represents sufficiently -the rise and progress of lay preaching -in the Revival. There first appeared, naturally, -a simple set of men, who, in their different -spheres, would, perhaps, lead and direct a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>prayer-meeting, and round it with some pious -and gentle exhortation. We have already -pointed out the necessity soon felt for frequent -and reciprocative services; these were not the -lay preachers to whom we refer; but in this -fraternal form of Church fellowship, the lay -preacher had his origin.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Wesley imposed restrictions upon his helpers -which he soon found himself compelled to renounce. -John Wesley was a strong adherent -to the idea of Church order. The first lay -preacher in his communion who leapt over -the traces was Thomas Maxfield. It was at -the Foundry in Moor Fields. Wesley was in -Bristol, and the intelligence was conveyed to -him. He appears to have regarded it as a serious -and dangerous innovation. The good -Susannah Wesley, his mother—now past threescore -years and ten—infirm and feeble, was yet -living in the Chapel House of the Foundry. -To her John hurried on his arrival in London; -and after his affectionate salutations and inquiries, -he expressed such a manifest dissatisfaction -and anxiety that she inquired the cause. -With some indignation and unusual abruptness, -he said, “Thomas Maxfield has turned preacher, -I find;” and then the wise and saintly woman -gave him her advice. She reminded him that, -from her prejudices against lay preaching he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>could not suspect her of favouring anything of -the kind; “but take care,” she said, “what you -do respecting that young man, for he is as surely -called of God to preach as you are.” She advised -her son to hear Maxfield for himself. He -did so, and at once buried all his prejudices. -He exclaimed after the sermon, “It is the -Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good!” -and Thomas Maxfield became the first of a -host who spread all over the country.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It may be supposed that the Countess of -Huntingdon very naturally shared all Wesley’s -prejudices against lay preaching; but she heard -Maxfield preach, and she wrote of him, “God -has raised one from the stones to sit among -the princes of the people. He is my astonishment; -how is God’s power shown in weakness!” -and she soon set herself to the work of supplying -an order of men, of whom Maxfield was the -first to lead the way. By-and-by came another -innovation: the lay evangelists at first never -went into the pulpit, but spoke from among -the people, or from the desk. The first who -broke through this usage was Thomas Walsh; -we will say more of him presently. He was a -man of deep humility, and his life reveals entire -and extraordinary consecration; but he believed -himself to be an ambassador for Christ, -and he walked directly up into the pulpit, never -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>questioning, but quite disregarding the usual -custom. The majesty of his manner, his solemn, -impressive, and commanding eloquence, forbade -all remark; and henceforth all the lay -preachers followed his example. There arose -a band of extraordinary men. Let the reader -refer to the chronicles of their lives, and the -effects of their labours, and he will not suppose -that he has seen anything in our day at all -approaching to what they were.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Local preachers have now long been part of -the great organisation of Methodism. But in -the period to which we refer, it must be -remembered that the pen had not commenced -the exercise of its more popular influence. -There were few authors, few journalists, very -few really popular books; these men, then, with -their various gifts of elevated holiness, broad and -rugged humour, or glowing imagination, went -to and fro among the people, rousing and -instructing the dormant mind of the country. -Then it was Wesley’s great aim to sustain -interest by variety. Wesley himself said that -he believed he should preach himself and his -congregation asleep if he were to confine his -ministrations to one pulpit for twelve months. -We would take the liberty to say in reference -to this, that it would depend upon whether he -kept his own mind fresh and wakeful during -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>the time. He writes, however: “We have -found by long and constant experience, that a -frequent change of teachers is best; this -preacher has one talent, that another. No one -whom I ever knew has all the talents which -are needful for beginning, continuing, and perfecting -the work in a whole congregation; -neither,” he adds, “can he find matter for -preaching morning and evening, nor will the -people come to hear him; hence he grows cold, -and so do the people; whereas if he never stays -more than a fortnight together in one place, he -may find matter enough, and the people will -gladly hear him.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>This certainly gives an idea but of a plain -order of services; and, no doubt, some of Wesley’s -preachers were of the plainest. There -was Michael Fenwick, of whom Wesley says, -“he was just made to travel with me—an -excellent groom, <i>valet de chambre</i>, nurse, and, -upon occasion, a tolerable preacher.” This -good man was one day vain enough to complain -to Wesley, that although he was constantly -travelling with him, his name was never -inserted in Wesley’s published <i>Journals</i>. In -the next number he found himself immortalised -with his master there. “I left Epworth,” -writes Wesley, “with great satisfaction, and -about one, preached at Clayworth. I think -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>none were unmoved but Michael Fenwick, who -fell fast asleep under an adjoining hayrick.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>A higher type of man, but still of the very -plain order of preachers, was Joseph Bradford. -He also was Wesley’s frequent travelling companion, -and he judged no service too servile by -which he could show his reverence for his -master. But on one occasion Wesley directed -him to carry a packet of letters to the post. -The occasion was very extraordinary, and -Bradford wished to hear Wesley’s sermon first. -Wesley was urgent and insisted that the letters -must go. Bradford refused; he would hear the -sermon. “Then,” said Wesley, “you and I -must part!” “Very good, sir,” said Bradford. -The service was over. They slept in the same -room. On rising in the morning, Wesley accosted -his old friend and companion, and asked -if he had considered what had been said, -that they must part. “Yes, sir,” replied -Bradford. “And must we part?” inquired -Wesley. “Please yourself, sir,” was the reply. -“Will you ask my pardon?” rejoined -Wesley. “No, sir.” “You wont?” “No, -sir.” “Then I will ask yours,” replied the -great man. It is said that Bradford melted -under the words, and wept like a child. But -we must not convey the idea that the early -preachers were generally of this order. “In a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>great house there are vessels to honour and -vessels to dishonour.” “Vessels of dishonour” -assuredly were none of these men: but there -were some who attained to a greatness almost -as remarkable as the greatness of the three, -Whitefield and the Wesleys.</p> - -<p class='c007'>What a man was John Nelson! His was a -life full of singular incidents. It was truly -apostolic, whether we consider its holy magnanimity, -the violence and vehemence of the -cruel persecutions he encountered, or his singular -power over excited mobs; reminding us -sometimes of Paul fighting as with wild beasts -at Ephesus, or standing with cunning tact, and -disarming at once captain and crowd on the -steps of the Castle at Jerusalem. Then, although -he was but a poor working stonemason, -he had a high gentlemanly bearing, before -which those who considered themselves -gentlemen, magistrates and others, fell back -abashed and ashamed. He was one of the -prophets of Yorkshire; and many of the large -Societies at this day in Leeds, Halifax, and -Bradford owe their foundation to him. It -seems wonderful to us now, that merely preaching -the word of truth, and especially as John -Nelson preached it, with such a cheerful, radiant, -and even heavenly manner, should bring -out mighty mobs to assault him. The stories -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>of his itinerancy are innumerable, and his life -is really one of the most romantic in these -preaching annals. At Nottingham, while he -was preaching, the crowds threw squibs at him -and round him; but, as he was still pursuing -his path of speech, a sergeant in the army -pressed up to him, with tears, saying, “In the -presence of God and all this company, I beg -your pardon. I came here on purpose to mob -you, but I have been compelled to hear you; -and I here declare I believe you to be a servant -of the living God!” He threw his arms round -Nelson’s neck, kissed him, and went away -weeping; and we see him no more. Perhaps -more remarkable still was his reception at -Grimsby. There the clergyman of the parish -hired a drummer to gather a great mob, as he -said, “to defend the rights of the Church.” -The storm which raged round Nelson was wild -and ferocious; but it illustrates the power of -this extraordinary man over his rudest hearers, -that after beating his drum for a long time, the -poor drummer threw it away, and stood listening, -the tears running down his cheeks.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i12-page-142-johnnelson.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>John Nelson at Nottingham.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Nelson was a man of immense physical -strength; his own trade had fostered this, and -before his conversion he had, no doubt, been -feared as a man who could hit out and hit hard. -As the most effectual means of silencing him, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>he was pressed for a soldier; but John was not -only a Methodist, he had adopted the Quaker -notion that a Christian dare not fight; and he -seems to have been a real torment to the officers -and men of the regiment, who indeed -marched him about different parts of the country, -but could not get him either to accept the -king’s money or to submit to drill. An officer -put him in prison for rebuking his profanity, -and threatened to chastise him. Nelson says, -“It caused a sore temptation to arise in me; to -think that a wicked, ignorant man should thus -torment me, and I able to tie his head and heels -together. I found an old man’s bone in me; -but the Lord lifted up the standard within, else -should I have wrung his neck and set my foot -upon him.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At length, after three months, the Countess -of Huntingdon procured his discharge. The -regiment was in Newcastle. He preached there -on the evening of the day on which he was -liberated, and it is testified that a number of -the soldiers from his regiment came to hear -him, and parted from him with tears. He was -arrested as a vagrant, without any visible -means of living. A gentleman instantly stepped -forward and offered five hundred pounds bail; -but the bail was refused. He was able to -prove that he was a high-charactered, industrious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>workman; but it availed nothing. Crowds -wept and prayed for him as he was borne -through the streets. “Fear not!” he cried, -“oh, friends; God hath His way in the whirlwind, -and in the storm. Only pray that my -faith fail not!” It was at Bradford. They -thrust him into a most filthy dungeon. The -authorities would give him no food. The people -thrust in food, water, and candles. He -shared these with some wretched prisoners in -the same cage, and he sang hymns, and talked -to them all night. He was marched off to -York; but there the excitement was so great -when it was known that John Nelson was coming -a prisoner that armed troops were ordered -out to guard him. He says, “Hell from beneath -was moved to meet me at my coming!” -All the windows were crowded with people—some -in sympathy, but most cheering and huzzaing -as if some great political traitor had been -arrested; but he says, “The Lord made my -brow like brass, so that I could look upon all -the people as grasshoppers, and pass through -the city as if there had been none in it but God -and me.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such was John Nelson. These anecdotes are -sufficient to show the manner of man he was. -He has been truly called “the proto-martyr of -Methodism.” But it is not in a hint or two that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>all can be said which ought to be said of this -noble and extraordinary man. His conversion, -perhaps, sank down to deeper roots than in -many instances. The thoughts of Methodism -found him perplexed with those agonizing questions -which have tormented men in all ages, until -they have realized the truth as it is in Jesus. -His life was guilty of no immoralities; he had -a happy, humble home, was industrious, and -receiving good wages; but as he walked to -and fro among the fields he was distressed, -“for,” he said, “surely God never made man to -be such a riddle to himself, and to leave him -so.” He heard Wesley preach. “Then,” he -says, “my heart beat like the pendulum of a -clock, and I thought his whole discourse was -aimed at me;” and so, in short, he became a -Methodist, and a Methodist preacher; and -among the noble names in the history of the -Church of Christ, in his own line and order, it -may be doubted whether a nobler name can be -mentioned than that of John Nelson.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Quite another order of man, less human, -but equally divine, was Thomas Walsh. His -parents were Romanists, and he was intended -by them for the Romish priesthood; and he -appears to have been an intense Romanist -ascetic until about eighteen years of age. He -had a thoughtful and exceedingly intense nature, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>and his faith was no rest to him. In his -dilemma he heard a Methodist preacher speak -one day from the text, “Come unto Me, all ye -that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give -you rest.” It appears to have been the turning-point -of a remarkable life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“The life of Thomas Walsh,” says Dr. -Southey, “might almost convince a Catholic -that saints were to be found in other communions -as well as in the Church of Rome.” -Walsh became a great biblical scholar; he -was an Irishman, he mastered the native -Irish, that he might preach in it; but Latin, -Greek, and Hebrew became familiar to him; -and of the Hebrew, especially, it is said that -he studied so deeply, that his memory was an -entire concordance of the whole Bible. His -soul was as a flame of fire, but it burnt out the -body quickly. John Wesley says of him, “I do -not remember ever to have known a man who, -in so few years as he remained upon earth, was -the instrument of converting so many sinners.” -He became mighty in his influence over the -Roman Catholics. The priests said that -“Walsh had died some years ago, and that he -who went about preaching, on mountains and -highways, in meadows, private houses, prisons, -and ships, was a devil who had assumed his -shape.” This was the only way in which they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>could account for the extraordinary influence -he possessed. His labours were greatly divided -between Ireland and London, but everywhere -he bore down all before him by a kind of -absorbed ecstasy of ardent faith; but he died at -the age of twenty-seven. While lying on his -death-bed he was oppressed with a sense of -despair, even of his salvation. The sufferings -of his mind on this account were protracted and -intense; at last he broke out in an exclamation, -“He is come! He is come! My Beloved is -mine, and I am His for ever!” and so he fell -back and died. Thomas Walsh is a great name -still in the records of the lay preachers of early -Methodism.</p> - -<p class='c007'>All orders of men rose: different from any we -have mentioned was George Story, whose -quiet, but earnest and reasonable nature, seems -to have commanded the especial love of -Southey. He appears never to have become -what some call an enthusiast; but he interestingly -illustrates, that it was not merely over the -rugged and uninformed minds that the power -of the Revival exercised its influence. Very -curiously, he appears to have been converted -by thinking about Eugene Aram, the well-known -scholar, whose name has become so -celebrated in fiction and in poetry, and who -had a short time before been executed for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>murder at York. Story was impressed by the -importance of the acquisition of knowledge, -and Aram’s extraordinary attainments kindled -in his mind a sense of admiration and emulation; -but, as he thought upon his life, he reasoned, -“What did this man’s learning profit him? It -did not save him from becoming a thief and a -murderer, or even from attempting his own -life.” It was an immense suggestion to him; it -led him upon another track of thinking. The -Methodists came through his village; he yielded -himself to the influence, and Dr. Southey -thinks “there is not in the whole biography of -Methodism a more interesting or remarkable -case than his.” He became a great preacher, -but disarmed and convinced men rather by his -calm, dispassionate elevation of manner, than -by such weapons as the cheerful <i>bonhomie</i> of -Nelson, or the fervid fire of Walsh.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But we are, perhaps, conveying the idea that -it was only beneath the administration of John -Wesley that these great lay preachers were to -be found. It was not so; but no doubt beneath -that administration their itinerancy became -more systematic and organised. Whitefield -does not appear to have at all shared Wesley’s -prejudices on this means of usefulness; but those -men who fell beneath the influence of Whitefield, -or the Countess, seem soon to meet us as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>settled ministers, in many, if not in all instances. -Among them there are few greater names in -the whole Revival than those of Captain Jonathan -Scott and the renowned Captain Toriel -Joss. Captain Scott was a captain of dragoons, -and one of the heroes of Minden; he was -converted by the instrumentality of William -Romaine, who, in spite of his prejudices against -lay preaching, encouraged him in his excursions, -in which he spoke to immense crowds with -great effect. Fletcher, of Madeley, said, “his -coat shames many a black one.” He was a gentleman -of an ancient and opulent family, and -the Countess, who, naturally, was delighted to -see people of her own order by her side, felt herself -greatly strengthened by him. It was said, -when he preached at Leeds, the whole town -turned out to hear him; and he was one of the -great preachers of the Tabernacle in Moorfields, -during more than twenty years. But yet a far -more famous man was Toriel Joss. He was a -captain of the seas, and had led a life which -somewhat reminds us of Newton’s. He was a -good and even great sailor, but he became a -greater preacher. Whitefield said of these two -men, that “God, who sitteth upon the flood, -can bring a shark from the ocean, and a lion -from the forest, to show forth his praise.” Joss -was a man of property, with a fair prospect of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>considerable wealth, when he renounced the -seas and became one of the great lay preachers. -Whitefield insisted that he should abandon the -chart, the compass, and the deck, and take to -the pulpit. He did so. In London his fame -was second only to that of Whitefield himself. -He became Whitefield’s coadjutor at the Tabernacle, -where, first as associate pastor, and -afterwards as pastor, he continued for thirty -years. The chapel at Tottenham Court Road -was his chief field, and John Berridge called him -“Whitefield’s Archdeacon of Tottenham.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i13-page-150-tabernacle.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>TABERNACLE, MOORFIELDS.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>We cannot particularise others: there were -Sampson Staniforth, the soldier, Alexander -Mather, Christopher Hopper, John Haime, -John Parson—and these are only representative -names. There were crowds of them; they -travelled to and fro, with hard fare, throughout -the land. Their excursions were not recreations -or amusements. Attempt to think what -England was at that time. It is a fact that -they often had to swim through streams and -wade through snows to keep their appointments; -often to sleep in summer in the open -air, beneath the trees of a forest. Sometimes a -preacher was seen with a spade strapped to his -back, to cut a way for man and horse through -the heavy snow-drifts. Highwaymen were -abroad, and there are many odd stories about -their encounters with these men; but, then, -usually, they had nothing to lose. Rogers, in -his <i>Lives of the Early Preachers</i>, tells a characteristic -story. One of these lay preachers, as -usual on horseback, was waylaid by three robbers; -one of them seized the bridle of his horse, -the second put a pistol to his head, the third -began to pull him from the saddle—all, of -course, declaring that they would have his -money or his life. The preacher looked solemnly -at them, and asked them “if they had -prayed that morning.” This confounded them -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>a little, still they continued their work of plunder. -One pulled out a knife to rip the saddle-bag -open; the preacher said, “There are only -some books and tracts there; as to money, I -have only twopence halfpenny in my pocket;” -he took it out and gave it them. “All that -I have of value about me,” he said, “is my -coat. I am a servant of God; I am going on -His errand to preach; but let me kneel down -and pray with you; that will do you more good -than anything I can give you.” One of them -said, “I will have nothing to do with anything -we can get from this man!” They had taken -his watch; they restored this, and took up the -bags and fastened them again on the horse. -The preacher thanked them for their great -civility to him; “But now,” said he, “I will -pray!” and he fell upon his knees, and prayed -with great power. Two of the rascals, utterly -frightened at this treatment, started off as fast -as their legs could carry them; the third—he -who had first refused to have anything to do -with the job—continued on his knees with the -preacher; and when they parted company he -promised that he would try to lead a new life, -and hoped to become a new man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Should the reader search the old magazines -and documents in which are enshrined the -records of the early days of the Revival, he will -<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>find many incidents showing what a romantic -story is this of the self-denials, the difficulties, -and enthusiasm of these men, whose best record -is on high—most of them faithful men, like -Alexander Coates, who, after a life of singular -length and usefulness in the work, went to his -rest. His talents were said to be extraordinary, -both in preaching and in conversation. -Just as he was dying, one of his brethren called -upon him and said, “You don’t think you have -followed a cunningly-devised fable now?” “No, -no, no!” said the dying man. “And what do -you see?” “Land ahead!” said the old man. -They were his last words. Such were the men -of this Great Revival; so they lived their lives -of faithful usefulness, and so they passed away.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span> - <h2 id='ch08' class='c004'>CHAPTER VIII<br /> <br /><span class='small'>A GALLERY OF REVIVALIST PORTRAITS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>If we were writing a sustained history of the -Revival, we might devote some pages, at this -period, to notice the varied forms of satire and -ribaldry by which it was greeted. While the -noble bands of preachers were pursuing their -way, instructing and awakening the popular -mind of the country, not only heartless and -affected dilettanti, like Horace Walpole, regarded -it with the condescension of their supercilious -sneers, but for the more popular taste -there was <i>The Spiritual Quixote</i>, a book which -even now has its readers, and in which Whitefield -and his followers were held up to ridicule; -and Lackington, the great bookseller, in his -disgraceful, but entertaining autobiography, attempted -to cover the Societies of Wesley with -his scurrility. It was about the year 1750 that -<i>The Minor</i> was brought out on the stage of the -Haymarket Theatre; the author was that great -comedian, but most despicable and dissolute -character, Foote. The play lies before us as -we write; we have taken it down to notice the -really shameless buffoonery and falsehood in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>which it indulges. Whitefield is especially -libelled and burlesqued. The Countess of -Huntingdon waited personally on the Lord -Chamberlain, and besought him to suppress it; -it was not much to the credit of his lordship’s -knowledge, that he declared, had he known the -evil influence of the thing before it was licensed, -it should not have been produced, but being -licensed, it was beyond his control. Then the -good Countess waited on David Garrick; Garrick -knew and admired Whitefield; he received -her with distinguished kindness and respect, -and it is to his honour that, through his influence, -it was temporarily suppressed. It seems -a singular compensation that the author of this -piece, who permitted himself to indulge in the -most disgraceful insinuations against one of the -holiest and purest of men, a few years after was -charged with a great crime, of which he was, -no doubt, quite innocent, and died a broken-hearted -and beggared man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another of these disgraceful stage libels, <i>The -Hypocrite</i>, appeared at Drury Lane in 1768; in -it are the well-known characters of Dr. Cantwell, -and Mawworm, and old Lady Lambert. -There is more of a kind of genius in it than in -<i>The Minor</i>, but it was all stolen property, and -little more than an appropriation from Molière’s -<i>Tartuffe</i> and Cibber’s <i>Nonjuror</i>. All these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>things are forgotten now; but they are worthy -of notice as entering into the history of the -Revival, and showing the malice which was -stirred in multitudes of minds against men and -designs, on the whole, so innocent and holy. -Was it not written from of old, “The carnal -mind is enmity against God”?</p> - -<p class='c007'>But as to the movement itself, companions-in-arms, -and of a very high order alike for valour -and character, crowded to the field; we -have referred to several distinguished laymen; -it is at least equally important to notice that -while the leaders of the Church were, as a -body, set in array against it—while archbishops -and bishops of that day frowned, or scoffed -and scorned, there were a number of clergymen -whose piety, whose wit and eloquence, whose -affluent humour, whose learning, whose intrepidity -and sleepless variety of labour, surround -their names, even now as then, with a charm -of interest, making every life as it comes before -us a readable and delightful recreation. Some -of them were assuredly oddities; it is not long -since we made a pilgrimage to Everton, in -Bedfordshire, to read the singular epitaph, on -the tomb in the churchyard, of one of the oddest -and most extraordinary of all these men. -Even if our readers have read that epitaph, it -will do them no harm to read it again:</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c019'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>Here lie</div> - <div>The earthly remains of</div> - <div><span class='sc'>John Berridge</span>,</div> - <div>Late Vicar of Everton,</div> - <div>And an itinerant servant of Jesus Christ,</div> - <div>Who loved his Master, and His work,</div> - <div>And after running on His errands many years,</div> - <div>Was called up to wait on Him above.</div> - <div>Reader,</div> - <div>Art thou born again?</div> - <div>No salvation without a New Birth!</div> - <div>I was born in sin, February, 1716,</div> - <div>Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730,</div> - <div>Lived proudly on Faith and Works for Salvation</div> - <div>Till 1751.</div> - <div>Was admitted to Everton Vicarage, 1755.</div> - <div>Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756.</div> - <div>Fell asleep in Christ Jesus, January 22, 1793.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>With the exception of the date of his death, -it was written by the hand that moulders beneath -the stone; it is characteristic that its -writer caused himself to be buried in that part -of the churchyard where, up to that time, only -those had been interred who had destroyed -themselves, or come to an ignominious end. -Before his death he had often said that he -would take this effectual means of consecrating -that unhallowed spot.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This epitaph sufficiently shows that John -Berridge was an original character. Southey -says of him that he was a buffoon and a fanatic. -Southey’s judgments about the men of the Revival -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>were frequently as shallow as they were -unjust; he must have felt a sharp sting when, -as doubtless was the case, he heard the well-known -anecdote of George IV., who, on reading -Richard Watson’s calm reply to Southey’s -attacks on the Methodist leaders, exclaimed, -as he laid down the book, “Oh, my poor Poet -Laureate!” He deserved all that and a good -deal more, if only for the verdict we have -quoted on Berridge. So far as scholarship may -test a man, John Berridge was most likely a -far deeper scholar than Dr. Southey; he was a -distinguished member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, -and for many years read and studied fourteen -hours a day; but he was an uncontrollable droll -and humourist; pithy proverbs fell spontaneously -along all his speech. As one critic says of -his style, “It was like granulated salt.” As a -preacher, he was equal to any multitudes; he -lived among farmers and graziers, and the -twinkling of his eye, all alive with shrewd -cheerfulness, compelled attention even before -he opened his lips. The late Dr. Guthrie, not -long before his death, thought it worth his -while to republish <i>The Christian World Unmasked; -pray Come and Peep</i>; and it is characteristic -of Berridge throughout.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After his conversion, his Bishop called him -up and threatened to send him to gaol for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>preaching out of his parish. Our readers may -imagine with such a man what sort of conference -it was, and which of the two would be -likely to get the worst of it: “I tell you,” said -the Bishop, “if you continue preaching where -you have no right, you are very likely to be -sent to Huntingdon Gaol.” “I have no more -regard for a gaol than other folks,” said he; -“but I would rather go there with a good conscience -than be at liberty without one.” The -conference is too long for quotation, but Berridge -held on his way; he became one of the -most beloved and intimate friends of the -Countess of Huntingdon; and if he shocked his -bishop by preaching out of his own parish, he -must have roused his wrath by preaching in -her ladyship’s chapel in London, and throughout -the country. His letters to the Countess -are as characteristic as his speech, or any other -of his writings. Thus he writes to her about -young Rowland Hill, “I find you have got -honest Rowland down to Bath; he is a pretty -young spaniel, fit for land or water, and he has -a wonderful yelp; he forsakes father and mother -and brethren, and gives up all for Jesus, and I -believe he will prove a useful labourer if he -keeps clear of petticoat snares.” No doubt, -Berridge sometimes seemed not only racy, but -rude; but his words were wonderfully calculated -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>to meet the average and level of an immense -congregation. While he lived on terms -of fellowship with all the great leaders of the -movement, he was faithful as the vicar of his -own parish, and was the apostle of the whole -region of Bedfordshire.</p> - -<p class='c007'>With all his shrewd worldly wisdom, Berridge -had a most benevolent hand; he was rich, -and devoted far more than the income of his -vicarage to helping his poor neighbours, supporting -itinerant ministers, renting houses -and barns for preaching the Gospel, and, however -far he travelled to preach, always disbursing -his expenses from his own pocket. How -he would have loved John Bunyan, and how -John Bunyan would have loved him! It is -curious that within a few miles of the place -where the illustrious dreamer was so long -imprisoned, one should arise out of the very -Church which persecuted Bunyan, to do for a -long succession of years, on the same ground, -the work for which he was persecuted.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i14-page-163-haworthchurch.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>Haworth Church.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>From the low Bedford level, what a flight to -the wildest spot in wild Yorkshire, Haworth, -and its venerable old parish church, celebrated -now as a classic region, haunted by the memory -of the author of <i>Jane Eyre</i>, and all the Brontë -family; but in the times of which we are writing, -the vicar, William Grimshaw, was quite as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>queer and quaint a creature as Berridge. A -wild spot now—a stern, grand place; desolate -moors still seeming to stretch all round it; -though more easily reached in this day, it must -indeed have been a rough solitude when William -Grimshaw became its vicar, in 1742. He was -born in 1708; he died in 1763. He was a man -something of the nature of the wild moors -around him. When he became the pastor of -the parish, the people all round him were -plunged in the most sottish heathenism. The -pastor was a kind of son of the desert, and he -became such an one as the Baptist, crying in -the wilderness. The people were rough, they -perhaps needed a rough shepherd; they had -one. The character of Grimshaw is that of a -rough, faithful, and not less beautiful shepherd’s -dog. On the Sabbath morning he would commence -his service, giving out the psalm, and -having taken note of the absentees from the -congregation, would start off, while the psalm -was being sung, to drive in the loiterers, visiting -the ale-houses, routing out the drinkers, and -literally compelling them to come into the -parish church. One Sabbath morning, a -stranger riding through Haworth, seeing some -men scrambling over a garden wall, and some -others leaping through a low window, imagined -the house was on fire. He inquired what was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>the matter. One of them cried out, “The -parson’s a coming!” and that explained the -riddle. Upon another occasion, as a man was -passing through the village, on the Sabbath -day, on his way to call a doctor, his horse lost -a shoe. He found his way to the village -smithy to have his loss repaired. The blacksmith -told him that it was the Lord’s day, and the -work could not be done unless the minister -gave his permission. So they went to the parson, -who, of course, as the case was urgent and -necessary, gave his consent. But the story -illustrates the mastery the vicar attained over -the rough minds around him. He was a man -of a hardy mould. He was intensely earnest. -He not only effected a mighty moral change in -his own parish, but Haworth was visited every -Sabbath by pilgrims from miles round to listen -to this singular, strong, mountain voice; so that -the church became unequal to the great congregations, -and he often had to preach in the -churchyard, a desolate looking spot now, but -alive with mighty concourses then. It is said -that his strong, pithy words haunted men long -after they were spoken, as the infidel nobleman, -who, in an affected manner, told him he was -unable to see the truth of Christianity. “The -fault,” said the rough vicar, “is not so much in -your lordship’s head as in your heart.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span> -<img src='images/i15-page-165-grimshawhouse.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>GRIMSHAW’S HOUSE.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Grimshaw was the first who kindled in the -wild heights of Yorkshire the flames of the -Revival. His mind was stirred simultaneously -with others, but he does not appear to have -received either from Whitefield or Wesley the -impulses which created his extraordinary character, -though he, of course, entered heartily -into all their work. They visited Haworth, -and preached to immense concourses there. -As to Grimshaw himself, in the most irregular -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>manner, he preached in the Methodist conventicles -and dissenting chapels in all the country -round. He effected an entire change in his -own neighbourhood. He put down the races; -he reformed the village feasts, wakes, and fairs. -He was often expecting suspension, and at last -he was cited before the Archbishop, who inquired -of him as to the number of his communicants. -“How many,” said his grace, “had -you when you first went to Haworth?” -“Twelve.” “And how many now?” “In the -summer, about twelve hundred.” The astonished -Archbishop turned to his assistants in -the examination, and said, “I really cannot -find fault with Mr. Grimshaw when he brings so -many people to the Lord’s Table.” Southey is -also complimentary, in his own way, to this -singular clergyman, and says, “He was certainly -mad!”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i16-page-167-williamgrimshaw.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>William Grimshaw.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It was what Festus said to Paul; but the -madness of the pastor of Haworth was a blessing -to the farms and cottages of those wild -moorlands. He was a child of nature in her -most beautiful moods, glorified by Divine grace. -The freshness and buoyancy of the heath his -foot so lightly pressed, and the torrents which -sung around him, were but typical of his hardy -naturalness and beauty of character. Truly it -has been said, it was not more natural that the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>gentle lover of nature should lie at the foot of -Helvellyn, than that this watchman of the -mountains should sleep at the foot of the hills -amongst which he had so faithfully laboured. -He died comparatively young. His last words -were very characteristic. Robert Shaw, an old -Methodist preacher, called upon him; he said, -“I will pray for you as long as I live, and if -there is praying in heaven, I will pray for you -there; I am as happy as I can be on earth, and -as sure of glory as if I were in it.” His last -words were, “Here goes an unprofitable servant!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The wild Yorkshire of that day took up the -Revival with a will; and Henry Venn, of Huddersfield, -we suppose, has even transcended by -his usefulness the fame of either Berridge or -Grimshaw; he was born in 1724, and died in -1797. His life was genial and fruitful, and to -his church in Huddersfield the people poured -in droves to listen to him. It has been said his -life was like a field of wheat, or a fine summer -day. And how are these to be painted or put -upon the canvas? He could scarcely be called -eccentric, excepting in the sense in which -earnestness, holiness, and usefulness are always -eccentric. His influence may be said, in some -directions, to continue still. He was one of the -indefatigable coadjutors of the Countess in all -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>her work, and towards the close of his life he -came to London to throw his influence round -young Rowland Hill, by preaching for some -time in Surrey Chapel.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In another district of Yorkshire, a mighty -movement was going on, commencing about -1734. Benjamin Ingham, whom we met some -time since at Oxford, as a member of the Holy -Club, was living at Ossett, near Dewsbury. He -had married Lady Margaret Hastings, a -younger sister of the Countess of Huntingdon. -He had received ordination in the Church of -England, but his irregularities had forced him -out. Like the Wesleys, in the earlier part of -his history, he became enchanted with the -devotional life of the Moravians, and at this -period he introduced with marvellous results a -modified Moravianism into the West Riding of -Yorkshire. He founded as many as eighty -Societies; but he appears to have attempted to -carry out an impossible scheme, the union of -the Moravian discipline and doctrine with his -idea of Congregationalism. His influence over -the West Riding for a long time was immense; -but, most naturally, divisions arose, and the -purely Moravian element separated itself into -its own order of Church life, while the Methodist -element was absorbed in the great and growing -Wesleyan Societies. He was a friend of Count -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>Zinzendorf, who was his guest for a long time -at Ledstone House. The shock which his -Society sustained, and the death of Lady -Margaret, his admirable and beloved wife, -were blows from which the good man never -recovered; but the effects of his usefulness continued, -although he passed; and if the reader -ever visits the little Moravian Colony and -Institution of Fulneck, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, -he may be pleased to remember that -this is also one of the offshoots of the Great -Revival.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is a sudden leap from the West Riding of -Yorkshire to Truro, the charming little capital -of Western Cornwall. We are here met by -an imperishable and beautiful name, that of -Samuel Walker, the minister; he was born in -1714, and died in 1761. His influence over his -town was great and abiding, and Walker of -Truro is a name which to this day retains its -fragrance, as associated with the restoration of -his town from wild depravity to purity and exemplary -piety.</p> - -<p class='c007'>How impossible it is to do more than merely -mention the names of men, every action of -whose lives was consecrated, and every breath -an ardent flame, all helping on and urging forward -the great work of rousing a careless world -and a careless Church. What an influence had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>William Romaine, who for a long time, it has -been said, was one of the sights of London; it -was rather drolly put when it was said, “People -came from the country to see Garrick act and -to hear Romaine preach!” Nor let our readers -suppose that he was a mere sensational orator; -he was a great scholar. We hear of him first -as the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and -the editor of the four volumes of Calasio’s -<i>Hebrew Concordance</i>; then he caught the -evangelic fire; he became one of the chaplains -of the Countess of Huntingdon, and, so far as -the Church of the Establishment was concerned, -he was the most considerable light of -London for a period of nearly fifty years; and -very singular was his history in this relation, -especially in some of the churches whose pulpits -he filled. It seems singular to us now how -even his great talents could obtain for him the -place of morning lecturer at St. George’s, Hanover -Square; but the charge was soon urged -against him that he vulgarised that most -fashionable of congregations, and most uncomfortably -crowded the church. He was appointed -evening lecturer at St. Dunstan’s in Fleet -Street; but the rector barred his entrance into -the pulpit, seating himself there during the -time of prayers, so that the preacher might be -unable to enter. Lord Mansfield decided that, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>after seven in the evening, the church was not -the rector’s, but that Mr. Romaine was entitled -to the use of it; then, at seven in the evening, -the churchwardens closed the church doors, -and kept the congregation outside, wearying -them in the rain or in the cold. At length, the -patience of the churchwardens gave way before -the persistency of the people and the preacher; -but it was an age of candles, and they refused -to light the church, and Mr. Romaine often -preached in a crowded church by the light of -one candle. They paid him the merest minimum -which he could demand, or which they -were compelled to pay; sometimes only eighteen -pounds a year. But he was a hardy man, -and he lived on the plainest fare, and dressed -in homespun cloth. He was dragged repeatedly -before courts of law, but he was as difficult -to manage here as in the church; he brought -his judges to the statutes, none of which he -had broken. Every effort was made to expel -him from the Church, but he would not be cast -out; and at last he appears to have settled himself, -as such men generally do, into an irresistible -fact. He became the Rector of St. Ann’s, -Blackfriars. There he preached those sermons -which were shaped afterwards into the favourite -book of our forefathers, <i>The Life, Walk, and -Triumph of Faith</i>. Born in 1714, he died in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>1795. His last years were clothed with a pleasant -serenity, although, perhaps, some have detected -in his character marks of a severity, -probably the result of those conflicts which, -through so many years, he had with such remarkable -consistency sustained.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i17-page-174-stannsblackfriars.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>ST. ANN’S, BLACKFRIARS.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>And surely we ought to mention, in this right -noble band, John Newton; but he brings us -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>near to the time when the passion of the Revival -was settling itself into organisation and -calm; when the fury of persecution was ceasing; -Methodism was becoming even a respectable -and acknowledged fact. John Newton was -born in 1725, and died in 1807. All his sympathies -were with the theology and the activities -of the revivalists; but before he most singularly -found himself the Rector of St. Mary -Woolnoth, and St. Mary Woolchurch, he had -led a life which, for its marvellous variety of -incident, reads like one of Defoe’s fictions.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i18-page-175-stmarywolnoth.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>St. Mary Woolnoth.<br />John Newton.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>But his parlour in No. 8 Coleman Street -Buildings, on a Friday evening, was thronged -by all the dignitaries of the evangelical movement -of his day. As he said, “I was a wild -beast on the coast of Africa, but the Lord -caught me and tamed me; and now you come -to see me as people go to see the lions in the -Tower.” A grand old man was John Newton, -the young sailor transformed into the saintly -old rector; there he sat with few traces of the -parson about him, in his blue pea-jacket, and -his black neckerchief, liking still to retain -something of the freedom of his old blue seas; -full of quaint wisdom, which never, like that of -his friend Berridge, became rude or droll; quietly -sitting there and meditating; his enthusiastic -life apparently having subsided into stillness, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>while the Hannah Mores, Wilberforces, -Claudius Buchanans, and John Campbells, went -to him to find their enthusiasm confirmed. -The friend of Cowper, who surely deserves to -be called the Poet Laureate of the Revival—himself -the author of some of the sweetest hymns -we still sing; the biographer of his own wonderful -career, and of the life of his friend and -brother-in-arms, William Grimshaw; one of the -finest of our religious letter-writers; with capacities -within him for almost everything he -might have thought it wise to undertake, he -now seems to us appropriately to close this -small gallery we have attempted to present. -When the spirit of the Revival was either settling -into firmness and consolidation, or striking -out into those new and marvellous fields of -labour—its natural outgrowth—which another -chapter may present succinctly to the eye, John -Newton, by his great experience of men, his -profound faith, his steady hand and clear eye, -became the wise adviser and fosterer of schemes -whose gigantic enterprise would certainly have -astonished even his capacious intelligence.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In closing this chapter it is quite worth while -to notice that, various as were the characters -of these men, and of their innumerable comrades, -to whom we do homage, although we -have no space even to mention their names, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>their strength arose from the certainty and the -confidence with which they spoke; there was -nothing tentative about their teaching. That -great scholar, Sir William Hamilton, says that -“assurance is the <i>punctum saliens</i>, that is the -strong point of Luther’s system;” so it was with -all these men, “We speak that we do know, -and testify that we have seen;” it was the full -assurance of knowledge; and it gave them authority -over the men with whom they wrestled, -whether in public or private. Whitefield and -Wesley alike, and all their followers, had strong -faith in God. They were believers in the personal -regard of God for the souls of men; and -every idea of prayer supposes some such personal -regard, whether offered by the highest of -high Calvinists, or the simplest primitive Methodist; -the whole spirit of the Revival turned on -this; these men, as they strongly believed, -were able, by the strong attractive force of their -own nature, to compel other minds to their -convictions. Their history strongly illustrates -that that teaching which oscillates to and fro -in a pendulous uncertainty is powerless to reform -character or influence mind.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span> - <h2 id='ch09' class='c004'>CHAPTER IX<br /> <br /><span class='small'>BLOSSOMS IN THE WILDERNESS.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>The preceding chapters have shown that the -Great Revival was creating over the wild moral -wastes of England a pure and spiritual atmosphere, -and its movements and organisations -were taking root in every direction. Voltaire, -and that pedantic cluster of conceited infidels, -the Bolingbrokes, Middletons, and Mandevilles, -Chubbs, Woolstons, and Collinses, who -prophesied that Christian faith was fast vanishing -from the earth, were slightly premature. It -is, indeed, interesting to notice the contrast in -this period between England and the then most -unhappy sister-kingdom of France: there, indeed, -Christian faith did seem to be trodden -underfoot of men. While a great silent, hallowed -revolution was going on in one, all -things were preparing for a tremendous revolution -in the other. It was just about the time -that the Revival was leavening English society -that Lord Chesterfield summed up what he had -noticed in France, in the following words: “In -short, all the symptoms which I have ever met -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>with in history previous to great changes and -revolutions in government, now exist and daily -increase in France.” The words were spoken -several years before that terrible Revolution -came, which conducted the King, the Queen, -and almost all the aristocracy, respectability, -and lingering piety of the nation to the scaffold. -It was a wonderful compensation. A few -years before, a sovereign had cast away from -his nation, and from around his throne, all the -social elements which could guard and give -dignity to it; how natural, then, that the whole -<i>canaille</i> of the kingdom should rush upon the -throne of his successor, and cast it and its occupant -into the bonfire of the Reign of Terror!</p> - -<p class='c007'>In Britain, from some cause, all was different. -This period of the Revival has been truly called -the starting-point of the modern religious history -of that land; and, somehow, all things -were singularly combining to give to the nation -a new-born happiness, to create new facilities -for mental growth and culture, and to enlarge -and to fill their cup of national joy. It will be -noticed that these things did not descend to -the nation generally from the highest places of -the land. With the exception of the sovereign, -we cannot see many instances of a lively interest -in the moral well-being of the people. -Other exceptions there were, but they were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>very few. From the people themselves, and -from the causes we have described, originated -and spread those means which, amidst the wild -agitations of revolution, as they came foaming -over the Channel, and which were rather aided -than repressed by the unwisdom of many of -the governments and magistrates, calmed and -enlightened the public mind, and secured the -order of society, and the stability of the throne.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The historians of Wesleyanism—we will say -it respectfully, but still very firmly—have been -too uniformly disposed to see in their own society -the centre and the spring of all those -amazing means of social regeneration to which -the period of the Revival gave birth. Dr. Abel -Stevens specially seems to regard Methodism -and Wesleyanism as conterminous. It would -seem from him that the work of the printing-office, -the book or the tract society, schools -and missions, and the various means of social -amelioration or redemption, all have their -origin in Wesleyanism. We may give the -largest honour to the venerable name of Wesley, -and accept this history by Dr. Stevens as -the best, yet as an American he did not fully -know what had been done by others not in the -Connexion. There was an immense field of -Methodism which did not fall beneath the dominion -of Wesley, and had no relation to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Wesleyan Conference. The same spirit touched -simultaneously many minds, quite separated by -ecclesiastical and social relations, but all -wrought up to the same end. These pages -have been greatly devoted to reminiscences of -the great preachers, and illustrations of the -preaching power of the Revival, but our readers -know that the Revival did not end in -preaching. These voices stirred the slumbering -mind of the nation like a thunder-peal, but -they roused to work and practical effort. The -great characteristic of all that came out of the -movement may be summed up in the often-quoted -expression, “A single eye to the glory -of God.” As one of the clergymen of Yorkshire, -earnest and active in those times, was -wont to say, “I do love those one-eyed Christians.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>We shall have occasion to mention the name -of Robert Raikes, and that name reminds us not -only of Gloucester, but of Gloucestershire; many -circumstances gave to that most charming county -a conspicuous place. Lying in the immediate -neighbourhood of Bath, it attracted the attention -of the Countess of Huntingdon. “As sure -as God is in Gloucestershire,” was an old proverb, -first used in monastic days, then applied to the -Reformation time, when Tyndale, the first -translator of the English New Testament, had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>his home in the lovely village of North Nibley; -but it became yet more true when Whitefield -preached to the immense concourses on Stinchcombe -Hill; when Rodborough and Ebley, and -the valley of the Stroud Water were lit up with -Revival beacons, and when Rowland Hill -established his vicarage at Wotton-under-Edge; -then, in its immediate neighbourhood, -arose that beautiful Christian worker, the close -friend of George Whitefield, Cornelius Winter; -and from his labours came forth his most -eminent pupil, and great preacher, William -Jay.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And the Revival took effect on distinct circles -which certainly seemed outside of the Methodist -movement, but which yet, assuredly, belonged -to it; the Clapham Sect, for instance. “The -Clapham Sect” is a designation originating in -the facetious and satiric brain of Sydney Smith, -than whom the Revival never had a more -unjust, ungenerous, or ungracious critic; but the -pages of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, in which the -flippant sting of speech first appeared, years -afterwards consecrated the term and made it -historical in the elegant essay of Sir James -Stephen. By his pen the sect, with all its -leaders, acts, and consequences, are pleasantly -described in the <i>Essays on Ecclesiastical -Biography</i>; and surely this was as much the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>result of the Great Revival as the “evangelical -succession” which calls forth the exercise in -previous pages of the same interesting pen; it -was all a natural evangelical succession, that of -which we have spoken before, as enthusiasm -for humanity growing out of enthusiasm for -Divine truth. Men who have become fairly -impressed by a sense of their own immortality -and its redemption in Christ, become interested -in the temporal well-being and the eternal -welfare of others. It has always been so, and -is so still, that men who have not a sense of -man’s immortal welfare have usually cared but -little about his temporal interests. Hospitals -and churches, orphanages and missionary -societies, usually grow out of the same spiritual -root.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We scarcely need ask our readers to accompany -us to the pleasant little village of Clapham, -and its sweet sequestered Common, then -so far removed from the great metropolis; -surrounded by the homes of wealthy men, -merchants, statesmen, eminent preachers, all -of them infected with the spirit of the Revival, -and all of them noteworthy in the story of those -means which were to shiver the chains of the -slave, to carry light to dark heathen minds, -and to hand out the Bible to English villages -and far-off nations. We have been desirous of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>conveying the impression that those were times -of a singular and almost simultaneous spiritual -upheaval; it was as if, in different regions of the -great lake of humanity, submerged islands suddenly -appeared from beneath the waves; and it -is not too much to say that all those various -means which have so tended to beautify and -bless the world, schemes of education, schemes -for the improvement of prison discipline, -schemes of missionary enterprise for the extension -of Christian influence in the East Indies, -the destruction of slavery in the West Indies, -and the abolition of the slave trade throughout -the British Empire; Bible societies and Tract -societies, and, in fact, the whole munificent -machinery and organisation of our day, sprang -forth from that revival of the last century. It -seems now like a magnificent burst of enthusiasm; -yet, ultimately it was based upon only -two or three great elements of faith: the -spiritual world was an intense reality; the soul -of every man, woman, and child on the face of -the earth had an endowment of immortality; -they were precious to the Redeemer, they -ought, therefore, to be precious to all the followers -of the Redeemer. Charged with these -truths, their spirits inflamed to a holy enthusiasm -by them, from parlours and drawing-rooms, -from the lowly homes and cottages of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>England, all these new professors appeared to -be in search of occasions for doing good; the -schemes worked themselves through all the -varieties of human temperament and imperfection; -but, looking back, it must surely be -admitted that they achieved glorious results.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id005'> -<img src='images/i19-page-187-johnthorton.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>John Thornton.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>If the reader, impressed by veneration, should -make a pilgrimage to Clapham Common, and -inquire from some one of the oldest inhabitants -which was the house in which John Shore, the -great Lord Teignmouth, the first President of -the Bible Society, lived, his soul within him -might be a little vexed to be informed that -yonder large building at the extreme corner of -the common, the great Roman Catholic Redemptionist -College, is the house. There, were -canvassed and brooded over a number of the -schemes to which we have referred. Thither -from his own house, close to the well-known -“Plough”—its site now covered by suburban -shops—went the great Zachary Macaulay, -sometimes accompanied by his son, a bright, -intelligent lad, afterwards known as Thomas -Babington Macaulay. John Shore had been -Governor of India, at Calcutta. On the common -resided also, for some time, William Wilberforce. -These were the great statesmen who -were desirous of organising great plans, from -which the consummating prayer of David in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>72nd Psalm should be realised. Then there -was another house on the common, the mansion -of John Thornton, which seemed to share with -that of Lord Teignmouth the honours of these -Divine committees of ways and means. Before -the establishment of the Bible Society, Mr. -Thornton had been in the habit of spending -two thousand pounds a year in the distribution -of Bibles and Testaments—a very Bible Society -in himself. It is, perhaps, not too much to say, -there was scarcely a thought which had for its -object the well-being of the human family but -it found its representation and discussion in -those palatial abodes on Clapham Common. -There were Granville Sharp and Thomas -Clarkson; thither, how often went cheery old -John Newton, to whom, first of all, on arriving -in London, went every holy wayfarer from the -provinces, wayfarers who soon found their -entrance beneath his protecting wing, and -cheery introduction to these pleasant circles. -Beneath the incentives of his animating words, -the fervid earnestness of Claudius Buchanan -found its pathway of power, and <i>The Star of the -East</i>—his great sermon on “Missions to -India,”—was first seen shining over Clapham -Common; and it was the same genial tongue -which encouraged that fine, but almost forgotten -man, John Campbell, in the enterprise of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>his spirit, to pierce into the deserts of Africa. -We may notice how great ideas perpetuate -themselves into generations, when we remember -that it was John Campbell who first took -out Robert Moffat, and settled him down in the -field of his wonderful labours.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Sir James Stephen, in his admirable paper, is -far from exhausting all the memories of that -Clapham Sect. There was another house, not -in Clapham, but not far removed—Hatcham -House, as we remember it—a noble mansion, -standing in its park, opposite where the old -lane turned off from the main road to Peckham. -There lived Joseph Hardcastle—certainly one -of the Clapham Sect—Wilberforce’s close and -intimate friend, a munificent merchant prince, -in whose offices in the City were held for a long -time all the earliest committee meetings of the -Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, and -the London Missionary Society, and from whom -appear to have emanated the first suggestions -for the limitation of the powers of the East India -Company in supporting and sanctioning, by -the English Government, Hindoo infanticide -and idolatry. Among all the glorious names -of the Clapham Sect, not one shines out more -beautifully than that of this noble Christian -gentleman.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Perhaps a natural delicacy withheld Sir James -<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>Stephen from chronicling the story of his own -father, Sir George Stephen; and there was -Thomas Gisborne, most charming of English -preachers of the Church of England evangelical -school; and Sir Robert Grant, whose hymns -are still among the sweetest in our national -psalmody. But we can do no more than thus -say that it was from hence that the spirit of the -Revival rose in new strength, and taking to itself -the wings of the morning, spread to the uttermost -parts of the earth.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span> - <h2 id='ch10' class='c004'>CHAPTER X<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE REVIVAL BECOMES EDUCATIONAL.—ROBERT RAIKES.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>In the year 1880 was celebrated in England -and America the centenary of Sunday-schools. -The life and labours of Robert Raikes, whose -name has long been familiar as “a household -word” in connection with such institutions, -were reviewed, and fresh interest added to that -early work for the young.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i20-page-194-robertraikes.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>ROBERT RAIKES AND HIS SCHOLARS.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Gloucestershire, if not one of the largest, is -certainly one of the fairest—as, indeed, its name -is said to imply: from <i>Glaw</i>, an old British -word signifying “fair”—it is one of the fairest, -and it ought to be one of the most famous, -counties of England. Many are its distinguished -worthies: John de Trevisa was Vicar of Berkeley, -in Gloucestershire, and a contemporary -with John Wyclif, and, like him, he had a strong -aversion to the practices of the Church of Rome, -and an earnest desire to make the Scriptures -known to his parishioners; and in Nibley, in -Gloucestershire, was born, and lived, William -Tyndale, in whose noble heart the great idea -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>sprang up that Christian Englishmen should -read the New Testament in their own mother-tongue, -and who said to a celebrated priest, -“If God spares my life, I will take care that a -plough-boy shall know more of the Scriptures -than you do.” The story of the great translator -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>and martyr is most interesting. Gloucestershire -has been famous, too, for its contributions -to the noble army of martyrs, notably, not -only James Baynham, but, in Gloucester, its -bishop, John Hooper, was in 1555 burnt to -death. In Berkeley the very distinguished -physician, and first promulgator of the doctrine -of vaccination, Dr. Edward Jenner, the son of -the vicar, was born; and from the Old Bell, in -Gloucester, went forth the wonderful preacher -George Whitefield, to arouse the sleeping -Church in England and America from its lethargy. -The quaint old proverb to which we -have already alluded—“As sure as God is in -Gloucestershire”—was very complimentary, but -not very correct; it arose from the amazing -ecclesiastical wealth of the county, which was -so rich that it attracted the notice of the papal -court, and four Italian bishops held it in succession -for fifty years; one of these, Giulio de -Medici, became Pope Clement VII., succeeding -Pope Leo X. in the papacy in 1523. This eminent -ecclesiastical fame no doubt originated -the proverb; but it acquired a tone of reality -and truth rather from the martyrdom of its -bishop than from the elevation of his predecessor -to the papal tiara; rather from Tyndale, -William Sarton, and his brother weaver-martyrs, -than from its costly and magnificent endowments; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>from Whitefield and Jenner rather -than from its crowd of priests and friars.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus Gloucestershire has certainly considerable -eminence among English counties. To -other distinguished names must be added that -of Robert Raikes, who must ever be regarded -as the founder of Sabbath-schools. It is not -intended by this that there had never been any -attempts made to gather the children on the -Sabbath for some kind of religious instruction—although -such attempts were very few, and a -diligent search has probably brought them -all [?] under our knowledge; but the example -and the influence of Raikes gave to the idea the -character of a movement; it stirred the whole -country, from the throne itself, the King and -Queen, the bishops, and the clergy; all classes -of ministers and laymen became interested in -what was evidently an easy and happy method -of seizing upon the multitudes of lost children -who in that day were “perishing for lack of -knowledge.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Joseph Stratford, in his <i>Biographical -Sketches of the Great and Good Men in Gloucestershire</i>, -and Mr. Alfred Gregory, in his <i>Life -of Robert Raikes</i>—to which works we must -confess our obligation for much of the information -contained in this chapter—have both done -honour to the several humbler and more obscure -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>labourers whose hearts were moved to attempt -the work to which Raikes gave a national importance, -and which from his hands, and from -his time, became henceforth a perpetual institution -in the Church work of every denomination -of Christian believers and labourers. The -Rev. Joseph Alleine, the author of <i>The Alarm -to the Unconverted</i>, an eminent Nonconformist -minister of Taunton, adopted the plan of -gathering the young people together for instruction -on the Lord’s day. Even in Gloucestershire, -before Raikes was born, in the village -of Flaxley, on the borders of the Forest of -Dean—Flaxley, of which the poet Bloomfield -sings:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“’Mid depths of shade gay sunbeams broke</div> - <div class='line in1'>Through noble Flaxley’s bowers of oak;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Where many a cottage, trim and gay,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Whispered delight through all the way:”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>in the old Cistercian Abbey, Mrs. Catharine -Boevey, the lady of the abbey, had one of the -earliest and pleasantest Sabbath-schools. Her -monument in Flaxley Church, erected after -her death in 1726, records her “clothing and -feeding her indigent neighbours, and teaching -their children, some of whom she entertained -at her house, and examined them herself.” Six -of the poor children, it is elsewhere stated, -“by turns dined at her residence on Sundays, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>and were afterwards heard say the Catechism.”</p> -<p class='c007'>We read of a humbler labourer, realising, -perhaps, more the idea of a Sabbath-school -teacher, in Bolton, in Lancashire, James Hey, -or “Old Jemmy o’ th’ Hey.” Old Jemmy, Mr. -Gregory tells us, employed the working days -of the week in winding bobbins for weavers, -and on Sundays he taught the boys and girls -of the neighbourhood to read. His school -assembled twice each Sunday, in the cottage of -a neighbour, and the time of commencing was -announced, not by the ringing of a bell, but by -an excellent substitute, an old brass pestle and -mortar. After a while, Mr. Adam Compton, a -paper manufacturer in the neighbourhood, -began to supply Jemmy with books, and subscriptions -in money were given him; he was -thus enabled to form three branch establishments, -the teachers of which were paid one -shilling each Sunday for their services. Besides -these there are several other instances: in -1763 the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey established -something like a Sunday-school at Catterick, in -Yorkshire; at High Wycombe, in 1769, Miss -Hannah Ball, a young Methodist lady, formed -a Sunday-school in her town; and at Macclesfield -that admirable and excellent man, the -Rev. David Simpson, originated a similar plan -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>of usefulness; and, contemporary with Mr. -Raikes, in the old Whitefield Tabernacle, at -Dursley, in Gloucestershire, we find Mr. William -King, a woollen card-maker, attempting the -work of teaching on a Sunday, and coming into -Gloucester to take counsel with Mr. Raikes as -to the best way of carrying it forward. Such, -scattered over the face of the country, at great -distances, and in no way representing a general -plan of useful labour, were the hints and efforts -before the idea took what may be called an -apostolic shape in the person of Robert Raikes.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Notwithstanding the instances we have -given, Mr. Raikes must really be regarded -as the founder of Sunday-schools as an extended -organisation. With him they became more -than a notion, or a mere piece of local effort; -and his position and profession, and the high -respect in which he was held in the city in -which he lived, all alike enabled him to give -publicity to the plan: and before he commenced -this movement, he was known as a philanthropist; -indeed, John Howard himself bears -something like the same relation to prison -philanthropy which Raikes bears to Sunday-schools. -No one doubts that Howard was the -great apostle of prisons; but it seems that before -he commenced his great prison crusade, -Raikes had laboured diligently to reform the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>Gloucester gaol. The condition of the prisoners -was most pitiable, and Raikes, nearly -twenty years before he commenced the Sunday-school -system, had been working among -them, attempting their material, moral, and -spiritual improvement, by which he had earned -for himself the designation of the “Teacher of -the Poor.” Howard visited Raikes in Gloucester, -and bears his testimony to the blessedness -and benevolence of his labours in the prison -there; and the gaol appears not unnaturally to -have suggested the idea of the Sunday-school -to the benevolent-hearted man. It was a -dreadful state of society. Some idea may be -formed of it from a paragraph in the <i>Gloucester -Journal</i> for June, 1783, the paper of which -Raikes was the editor and proprietor: it is mentioned -that no less than sixty-six persons were -committed to the Castle in one week, and Mr. -Raikes adds, “The prison is already so full -that all the gaoler’s stock of fetters is occupied, -and the smiths are hard at work casting new -ones.” He goes on to say: “The people sent -in are neither disappointed soldiers nor sailors, -but chiefly frequenters of ale-houses and skittle-alleys.” -Then, in another paragraph, he goes -on to remark, “The ships about to sail for -Botany Bay will carry about one thousand -miserable creatures, who might have lived perfectly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>happy in this country had they been early -taught good principles, and to avoid the danger -of associating with those who make sobriety -and industry the objects of their ridicule.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>From sentences like these it is easy to see the -direction in which the mind of the good man -was moving, before he commenced the work -which has given such a happy and abiding perpetuity -to his name. He gathered the children; -the streets were full of noise and disturbances -every Sunday. In a little while, says the -Rev. Dr. Glass, Mr. Raikes found himself surrounded -by such a set of little ragamuffins as -would have disgusted other men less zealous to -do good, and less earnest to disseminate comfort, -exhortation, and benefit to all around him, -than the founder of Sunday-schools. He prevented -their running about in wild disorder -through the streets. By and by, he arranged -that a number of them should meet him at -seven o’clock on the Sunday morning in the -cathedral close, when he and they all went -into the cathedral together to an early service. -The increase of the numbers was rapid; Mr. -Raikes was looked up to as the commander-in-chief -of this ragged regiment. It is testified -that a change took place and passed over the -streets of the old Gloucester city on the Sunday. -A glance at the features of Mr. Raikes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>will assure the reader that he was an amiable -and gentle man, but that by no means implies -always a weak one. He appears to have had -plenty of strength, self-possession, and knowledge -of the world. He also belonged to, and -moved in, good society; and this is not without -its influence. As he told the King, in the -course of a long interview, when the King and -Queen sent for him to Windsor, to talk over -his system with him, in order that they might, -in some sense, be his disciples, and adopt and -recommend his plan: it was “botanising in -human nature.” “All that I require,” said -Raikes, to the parents of the children, “are -clean hands, clean faces, and their hair -combed.” To many who were barefooted, -after they had shown some regularity of attendance, -he gave shoes, and others he clothed. -Yes, it was “botanising in human nature;” and -very many anecdotes show what flowers sprang -up out of the black soil in the path of the good -man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>All the stories told of Raikes show that the -law of kindness was usually on his lips. A -sulky, stubborn girl had resisted all reproofs -and correction, and had refused to ask forgiveness -of her mother. In the presence of the -mother, Raikes said to the girl, “Well, if you -have no regard for yourself, I have much for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>you. You will be ruined and lost if you do not -become a good girl; and if you will not humble -yourself, I must humble myself on your behalf -and make a beginning for you;” and then, with -great solemnity, he entreated the mother to -forgive the girl, using such words that he overcame -the girl’s pride. The stubborn creature -actually fell on her knees, and begged her -mother’s forgiveness, and never gave Mr. -Raikes or her mother trouble afterwards. It is -a very simple anecdote; but it shows the Divine -spirit in the method of the man; and the more -closely we come into a personal knowledge of -his character, the more admirable and lovable -it seems. Thus literally true and beautiful are -the words of the hymn:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Like a lone husbandman, forlorn,</div> - <div class='line in2'>The man of Gloucester went,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Bearing his seeds of precious corn;</div> - <div class='line in2'>And God the blessing sent.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in1'>Now, watered long by faith and prayer,</div> - <div class='line in2'>From year to year it grows,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Till heath, and hill, and desert bare,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Do blossom as the rose.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Mr. Raikes was a Churchman; he was so -happy as to have, near to his own parish of St. -Mary-le-Crypt, in Gloucester, an intimate -friend, the Rector of St. Aldate’s—a neighbouring -parish in the same city—the Rev. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>Thomas Stock, whose monument in the -church truly testifies that “to him, in conjunction -with Robert Raikes, Esquire, is justly attributed -the honour of having planned and instituted -the first Sunday-school in the kingdom.” -Mr. Stock was but a young man in 1780, for he -died in 1803, then only fifty-four years of age; -he must have been, at the time of the first institution -of Sunday-schools, a young man of -fine and tender instincts. He appears, simultaneously -with Mr. Raikes’s movement, to have -formed a Sunday-school in his own parish, -taking upon himself the superintendence of it, -and the responsibility of such expenses as it involved. -But Mr. Stock says, in a letter written -in 1788, “The progress of the institution -through the kingdom is justly attributed to the -constant representations which Mr. Raikes -made in his own paper of the benefits which he -saw would probably arise from it.” At the time -Mr. Raikes began the work, he was about -forty-four years of age; it was a great thing in -that day to possess a respectable journal, a -newspaper of acknowledged character and influence; -to this, very likely, we owe it, in some -considerable measure, that the work in Gloucester -became extensively known and spread, and -expanded into a great movement. But he does -not appear to have used the columns of his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>newspaper for the purpose of calling attention -to the usefulness and desirability of the work -until after it had been in operation about three -years; in 1783 and 1784, very modestly he -commends the system to general adoption.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i21-page-205-robertraikes.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>Robert Raikes.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It is remarkable that in the course of two or -three years, several bishops—the Bishop of -Gloucester, in the cathedral, the Bishops of -Chester and Salisbury, in their charges to the -clergy of their dioceses—strongly commended -the plan. All orders of mind poured around -the movement their commendation; even Adam -Smith, whom no one will think likely to have -fallen into exaggerated expressions where -Christian activity is concerned, said, “No plan -has promised to effect a change of manners with -equal ease and simplicity, since the days of the -apostles.” The poet Cowper declared that he -knew of no nobler means by which a reformation -of the lower classes could be effected. -Some attempts have been made to claim for -John Wesley the honour of inaugurating the -Sunday-school system; considering the intensely -practical character of that venerated -man, and how much he was in advance of his -times in most of his activities, it is a wonder -that he did not; but his venerable memory has -honours, certainly, in all sufficiency. He wrote -his first commendation of Sunday-schools in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>the <i>Arminian Magazine</i> of 1784. He says, -“I find these schools spring up wherever I -go; perhaps God may have a deeper end -therein than men are aware of; who knows but -that some of these schools may become nurseries -for Christians?” Prophetic as these words are, -this is fainter and tardier praise than we should -have expected from him; but in 1787 he writes -more warmly, expresses his belief that these -schools will be one great means of reviving -religion throughout the kingdom, and expresses -“wonder that Satan has not sent out some able -champion against them.” In 1788 he says: “I -verily think that these schools are one of the -noblest specimens of charity which have been -set on foot in England since the days of William -the Conqueror.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some estimate may be formed of the rapidity -with which the movement spread, when we -find that in this year, 1787, the number of -children taught in Sunday-schools in Manchester -alone, on the testimony of the very -eminent John Nichols, the great printer and -anecdotist, was no fewer than five thousand. -It was in this year also, 1787, that Mr. Raikes -was visiting some relatives in the neighbourhood -of Windsor. He must have attained to -the dignity of a celebrity; nor is this wonderful, -when we remember the universal acceptance -<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>with which his great idea of Sunday-schools -had been honoured. The Queen invited him to -visit her, and inquired of him, he says, “by -what accident a thought which promised so -much benefit to the lower order of people as -the institution of Sunday-schools, was suggested -to his mind?” The visit was a long one; he -spent two hours with the Queen—the King -also, we believe, being present most of the -time—not so much in expounding the system, -for that was simple enough, but they were -curious as to what he had observed in the -change and improvement of the characters -among whom he worked; and we believe that -it was then he told the King, in the words we -have already quoted, that he regarded his work -as a kind of “botanising in human nature;” this -was a favourite phrase of his in describing the -work. The result of this visit was, that the -Queen established a Sunday-school in Windsor, -and also a school of industry at Brentford, -which the King and Queen occasionally visited. -It may be taken as an illustration of the native -modesty of Mr. Raikes’s own character that he -never referred in his paper to this distinguished -notice of royalty.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Do our readers know anything of Mrs. Sarah -Trimmer? A hundred years ago, there was, -probably, not a better-known woman in England; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>and although her works have long ceased -to exercise any influence, we suppose none, in -her time, were more eminently useful. Pious, -devoted, earnestly evangelical, if we speak of -her as a kind of lesser Hannah More, the remark -must apply to her intellectual character rather -than to her reputation or her usefulness. Almost -as soon as the Sunday-school idea was -announced, she stepped forward as its most able -and intrepid advocate; her <i>Economy of Charity</i> -exercised a large influence, and she published a -number of books, which, at that time, were admirably -suited to the level of the capacity -which the Sunday-school teacher desired to -reach; she was also a great favourite with the -King and Queen, and appears to have visited -them on the easy terms of friendship. The intense -interest she felt in Sunday-schools is -manifest in innumerable pages of the two volumes -which record her life; certainly, she was -often at the ear of the royal pair, to whisper -any good and pleasant thing connected with the -progress of her favourite thought. She repeatedly -expresses her obligation to Mr. Raikes; -but her biographer only expresses the simple -truth when he says: “To Mr. Raikes, of -Gloucester, the nation is, in the first place, indebted -for the happy idea of collecting the -children of the poor together on the Sabbath, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>and giving them instruction suited to the sacredness -of the day; but, perhaps, no publication -on this subject was of more utility than the -<i>Economy of Charity</i>. The influence of the -work was very visible when it first made its appearance, -and proved a source of unspeakable -gratification to the author.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is not consistent with the aim of this book -to enter at greater length into the life of Robert -Raikes; we have said sufficient to show that -the term which has been applied to him of -“founder of Sunday-schools,” is not misapplied. -He was a simple and good man, on whose heart, -as into a fruitful soil, an idea fell, and it became -a realised conviction. Look at his portrait, -and instantly there comes to your mind -Cowper’s well-known description of one of his -friends,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“An honest man, close-buttoned to the chin,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>No words can better describe him—not a tint -of fanaticism seems to shade his character; he -had a warm enthusiasm for ends and aims -which commended themselves to his judgment. -It is pleasant to know that, as he lived when -the agitation for the abolition of the slave trade -was commencing, he gave to the movement his -hearty blessings and best wishes. At sixty-seven -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>years of age he retired from business; no -doubt a very well-to-do man, for he was the -owner of two freehold estates near Gloucester, -and he received an annuity of three hundred -pounds from the <i>Gloucester Journal</i>. He died -at his house in Bell Lane, in the city of Gloucester, -where he had taken up his residence -when he retired from active life; he died suddenly, -in his seventy-sixth year, in 1811. Then -the family vault in St. Mary-le-Crypt, which -sixty years before had received his father’s -ashes, received the body of the gentle philanthropist. -He had kept up his Sunday-school -work and interest to the close; and he left instructions -that his Sunday-school children -should be invited to follow him to the grave, -and that each of them should receive a shilling -and a plum cake. On the tablet over the place -where he sleeps an appropriate verse of Scripture -well describes him: “When the ear heard -me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw -me, it gave witness to me: because I delivered -the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and -him that had none to help him. The blessing -of him that was ready to perish came upon -me: and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for -joy.”</p> -<p class='c007'>It seems very questionable whether the -slightest shade can cross the memory of this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>plain, simply useful, and unostentatious man. -And it ought to be said that Anne Raikes, who -rests in the same grave, appears to have been -every way the worthy companion of her husband. -She was the daughter of Thomas Trigg, -Esq., of Newnham, in Gloucestershire; the -sister of Sir Thomas Trigg and Admiral John -Trigg. They were married in 1767. She shared -in all her husband’s large and charitable intentions, -and when he died he left the whole of his -property to her. She survived him seventeen -years, and died in 1828, at the age of eighty-five.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id006'> -<img src='images/i22-page-213-raikeshouse.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>RAIKES’S HOUSE, GLOUCESTER.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The visitor to Gloucester will be surely struck -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>by a quaint old house in Southgate Street—still -standing almost unaltered, save that the -basement is now divided into two shops. A -few years since the old oak timbers were -braced, stained, and varnished. It is a fine -specimen of the better class of English residences -of a hundred and fifty years since, and is -still remarkable in the old city, owing very -much to the good taste which governed their -renovation. This was the printing-office of -Robert Raikes, a notice in the <i>Gloucester -Journal</i>, dated August 19, 1758, announcing his -removal from Blackfriars Square to this house in -Southgate Street. The house now is in the -occupation of Mrs. Watson. The house where -Raikes lived and died is nearly opposite. It -will not be difficult for the spectator to realise -the pleasant image of the old gentleman, -dressed, after the fashion of the day, in his blue -coat with gold buttons, buff waistcoat, drab -kerseymere breeches, white stockings, and low -shoes, passing beneath those ancient gables, -and engaged in those various public and private -duties which we have attempted to record. A -century has passed away since then, and the -simple lessons the philanthropist attempted to -impart to the young waifs and strays he gathered -about him have expanded into more comprehensive -departments of knowledge. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>originator of Sunday-schools would be astonished -were he to step into almost any of those -which have branched out from his leading idea. -It is still expanding; it is one of the most real -and intense activities of the Universal Church; -but among the immense crowds of those who, -in England and America, are conducting Sunday-school -classes, it is, perhaps, not too much -to say, that in not one is there a more simple -and earnest desire to do good than that which -illuminated the life, and lends a sweet and -charming interest to the memory, of Robert -Raikes.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span> - <h2 id='ch11' class='c004'>CHAPTER XI<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE ROMANTIC STORY OF SILAS TOLD.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>Dr. Abel Stevens, in his <i>History of Methodism</i>, -says, “I congratulate myself on the -opportunity of reviving the memory of Silas -Told;” and speaks of the little biography in -which Silas himself records his adventures as -“a record told with frank and affecting simplicity, -in a style of terse and flowing English Defoe -might have envied.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such a testimony is well calculated to excite -the curiosity of an interested reader, especially -as the two or three incidents mentioned only -serve to whet the appetite for more of the like -description. The little volume to which he refers -has been for some years in the possession -of the author of this volume. It is indeed an -astonishing book; its alleged likeness to Defoe’s -charmingly various style of recital of adventures -by sea and by land is no exaggeration, -whilst as a piece of real biography it may -claim, and quite sustain, a place side by side -with the romantic and adventurous career of -John Newton; but the wild wonderfulness of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>the story of Silas seems to leave Newton’s in -the shade. Like Newton, Told was also a seer -of visions and a dreamer of dreams, and a believer, -in special providences; and well might he -believe in such who was led certainly along as -singular a path as any mortal could tread. The -only other memorial besides his own which has, -we believe, been penned of him—a brief recapitulations-well -describes him as honest, simple, -and tender. Silas Told accompanied, in that -awful day, numbers of persons to the gallows, -and attempted to console sufferers and victims -in circumstances of most harrowing and tragic -solemnity: he certainly furnished comfortable -help and light when no others were willing or -able to sympathise or to help. John Wesley -loved him, and when Silas died he buried him, -and says of him in his <i>Journal</i>: “On the 20th -of December, 1778, I buried what was mortal of -honest Silas Told. For many years he attended -the malefactors in Newgate without fee or -reward; and I suppose no man, for this hundred -years, has been so successful in that melancholy -office. God had given him peculiar talents for -it, and he had amazing success therein; the -greatest part of those whom he attended died -in peace, and many of them in the triumph of -faith.” Such was Silas Told.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But before we come to those characteristic -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>circumstances to which Wesley refers, we must -follow him through some of the wild scenes of -his sailor life. He was born in Bristol in 1711; his -parents were respectable and creditable people, -but of somewhat faded families. His grandfather -had been an eminent physician in Bunhill -Row, London; his mother was from Exeter. -* * *</p> - -<p class='c007'>Silas was educated in the noble foundation -school of Edward Colston in Bristol. The life -of this excellent philanthropist was so remarkable, -and in many particulars so like his own, -that we cannot wonder that he stops for some -pages in his early story to recite some of the -remarkable phenomena in Colston’s life. Silas’s -childhood was singular, and the stories he tells -are especially noticeable, because in after-life -the turn of his character seems to have been -especially real and practical. Thus he tells -how, when a child, wandering with his sister in -the King’s Wood, near Bristol, they lost their -way, and were filled with the utmost consternation, -when suddenly, although no house was -in view, nor, as they thought, near, a dog came -up behind them, and drove them clear out of -the wood into a path with which they were acquainted; -especially it was remarkable that the -dog never barked at them, but when they -looked round about for the dog he was nowhere -<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>to be seen. Careless children out for their own -pleasure, they sauntered on their way again, -and again lost their way in the wood—were -again bewildered, and in greater perplexity -than before, when, on a sudden looking up, they -saw the same dog making towards them; they -ran from him in fright, but he followed them, -drove them out of the labyrinths, and did not -leave them until they could not possibly lose -their way again. Simple Silas says, “I then -turned about to look for the dog, but saw no -more of him, although we were now upon an -open common. This was the Lord’s doings, -and marvellous in our eyes.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>When he was twelve years of age, he appears -to have been quite singularly influenced by the -reading of the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>; and late in -life, when writing his biography, he briefly, but -significantly, attempts to reproduce the intense -enjoyment he received—the book evidently -caught and coloured his whole imagination. At -this time, too, he was very nearly drowned, -and while drowning, so far from having any -sense of terror, he had no sense nor idea of the -things of this world, but that it appeared to -him he rushingly emerged out of thick darkness -into what appeared to him a glorious city, -lustrous and brilliant, the light of which seemed -to illuminate the darkness through which he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>had urged his way. It was as if the city had a -floor like glass, and yet he was sure that neither -city nor floor had any substance; also he saw -people there; the inhabitants arrayed in robes -of what seemed the finest substance, but flowing -from their necks to their feet; and yet he -was sensible too that they had no material -substance; they moved, but did not labour as -in walking, but glided as if carried along by the -wind; and he testifies how he felt a wonderful -joy and peace, and he never forgot the impression -through life, although soon recalled to the -world in which he was to sorrow and suffer so -much. It is quite easy to see John Bunyan in -all this; but while he was thus pleasantly happy -in his visionary or intro-visionary state, a -benevolent and tender-hearted Dutchman, who -had been among some haymakers in a field on -the banks of the river, was striking out after -him among the willow-bushes and sedges of -the stream, from whence he was brought, body -and soul, back to the world again. Such are -the glimpses of the childhood of Silas.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then shortly comes a dismal transition from -strange providences in the wood, and enchanting -visions beneath the waves, to the -singularly severe sufferings of a seafaring life. -The ships in that day have left a grim and ugly -reputation surviving still. The term “sea-devil” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>has often been used as descriptive of the -masters of ships in that time. Silas seems to -have sailed under some of the worst specimens -of this order. About the age of fourteen he was -bound apprentice to Captain Moses Lilly, and -started for his first voyage from Bristol to Jamaica. -“Here,” he says, “I may date my first -sufferings.” He says the first of his afflictions -“was sea-sickness, which held me till my arrival -in Jamaica;” and considering that it was a -voyage of fourteen weeks, it was a fair spell of -entertainment from that pleasant companion. -They were short of water, they were put on -short allowance of food, and when having obtained -their freight, while lying in Kingston -harbour, their vessel, and seventy-six sail of -ships, many of them very large, but all riding -with three anchors ahead, were all scattered by -an astonishing hurricane, and all the vessels in -Port Royal shared the same fate. He tells how -the corpses of the drowned sailors strewed the -shores, and how, immediately after the subsidence -of the hurricane, a pestilential sickness -swept away thousands of the natives. “Every -morning,” he says, “I have observed between -thirty and forty corpses carried past my window; -being very near death myself, I expected -every day to approach with the messenger of -my dissolution.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>During this time he appears to have been -lying in a warehouse, with no person to take -care of him except a negro, who every day -brought to him, where he was laid in his hammock, -Jesuit’s bark.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“At length,” he says, “my master gave me -up, and I wandered up and down the town, -almost parched with the insufferable blaze of -the sun, till I resolved to lay me down and die, -as I had neither money nor friend; accordingly, -I fixed upon a dunghill in the east end of the -town of Kingston, and being in such a weak -condition, I pondered much upon Job’s case, -and considered mine similar to that of his; -however, I was fully resigned to death, nor had -I the slightest expectation of relief from any -quarter; yet the kind providence of God was -over me, and raised me up a friend in an entire -stranger. A London captain coming by was -struck with the sordid object, came up to me, -and, in a very compassionate manner, asked -me if I was sensible of any friend upon the island -from whom I could obtain relief; he likewise -asked me to whom I belonged. I answered, to -Captain Moses Lilly, and had been cast away -in the late hurricane. This captain appeared -to have some knowledge of my master, and, -cursing him for a barbarous villain, told me he -would compel him to take proper care of me. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>About a quarter of an hour after this, my master -arrived, whom I had not seen before for six -weeks, and took me to a public-house kept by, -a Mrs. Hutchinson, and there ordered me to be -taken proper care of. However, he soon quitted -the island, and directed his course for England, -leaving me behind at his sick quarters; and, if -it should please God to permit my recovery, I -was commanded to take my passage to England -in the <i>Montserrat</i>, Captain David Jones, a -very fatherly, tender-hearted man: this was -the first alleviation of my misery. Now the -captain sent his son on shore, in order to receive -me on board. When I came alongside, Captain -Jones, standing on the ship’s gunwale, addressed -me after a very humane and compassionate -manner, with expressions to the following -effect: ‘Come, poor child, into the cabin, and -you shall want nothing that the ship affords; -go, and my son shall prepare for you, in the -first place, a basin of good egg-flip, and anything -else that maybe conducive to your relief.’ -But I, being very bad with my fever and ague, -could neither eat nor drink.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>A very pleasant captain, this seems, to have -sailed with; but poor Silas had very little of -his company. However, the good captain and -his boatswain put their experiences together, -and the poor boy was restored to health, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>after some singular adventures he reached -Bristol. Arriving there, however, Captain -Lilly transferred him to a Captain Timothy -Tucker, of whom Silas bears the pleasing testimony, -“A greater villain, I firmly believe, -never existed, although at home he assumed -the character and temper of a saint.” The -wretch actually stole a white woman from her -own country to sell her to the black prince of -Bonny, on the African coast. They had not -been long at sea before this delightful person -gave Silas a taste of his temper. Thinking the -boy had taken too much bread from the cask, -he went to the cabin and brought back with -him his large horsewhip, “and exercised it,” -says Silas, “about my body in so unmerciful a -manner, that not only the clothes on my back -were cut to pieces, but every sailor declared -they could see my bones; and then he threw -me all along the deck, and jumped many times -upon the pit of my stomach, in order to endanger -my life; and had not the people laid -hold of my two legs, and thrown me under the -windlass, after the manner they throw dead -cats or dogs, he would have ended his despotic -cruelty in murder.” This free and easy mode -of recreation was much indulged in by seafaring -officers in that time, but this Tucker appears to -have been really what Silas calls him, “a blood-thirsty -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>devil;” and stories of murder, and the -incredible cruelties of the slave-trade lend their -horrible fascination to the narrative of Silas Told. -How would it be possible to work the commerce -of the slave-trade without such characters -as this Tucker, who presents much more the -appearance of a lawless pirate than of the noble -character we call a sailor?</p> - -<p class='c007'>Those readers who would like to follow poor -Silas through the entire details of his miseries -on ship-board, his hairbreadth escapes from -peril and shipwreck, must read them in Silas’s -own book, if they can find it; but we may attempt -to give some little account of his wreck -upon the American coast, in New England. -Few stories can be more charming than the -picture he gives of his wanderings with his -companions after their escape from the wreck, -not because he and they were destitute, and -all but naked, but because of the pleasant -glimpses we have of the simple, hospitable, -home life in those beautiful old New England -days—hospitality of the most romantic and -free-handed description.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We will select two pictures, as illustrating -something of the character of New England -settlements in those very early days of their -history. Silas and his companions were cast -on shore, and had found refuge in a tavern -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>seven miles from the beach; he had no clothing; -but the landlord of the tavern gave him a -pair of red breeches, the last he had after supplying -the rest. Silas goes on: “Ebenezer -Allen, Governor of the island, and who dwelt -about six miles from the tavern, hearing of our -distress, made all possible haste to relieve us; -and when he arrived at the tavern, accompanied -by his two eldest sons, he took Captain -Seaborn, his black servant, Joseph and myself -through partiality, and escorted us home to his -own house. Between eleven and twelve at -night we reached the Governor’s mansion, all -of us ashamed to be seen; we would fain have -hid ourselves in any dark hole or corner, as it -was a truly magnificent building, with wings -on each side thereof, but, to our astonishment, -we were received into the great parlour, where -were sitting by the fireside two fine, portly -ladies, attending the spit, which was burdened -with a very heavy quarter of house-lamb. Observing -a large mahogany table to be spread -with a fine damask cloth, and every knife, fork, -and plate to be laid in a genteel mode, I was -apprehensive that it was intended for the entertainment -of some persons of note or distinction, -or, at least, for a family supper. In a -short time the joint was taken up, and laid on -the table, yet nobody sat down to eat; and as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>we were almost hid in one corner of the room, -the ladies turned round and said, ‘Poor men, -why don’t you come to supper?’ I replied, -‘Madam, we had no idea it was prepared for -us.’ The ladies then entreated us to eat without -any fear of them, assuring us that it was -prepared for none others; and none of us having -eaten anything for near six and thirty -hours before, we picked the bones of the whole -quarter, to which we had plenty of rich old -cider to drink: after supper we went to bed, -and enjoyed so profound a sleep that the next -morning it was difficult for the old gentleman -to awake us. The following day I became the -partaker of several second-hand garments, and, -as I was happily possessed of a little learning, -it caused me to be more abundantly caressed -by the whole family, and therefore I fared -sumptuously every day.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“This unexpected change of circumstances -and diet I undoubtedly experienced in a very -uncommon manner; but as I was strictly trained -up a Churchman, I could not support the idea -of a Dissenter, although, God knows, I had -well-nigh by this time dissented from all that is -truly good. This proved a bar to my promotion, -and my strong propensity to sail for England -to see my mother prevented my acceptance -of the greatest offer I ever received in my life -<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>before; for when the day came that we were to -quit the island, and to cross the sound over to -a town called Sandwich, on the main continent, -the young esquire took me apart from my associates, -and earnestly entreated me to tarry with -them, saying that if I would accede to their -proposals nothing should be lacking to render -my situation equivalent to the rest of the family. -As there were very few white men on the -island, I was fixed upon, if willing, to espouse -one of the Governor’s daughters. I had been -informed that the Governor was immensely rich, -having on the island two thousand head of cattle -and twenty thousand sheep, and every acre -of land thereon belonging to himself. However, -I could not be prevailed upon to accept the -offer; therefore the Governor furnished us with -forty shillings each, and gave us a pass over to -the town of Sandwich.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Such passages as this show the severe experiences -through which Silas passed; they illustrate -the education he was receiving for that -life of singular earnestness and tenderness which -was to close and crown his career; but we have -made the extract here for the purpose of giving -some idea of that cheerful, hospitable, home -life of New England in those then almost wild -regions which are now covered with the population -of towns.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>Here is another instance, which occurred at -Hanover, in the United States, through which -district Silas and his companions appear to have -been wending their way, seeking a return to -England. “One Sunday, as my companions -and self were crossing the churchyard at the -time of Divine service, a well-dressed gentleman -came out of the church and said, ‘Gentlemen, -we do not suffer any person in this country -to travel on the Lord’s day.’ We gave him to -understand that it was necessity which constrained -us to walk that way, as we had all been -shipwrecked on St. Martin’s [Martha’s (?)] -Vineyard, and were journeying to Boston. The -gentleman was still dissatisfied, but quitted our -company and went into church. When we had -gone a little farther, a large white house proved -the object of our attention. The door being -wide open, we reasonably imagined it was not -in an unguarded state, without servants or -others; but as we all went into the kitchen, nobody -appeared to be within, nor was there an -individual either above or below. However, I -advised my companions to tarry in the house -until some person or other should arrive. They -did so, and in a short time afterwards two ladies, -richly dressed, with a footman following -them, came in through the kitchen; and, notwithstanding -they turned round and saw us, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>who in so dirty and disagreeable a garb and appearance -might have terrified them exceedingly, -yet neither of them was observed to take -any notice of us, nor did either of them ask us -any questions touching the cause of so great an -intrusion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“About a quarter of an hour afterwards, a -footman entered the kitchen with a cloth and -a large two-quart silver tankard full of rich -cider, also a loaf and cheese; but we, not -knowing it was prepared for us, did not attempt -to partake thereof. At length the ladies -coming into the kitchen, and viewing us in our -former position, desired to know the reason of -our malady, seeing we were not refreshing ourselves; -whereupon I urged the others to join -with me in the acceptance of so hospitable a -proposal. After this the ladies commenced a -similar inquiry into our situation. I gave them -as particular an account of every recent vicissitude -that befell us as I was capable of, with a -genuine, relation of our being shipwrecked, and -the sole reasons of our travelling into that -country; likewise begged that they would excuse -our impertinence, as they were already informed -of the cause; we were then emboldened -to ask the ladies if they could furnish us with a -lodging that evening. They replied it was -uncertain whether our wishes could be accomplished -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>there, but that if we proceeded somewhat -farther we should doubtless be entertained -and genteelly accommodated by their -brother—a Quaker—whose house was not more -than a distance of seven miles. We thanked -the ladies, and set forward, and at about eight -o’clock arrived at their brother’s house. Fatigued -with our journey, we hastened into the -parlour and delivered our message; whereupon -a gentleman gave us to understand, by his free -and liberal conduct, that he was the Quaker -referred to by the aforesaid ladies, who, total -strangers as we were, used us with a degree of -hospitality impossible to be exceeded; indeed, -I could venture to say that the accommodations -we met with at the Quaker’s house, seeing -they were imparted to us with such affectionate -sympathy, greatly outweighed those -we formerly experienced.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“After our banquet, the gentleman took us -up into a fine spacious bed-chamber, with desirable -bedding and very costly chintz curtains. -We enjoyed a sound night’s rest, and arose between -seven and eight the next morning, and -were entertained with a good breakfast; -returned many thanks for the unrestrained -friendship and liberality, and departed therefrom, -fully purposed to direct our course for -Boston, which was not more than seven miles -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>farther. Here all the land was strewed with -plenty, the orchards were replete with apple-trees -and pears; they had cider-presses in the -centre of their orchards, and great quantities -of fine cider, and any person might become a -partaker thereof for the mere trouble of asking. -We soon entered Boston, a commodious, beautiful -city, with seventeen spired meetings, the -dissenting religion being then established in -that part of the world. I resided here for the -space of four months, and lodged with Captain -Seaborn at Deacon Townshend’s; deacon of the -North Meeting, and by trade a blacksmith.” -He gives a glowing and beautiful description of -the high moral and religious character of Boston; -here also he met with a stroke of good -fortune in receiving some arrears of salvage for -a vessel he had assisted in saving before his last -wreck. Such are specimens of the interest and -entertainment afforded in the earlier parts of -this pleasant piece of autobiography. But we -must hasten past his adventures, both in the -island of Antigua and among the islands of the -Mediterranean.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is not wonderful that the great sufferings -and toils of Silas should, even at a very early -period of life, prostrate his health, and subject -him to repeated vehement attacks of illness. -He was but twenty-three when he married; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>still, however, a sailor, and destined yet for -some wild experiences on the seas. Not long, -however. A married life disposed him for a -home life, and he accepted, while still a very -young man, the position of a schoolmaster, beneath -the patronage of a Lady Luther, in the -county of Essex. He was not in this position -very long. Silas, although an unconverted -man, must have had strong religious feelings; -and the clergyman of the parish, fond of smoking -and drinking with him—and it may well be -conceived what an entertaining companion -Silas must have been in those days, with his -budget of adventures—ridiculed him for his -faith in the Scriptures and his belief in Bible -theology. This so shocked Silas, that, making -no special profession of religion, he yet separated -himself from the clergyman’s company, -and shortly after he left that neighbourhood, -and again sought his fortune, but without any -very cheerful prospects, in London.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was in 1740 that a young blacksmith introduced -him to the people whom he had hitherto -hated and despised—the Methodists. He heard -John Wesley preach at the Foundry in the -Moor Fields from the text, “I write unto you, -little children, for your sins are forgiven you.” -This set his soul on fire; he became a Methodist, -notwithstanding the very vehement opposition -<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>of his wife, to whom he appears to have -been very tenderly attached, and who herself -was a very motherly and virtuous woman, but -altogether indisposed to the new notions, as -many people considered them. He improved -in circumstances, and became a responsible -managing clerk on a wharf at Wapping. While -there Mr. Wesley repeatedly and earnestly -pressed him to take charge of the charity school -he had established at the Foundry. After long -hesitation he did so; and it was here that while -attending a service at five o’clock in the morning, -he heard Mr. Wesley preach from the text, -“I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me -not.” By a most remarkable application of this -charge to himself, Silas testifies that his mind -was stirred with a strange compunction, as he -thought that he had never cared for, or attempted -to ameliorate the condition, or to minister -to the souls of the crowds of those unhappy -malefactors who then almost weekly expiated -their offences, very often of the most trivial -description, on the gallows. It seems that the -hearing that sermon proved to be a most -remarkable turning-point in the life of Silas. -Through it he became most eminently useful -during a very remarkable and painful career; -and his after-life is surrounded by such a succession -of romantic incidents that they at once -<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>equal, if they do not transcend, and strangely -contrast with his wild adventures on the seas.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And here we may pause a moment to reflect -how every man’s work derives its character from -what he was before. What thousands of sailors, -in that day, passed through all the trials which -Silas passed, leaving them still only rough -sailor men! In him all the roughness seemed -only to strike down to depths of wonderful -compassion and tenderness. Singular was the -university in which he graduated to become so -great and powerful a preacher! How he preached -we do not know, but his words must have been -warm and touching, faithful and loving, judging -from their results; and as to his pulpit, we do -not hear that it was in chapels or churches—his -audience was very much confined to the -condemned cell, and to the cart from whence -the poor victims were “turned off,” as it was -called in those days. In this work he found -his singular niche. How long it often takes for -a man to find his place in the work that is -given him to do; and when the place is found, -sometimes, how long it takes to fit nicely and -admirably into the work itself! what sharp -angles have, to be rubbed away, what difficulties -to be overcome! It is wonderful, with all the -horrible experiences through which this man -had passed, and spectacles of cruelty so revolting -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>that they seem almost to shake our faith, -not merely in man, but even in a just and overruling -God, that every sentiment of religion -and tenderness had not been eradicated from -his nature; but it would appear that the old -gracious influences of childhood—the days of -the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, and the wonderful -vision when drowning beneath the waters, had -never been effaced through all his strange and -chequered career, although certainly not untainted -by the sins of the ordinary sailor’s life. -The work in which he was now to be engaged -needed a very tender and affectionate nature; -but ordinary tenderness starts back and is -repelled by cruel and repulsive scenes. Told’s -education on the seas, like that of a surgeon in -a hospital, enabled him to look on harrowing -sights of suffering without wincing, or losing in -his tender interest his own self-possession.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It ought not to be forgotten that John Howard, -the great prison philanthropist, belongs to -the epoch of the Great Revival. Of him -Edmund Burke said, “He had visited all -Europe in a circumnavigation of charity, not to -survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the -stateliness of temples; not to collect medals or -to collate manuscripts, but to dive into the -depths of dungeons and to plunge into the infections -of hospitals.” About the year 1760,<a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c012'><b>[13]</b></a> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>when he began his consecrated work, Silas Told, -as a prison philanthropist upon a smaller, but -equally earnest scale, attempted to console the -prisoners of Newgate.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f13'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-236'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Shortly after hearing that sermon to which -we have alluded, a messenger came to him at -the school to tell him that there were ten -malefactors lying under sentence of death in -Newgate, some of them in a state of considerable -terror and alarm, and imploring him to -find some one to visit them. Here was the call -to the work. The coincidences were remarkable: -John Wesley’s sermon, his own aroused -and tender state of mind produced by the -sermon, and the occasion for the active and -practical exercise of his feeling. So opportunities -would meet us of turning suggestions into -usefulness, if we watched for them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The English laws were barbarous in those -days; truly it has been said that a fearfully -heavyweight of blood rests upon the conscience -of England for the state of the law in those -times. Few of those who have given such -honour to the noble labours of John Howard -and the loving ministrations of Elizabeth Fry -ever heard of Silas Told. In a smaller sphere -than the first of these, and in a much more intensely -painful manner than the second, he -anticipated the labours of both. He instantly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>responded to this first call to Newgate. Two -of the ten malefactors were reprieved; he -attended the remaining eight to the gallows. -He had so influenced the hearts of all of them -in their cell that their obduracy was broken -down and softened—so great had been his -power over them, that locked up together in -one cell the night before their execution, they -had spent it in prayer and solemn conversation. -“At length they were ordered into the cart, -and I was prevailed upon to go with them. -When we were in the cart I addressed myself -to each of them separately. The first was Mr. -Atkins, the son of a glazier in the city, a youth -nineteen years of age. I said to him, ‘My dear, -are you afraid to die?’ He said, ‘No, sir; -really I am not.’ I asked him wherefore he was -not afraid to die? and he said, ‘I have laid my -soul at the feet of Jesus, therefore I am not -afraid to die.’ I then spake to Mr. Gardner, a -journeyman carpenter; he made a very comfortable -report of the true peace of God which he -found reigning in his heart. The last person -to whom I spoke was one Thompson, a very -illiterate young man; but he assured me he was -perfectly happy in his Saviour, and continued -so until his last moments. This was the first -time of my visiting the malefactors in Newgate, -and then it was not without much shame and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>fear, because I clearly perceived the greater part -of the populace considered me as one of the -sufferers.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The most remarkable of this cluster was one -John Lancaster—for what offence he was sentenced -to death does not appear; but the entire -account Silas gives of him, both in the prison -and at the place of execution, exhibits a fine, -tender, and really holy character. The attendant -sheriff himself burst into tears before the -beautiful demeanour of this young man. However, -so it was, that he was without any friend -in London to procure for his body a proper -interment; and the story of Silas admits us -into a pretty spectacle of the times. After the -poor bodies were cut down, Lancaster’s was -seized by a surgeons’ mob, who intended to -carry it over to Paddington. It was Silas’s first -experience, as we have seen; and he describes -the whole scene as rather like a great fair than -an awful execution. In this confusion the body -of Lancaster had been seized, the crowd dispersed—all -save some old woman, who sold -gin, and Silas himself, very likely smitten into -extraordinary meditation by a spectacle so new -to him—when a company of eight sailors appeared -on the scene, with truncheons in their -hands, who said they had come to see the execution, -and gazed with very menacing faces -<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>on the vacated gallows from whence the bodies -had been cut down. “Gentlemen,” said the -old woman, “I suppose you want the man that -the surgeons have got?” “Ay,” said the sailors, -“where is he?” The old woman gave them to -understand that the body had been carried -away to Paddington, and she pointed them to -the direct road. Away the sailors hastened—it -may be presumed that Lancaster was a -sailor, and some old comrade of these men. -They demanded his body from the surgeons’ -mob, and obtained it. What they intended to -do with it scarcely transpires; it is most likely -that they had intended a rescue at the foot of -the gallows, and arrived too late. However, -hoisting it on their shoulders, away they -marched with it off to Islington, and thence -round to Shoreditch; thence to a place called -Coventry’s Fields. By this time they were -getting fairly wearied out with their burden, -and by unanimous consent they agreed to lay -it on the step of the first door they came to: -this done, they started off. It created some -stir in the street, which brought down an old -woman who lived in the house to the step of the -door, and who exclaimed, as she saw the body, -in a loud, agitated voice, “Lord! this is my son -John Lancaster!” It is probable that the old -woman was a Methodist, for to Silas Told and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>the Methodists she was indebted for a decent and -respectable burial for her son in a good strong -coffin and decent shroud. Silas and his wife -went to see him whilst he was lying so, previous -to his burial. There was no alteration of -his visage, no marks of violence, and says Told, -“A pleasant smile appeared on his countenance, -and he lay as in sweet sleep.” A singularly -romantic story, for it seems the sailors did -not know at all to whom he belonged; and -what an insight into the social condition of -London at that time!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Told did not give up his connection with his -school at the Foundry, but he devoted himself, -sanctioned by John Wesley and his Church -fellowship, to the preaching and ministering to -all the poor felons and malefactors in London, -including also, in this exercise of love, the -work-houses for twelve miles round London; he -believed he had a message of tender sympathy -for those who were of this order, “sick and in -prison.” It seems strange to us, who know how -much he had suffered himself, that the old -sailor possessed such a loving, tender, and -affectionate heart; and yet he tells how, in the -earlier part of these very years, he was haunted -by irritating doubts and alarms: then came to -him old mystical revelations, such as those he -had known when drowning, reminding us of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>similar instances in the lives of John Howe and -John Flavel; and the noble man was strengthened.</p> - -<p class='c007'>He went on for twenty years in the way we -have described; and the interest of his autobiography -compels the wish that it were much -longer; for, of course, the largest amount of his -precious life of labour was not set down, and -cannot be recalled; and readers who are fond -of romance will find his name in connection -with some of the most remarkable executions -of his time.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A singular circumstance was this: Four -gentlemen—Mr. Brett, the son of an eminent -divine in Dublin; Whalley, a gentleman of considerable -fortune, possessed of three country-seats -of his own; Dupree, “in every particular,” -says Silas, “a complete gentleman;” and Morgan, -an officer on board one of His Majesty’s -ships of war—after dinner, upon the occasion of -their being at an election for the members for -Chelmsford, proposed to start forth, and, by -way of recreation, rob somebody on the highway. -Away they went, and chanced upon a -farmer, whom they eased of a considerable sum -of money. The farmer followed them into -Chelmsford; they were all secured, and next -day removed to London; they took their trials, -and were sentenced, and left for execution. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>Told visited them all in prison. Morgan was -engaged to be married to Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, -the sister of the Duke of Hamilton. She -repeatedly visited her affianced husband in the -cell, and Told was with them at most of their -interviews. It was supposed that, from the -rank of the prisoners, and the character of their -offence, there would be no difficulty in obtaining -a reprieve; but the King was quite inexorable; -he said, “his subjects were not to be in -bodily fear in order that men might gratify -their drunken whims.” Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, -however, thrust herself several times before -the King; wept, threw herself on her -knees, and behaved altogether in such a manner -that the King said, “Lady Betsy, there is -no standing your importunity any further; I -will spare his life, but on one condition—that -he is not acquainted therewith until he arrives -at the place of execution;” and it was so. The -other three unfortunates were executed, and -Lady Elizabeth, in her coach, received her -lover into it as he stepped from the cart. It is -a sad story, but it must have been a sweet satisfaction -to the lady.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Far more dreadful were some cases which -engaged the tender heart of Silas. A young -man, named Coleman, was tried for an aggravated -assault on a young woman. The young -<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>woman herself declared that Coleman was not -the man; but he had enemies who pressed apparent -circumstances against him, and urged -them on the young woman, to induce her to -change her opinion. She never wavered; yet, -singular to say, he was convicted and executed. -A short time after the real criminal was discovered, -by his own confession; he was also -tried, condemned, and executed, and the perjured -witnesses against poor Coleman sentenced -to stand in the pillory.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But one of the most pitiful and dreadful cases -in Silas Told’s experience was that of Mary -Edmondson, a sweet young girl, tried upon -mere circumstantial evidence, and executed -on Kennington Common, for the supposed -murder of her aunt at Rotherhithe. She appears -to have been most brutally treated; the -mob believed her to be guilty, and received -her with shocking execrations. Whether Silas -had a prejudice against her or not, we cannot -say; it is not likely that he had a prejudice -against any suffering soul; but it so happened, -he says, as he had not visited her in her imprisonment, -so he entertained no idea of seeing her -suffer. But as he was passing through the -Borough, a pious cheesemonger, named Skinner, -called him into his shop, tenderly expressed -deep interest in her present and future -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>state, and besought him to see her; so his first -interview with her was only just as she was -going forth to her sad end.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Silas shall tell the story himself: “When -she was brought into the room, she stood with -her back against the wainscot, but appeared -perfectly resigned to the will of God. I then -addressed myself to her, saying, ‘My dear, for -God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, for the sake of -your own precious soul, do not die with a lie in -your mouth; you are, in a few moments, to appear -in the presence of the holy God, who is of -purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Oh, consider -what an eternity of misery must be the -position of all who die in their sins!’ She -heard me with much meekness and simplicity, -but answered that she had already advanced -the truth, and must persevere in the same spirit -to her last moments.” Efforts were made to -prevent Told from accompanying her any farther, -and the rioters were so exasperated -against her that Told seems only to have been -safe by keeping near to the sheriff along the -whole way. The sheriff also told him that he -would be giving a great satisfaction to the -whole nation, could he only bring her to a confession. -“Now, as we were proceeding on the -road, the sheriff’s horse being close to the cart, -I looked up at her from under the horse’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>bridle, and I said, ‘My dear, look to Jesus.’ -This quickened her spirit, insomuch that although -she had not looked about her before, -she turned herself round to me, and said, ‘Sir, -I bless God I can look to Jesus—to my comfort.’”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Arrived at the place of execution, he spoke -to her again solemnly, “Did you not commit -the act? Had you no concern therein? Were -you not interested in the murder?” She said, -“I am as clear of the whole affair as I was the -day my mother brought me into the world.” -She was very young, she had all the aspects of -innocence about her. The sheriff burst into -tears, and turned his head away, exclaiming, -“Good God! it is a second Coleman’s case!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At this moment her cousin stepped up into -the cart, and sought to kiss her. She turned -her face away, and pushed him off. She had -before charged him with being the murderer—and -he was. When subsequently taken up for -another crime, he confessed the committal of -this. Her aunt had left to Mary, in the event -of her death, more money than to this wretch. -The executioner drew the cart away, and -Mary’s body—leaning the poor head, in her last -moments, on Silas’s shoulder—dear old Silas, -her only comfort in that terrible hour—fell into -the arms of death. But he tells how she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>was cold and still before the cart was drawn -away.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But perhaps a still more pitiful case was that -of poor Anderson, who was hanged for stealing -sixpence: he was a labouring man, and had been -of irreproachable character. He and his wife—far -gone with child—were destitute of money, -clothes, and food. He said to his wife, “My -dear, I will go out, down to the quays; it may -be that the Lord will provide me with a loaf of -bread.” All his efforts were fruitless, but passing -through Hoxton Fields, he met two washerwomen. -He did not bid them stop, but he -said to one, “Mistress, I want money.” She -gave him twopence. He said to the other, -“You have money, I know you have.” She -said, “I have fourpence.” He took that. Insensible -of what might follow, as of what he had -done, he walked down into Old Street: there, -the two women having followed him gave him -in charge of a constable. He was tried, sentenced -to death, and for this he died. “Never,” -says Told, “through the years I have attended -the prisoners, have I seen such meek, loving, -patient spirits as this man and his wife.” Told -attended him to execution, and sought to comfort -the poor fellow by promising him to look -after his wife; and most tenderly did Told and -his wife redeem the promise, for they took her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>for a short time into their own home. Told -obtained a housekeeper’s situation for her, and -she became a creditable and respected woman. -He bound her daughter apprentice to a weaver, -and she, probably, turned out well, although he -says, “I have never seen her but twice since, -which is many years ago.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our readers will, perhaps, think that it is -time we drew these harrowing stories to a close; -but there are many more of them in this brief, -but most interesting, although forgotten autobiography. -They are recited with much pathos. -We have the story of Harris, the flying highwayman; -of Bolland, a sheriff’s officer, who was -executed for forging a note, although he had -refunded the money, and twice afterwards paid -the sum of the bill to secure himself. A young -gentleman, named Slocomb, defrauded his -father of three hundred pounds; his father -would not in any way stir, or remit his claim, to -save him. Told attended him and thought -highly of him, not only because he expressed -himself with so much resignation, but because -he never indulged a complaint against him -whom Told calls “that lump of adamant, his -father.” With him was executed another young -gentleman, named Powell, for forgery. Silas -Told also attended that cruel woman, Elizabeth -Brownrigg, who was executed for the atrocious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>murder of her apprentices. And of all the -malefactors whom he attended she seems to us -the most unsatisfactory.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We trust our readers will not be displeased -to receive these items from the biography of a -very remarkable, a singularly romantic and -chequered, as well as singularly useful career. -References to Silas Told will be found in most -of the biographies of Wesley. Southey passes -him by with a very slight allusion. Tyerman -dwells on his memory with a little more tenderness; -but, with the exception of Stevens, none -has touched with real interest upon this extraordinary -though obscure man, and his romantic -life and labours in a very strange path of Christian -benevolence and usefulness. He was -known, far and near, as the “prisoners’ chaplain,” -although an unpaid one. He closed his life -in 1778, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. As -we have seen, John Wesley appropriately officiated -at his funeral, and pronounced an affectionate -encomium over the remains of his honoured -old friend and fellow-labourer.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span> - <h2 id='ch12' class='c004'>CHAPTER XII<br /> <br /><span class='small'>MISSIONARY SOCIETIES.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>Illustrating what we have said before, it -remains to be noticed, that nearly all the great -societies sprang into existence almost simultaneously. -The foremost among these,<a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c012'><b>[14]</b></a> founded -in 1792, was the Baptist Missionary Society. -It appears to have arisen from a suggestion of -William Carey, the celebrated Northamptonshire -shoemaker, who proposed as an inquiry to -an association of Northamptonshire ministers, -“whether it were not practicable and obligatory -to attempt the conversion of the heathen.” It -is certainly still a moot question whether Le -Verrier or Adams first laid the hand of science -on the planet Neptune; but it seems quite certain -that, when one of God’s great thoughts is -throbbing in the heart of one of His apostles, -the same impulse and passion is stirring -<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>another, perhaps others, in remote and faraway -scenes. Altogether unknown to William -Carey, that same year the great Claudius -Buchanan was dreaming his divine dreams -about the conquest of India for Christ, in St. -Mary’s College, Cambridge.<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c012'><b>[15]</b></a> Undoubtedly the -honour of the first consolidation of the thought -into a missionary enterprise must be given to -William Carey and his little band of obscure -believers.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f14'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. </span>It is not implied that these were the first modern missionary -agencies. The Moravians had already sent the Gospel into -many regions. There were Swedish and Danish Missionary -Societies also at work. In 1649 a Society for Promoting and -Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England had been -formed, and about 1697 the “Society for Promoting Christian -Knowledge” and the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel -in Foreign Parts” were established. See page <a href='#Page_256'>256</a> and foot note.</p> -</div> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f15'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-253'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i23-page-251-williamcarey.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>William Carey.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>At the close of Carey’s address, to which we -have referred, a collection was made for the -purpose of attempting a missionary crusade -upon Hindostan, amounting to £13 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> = -$65.60. The wits made fine work of this: the -reader may still turn to Sydney Smith’s paper -in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, in which the idea -and the effort are satirised as that of “an army -of maniacs setting forth to the conquest of -India.” But this humble effort resulted in -magnificent achievements; Carey and his illustrious -coadjutors, Ward and Marshman, set -forth, and became stupendous Oriental scholars, -translating the Word of Life into many -Indian dialects. Then came tempests of abuse -and scurrility at home from eminent pens. We -experience a shame in reading them; but it -shows the catholicity of spirit pervading the -minds of Christ’s real followers, that Lord -<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>Teignmouth, and William Wilberforce, and Dr. -Buchanan, were amongst the ablest and most -earnest defenders of the noble Baptist missionaries. -We are able to see now that this mission -may be said to have saved India to the -British Empire. It not only created the -scholars to whom we have referred, and the -bands of holy labourers, but also the sagacity -of Lord Lawrence, and the consecrated courage -of Sir Henry Havelock. We are prepared, -therefore, to maintain that England is indebted -more to William Carey and his £13 2<i>s</i> 6<i>d.</i> than -to the cunning of Clive and the rapacity of -Warren Hastings.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another child of the Revival was born in -1795—the London Missionary Society. But it -would be idle to attempt to enumerate the -names either of its founders, its missionaries, or -their fields of labour; let the reader turn to the -names of the founders, and he will find they -were nearly all enthusiasts who had been baptised -into the spirit of the Revival—Rowland -Hill, Matthew Wilks, Alexander Waugh, William -Kingsbury, and, notably, Thomas Haweis, -the Rector of Aldwinckle and chaplain to the -Countess of Huntingdon. Nor must we omit -the name of David Bogue,<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c012'><b>[16]</b></a> that strong and eloquent -intelligence, whose admirable and suggestive -work on <i>The Divine Authority of the</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span><i>New Testament</i>, sent to Napoleon in his exile -at St. Helena by the Viscountess Duncan, was, -after the Emperor’s death, returned to the -author full of annotations, thus seeming to -give some clue to those religious conversations, -in which the illustrious exile certainly astonishes -us, not long before his departure.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f16'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-254'>Appendix</a>.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It is the London Missionary Society which -has covered the largest surface of the earth -with its missions, and it is not invidious to say -that its records register a larger range of conquests -over heathenism and idolatry than could -be chronicled in any age since the first apostles -went upon their way. We have only to remember -the Sandwich Islands,<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c012'><b>[17]</b></a> and the crowds of -islands in the Southern Seas, with their chief -civiliser, the martyr of Erromanga; Africa, from -the Cape along through the deep interior, with -Moffatt and Livingstone, whose celebrated -motto was, “The end of the geographical feat -is the beginning of the missionary enterprise;” -China and Robert Morison; Madagascar and -William Ellis, and many other regions and -names to justify our verdict.</p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f17'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. </span>(The civilisation and Christian character of these Islands is -largely, due to the labours of the missionaries of the American -Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.—<span class='sc'>Ed.</span>)</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>In 1799 the Church Missionary Society came -into existence. “What!” said the passionate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>and earnest Rev. Melville Horne, in attempting -to arouse the clergy to missionary enthusiasm; -“have Carey and the Baptists had more -forgiven than we, that they should love more? -Have the fervent Methodists and patient -Moravians been extortionate publicans, that -they should expend their all in a cause which -we decline? Have our Independent brethren -persecuted the Church more, that they should -now be more zealous in propagating the faith -which it once destroyed?” And so the Church -Missionary Society arose;<a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c012'><b>[18]</b></a> and in 1804, the -Bible Society; in 1805, the British and Foreign -School Society; in 1799, the Religious Tract -Society, which, since its foundation, has probably -circulated not less than five hundred millions -of publications. The Wesleyan Missionary -Society—which claims in date to take precedence -of all in its foundation in the year 1769—was -not formally constituted till 1817.<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c012'><b>[19]</b></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f18'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. </span>See <a href='#p-256'>Appendix</a></p> -</div> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f19'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. </span>(The great missionary organizations of America belong to -the early part of this century. The First day or Sunday-school -Society was formed in 1791; the American Board of Commissioners -for Foreign Missions in 1810; the American Baptist -Missionary Union in 1814; Methodist Episcopal Missionary -Society in 1819; the Philadelphia Adult and Sunday-school -Union (which, in 1824, was merged in the American Sunday-school -Union) in 1817; the Protestant Episcopal Board of Missions -in 1821. Of Continental Societies, the Moravian Missionary -Society was formed in 1732; the Netherlands Missionary Society -in 1797; the Basle Evangelical Mission in 1816. Appendix.—<span class='sc'>Ed.</span>)</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>Every one of these, and many other such associations, -alike show the vivid and vigorous -spirit which was abroad seeking to secure the -empire of the world to the cause of Divine truth -and love.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And, meantime, what works were going on -at home? Education and intelligence were -widely spreading; simple academies were forming, -like that founded by the Countess of -Huntingdon at Trevecca, where the minds of -young men were being moulded and informed -to become the intelligent vehicles of the Gospel -message—eminently that of the great and -good Cornelius Winter, in Gloucestershire; and -that of David Bogue at Gosport; while, in the -north of England, arose the small but very -effective colleges of Bradford and Rotherham; -and the now handsome Lancashire Independent -College had its origin in the vestry of -Mosley Street Chapel, where the sainted -William Roby, as tutor, gathered around him -a number of young men, and armed them with -intellectual appliances for the work of the ministry.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some of the earliest efforts of Methodism, -and some of the most successful, had been in -the gaols, and among the malefactors of the -country—notably in the wonderful labours of -Silas Told, whose extraordinary story has been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>recited in these pages. Silas passed away, but -an angel of light moved through the cells of -Newgate in the person of Elizabeth Fry, as -beautiful and commanding in her presence as -she was holy in her sweet and fervid zeal. Now -began thoughts too about the waifs and strays -of the population—the helpless and forgotten; -and John Townshend, an Independent minister, -laid the foundation of the first Deaf and -Dumb Asylum, the noble institution of London.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the world of politics, also, the men of the -Revival were exercising their influence, and -procuring charters of freedom for the mind of -the nation. Has it not been ever true that civil -and religious liberty have flourished side by -side? A blight cannot pass over one without -withering the other. The honour of the Repeal -of the Test and Corporation Acts is due to the -Great Revival: the Toleration Act of those -days was really more oppressive on pious members -of the Church of England than on Dissenters; -they could not obtain, as Dissenters could, -a licence for holding religious services in their -houses, because they were members of the -Church of England.</p> - -<p class='c007'>William Wilberforce owed his first religious -impressions to the preaching of Whitefield; -with all his fine liberality of heart, he became -an ardent member of the communion of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>Church of England. It seems incredible to -us now that he lived constantly in the expectation—we -will not say fear—of indictments -against him, for holding prayer-meetings and -religious services at his house in Kensington -Gore. Lord Barham, the father of the late amiable -and excellent Baptist Noel, was fined forty -pounds, on two informations of his neighbour, -the Earl of Romney, for a breach of the statute -in like services. That such a state of things -as this was changed to the free and happy ordinances -now in force, was owing to the spirit -which was abroad, giving not only freedom to -the soul of the man, but dignity and independence -to the social life of the citizen. Everywhere, -and in every department of life, the -spirit of the Revival moved over the face of the -waters, dividing the light from the darkness, -and thus God said, “Let there be light, and -there was light.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span> - <h2 id='ch13' class='c004'>CHAPTER XIII<br /> <br /><span class='small'>AFTERMATH.</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>The effects of that great awakening which -we have thus attempted concisely, but fairly, -to delineate, are with us still; the strength is -diffused, the tone and colour are modified. One -chief purpose has guided the pen of the writer -throughout: it has been to show that the immense -regeneration effected in English manners -and society during the later years of the last -century and the first of the present, was the -result of a secret, silent, most subtle spiritual -force, awakening the minds and hearts of men -in most opposite parts of the nation, and in -widely different social circumstances. We -would give all honour where honour is due, remembering -that “Every good gift and every -perfect gift is from above.” There are writers -whose special admiration is given to some -favourite sect, some effective movement, or -some especially beloved name; but a dispassionate -view, an entrance—if we may be permitted -so to speak of it—into the camera, the -chamber of the times, presents to the eye a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>long succession of actors, and brings out into -the clear light a wonderful variety of influences -all simultaneously at work to redeem society -from its darkness, and to give it a higher degree -of spiritual purity and mental and moral dignity.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The first great workers were passing away, -most of them, as is usually the case, dying on -Pisgah, seeing most distinctly the future results -of their work, but scarcely permitted to enter -upon the full realisation of it. In 1791, in the -eighty-fourth year of her age, died the revered -Countess of Huntingdon; her last words, “My -work is done; I have nothing to do but to go -to my Father!” No chronicle of convent or of -canonisation, nor any story of biography, can -record, a more simple, saintly, and utterly unselfish -life. To the last unwearied, she was -daily occupied in writing long letters, arranging -for her many ministers, disposing of her chapel -trusts; sometimes feeling that her rank, and -certain suppositions as to the extent of her -wealth, made her an object upon which men -were not indisposed to exercise their rapacity. -Still, as compared with the state of society -when she commenced her work, in this her -closing year, she must have looked over a hopeful -and promising future, as sweet and enchanting -as the ineffably lovely scenery upon which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>her eyes opened at Castle Doddington, and the -neighbouring beauties of her first wedded home.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i24-page-262-wesleystomb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>JOHN WESLEY’S TOMB, CITY ROAD, LONDON.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>In 1791, John Wesley, in his eighty-eighth -year, entered into his rest, faithfully murmuring, -as well as weakness and stammering lips could -articulate, “The best of all is, God is with us!” -Abel Stevens says, “His life stands out in the -history of the world, unquestionably pre-eminent -in religious labours above that of any other -man since the apostolic age.” It is not necessary, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>in order to do Wesley sufficient honour, -to indulge in such invidious comparisons. It is -significant, however, that the last straggling -syllables which ever fell from the pen in his -beloved hand, were in a letter to William Wilberforce, -cheering him on in his efforts for -the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. -Charles Wesley had preceded his brother to his -rest in 1788, in the eightieth year of his age.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id007'> -<img src='images/i25-page-263-wesleymonument.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>JOHN WESLEY. M.A.<br />BORN JUNE 17, 1703; DIED MARCH 2, 1791.<br />CHARLES WESLEY. M.A.<br />BORN DECEMBER 18, 1708; DIED MARCH 29, 1788.<br />“THE BEST OF ALL IS, GOD IS WITH US.”<br />“I LOOK UPON ALL THE WORLD AS MY PARISH.”<br />The Wesley Monument.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Thus the earlier labourers were passing away, -and the work of the Revival was passing into -other forms, illustrating how not only “one -generation passeth away, and another cometh,” -but also how, as the workers pass, the work -abides. It would be very pleasant to spend -some time in noticing the interior of many old -halls, which were now opening, at once for the -entertainment of evangelists, and for Divine -service; prejudices were dying out, and so far -from the new religious life proving inimical to -the repose of the country, it was found to be -probably its surest security and friend; and -while the efforts were growing for carrying to -far-distant regions the truth which enlightens -and saves, anecdotes are not wanting to show -that it was this very spirit which created a -tender interest in maintaining and devising -means to make more secure the minister’s happiness -at home.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>From many points of view William Wilberforce -maybe regarded as the central man of -the Revival in its new and crowning aspect; as -he bore the standard of England at that great -funeral which did honour to all that was mortal -of his friend William Pitt, on its way to the -vaults of the old Abbey, so, as his predecessors -departed, it devolved on him to bear the standard -of those truths and principles which had -effected the great change, and which were to -effect, if possible, yet greater changes. By his -sweet, winning, and if silvery, yet enchaining -and overwhelming eloquence, by his conversation, -which cannot have been, from the traditions -which are preserved of it, less than -wonderful, and by his lucid and practical pen, -he continued to give eminent effect to the Revival, -and to procure for its doctrines acceptance -in the highest circles of society. It is -perhaps difficult now to understand the cause of -the wonderful influence produced by his <i>Practical -View of Christianity</i>; that book itself -illustrates how the seeds of things are transmitted -through many generations. It is a long -way to look back to the poor pedlar who called -at the farm door of Richard Baxter’s father in -Eaton-Constantine, and sold there Richard -Sibbs’s <i>Bruised Reed</i>, but that was the birth-hour -of that great and transcendently glorious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>book, <i>The Saint’s Everlasting Rest</i>. <i>The Saint’s -Everlasting Rest</i> was the inspiration of Philip -Doddridge, and to it we owe his <i>Rise and Progress -of Religion in the Soul</i>. Wilberforce read -that book, and it moved him to the desire to -speak out its earnestness, pathos, and solemnity -in tones suitable to the spirit of the Great Revival -which had been going on around him. A -young clergyman read the result of Wilberforce’s -wish in his <i>Practical View of Christianity</i>, -and he testifies, “To that book I owe a debt of -gratitude; to my unsought and unexpected introduction -to it, I owe the first sacred impressions -which I ever received as to the spiritual -nature of the Gospel system, the vital character -of personal religion, the corruption of the human -heart, and the way of salvation by Jesus -Christ.” And all this was very shortly given -to the world in those beautiful pieces, which it -surely must be ever a pleasure to read, whether, -for their tender delineation of the most important -truths, or the exquisite language, and the -delightful charm of natural scenery and pathetic -reflection in which the experiences of <i>The -Young Cottager</i>, <i>The Dairyman’s Daughter</i>, and -other “short and simple annals of the poor,” -are conveyed through the fascinating pen of -Legh Richmond.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In this eminently lovely and lovable life we -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>meet with one on whom, assuredly, the mantle -of the old clerical fathers of the Revival had -fallen. He was a Churchman and a clergyman, -he loved and honoured his Church and its services -exceedingly; but it seems impossible to -detect, in any single act of his life or word of -his writings, a tinge of acerbity or bitterness. -The quiet and mellowed charm of his tracts—which -are certainly among the finest pieces of -writing in that way which we possess—appear -to have pervaded his whole life. Brading, in -the Isle of Wight, has been marvellously transformed -since he was the vicar of its simple little -church; the old parsonage, where little Jane -talked with her pastor, is now only a memory, -and no longer, as we saw it first many years -since, a feature in the charming landscape; and -the little epitaphs which the vicar himself wrote -for the stones, or wooden memorials over the -graves of his parishioners, are all obliterated by -time. Several years since we sought in vain -for the sweet verse on his own infant daughter, -although about thirty-five years since we read -it there:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“This early bud, so young and fair,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Called hence by early doom,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Just came to show how sweet a flower</div> - <div class='line in1'>In Paradise should bloom.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c018'>But these little papers of this excellent man -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>circulated wherever the English language was -spoken or read, and the spirit of their pages penetrated -farther than the pages themselves; while -they seem to present in a more pleasant, winning -and portable form the spirit of the Revival, -divested of much of the ruggedness which had, -naturally, characterized its earlier pens.</p> -<p class='c007'>Indeed, if some generalisation were needed -to express the phase into which the Revival -was passing, at this, the earlier part of the -present century, it should be called the “literary.” -Eminent names were appearing, and -eminent pens, to gather up the elements of -faith which had moved the minds and tongues -of men in past years, and to arrest the conscience -through the eye. This opens up a field -so large that we cannot do justice to it in these -brief sketches. To name here only one other -writer;—Thomas Scott, the commentator on -the Bible, and author of <i>The Force of Truth</i>, -is acknowledged to have exerted an influence -the greatness of which has been described in -glowing terms by men such as Sir. James -Stephen and John Henry Newman.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id008'> -<img src='images/i26-page-270-charlessimeon.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>CHARLES SIMEON.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>No idea can be formed by those of the present -generation of the immense influence Charles -Simeon exercised over the mind of the Church -of England. He was the leader of the growing -evangelical party in the Church; his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>doctrines were exactly those which had been -the favourite on the lips of Whitefield, Berridge, -Grimshaw, and Newton. His family was ancient -and respectable, he was the son of a Berkshire -squire. He had been educated at Eton, -and afterwards at King’s College, Cambridge; -he became very wealthy. His accession to the -life of the Revival seemed like an immense -addition of natural influence: he was faithful -and earnest, and, in the habits of his mind and -character, exactly what we understand by the -thorough English gentleman; almost may it be -said that he made the Revival “gentlemanly” -in clergymen. He opened the course of his -fifty-six years’ ministry in Cambridge amidst a -storm of persecution; the church wardens -<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>attempted to crush him, the pews of his church -were locked up, and he was even locked out of -the building. Through all this he passed, and -he became, for the greater part of the long -period we have mentioned, the most noted -preacher of his town and university; and he -published, certainly, in his <i>Horæ Homileticæ</i> a -greater number of attempts at opening texts -in the form of sermons, than had ever been -given to the world. Simeon devoted his own -fortune and means for the purchase of advowsons, -in order that the pulpits of churches might -be filled by the representatives of his own opinions. -No history of the Revival can be -complete without noticing this phase, which -scattered over England, far more extensively -than can be here described, a new order of -clergyman, who have maintained in their circles -evangelical truth, and have held no inconsiderable -sway over the mind of the country.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We only know history through men; events -are only possible through men, of whose mind -and activity they are the manifestation. This -brief succession of sketches has been very greatly -a series of portraits standing out prominently -from the scenery to which the character gave -effect; but of this singular, almost simultaneous -movement, how much has been left unrecorded! -It remains unquestionably true that no -<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>adequate and perfectly impartial review of the -Revival has ever yet been written.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id009'> -<img src='images/i27-page-273-bostonelm.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><span class='small'>Boston Elm.</span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The story of the Revival in Wales, what it -found there, and what it effected, is one of its -most interesting chapters. How deep was the -slumber when, about 1735-37, Howell Harris -began to traverse the Principality, exhorting -his neighbours concerning the interests of their -souls! another illustration that it was not from -one single spring that the streams of the Revival -poured over the land. It was rather like -some great mountain, such as Plinlimmon, -from whose high centre, elevated among the -clouds, leap forth five rivers, meandering among -the rocks in their brook-like way, until at last -they pour themselves along the lowlands in -broad and even magnificent streams, either -uniting as the Severn and the Wye, or finding -their separate way to the ocean. Whitefield -found his way to Wales, but Howell Harris was -already pouring out his consecrated life there; -to his assistance came the voice of Rowlands, -“the thunderer,” as he was called. Scientific -sermon-makers would say that Harris was no -great preacher; but he has been described as -the most successful and wonderful one who -ever ascended pulpit or platform in the Principality. -By the mingling of his tears and his -terrors, in seven years he roused the whole -<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>country from one end to the other, north and -south; communicating the impulse of his zeal -to many like-minded men, by whose impassioned -words and indefatigable labours the -work was continued with signal and lasting results.<a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c012'><b>[20]</b></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f20'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. </span>See a series of papers on “Welsh Preaching and Preachers” -in the <i>Sunday at Home</i>, for 1876.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>If the first throbbings of the coming Revival -were felt in Northampton, in America, in 1734, -beneath the truly awful words of the great -Jonathan Edwards, it was from England it derived -its sustenance, and assumed organisation -and shape. The Boston Elm, a venerable tree -near the centre of Boston Park, or common, -whose decayed limbs are still held together by -clamps or rivets of iron, while a railing defends -it from rude hands, is an object as sacred to the -traditions of Methodism in the United States, -as is Gwennap Pit to those of Methodism in -Western England. There Jesse Lee, the first -founder of Methodism in New England, commenced -the work in 1790, which has issued in -an organisation even more extensive and gigantic -than that which is associated with the -Conference in England. As the United States -have inherited from the mother country their -language, their literature, and their principles -of law, so also those great agitations of spiritual -<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>life to which we have concisely referred, -crossed the Atlantic, and spread themselves -with power there.<a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c012'><b>[21]</b></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c013' id='f21'> -<p class='c014'><span class='label'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. </span>See Chapter <a href='#ch14'>XIV</a>., The Revival in the New World.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>It is not within our province to attempt to -enumerate all the sects, each with its larger or -lesser proportion of spiritual power, religious -activity, and general acceptance among the -people, to which the Revival gave birth;—such -as the large body of the Bible Christians of the -West of England; the Primitive Methodists of -the North, those who called themselves the -New Connection Methodists, or the United -Free Church Association. All these, and -others, are branches from the great central -stem. Neither is it in our province to notice -how the same universal agitation of religious -feeling, at exactly the same time, gave birth to -other forms, not regarded with so much complacency;—such -as the rugged and faulty faith -and following of that curious creature, William -Huntington, who, singular to say, found also -his best biographer in Robert Southey; or the -strangely multifarious works and rationalistic -development of Baron Swedenborg, which have, -at least, the merit of giving a more spiritual -rendering to the Christian system than that -which was found in the prevalent Arianism of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>the period of their publication. Turn wherever -we may, it is the same. There was a deeper -upheaving of the religious life, and far more -widely spread, than perhaps any age of the -world since the time of the apostles had known -before.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A change passed over the whole of English -society. That social state which we find described -in the pages of Fielding and Smollett, -and less respectable writers, passed away, and -passed away, we trust, for ever. The language -of impurity indulged with freedom by the dramatists -of the period when the Revival arose, -and read, and read aloud, by ladies and young -girls in drawing-rooms, or by parlour firesides, -became shameful and dishonoured. In the -course of fifty years, society, if not entirely -purged—for when may we hope for that blessedness?—was -purified. A sense of religious -decorum, and some idea of religious duty, took -possession of homes and minds which were not -at all impressed, either by the doctrines or the -discipline of Methodism. All this arose from -the new life which had been created.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was a fruitful soil upon which the revivalists -worked. There was a reverence for the -Bible as the word of God, a faith often held -very ignorantly, but it pervaded the land. The -Book was there in every parish church, and in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>every hamlet; it became a kind of nexus of -union for true minds when they felt the power -of Divine principles. Thus, when, as the Revival -strengthened itself, the great Evangelic -party—a term which seems to us less open to -exception than “the Methodist party,” because -far more inclusive—met with the members of -the Society of Friends, they found that, with -some substantial differences, they had principles -in common. The Quakers had been long in -the land, but excepting in their own persons—and -they were few in number—they had not -given much effect to their principles. Methodism -roused the country; Quakerism, with its -more quiet thought, gave suggestions, plans, -largely supplied money. The great works -which these two have since unitedly accomplished -of educating the nation, and shaking -off the chain of the slave abroad, neither could -have accomplished singly; the conscience of -the country was prepared by Evangelic sentiment. -In taking up and working out the great -ideas of the Revival, we have never been -indifferent to the share due to members of the -Society of Friends. We have already spoken -of Elizabeth Fry, to whom many of the princes -of Europe in turn paid honour, to whom with -singular simplicity they listened as they heard -her preach. There are many names on which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>we should like a little to dwell; missionaries as -arduous and earnest as any we have mentioned, -such as Stephen Grellet, Thomas Shillitoe, and -Thomas Chalkley. But this would enter into -a larger plan than we dare to entertain. Our -object now is only to say, how greatly other -nations, and the world at large, have benefited -by the awakening the conscience, the setting -free the mind, the education of the character, -by bringing all into immediate contact with -the Word of God and the truth which it unveils.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Situated as we are now, amidst the movements -and agitations of uncertain seas of -thought, wondering as to the future, with -strong adjurations on every hand to renounce -the Word of Life, and to trust ourselves to the -filmy rationalism of modern speculation; while -we feel that for the future, and for those seas -over which we look there are no tide-tables, we -may, at least, safely affirm this, that the Bible -carries us beyond the highest water-mark; -that, as societies have constructed themselves -out of its principles they have built safely, not -only for eternal hope, but for human and social -happiness also; and we may safely ask human -thought—which, unaided and unenlightened -by revelation, has had a pretty fair field for the -exercise and display of its power in the history -of the world—to show to us a single chapter in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>all the ages of its history, which has effected so -much for human, spiritual, intellectual, and -social well-being, as that which records the results -of the Great Revival of the Last Century.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span> - <h2 id='ch14' class='c004'>CHAPTER XIV<br /> <br /><span class='small'>THE REVIVAL IN THE NEW WORLD.</span><br /> <br />[<span class='xsmall'>BY THE EDITOR.</span>]</h2> -</div> -<p class='c006'>The labours of Whitefield had a remarkable -influence upon the extension of the Great Revival -in the colonies of America. In these -days of mammoth steamships and rapid railways, -equipped with drawing-room coaches, -travelling has become a pleasant pastime; but -a century and a half ago, when the sailing -vessel and the old lumbering stage-coach were -the most rapid and the chief means of public -conveyance, and when these were often uncertain -and irregular, subjecting the traveller to -frequent and annoying delays, if not disappointments, -it must have been a formidable -undertaking to cross the Atlantic and to journey -through a new country, almost a wilderness, -such long distances as from Georgia to -Massachusetts. Yet Whitefield, with a zeal -and a holy desire in “hunting for souls,” made -seven visits to America, crossing the ocean in -sailing-vessels thirteen times (“one voyage -lasting eleven weeks”), and travelled on his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>preaching tours almost constantly. In one of -these visits he went upwards of 1,100 miles -through this then sparsely settled country, and -endured hardships and exposures from which a -far stronger and more vigorous constitution -might well shrink.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As in England, so in the American colonies, -the decay of vital godliness which preceded -the great awakening had been long and deep. -It began in the latter part of the 17th century, -and its progress was observed with alarm by -many of the notable and godly men of the day. -Governor Stoughton, previous to resigning the -pulpit for the bench, proclaimed, at Boston, -that “many had become like Joash after the -death of Jehoiada—rotten, hypocritical, and a -lie!” The venerable Torrey of Weymouth, in -a sermon before the legislature, exclaimed, -“There is already a great death upon religion; -little more left than a name to live. It is dying -as to the being of it, by the general failure of -the work of conversion.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mather, in 1700, asserts: “If the begun -apostasy should proceed as fast the next thirty -years as it has done these last, it will come to -that in New England (except the gospel itself -depart with the order of it) that churches must -be gathered out of churches.” President Willard -also published a sermon in the same year -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>on “The Perils of the Times Displayed,” in -which he asks, “Whence is there such a prevalency -of so many immoralities amongst professors? -Why so little success of the gospel? -How few thorough conversions to be observed; -how scarce and seldom! * * * It has been -a frequent observation that if one generation -begins to decline, the next that follows usually -grows worse; and so on, until God pours out -his spirit again upon them.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was thirty years before the dawn of the -great awakening began to appear, even in the -colony of Massachusetts; but there were many -godly men in various portions of the American -colonies who had not yet bowed the knee to the -Baal of worldliness, and who earnestly sought, -by great fidelity in the presentation of the -truth, to arrest the evil tendency of the times. -Among them was that greatest of American -theologians, Jonathan Edwards. Beholding -the melancholy state of religion, not only at -Northampton, but in the surrounding regions, -and that this evil tendency was corrupting the -Church, he began to preach with greater boldness, -more especially with the purpose of -keeping error out of the Church than with the -design of awakening sinners. He was a man, -however, whose convictions were exceedingly -strong, and who preached the truth, not simply -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>for the purpose of gaining a worldly victory, -but because he loved the truth and the Spirit -wrought mightily by it. A surprising work of -grace attended his preaching. There was a -melting down of all classes and ages, in an -overwhelming solicitude about salvation; an -absorbing sense of eternal realities and self-abasement -and self-condemnation; a spirit of -secret and social prayer, followed by a concern -for the souls of others; and this awakening was -so sudden and solemn, that in many instances -it produced loud outcries, and in some cases -convulsions. Doubtless this great awakening -was as much a surprise to Edwards as to those -to whom he ministered. Naturally, such a -wonderful work could not be confined to -Northampton alone; it began to extend to -other places in the colony. Remarkable and -widespread as this work of grace was, however, -it does not seem to have penetrated through -New England generally, until after the arrival -of Whitefield. The effect of Whitefield’s preaching -in Boston, says his biographer, was amazing. -Old Mr. Walter, the successor of Eliot, -the apostle to the Indians, declared it was Puritanism -revived. So great was the interest -that his farewell sermon was attended by -twenty thousand persons. “Such a power and -presence of God with a preacher, and in religious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>assemblies,” says Dr. Colman, “I -never saw before. Every day gives me fresh -proofs of Christ speaking in him.” And this -interest, great as it was, seemed, if possible, -exceeded at Northampton when Whitefield -met Edwards and reminded his people of the -days of old. A like success attended Whitefield’s -ministry in the town and college of -New Haven, and at Harvard College the effect -was remarkable. Secretary Willard, writing -to Whitefield, says: “That which forebodes -the most lasting advantage is the new state of -things in the college, where the impressions of -religion have been and still are very general, -and many in a judgment of charity brought -home to Christ. Divers gentlemen’s sons that -were sent there only for a more polite education, -are now so full of zeal for the cause of -Christ and the love of souls as to devote themselves -entirely to the study of divinity.” And -Dr. Colman wrote Whitefield, of Cambridge: -“The college is entirely changed; the students -are full of God, and will, I hope, come -out blessings in their generation, and I trust -are so now to each other. The voice of prayer -and praise fills their chambers, and sincerity, -fervency, and joy, with seriousness of heart, sit -visible on their faces.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>On his return to Boston, in 1745, Whitefield -<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>himself gives a similar testimony in regard to -the remarkable results of the Revival. He was -followed in his labours there by Gilbert Tennent, -a Presbyterian from New Jersey. That -this was not an overdrawn picture of the work -may be inferred from a public testimony given -by three of the leading ministers in Boston, the -Rev. Messrs. Prince, Webb, and Cooper. -Among other things, they said, “The wondrous -work of God at this day making its triumphant -progress through the land has forced many men -of clear minds, strong powers, considerable -knowledge, and firmly riveted in * * * * -Socinian tenets, to give them all up at once -and yield to the adorable sovereignty and -irresistibility of the Divine Spirit in His saving -operations on the souls of men. For to see -such men as these, some of them of licentious -lives, long inured in a course of vice and of -high spirits, coming to the preaching of the -Word, some only out of curiosity, and mere design -to get matter of cavilling and banter, all -at once, in opposition to their inward resolutions -and resistances, to fall under an unexpected -and hated power, to have all the -strength of their resolution and resistance taken -away, to have such inward views of the horrid -wickedness not only of their lives but of their -hearts, with their exceeding great and immediate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>danger of eternal misery as has amazed -their souls and thrown them into distress -unutterable, yea, forced them to cry out in the -assemblies with the greatest agonies, and then, -in two or three days, and sometimes sooner, -to have such unexpected and raised views of -the infinite grace and love of God in Christ, as -have enabled them to believe in Him; lifted -them at once out of their distress; filled -their hearts with admiration and joy unspeakable -and full of glory, breaking forth in their -shining countenances and transporting voices -to the surprise of those about them, kindling -up at once into a flame of love to God in utter -detestation of their former courses and vicious -habits,” fairly characterises this wonderful work -of God.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Gilbert Tennent, who was pressed into the -field by Whitefield, was born in Ireland, and -brought to this country by his father, and was -educated for the ministry. As a preacher he -was, in his vigorous days, equalled by few. -His reasoning powers were strong, his language -was forcible and often sublime, and his manner -of address warm and earnest. His eloquence -was, however, rather bold and awful than soft -and persuasive, he was most pungent in his -address to the conscience. When he wished to -alarm the sinner, he could represent in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>most awful manner the terrors of the Lord. -With admirable dexterity he exposed the false -hope of the hypocrite, and searched the corrupt -heart to the bottom. Such were some of the -qualifications of the man whom Whitefield -chose to continue his work in America. He -entered on his new labours with almost rustic -simplicity, wearing his hair undressed and a -large great-coat girt with a leathern girdle. -He was of lofty stature and dignified and grave -aspect. His career as a preacher in New Jersey -had been remarkable, and now in New England -his ministry was hardly less successful than -that of Whitefield. He actually shook the -country as with an earthquake. Wherever he -came hypocrisy and Pharisaism either fell -before him or gnashed their teeth against him. -Cold orthodoxy also started from her downy -cushion to imitate or to denounce him. So testifies -the author of the “<i>Life and Times of -Whitefield</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Whitefield’s first reception in New York was -not particularly flattering. He was refused the -use of both the church and the court-house. “The -commissary of the Bishop,” he says, “was full -of anger and resentment, and denied me the use -of his pulpit before I asked him for it.” He replied, -“I will preach in the fields, for all places -are alike to me.” At a subsequent visit he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>preached there seven weeks with great acceptableness -and success. Even his first labours -were not wholly in vain. Dr. Pemberton wrote -to him that many were deeply affected, and -some who had been loose and profligate were -ashamed and set upon thorough reformation. -The printers also at New York, as at Philadelphia, -applied to him for sermons to publish, -assuring him “that hundreds had called for -them, and that thousands would purchase them.” -Of his later visit he says, “Such flocking of all -ranks I never saw before.” At New York -many of the most respectable gentlemen and -merchants went home with him after his sermons -to hear something more of the kingdom -of Christ.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“At Philadelphia,” says Philip, in his Life -and Times of Whitefield, “his welcome was -cordial. Ministers and laymen of all denominations -visited him, inviting him to preach. -He was especially pleased to find that they -preferred sermons when not delivered within -church walls. It was well they did, for his -fame had reached the city before he arrived and -this collected crowds which no church could -contain. The court-house steps became his -pulpit, and neither he nor the people wearied, -although the cold winds of November blew -upon them night after night.” Previous to one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>of his visits in Philadelphia, a place was erected -in which Whitefield could preach, and its -managers offered him £800 annually, with -liberty to travel six months in a year wherever -he chose, if he would become their pastor. -Though pleased with the offer he promptly -declined it. He was more pleased to learn that -in consequence of a former visit there were so -many under soul-sickness that even Gilbert -Tennent’s feet were blistered with walking -from place to place to see them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of his work in Maryland he writes, that he -found those who had never heard of redeeming -grace. The harvest is promising. “Have -Marylanders also received the grace of God? -Amazing love. Maryland is yielding converts -to Jesus; the Gospel is moving southwards.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>He frequently visited New Jersey (Princeton) -College, and there won many young -and bright witnesses for Christ. Hearing that -sixteen students had been converted at a -former visit, he again went thither to fan the -flame he had kindled among the students, and -says that he had four sweet seasons which -resembled old times. His spirits rose at the -sight of the young soldiers who were to fight -when he fell.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Although at times prejudice ran high against -the Indians, Whitefield espoused their cause as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>a philanthropist, and preached to them through -interpreters at the Indian school of Lebanon, -under Dr. Wheelock, where the sight of a promising -nursery for future missionaries greatly -inspired him. And at one of the stations -maintained by the sainted Brainerd, he -preached, found converted Indians, and saw -nearly fifty young ones in one school learning -a Bible catechism. In the Indian school at -Lebanon he became so interested that he -appealed to the public and collected £120 at -one meeting for its maintenance. Wherever -he went he saw the Redeemer’s stately steps -in the great congregations which he addressed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If there was any one point about which -Whitefield’s interest centered in America, it -was in the orphan asylum which he aided in -establishing in Georgia. This was his “Bethesda.” -The prosperity of the orphan home -was engraved upon his heart as with the point -of a diamond, and it was ever vividly present to -him wherever he went. At one of his visits -on parting with the inmates he says: “Oh, -what a sweet meeting I had with my dear -friends! What God has prepared for me I -know not; but surely I cannot expect a greater -happiness until I embrace the saints in glory! -When I parted my heart was ready to break -with sorrow, but now it almost bursts with joy. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>Oh, how did each in turn hang upon my neck, -kiss and weep over me with tears of joy! And -my own soul was so full of the sense of God’s -love, when I embraced one friend in particular, -that I thought I should have expired in the place. -I felt my soul so full of the sense of Divine -goodness that I wanted words to express myself. -When we came to public worship, young -and old were all dissolved in tears. After -service several of my parishioners, all of my -family, and the little children returned home -crying along the street, and some could not avoid -praying very loud. Being very weak in body -I laid myself upon a bed, but finding so many -in a weeping condition I rose and betook myself -to prayer again, but had I not lifted up my -voice very high the groans and cries of the -children would have prevented me from being -heard. This continued for near an hour, till at -last, finding their concern rather to increase -than to abate, I desired all to retire. Then -some or other might be heard praying earnestly -in every corner of the house. It happened at -this time to thunder and lighten, which added -very much to the solemnity of the night. * * * I -mention the orphans in particular, that their -benefactors may rejoice at what God is doing -for their souls.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is evident that Whitefield had a very -<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>tender heart towards all children. One of his -most effective sermons at Webb’s Chapel, -Boston, was occasioned by the touching remark -of a dying boy, who had heard him the day -before. The boy was taken ill after the sermon, -and said, “I want to go to Mr. Whitefield’s -God”—and expired. This touched the -secret place of both the thunder and the tears -of Whitefield. He says, “It encouraged me to -speak to the little ones, but oh, how were the -old people affected when I said, ‘Little children, -if your parents will not come to Christ, do -you come and go to heaven without them.’” -After this awful appeal no wonder that there -were but few dry eyes.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another remarkable evidence of the extent -and power of the Revival, and of the versatility -of Mr. Whitefield’s talents, is shown in -the effect produced upon the negro mind. -The intensest interest prevailed among even -the poorest slaves. Upon one occasion Whitefield -was very ill, and in the hands of the physician -to the time when he was expected to -preach. Suddenly he exclaimed, “My pains -are suspended; by the help of God I will go -and preach, and then come home and die!” -With some difficulty he reached the pulpit. All -were surprised, and looked as though they saw -one risen from the dead. He says of himself, “I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>was as pale as death, and told them they must -look upon me as a dying man come to bear my -dying testimony to the truths I had formerly -preached to them. All seemed melted, and -were drowned in tears. The cry after me when -I left the pulpit was like the cry of sincere -mourners when attending the funeral of a dear -departed friend. Upon my coming home, -I was laid upon a bed upon the ground near -the fire, and I heard them say, ‘He is gone!’ -but God was pleased to order it otherwise. I -gradually recovered. At this time a poor -negro woman insisted upon seeing him when -he began to recover. She came in and sat on -the ground, and looked earnestly into his face; -then she said, in broken accents: “Massa, you -jest go to hebben’s gate; but Jesus Christ said, -‘Get you down, get you down; you musn’t -come here yet; go first and call some more poor -negroes.’” Many colored people came to him -asking, “Have I a soul?” Many societies for -prayer and mutual instruction were set up. Mr. -Seward, a travelling companion of Whitefield,; -relates that a drinking club, whereof a clergyman -was a member, had a negro boy attending -them, who used to mimic people for their diversion. -They called on him to mimic Whitefield, -which he was very unwilling to do; but they -insisted upon it. He stood up and said:—“I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, unless you -repent you will all be damned.” Seward adds, -“This unexpected speech broke up the club, -which has never met since.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At Savannah, Charleston, and other southern -cities, the Great Revival had a remarkable success. -Josiah Smith, an Independent minister -of Charleston, published a sermon on the -character and preaching of Whitefield, defending -his doctrines, his personal character, and -describing his manner of preaching. Of Whitefield’s -power he says: “He is certainly a -finished preacher; a noble negligence ran -through his style; the passion and flame of his inspiration -will, I trust, be long felt by many. How -was his tongue like the pen of a ready writer, -touched as with a coal from the altar! With -what a flow of words, what a ready profusion of -language did he speak to us upon the concerns -of our souls! In what a flaming light did he -set <i>our</i> eternity before us! How earnestly he -pressed Christ upon us! The awe, the silence, -the attention, which sat upon the faces of the -great audience was an argument, how he could -reign over all their powers. Many thought he -spake as never man spake before him. So -charmed were the people with the manner of -his address that they shut up their shops, forgot -their secular business, and the oftener he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>preached the keener edge he seemed to put -upon their desires to hear him again. How -awfully—with what thunder and sound—did he -discharge the artillery of heaven upon us! -Eternal themes, the tremendous solemnities of -our religion were all alive upon his tongue. He -struck at the politest and most modish of our -vices, and at the most fashionable entertainments, -regardless of every one’s presence but -His in whose name he spake with this authority. -And I dare warrant if none should go to -these diversions until they had answered the -solemn questions he put to their consciences, -our theatres would soon sink and perish.” Mr. -Smith adds that £600 were contributed in -Charleston to the orphan house.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The wonderful quickening which the Great -Revival gave to benevolent and charitable -enterprises deserves at least a passing allusion. -Besides sending forth into mission work such -men as David Brainerd, and even Jonathan -Edwards himself, it also laid the foundation -more securely of many of our Christian colleges, -and of not a few of our orphan asylums. Whitefield -founded his Bethesda upon a tract of land -covering about 500 acres, ten miles from Savannah, -and laid out the plan of the building, -employed workmen, hired a large house, took -in 24 orphans, incurred at once the heavy -<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>responsibilities of a large family and a larger -institution, encouraged, as he says, by the -example of Professor Francke. Yet on looking -back to this first undertaking he said: “I forgot -that Professor Francke built in a populous -country and that I was building at the very tail -end of the world, which rendered it by far the -most expensive part of all his Majesty’s dominions; -but had I received more and ventured -less, I should have suffered less and others -more.” He undertook to provide for his 40 -orphans and 60 servants and workmen with no -fears nor misgivings of heart. “Near a hundred -mouths,” he writes, “are daily to be supplied -with food. The expense is great, but our great -and good God, I am persuaded, will enable me -to defray it.” He spent a winter at Bethesda -in 1764, and of the success of his orphanage he -says, “Peace and plenty reign at Bethesda; all -things go on successfully. God has given me -great favour in the sight of the governor, council, -and assembly. A memorial was presented -for an additional grant of land consisting of -about 2,000 acres, and was immediately complied -with. Every heart seems to leap for joy -at the prospect of its future utility to this and -the neighbouring colonies.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>This great religious movement did not progress -without stirring up much bitterness. It -<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>was even asserted by President Clap, of New -Haven, that he came into New England to -turn out the generality of their ministers, and to -replace them with ministers from England, -Ireland, and Scotland. “Such a thought,” -replies Whitefield, “never entered my heart, -neither has, as I know of, my preaching any -such tendency.” It is said of one minister that -he went merely to pick a hole in Whitefield’s -coat, but confessed that God picked a hole in -his heart, and afterward healed it by the blood -of Christ. After one of his visits not less -than twenty ministers in the neighbourhood of -Boston did not hesitate to call Whitefield their -spiritual father, tracing their conversion to his -preaching. These men immediately entered -upon a similar work, spreading the great -awakening throughout that colony.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the progress of this work under Whitefield -and others, there were frequent outbursts of -wit and grim humor. Thus when pastors were -shy of giving Whitefield and his associates a -place in their pulpits and the people voted to -allow them to preach in their churches, Whitefield -said, “The <i>lord</i>-brethren of New England -could tyrannize as well as the <i>lord</i>-bishops of -Old England.” The caricatures issued from -Boston in regard to the work were designated -as half-penny squibs; and a good old Puritan -of the city said, “they did not weigh much.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>Of the religion of America Whitefield writes: -“I am more and more in love with the good -old Puritans. I am pleased at the thought of -sitting down hereafter with the venerable -Cotton, Norton, Eliot, and that great cloud of -witnesses who first crossed the western ocean -for the sake of the sacred gospel and the faith -once delivered to the saints. At present my -soul is so filled that I can scarce proceed.” -Again he writes: “It is too much for one man -to be received as I have been by thousands. -The thoughts of it lay me low but I cannot get -low enough. I would willingly sink into -nothing before the blessed Jesus—my all in all.” -And again, “I love those that thunder out the -Word. The Christian world is in a deep sleep, -nothing but a loud voice can awaken them out -of it. Had we a thousand hands and tongues -there is employment enough for them all. -People are everywhere ready to perish for -lack of knowledge.” To an aged veteran he -writes from North Carolina, “I am here hunting -in the woods—these ungospelized wilds—for -sinners. It is pleasant work, though my body -is weak and crazy. But after a short fermentation -in the grave, it will be fashioned like unto -Christ’s glorious body. The thought of this -rejoices my soul and makes me long to leap my -seventy years. I sometimes think all will go to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>heaven before me. Pray for me as a dying man, -but, oh, pray that I may not go off as a snuff. -I would fain die blazing—not with human glory, -but with the love of Jesus.” Such was the -spirit filling the great souls of those who were -God’s instruments in spreading the revival in -America. Mr. Whitefield died at Newburyport, -Massachusetts, Sept. 30, 1770, having -preached the day before at Exeter, and his body -rests in a crypt or tomb beneath the Presbyterian -church at that place.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of the effects of the Great Revival in -America, Dr. Abel Stevens says, “The Congregational -churches of New England, the -Presbyterians and Baptists of the Middle States, -and the mixed colonies of the South, owe their -late religious life and energy mostly to the -impulse given by his [Whitefield’s] powerful -ministrations.” * * * In Pennsylvania and New -Jersey, where Frelinghuysen, Blair, Rowland, -and the two Tennents had been labouring with -evangelistic zeal, he was received as a prophet -of God, and it was then that the Presbyterian -Church took that attitude of evangelical power -and aggression which has ever since characterized -it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A single incident will illustrate the effect of -the Revival upon unbelievers and skeptics. A -noted officer of Philadelphia, who had long -<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>been almost an atheist, crept into the crowd -one night to hear a sermon on the visit of -Nicodemus to Christ. When he came home, -his wife not knowing where he had been, -wished he had heard what she had been hearing. -He said nothing. Another and another -of his family came in and made a similar remark -till he burst into tears and said, “I have been -hearing him and approve of his sermon.” He -afterwards became a sincere Christian with the -spirit of a martyr.</p> - -<p class='c007'>These etchings of a few scenes and fewer -facts indicate the scope, the depth, and the -sweep of the Great Revival of the 18th century -in America. No attempt has been made to -sum up its results, nor has it come within the -purpose of this work to give an inward history -of the movement, nor to explain the philosophy -of it. These intricate questions may be left to -philosophers; the Christian delights to know -the facts; he will cheerfully wait for the future -life to unfold all the mystery and philosophy of -the plan and work of salvation. Then, as -Whitefield exclaims, “What amazing mysteries -will be unfolded when each link in the golden -chain of providence and grace shall be seen and -scanned by beatified spirits in the kingdom of -heaven! Then all will appear symmetry and -harmony, and even the most intricate and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>seemingly most contrary dispensations, will be -evidenced to be the result of infinite and consummate -wisdom, power, and love. Above all, -there the believer will see the infinite depths of -that mystery of godliness, ‘God manifested in -the flesh,’ and join with that blessed choir, who, -with a restless unweariedness, are ever singing -the song of Moses and the Lamb.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<hr class='c005' /> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span> - <h3 id='app-a' class='c002'>APPENDIX A (<span class='sc'>Pages <a href='#Page_9'>9</a> and</span> <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>).</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar -character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and -eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general -terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every -event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was -too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know -him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was, with them, the great end -of existence. They rejected, with contempt, the ceremonious -homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of -the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity -through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable -brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence -originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference -between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed -to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which -separated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were -constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but His -favor; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accomplishments -and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted -with the works of philosophers and poets, they were -deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found -in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of -Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train -of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. -Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their diadems -crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and -the eloquent, on nobles or priests they looked down with contempt, -for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious -measure, and eloquent in a more sublime language—nobles by -right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a -mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose -fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged, on whose -slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with -anxious interest, who had been destined, before Heaven and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue -when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events -which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had -been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, -and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had -proclaimed His will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp -of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer -from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by -the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. -It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks -had been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had -shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men: the one -all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other -proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the -dust before his Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his -king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, -and groans and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or -terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting -whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, -or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, -he thought himself entrusted with the sceptre of the millennial -year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that -God had hid His face from him. But when he took his seat -in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous -workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. -People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, -and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining -hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to -laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate, or on the field -of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a -coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which -some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, -but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity -of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every -other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity -and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors and -pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, -their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this -world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised -them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes -might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to -choose unwise means. They went through the world, like Sir -Artegal’s iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling -down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having -neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, -to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, not to -be withstood by any barrier.—<i>Macaulay’s Essay on Milton.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-b' class='c002'>APPENDIX B (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>“‘The Vicar of Wakefield’ is a domestic epic. Its hero is a -country parson—simple, pious and pure-hearted—a humourist in -his way, a little vain of his learning, a little proud of his fine -family—sometimes rather sententious, never pedantic, and a -dogmatist only on the one favorite topic of monogamy, which -crops out now and then above the surface of his character, only -to give it a new charm. Its world is a rural district, beyond -whose limits the action rarely passes, and that only on great occasions. -Domestic affections and joys, relieved by its cares, its -foibles, and its little failings, cluster around the parsonage, till -the storms from the outward world invade its holiness and trouble -its peace. Then comes sorrow and suffering; and we have -the hero, like the patriarchal prince of the land of Uz, when the -Lord ‘put forth His hand and touched all that He had,’ meeting -each new affliction with meekness and with patience—rising from -each new trial with renewed reliance upon God, till the lowest -depth of his earthly suffering becomes the highest elevation of -his moral strength.”</p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-c' class='c002'>APPENDIX C (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>The most interesting phases which the Reformation anywhere -assumes, especially for us English, is that of Puritanism. In -Luther’s own country, Protestantism soon dwindled into a rather -barren affair, not a religion or faith, but rather now a theological -jangling of argument, the proper seat of it not the heart; the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>essence of it skeptical contention; which, indeed, has jangled -more and more, down to Voltairism itself; through Gustavus -Adolphus contentions onward to French-Revolution cries! But -on our island there arose a Puritanism, which even got itself established -as a Presbyterianism and national church among the -Scotch; which came forth as a real business of the heart; and -has produced in the world very notable fruit. In some senses -one may say it is the only phase of Protestantism that ever got to -the rank of being a faith, a true communication with Heaven, -and of exhibiting itself in history as such. We must spare a few -words for Knox; himself a brave and remarkable man; but -still more important as chief priest and founder, which one may -consider him to be, of the faith that became Scotland’s, New -England’s, Oliver Cromwell’s. History will have something to -say about this for some time to come!</p> - -<p class='c007'>We may censure Puritanism as we please; and no one of us, I -suppose, but would find it a very rough, defective thing; but -we, and all men, may understand that it was a genuine thing; -for nature has adopted it, and it has grown and grows. I say -sometimes that all goes by wager of battle in this world; that -<i>strength</i>, well understood, is the measure of all worth. Give a -thing time; if it can succeed, it is a right thing. Look now at -American Saxondom; and at that little fact of the sailing of the -Mayflower, two hundred years ago, from Delft Haven, in Holland! -Were we of open sense, as the Greeks were, we had -found a poem here; one of nature’s own poems, such as she -writes in broad facts over great continents. For it was properly -the beginning of America: there were straggling settlers in -America before, some material as of a body was there; but the -soul of it was first this. These poor men, driven out of their -own country, not able well to live in Holland, determined on -settling in the New World. Black, untamed forests are there, -and wild, savage creatures; but not so cruel as star-chamber -hangmen. They thought the earth would yield them food, if they -tilled honestly; the everlasting Heaven would stretch there, too, -overhead; they should be left in peace, to prepare for Eternity -by living well in this world of time; worshipping in what they -thought the true, not the idolatrous way. They clubbed their -small means together; hired a ship, the little ship Mayflower, -and made ready to set sail. In <i>Neal’s History of the Puritans</i> is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>an account of the ceremony of their departure; solemnity, we -might call it, rather, for it was a real act of worship. Their -minister went down with them to the beach, and their brethren, -whom they were to leave behind; all joined in solemn prayer -that God would have pity on His poor children, and go with -them into that waste wilderness, for He also had made that, He -was there also as well as here. Hah! These men, I think, had -a work! The weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes strong -one day, if it be a true thing. Puritanism was only despicable, -laughable then; but nobody can manage to laugh at it now. -Puritanism has got weapons and sinews; it has fire-arms, war -navies; it has cunning in its ten fingers, strength in its right -arm: it can steer ships, fell forests, remove mountains; it is one -of the strongest things under this sun at present!—<i>Carlyle on -Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-d' class='c002'>APPENDIX D (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>It has been said of Lady Huntingdon that “almost from infancy -an uncommon seriousness shaded the natural gladness of her -childhood,” and that, without any positive religious instruction, -for none knew her “inward sorrows,” when she was a “little -girl, nor were there any around her who could have led her to -the balm there is in Gilead,” she devoutly and diligently -searched the Scriptures, if haply she might find that precious -something which her soul craved.</p> - -<p class='c007'>During the first years of her married life (she was married at -the age of 21 and in the year 1728), “her chief endeavor * * * -was to maintain a conscience void of offense. She strove -to fulfill the various duties of her position with scrupulous exactness; -she was sincere, just and upright; she prayed, fasted -and gave alms; she was courteous, considerate and charitable.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Her husband, Lord Huntingdon, had a sister, Lady Margaret -Hastings, who, under the preaching of Mr. Ingham, in Ledstone -Church in Yorkshire, was converted. Afterwards, when visiting -her brother, these words were uttered by her: “Since I have -known and believed in the Lord Jesus for salvation, I have been -as happy as an angel.” The expression was strange to Lady -Huntingdon—it alarmed her—she sought to work out a righteousness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>of her own, but the effort only widened the breach between -herself and God. “Thus harassed by inward conflicts, -Lady Huntingdon was thrown upon a sick bed, and after many -days and nights seemed hastening to the grave. The fear of -death fell terribly upon her.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>In that condition the words of Lady Margaret recurred with a -new meaning. “I too will wholly cast myself on Jesus Christ -for life and salvation,” was her last refuge; and from her bed -she lifted up her heart to God for pardon and mercy through -the blood of His Son. “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief,” -was her prayer. Doubt and distress vanished and joy and -peace filled her bosom.—<i>From “Lady Huntingdon and her -Friends.” Compiled by Mrs. Helen C. Knight.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-e' class='c002'>APPENDIX E (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>“It is easier to justify the heads of the restored Clergy upon -this point [want of uniformity or unity in the Church of England], -than to excuse them for appropriating to themselves the -wealth which, in consequence of the long protracted calamities -of the nation, was placed at their disposal. The leases of the -church lands had almost all fallen in; there had been no renewal -for twenty years, and the fines which were now raised -amounted to about a million and a half. Some of this money -was expended in repairing, as far as was reparable, that havoc -in churches and cathedrals which the fanatics had made in their -abominable reign; some also was disposed of in ransoming English -slaves from the Barbary pirates; but the greater part went -to enrich individuals and build up families, instead of being employed, -as it ought to have been, in improving the condition of -the inferior clergy. Queen Anne applied the tenths and first -fruits to this most desirable object; but the effect of her augmentation -was slow and imperceptible: they continued in a -state of degrading poverty, and that poverty was another cause -of the declining influence of the Church, and the increasing irreligion -of the people.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A further cause is to be found in the relaxation of discipline. -In the Romish days it had been grossly abused; and latterly -also it had been brought into general abhorrence and contempt -<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>by the tyrannical measures of Laud on one side, and the absurd -vigor of Puritanism on the other. The clergy had lost that -authority which may always command at least the appearance -of respect; and they had lost that respect also by which the -place of authority may sometimes so much more worthily be -supplied. For the loss of power they were not censurable; but -if they possessed little of that influence which the minister who -diligently and conscientiously discharges his duty will certainly -acquire, it is manifest that, as a body, they must have been culpably -remiss. From the Restoration to the accession of the -House of Hanover, the English Church could boast of some of -its brightest ornaments and ablest defenders; men who have -neither been surpassed in piety, nor in erudition, nor in industry, -nor in eloquence, nor in strength and subtlety of mind: and -when the design for re-establishing popery in these kingdoms -was systematically pursued, to them we are indebted for that -calm and steady resistance, by which our liberties, civil as well -as religious, were preserved. But in the great majority of the -clergy zeal was awanting. The excellent Leighton spoke of the -Church as a fair carcass without a spirit; in doctrine, in worship, -and in the main part of its government, he thought it the best -constituted in the world, but one of the most corrupt in its administration. -And Burnet observes, that in his time our clergy -had less authority, and were under more contempt, than those -of any other church in Europe; for they were much the most -remiss in their labors, and the least severe in their lives. It -was not that their lives were scandalous; he entirely acquitted -them of any such imputation; but they were not exemplary as -it became them to be: and in the sincerity and grief of a pious -and reflecting mind, he pronounced that they should never regain -the influence which they had lost, till they lived better and -labored more.”—<i>Southey’s Life of Wesley.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='app-f' class='c002'>APPENDIX F (<span class='sc'>Pages <a href='#Page_73'>73</a> and <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></span>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>“The observant Frenchman to whom we have several times -referred, M. Grosley, says of the ‘sect of the Methodists,’ ‘this -establishment has borne all the persecutions that it could possibly -apprehend in a country as much disposed to persecution as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>England is the reverse.’ The light literature of forty years overflows -with ridicule of Methodism. The preachers are pelted by -the mob; the converts are held up to execration as fanatics or -hypocrites. Yet Methodism held the ground it had gained. It -had gone forth to utter the words of truth to men little above the -beasts that perish, and it had brought them to regard themselves, -as akin to humanity. The time would come when its earnestness -would awaken the Church itself from its somnolency, -and the educated classes would not be ashamed to be religious. -There was wild enthusiasm enough in some of the followers of -Whitefield and Wesley; much self seeking; zeal verging upon -profaneness; moral conduct, strongly opposed to pious profession. -But these earnest men left a mark upon their time which -can never be effaced. The obscure young students at Oxford in -1736, who were first called ‘Sacramentarians,’ then ‘Bible -moths,’ and finally ‘Methodists, to whom the regular pulpits -were closed, and who went forth to preach in the fields—who -separated from the Church more in form than in reality—produced -a moral revolution in England which probably saved us -from the fate of nations wholly abandoned to their own devices.”—<i>From -Knight’s History of England.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Pages <a href='#Page_97'>97</a> and <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></span>).</div> - <div>(<i>See Appendix <a href='#app-a'>A</a> and <a href='#app-f'>F</a>.</i>)</div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c011' /> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='p-114' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>“The ‘two brothers in song’ (John and Charles Wesley) began -their issue of ‘Hymns and Sacred Songs’ in 1739, and continued -at intervals to supply Christian singers for half a century. Thirty-eight -publications appeared one after the other: now under the -name of one brother, now under that of the other; some with -both names, and others nameless. The two hymnists appear to -have agreed that, in the volumes which bore their joint names, -they would not distinguish their hymns.”—<i>The Epworth Singers -and other poets of Methodism, by the Rev. S. W. Christophers, Redruth, -Cornwall.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span> - <h3 id='p-118' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Note, Page</span> <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>).</h3> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The God of Abraham praise,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Who reigns enthron’d above;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Ancient of everlasting days,</div> - <div class='line in8'>And God of love:</div> - <div class='line in4'>Jehovah—great I Am—</div> - <div class='line in4'>By earth and Heavens confest;</div> - <div class='line in1'>I bow and bless the sacred name,</div> - <div class='line in8'>For ever bless’d.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The God of Abraham praise,</div> - <div class='line in4'>At whose supreme command</div> - <div class='line in1'>From earth I rise, and seek the joys</div> - <div class='line in8'>At His right hand:</div> - <div class='line in4'>I all on earth forsake,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Its wisdom, fame and power,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And Him my only portion make,</div> - <div class='line in8'>My Shield and Tower.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The God of Abraham praise,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Whose all-sufficient grace</div> - <div class='line in1'>Shall guide me all my happy days,</div> - <div class='line in8'>In all my ways:</div> - <div class='line in4'>He calls a worm His friend!</div> - <div class='line in4'>He calls Himself my God!</div> - <div class='line in1'>And He shall save me to the end,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Thro’ Jesus’ blood.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>He by Himself hath sworn!</div> - <div class='line in4'>I on His oath depend,</div> - <div class='line in1'>I shall, on eagle’s wings up-borne,</div> - <div class='line in8'>To Heaven ascend;</div> - <div class='line in4'>I shall behold His face,</div> - <div class='line in4'>I shall His power adore,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And sing the wonders of His grace</div> - <div class='line in8'>For evermore.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Tho’ nature’s strength decay,</div> - <div class='line in4'>And earth and hell withstand,</div> - <div class='line in1'>To Canaan’s bounds I urge my way</div> - <div class='line in8'>At His command:</div> - <div class='line in4'><span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>The wat’ry deep I pass,</div> - <div class='line in4'>With Jesus in my view;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And thro’ the howling wilderness</div> - <div class='line in8'>My way pursue.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The goodly land I see,</div> - <div class='line in4'>With peace and plenty bless’d;</div> - <div class='line in1'>A land of sacred liberty,</div> - <div class='line in8'>And endless rest.</div> - <div class='line in4'>There milk and honey flow,</div> - <div class='line in4'>And oil and wine abound,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And trees of life forever grow,</div> - <div class='line in8'>With mercy crown’d.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>There dwells the Lord our King,</div> - <div class='line in4'>The Lord our Righteousness,</div> - <div class='line'>Triumphant o’er the world and sin,</div> - <div class='line in8'>The Prince of Peace;</div> - <div class='line in4'>On Sion’s sacred heights</div> - <div class='line in4'>His Kingdom still maintains;</div> - <div class='line'>And glorious with the saints in light,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Forever reigns.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>He keeps His own secure,</div> - <div class='line in4'>He guards them by His side,</div> - <div class='line in1'>Arrays in garments white and pure</div> - <div class='line in8'>His spotless bride.</div> - <div class='line in4'>With streams of sacred bliss,</div> - <div class='line in4'>With groves of living joys,</div> - <div class='line in1'>With all the fruits of Paradise</div> - <div class='line in8'>He still supplies.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Before the great Three—One</div> - <div class='line in4'>They all exulting stand;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And tell the wonders He hath done,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Thro’ all their land:</div> - <div class='line in4'>The list’ning spheres attend,</div> - <div class='line in4'>And swell the growing fame;</div> - <div class='line in1'>And sing, in songs which never end,</div> - <div class='line in8'>The wondrous name.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'><span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>The God who reigns on high,</div> - <div class='line in4'>The great Archangels sing,</div> - <div class='line in1'>And “Holy, holy, holy,” cry,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Almighty King!</div> - <div class='line in4'>Who was, and is, the same!</div> - <div class='line in4'>And evermore shall be;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Jehovah—Father—great I Am!</div> - <div class='line in8'>We worship Thee.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Before the Saviour’s face</div> - <div class='line in4'>The ransom’d nations bow;</div> - <div class='line in1'>O’erwhelmed at His Almighty grace,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Forever new:</div> - <div class='line in4'>He shows His prints of love—</div> - <div class='line in4'>They kindle—to a flame!</div> - <div class='line in1'>And sound through all the worlds above,</div> - <div class='line in8'>The slaughter’d Lamb.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>The whole triumphant host</div> - <div class='line in4'>Give thanks to God on high;</div> - <div class='line'>“Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”</div> - <div class='line in8'>They ever cry:</div> - <div class='line in4'>Hail, Abraham’s God—and <i>mine</i>!</div> - <div class='line in4'>I join the heavenly lays,</div> - <div class='line in1'>All might and majesty are Thine,</div> - <div class='line in8'>And endless praise.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Thomas Olivers, the author of the above hymn, lived to see the -issue of at least thirty editions of it.</p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> 118).<br /> THE LAST JUDGMENT.<br /> <span class='small'>BY THOMAS OLIVERS.</span></h3> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Come, immortal King of Glory,</div> - <div class='line'>Now in Majesty appear,</div> - <div class='line'>Bid the nations stand before Thee,</div> - <div class='line'>Each his final doom to hear,</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>Come to judgment,</div> - <div class='line'>Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Speak the word, and lo! all nature</div> - <div class='line'>Flies before Thy glorious face,</div> - <div class='line'>Angels sing your great Creator,</div> - <div class='line'>Saints proclaim His sovereign grace,</div> - <div class='line in6'>While ye praise Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Lift your heads and see Him come.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>See His beauty all resplendent,</div> - <div class='line'>View Him in His glory shine,</div> - <div class='line'>See His majesty transcendent,</div> - <div class='line'>Seated on His throne sublime:</div> - <div class='line in6'>Angels praise Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Saints and angels praise the Lamb.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Shout aloud, ye heavenly choirs,</div> - <div class='line'>Trumpet forth Jehovah’s praise;</div> - <div class='line'>Trumpets, voices, hearts and lyres!</div> - <div class='line'>Speak the wonders of His grace!</div> - <div class='line in6'>Sound before Him</div> - <div class='line'>Endless praises to His name.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ransom’d sinners, see His ensign</div> - <div class='line'>Waving thro’ the purpled air!</div> - <div class='line'>‘Midst ten thousand lightnings daring,</div> - <div class='line'>Jesus’ praises to declare;</div> - <div class='line in6'>How tremendous</div> - <div class='line'>Is this dreadful, joyful day.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Crowns and sceptres fall before Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Kings and conquerors own His sway,</div> - <div class='line'>Fearless potentates are trembling,</div> - <div class='line'>While they see His lightnings play:</div> - <div class='line in6'>How triumphant</div> - <div class='line'>Is the world’s Redeemer now.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Noon-day beauty in its lustre</div> - <div class='line'>Doth in Jesus’ aspect shine,</div> - <div class='line'>Blazing comets are not fiercer</div> - <div class='line'>Than the flaming eyes Divine:</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>O, how dreadful</div> - <div class='line'>Doth the Crucified appear.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Hear His voice as mighty thunder,</div> - <div class='line'>Sounding in eternal roar!</div> - <div class='line'>Far surpassing many waters</div> - <div class='line'>Echoing wide from shore to shore:</div> - <div class='line in6'>Hear His accents</div> - <div class='line'>Through th’ unfathom’d deep resound:</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Come,” He saith, “ye heirs of glory,</div> - <div class='line'>Come, the purchase of my blood;</div> - <div class='line'>Bless’d ye are, and bless’d ye shall be,</div> - <div class='line'>Now ascend the mount of God;</div> - <div class='line in6'>Angels guard them</div> - <div class='line'>To the realms of endless day.”</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>See ten thousand flaming seraphs</div> - <div class='line'>From their thrones as lightnings fly;</div> - <div class='line'>“Take,” they cry, “your seats above us,</div> - <div class='line'>Nearest Him who rules the sky:</div> - <div class='line in6'>Favorite sinners,</div> - <div class='line'>How rewarded are you now!”</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Haste and taste celestial pleasure;</div> - <div class='line'>Haste and reap immortal joys;</div> - <div class='line'>Haste and drink the crystal river;</div> - <div class='line'>Lift on high your choral voice,</div> - <div class='line in6'>While archangels</div> - <div class='line'>Shout aloud the great Amen.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>But the angry Lamb’s determin’d</div> - <div class='line'>Every evil to descry;</div> - <div class='line'>They who have His love rejected</div> - <div class='line'>Shall before His vengeance fly,</div> - <div class='line in6'>When He drives them</div> - <div class='line'>To their everlasting doom.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Now, in awful expectation,</div> - <div class='line'>See the countless millions stand;</div> - <div class='line'>Dread, dismay, and sore vexation,</div> - <div class='line'>Seize the helpless, hopeless band;</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>Baleful thunders,</div> - <div class='line'>Stop and hear Jehovah’s voice!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Go from me,” He saith, “ye cursed—</div> - <div class='line'>Ye for whom I bled in vain—</div> - <div class='line'>Ye who have my grace refused—</div> - <div class='line'>Hasten to eternal pain!”</div> - <div class='line in6'>How victorious</div> - <div class='line'>Is the conquering <i>Son of Man</i>!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>See, in solemn pomp ascending,</div> - <div class='line'>Jesus and His glorious train;</div> - <div class='line'>Countless myriads now attend Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Rising to th’ imperial plain;</div> - <div class='line in6'>Hallelujah!</div> - <div class='line'>To the bless’d Immanuel’s name!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>In full triumph see them marching</div> - <div class='line'>Through the gates of massy light;</div> - <div class='line'>While the city walls are sparkling</div> - <div class='line'>With meridian’s glory bright;</div> - <div class='line in6'>How stupendous</div> - <div class='line'>Are the glories of the Lamb!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>On His throne of radiant azure,</div> - <div class='line'>High above all heights He reigns—</div> - <div class='line'>Reigns amidst immortal pleasure,</div> - <div class='line'>While refulgent glory flames;</div> - <div class='line in6'>How diffusive</div> - <div class='line'>Shines the golden blaze around!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>All the heavenly powers adore Him,</div> - <div class='line'>Circling round his orient seat;</div> - <div class='line'>Ransom’d saints with angels vying,</div> - <div class='line'>Loudest praises to repeat;</div> - <div class='line in6'>How exalted</div> - <div class='line'>Is His praise, and how profound!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Every throne and every mansion,</div> - <div class='line'>All ye heavenly arches ring;</div> - <div class='line'>Echo to the Lord salvation,</div> - <div class='line'>Glory to our glorious King!</div> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>Boundless praises</div> - <div class='line'>All ye heavenly orbs resound.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Praise be to the Father given,</div> - <div class='line'>Praise to the Incarnate Son,</div> - <div class='line'>Praise the Spirit, one and Seven,</div> - <div class='line'>Praise the mystic Three in One;</div> - <div class='line in6'>Hallelujah!</div> - <div class='line'>Everlasting praise be Thine!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='p-120' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>).<br /> ROCK OF AGES—<span class='sc'>In Latin.</span><br /> <span class='small'>BY W. E. GLADSTONE.</span></h3> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Jesus, pro me perforatus,</div> - <div class='line'>Condar intra Tuum latus,</div> - <div class='line'>Tu per lympham profluentem,</div> - <div class='line'>Tu per sanguinem tepentem,</div> - <div class='line'>In peccata me redunda,</div> - <div class='line'>Tolle culpam, sordes munda.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Coram Te, nec justus forem</div> - <div class='line'>Quamvis totâ si laborem,</div> - <div class='line'>Nec si fide nunquam cesso,</div> - <div class='line'>Fletu stillans indefesso:</div> - <div class='line'>Tibi soli tantum munus;</div> - <div class='line'>Salva me, Salvator unus!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Nil in manu mecum fero,</div> - <div class='line'>Sed me versus crucem gero;</div> - <div class='line'>Vestimenta nudus oro,</div> - <div class='line'>Opem debilis imploro;</div> - <div class='line'>Fontem Christi quæro immundus</div> - <div class='line'>Nisi laves, moribundus.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Dum hos artus vita regit;</div> - <div class='line'>Quando nox sepulchro tegit;</div> - <div class='line'>Mortuos cum stare jubes,</div> - <div class='line'>Sedens Judex inter nubes;</div> - <div class='line'>Jesus, pro me perforatus,</div> - <div class='line'>Condar intra Tuum latus.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c005' /> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span> - <h3 id='p-236' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>).</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>From the “Memoirs of Howard, compiled from his diary, his -confidential letters, and other authentic documents, by James -Baldwin Brown,” it appears that in the year 1755, on a voyage to -Portugal, the vessel in which he was, was captured by a French -privateer, and carried into Brest, where he and the other passengers, -along with the crew, were cast into a filthy dungeon, and -there kept a considerable time without nourishment. There they -lay for six days and nights. The floor, with nothing but straw -upon it, was their sleeping place. He was afterwards removed to -Morlaix, and thence to Carpaix, where he was two months upon -parole. At the latter place “he corresponded with the English -prisoners at Brest, Morlaix and Dinnan; and had sufficient evidence -of their being treated with such barbarity that many hundreds -had perished; and that thirty-six were buried in a hole at -Dinnan in one day.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Through his benevolent and timely interference on their behalf, -when he himself had regained his freedom, the prisoners of war -in these three prisons were released and sent home to England -in the first cartel ships.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Till the year 1773 it does not appear that he was actively engaged -in any philanthropic work on behalf of prisoners. In the -year 1730 there had been a commission of enquiry in the House -of Commons on the state of prisons, and condition of their inmates, -but nothing seems to have followed from it, and it was -not till March, 1774, when Howard received the thanks of the -House for the information which, he communicated to them on -the subject, that the great work assumed shape. In 1773, having -been appointed sheriff of Bedford, the distress of prisoners came -under his notice. He engaged himself in a most minute inspection, -and the consequence was the devotion of every faculty of -his existence to the correction of the abuses existing in similar -institutions as the friend of those who had no friend.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In that Christlike work he continued till his death, on 20th January, -1790, at Cherson, Russian Tartary, having in the meantime -inspected prisons in England, Scotland and Ireland, France, -Holland, Flanders, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Poland, -Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Malta, Turkey, Prussia -and Russia.</p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<div> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span> - <h3 id='p-253' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>).</h3> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>At Michaelmas time, 1791, Mr. Buchanan was admitted a member -of Queen’s College, Cambridge, having left London on the -24th October. He was then 25 years of age. In consequence of -a letter from his mother he attended the preaching of John Newton, -with whom he kept up a correspondence when at college. -In one of his replies to Mr. Newton he wrote: “You ask me -whether I would prefer preaching the Gospel to the fame of -learning? Ay, that would I, gladly, were I convinced it was the -will of God, that I should depart this night for Nova Zembla, or -the Antipodes, to testify of Him. I would not wait for an admit -or a college exit.” Some time in the year 1794, the first proposal -appears to have been made to him to go out to India, and on this -occasion he wrote Mr. Newton, saying, “I have only time to say, -that with respect to my going to India, I must decline giving an -opinion. * * * It is with great pleasure I submit this matter -to the determination of yourself and Mr. Thornton and Mr. -Grant. All I wish to ascertain is the will of God.” In a subsequent -letter he wrote, “I am equally ready to preach the Gospel -in the next village, or at the end of the earth.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>After taking his degree of B.A., he was ordained a deacon by -the Bishop of London on 20th September, 1795, when he became -Mr. Newton’s curate, which he held till March, 1796, when -he was appointed one of the chaplains to the East India Company. -Soon after, he received priest’s orders, and on 11th -August, 1796, sailed from Portsmouth, England, for Calcutta, -where he landed 10th March, 1797. In May following he -proceeded to the military station of Barackpore. But it was not -till the beginning of the present century that he fairly developed -his plans for the extension of the Redeemer’s Kingdom in -India.—<i>From Memoirs of Rev. Claudius Buchanan.</i></p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='p-254' class='c002'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>In the month of September, 1794, a paper was published in the -<i>Evangelical Magazine</i>, urging the formation of a mission to the -heathen on the broadest possible basis. The writer of that paper -<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>was the Rev. David Bogue, D.D., of Gosport, Hampshire, and -two months after its appearance a conference, attended by representatives -from several Evangelical bodies, was held to take -action in the matter. The result was an address to ministers -and members of various churches, and the appointment of a -committee to diffuse information upon the subject. Thereafter, -and in September, 1795, a large and influential meeting, extending -over three days, at which the Rev. Dr. Harris preached from -Mark xv: 16, and the Rev. J. Burder and the Rev. Rowland Hill -and many others took part. At that meeting the society was -formed, and it was resolved, with reference to its agents and -their converts, “That it should be entirely left with those whom -God might call into the fellowship of His Son among them, to -assume for themselves such a form of church government as to -them shall appear most agreeable to the Word of God.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Rev. David Bogue, D.D., has therefore well been styled -“the father and founder” of the institution.</p> -<hr class='c005' /> -<h3 id='p-256' class='c020'>APPENDIX (<span class='sc'>Page</span> <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>).</h3> - -<p class='c016'>At a meeting held in Leeds, 5th October, 1813, it was resolved -to constitute a society to be called “The Methodist Missionary -Society for the Leeds District,” of which branches were to be -formed in the several circuits, whose duty it should be to collect -subscriptions in behalf of missions and to remit them to an -already existing committee in London. It was from this point -that, by general consent, the origin of the Wesleyan Missionary -Society is reckoned.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span> - <h2 id='index' class='c004'>INDEX.</h2> -</div> -<ul class='index c001'> - <li class='c021'>Academy, Doddridge’s, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a> - <ul> - <li>Lady Huntingdon’s, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Aftermath, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Age before the Revival, The <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Albert, Prince, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Alleine, Rev. Joseph, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Allen, Ebenezer, Governor of Martha’s Vineyard, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></li> - <li class='c021'>America, Awakening in, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> - <li class='c021'>American Baptist Missionary Union, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>American Revival, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a> - <ul> - <li>Sunday-school Union, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Amusements, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Anabaptists, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ancaster, Duchess of <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li> - <li class='c021'><a id='Anecdotes'></a></li> - <li class='c021'>Anecdotes, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>–<a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>–<a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>–<a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>–<a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Aram, Eugene, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Armenianism, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Arrests, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Atheism, Prevalence of, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Austrian Exiles, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Baptist Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a> - <ul> - <li>Union, American, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Band-Meetings, etc., Origin of, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Basle Evangelical Mission, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Baynham, James, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Baxter, Richard, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Benson, Bishop, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bernard of Clairvaux, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a> - <ul> - <li>Cluny, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Berridge, John, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bible, The, the Power of God, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a> - <ul> - <li>Reverenced, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - <li>Translated for India, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Bible Society, The <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Blomfield, Bishop, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bloomfield, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Blossoms in the Wilderness, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bogue, David, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bolingbroke, Lord, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Borlase, Dr., <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Boston in 1730, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a> - <ul> - <li>Elm, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li>State of Society in, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Bradford, Joseph, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Britain’s Obligations to Missions for India, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>British and Foreign School Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>British Quarterly</i>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Brontë Family, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Bruised Reed</i>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Buchanan, Claudius, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Buckingham, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Bunyan, John, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Burke, Edmund, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Butler, Bishop, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>Byron, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Calvin’s Institutes, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Calvinistic Methodists, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Campbell, John, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Captains of Ships in 18th Century, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cardigan, Lady, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Carey, William, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Carlyle, Thomas, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cennick, John, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Chatsworth, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cheerfulness and Joy Significant of Revival, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Chesterfield, Lord, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Christian Remembrances, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> - <li class='c021'>“<i>Christian World Unmasked, The</i>; <i>Pray Come and Peep</i>,”, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Christianity, Effect of, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Chrysostom, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Church of England, Evangelical Party in, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a> - <ul> - <li>Religion in, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li> - <li>Disabilities against Members of, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li>Opposition to Methodism, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li>Opposition to Revival, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li>Southey on the Clergy of the, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Church Signs and Counter-signs, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Church’s, Rev. Thomas, Denunciation of Evil, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Chubbs, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Church Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>City Road Chapel, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Clapham Sect, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Clarkson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Clergy, Corruption of, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Coates, Alexander, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Colman, Dr., Testimony of, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Colliers, The, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Collins, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Colston, Edward, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Colston’s School, Bristol, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Compton, Adam, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Congregationalism, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Controversialists of Revival, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Conversions, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cornwall, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cottage Visitation, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cowper, William, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Cradle of London Methodism, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Crime in 18th Century, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Criminals, Condition of, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Criminal Law in 18th Century, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Danish Hymns, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a> - <ul> - <li>Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Darkness before Dawn, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Dawn, First Streaks of, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Deaf and Dumb Asylum, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Defoe, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Deism, Prevalence of, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Derby, Earl of, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Dissenters, Disabilities of, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Dissent in, Boston, in 1730, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Divine authority of the New Testament, The, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Doddridge, Philip, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a> - <ul> - <li>his Academy, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> - <li>his Friends, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li> - <li>his Hymns, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Drawing-Room Preaching, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a> - <ul> - <li>Effect of, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Drury Lane, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Dying Words, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li class='c001'>East India Company, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Economy of Charity, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Edinburgh Review</i>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Education, Neglect of, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a> - <ul> - <li>Spreading, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Edwards, Jonathan, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Effect of Rejection of Gospel, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Eighteenth Century Revival, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Emerson, quoted, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>England and France Contrasted, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>England, State of Religion in, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Epitaphs, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Episcopal Board of Missions, Methodist, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a> - <ul> - <li>Protestant, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Epworth, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Everton, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Excitement of the Revival, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Executions at Tyburn in 1738, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Exiles in England, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Experiences of Christians expressed in Song, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Eyre, Jane, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Fair-Preaching, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Fenwick, Michael, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ferrars, Lady, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Field-Preaching, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li> - <li class='c021'>First Day or Sunday-school Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Flaxley, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Fletcher of Madsley, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Florence, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Foote, the Actor, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Founders of London Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Foundry, The Moorfields, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li class='c021'>France, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Free Church of England, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - <li class='c021'>French Protestants in England, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Fry, Elizabeth, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Gambold, John, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Garrick, David, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c021'>George II, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> - <li class='c021'>George IV, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gerhardt, Paul, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li class='c021'>German Empire, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a> - <ul> - <li>Hymns, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Germain, Lady Betty, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gisborne, Thomas, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gladstone, W. E., <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gloucestershire, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li> - <li class='c021'>God’s Method of Diffusing the Truth, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Goethe, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Goldsmith, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gospel Preached in Song, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Grant, James, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a> - <ul> - <li>Sir Robert, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Gregory, Alfred, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Greenfield, Edward, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Griggs, Joseph, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Grimshaw, William, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Guthrie, Dr., <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Gwennap Pit, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Haime, John, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hamilton, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a> - <ul> - <li>Lady Elizabeth, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li>Sir William, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Hardcastle, Joseph, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hardships, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Harris, Howell, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Harvard College, Religion in, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hastings, Lady Margaret, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Haweis, Thomas, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Haworth, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Haymarket Theatre, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Helmsley, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Herbert, George, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hervey, James, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a> - <ul> - <li>Writings, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Hey, James (Old Jemmie o’ the Hey), <a href='#Page_198'>198</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hill, Rowland, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Holy Club, The, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a> - <ul> - <li>Spirit, The, the Power, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Hooper, John, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hopper, Christopher, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Horne, Dr., <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hospitality in New England, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hostility to Revival, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Howard, John, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hymns, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>–<a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a> - <ul> - <li>Character of, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> - <li>Influence of, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> - <li>of Doddridge, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li>of Watts, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li>of Wesley, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>Hymnists of the Revival, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Huddersfield, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Huguenots, The, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a> - <ul> - <li>Descendants in England, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li>Influence on Revival, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li>Settlement in England, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Huntingdon, Lady, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Huntingdon, William, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Hupton, Job, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Independents, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Indians, Cause of, Espoused by Whitefield, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ingham, Benjamin, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Itinerancy, by Wesley, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Itinerant Preachers, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Jay, William, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Jenner, Dr. Edward, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Johnson, Samuel, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Joss, Toriel, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Juvenal, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Kempis, Thomas à., <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Kingsbury, William, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Kirk, John, Author of “Mother of the Wesleys”, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Lackington, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lancashire, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a> - <ul> - <li>Independent College, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Lanterns, New Lights and Old, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lavington, Bishop, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Law, William, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lay Preaching, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>–<a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lecky on the Effect of the Revival, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lee, Jesse, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Literature, State of, at beginning of 18th Century. How Affected by Revival, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Livingstone, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Local Preachers, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a> - <ul> - <li>Wesley’s Reasons for, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>London Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Love of Souls, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Luther, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Lyttleton, Lord, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Macaulay, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a> - <ul> - <li>Tribute to Puritans, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>–<a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>McOwan, Peter, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Mann, Sir Horace, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Mansfield, Lord, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Marlborough, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Marshman and Ward, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Martyrs, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Maxfield, Thomas, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Melcombe, Lord, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Methodism, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a> - <ul> - <li>in New England, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Methodists acknowledged, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a> - <ul> - <li>and Puritans Compared, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Methodists and Quakers, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Methodist Band-Meetings, etc., <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Methodists, Beginning of, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a> - <ul> - <li>Calvinistic and Wesleyan, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Methodists, Creed of, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a> - <ul> - <li>Early, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li> - <li>Effect of, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> - <li>Efforts of Earliest, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - <li>Expelled from Oxford, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li>Growth of, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li>in United States, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li>Held as Opposed to Church of England, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li>Hymnals, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - <li>Manifestations of, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li> - <li>Origin of Name, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li> - <li>Regarded as Enemies, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>Methodists, Sects of, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Middleton, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Milton, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Minor, The</i>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Mission Enterprises, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a> - <ul> - <li>to Africa, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li>to China, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li>to India, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li>to Madagascar, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li>to South Seas, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Missionary Societies, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Moffat, Robert, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Molière, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Montague, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Montgomery, James, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Moorfields, London, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Morality at Beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Moravians, The, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>More, Hannah, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Morgan, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Mystery of Life, The, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Napoleon at St. Helena, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Nash, Beau, Overcome by Wesley, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Nelson, John, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Netherlands Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Newman, John Henry, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Newton, John, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Noel, Baptist, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Nonconformists, Religion Among, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Oliver, John, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Olivers, Thomas, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a></li> - <li class='c021'>One-eyed Christians, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Orphan Asylum in Georgia, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Oxford, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a> - <ul> - <li>Forecasting Future of Union, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Oxford Methodists, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a> - <ul> - <li>Society, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c001'>Parson, John, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Perronet, Edward, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Persecution, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Philadelphia Adult and Sunday-school Union, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Pilgrim’s Progress, The, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Pitt, William, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Politics Influenced by Revival, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Pope, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Portraits of Revivalists, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Power of Song, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Practical View of Christianity</i>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Prayer, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Preacher and Robbers, The, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Preaching at Beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a> - <ul> - <li>by Laymen, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li>in Drawing-Room, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li>Effect of, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Prejudices Against Lay Preachers, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Prison Philanthropy, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Promoting Christian Knowledge, Society for, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Propagation of Gospel, Society for, in New England, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Propagation of Gospel, Society for, in Foreign Parts, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Protestant Episcopal Board of Missions, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Puritans, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a> - <ul> - <li>Macaulay’s estimate of, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li> - <li>and Methodists Compared, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c001'>Quakers, The, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Quarterly Review</i>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Quietists, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Quixote, the Spiritual, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Raikes, Anne, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Raikes, Robert, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a> - <ul> - <li>at Windsor, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li> - <li>House at Gloucester, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>Raymont of Pegnafort, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Reciprocation the Soul of Methodism, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Redruth, Cornwall, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Reformation, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Reign of Terror, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rejection of Gospel, its Effect on Nations, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Religion, State of - <ul> - <li>at Beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> - <li>State of and After Revival Contrasted, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Religious Tract Society, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Repeal of Test and Corporation Acts, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Revival, The, Anecdotes of (See <a href='#Anecdotes'>Anecdotes</a>.)</li> - <li class='c021'>Revival Beacons, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a> - <ul> - <li>Becomes Educational, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li>Beginning of, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - <li>Cheerfulness and Joy of, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> - <li>Conservative, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></li> - <li>Dawn of, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li> - <li>Depth of, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - <li>Done Most for Well-being of Mankind, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li> - <li>Effect on Literature, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li> - <li>Effect of on World at Large, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li> - <li>Effects of, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li>Evangelical in England, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>,</li> - <li>Fair-Preaching, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li> - <li>Field-Preaching, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li> - <li>Foremost Names in, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li>Fruit of, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Revival, Growth of, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a> - <ul> - <li>Hostility to, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li> - <li>Importance of, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li>in Wales, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li>in America, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li>at Kingswood, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li> - <li>Lay Preaching, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li>Sects Formed, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li>Singers of, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></li> - <li>Spiritual, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Revivalist Portraits, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Richmond Legh, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ridicule of Revivalists, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rise and Progress in the Soul, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ritual Absent in Revival, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rock of Ages, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rockingham, Lady, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rogers’ Lives of Early Preachers, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Romaine, William, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Roman Catholics, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Romelly, Sir Samuel, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Romish Stories and Incidents in Work of Wesley, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Romney, Earl, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rosary, The, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Rowlands, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Sabbath Observance, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sacred Song, Power of, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sailors’ Hardships, etc., <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li> - <li class='c021'><i>Saints Everlasting Rest</i>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Salvation by Grace the Grand Doctrine of the Revival, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sandwich Islands, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sandys, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sarton, William, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Saunderson, Lady Frances, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Savonarola, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Schools, Sunday, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>–<a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>School, Sunday, Commended, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a> - <ul> - <li>Effect of, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li> - <li>First Day or Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li>Growth of, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Scott, Captain Jonathan, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a> - <ul> - <li>Thomas, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li>Walter, Sir, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Sects Rising from Revival: Bible Christians of West of England, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a> - <ul> - <li>Primitive Methodists Of the North, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li>New Connection Methodists, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li>United Free Church Association, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Selborne, Lord, Referred to, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Sharp, Granville, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Shaw, Robert, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ships of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Shirley, Lady Fanny, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a> - <ul> - <li>Mr. (Lady Huntingdon’s Cousin), <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Sidney, Sir Philip, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Simeon, Charles, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Singers of the Revival, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Slave Abolition, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Smiles, Dr., referred to, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Smith, Adam, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a> - <ul> - <li>Sydney, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Society, State of, at beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a> - <ul> - <li>State of and after Revival, Contrasted, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Somerset, Duchess of, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Songs Used in Great National Movements, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Southey, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Spain, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Spencer, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c021'>St. Ambrose, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li> - <li class='c021'>St. Ann’s, Black Friars, London, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li> - <li class='c021'>St. George’s, Hanover Square, London, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stage Libels against the Revivalists, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Staniforth, Sampson, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stanhope, Earl, Testimony to Wesley, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Starting Point, The, of Modern Religious History, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Steam Engine, The, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Steele, Miss, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stephen, Sir James, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a> - <ul> - <li>Sir George, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Stevens, Dr. Abel, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stocker, John, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stock, Thomas, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Story, George, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Stratford, Joseph, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Streaks of Dawn, First, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Suffolk, Countess of, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Swedenborg, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Swedish Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Taylor, Isaac, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Teachers, Character of at Beginning of 18th Century, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Te Deum, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Teignmouth, Lord, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tennent, Gilbert, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li class='c021'>“<i>The Last Judgment</i>”, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Thomson, Mr., The Vicar of St. Gennys, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Thornton, John, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ticket, The, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Told, Silas, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a> - <ul> - <li>his Preaching and his Work, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Toleration Act, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Toplady, Augustus, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tottenham Court Chapel, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Townshend, Lady, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a> - <ul> - <li>John, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li>Lord, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Tractarian Movement, The, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tract Societies, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Trevisa, John De, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Trimmer, Sarah, Mrs., <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Trophies of Revival, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>Turnpikes in England, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tyerman, Mr., referred to, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Tyndale, William, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Venn, Henry, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Vicar of Wakefield, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Voltaire, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Wales, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Walker, Samuel, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Walpole, Horace, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Walsh, Thomas, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Warburton, Bishop, on Wesley, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Ward and Marshman, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Watson, Richard, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Watt, James, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Watts, Isaac, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a> - <ul> - <li>Friends of, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a></li> - <li>his Mother, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li>Hymns of, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li>Literary Labors, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Waugh, Alexander, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Welsh Preaching and Preachers, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wesleyan Methodists, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a> - <ul> - <li>Missionary Society, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Wesleyan Societies, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wesleyanism, Historians of, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wesley, Charles, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wesley, John, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a> - <ul> - <li>as an Administrator, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></li> - <li>and Church Polity, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></li> - <li>and Bradford, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> - <li>and Fenwick, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li>and Nelson, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> - <li>and Silas Told, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li> - <li>and Walsh, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li> - <li>and Whitefield Compared, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li> - <li>and Field-Preaching, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Wesley, John, - <ul> - <li>and Methodists Regarded as Enemies, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li>and Hervey’s Teaching, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li> - <li>at Epworth, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li> - <li>at the Foundry, Moorfields (City Road Chapel), <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li>at Glasgow, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li>at Gwennap Pit, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li> - <li>at Oxford, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> - <li>at York, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li> - <li>Compared with Calvin, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> - <li>Conversion, Time of, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li> - <li>Creed, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li>Death of, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li>Early Religious Experiences, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li> - <li>Effect of His Preaching on Himself, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li> - <li>Effect of His Preaching on Others, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li>Estimate of by Macaulay, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> - <li>Expelled from Church of England, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> - <li>Expelled from Oxford, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> - <li>Hymns, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li>Influence of, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> - <li>Itinerancy, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li>on Sabbath-Schools, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li> - <li>Parish, the World, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li> - <li>Power over Others, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li>Preaching in Epworth Church-yard, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li> - <li>Restrictions on Lay Preachers, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> - <li>Tomb, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li>Translations, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li>Victory of, over Nash, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'><span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>Wesley, Samuel, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a> - <ul> - <li>Susannah, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> - <li>her Sayings, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Weston, Favel, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wilberforce, William, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wilderness, Blossoms in, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wilks, Matthew, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Winter, Cornelius, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wiseman, Cardinal, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> - <li class='c021'>White, Rev George, Vicar of Colne, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Whitefield, George, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a> - <ul> - <li>and the Children, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a></li> - <li>Among the Indians, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li>and the Poor Woman, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a></li> - <li>and Wesley Compared, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li> - <li>and the Recruiting Sergeant, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li> - <li>Among the Nobility, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></li> - <li>Among the Roughs, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> - <li>at Boston, New England, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li>at Cambridge, New England, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a></li> - <li>at Harvard, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li>at Kingswood, Bristol, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li> - <li>at Princeton, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li>at Gloucester, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li> - <li>at New Haven, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li>at Oxford, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a></li> - <li>at the Tower of London, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li> - <li>Compared with Luther, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> - <li>Description of his Preaching During Thunder Storm, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></li> - <li>Early Religious Experience, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Whitefield, George, - <ul> - <li>Effect of his Preaching on Himself, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li> - <li>Effect on Others, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>–<a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></li> - <li>First Meeting Charles Wesley, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a></li> - <li>in Georgia, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li> - <li>Journeys, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> - <li>in New York, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li> - <li>in America, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li> - <li>in Wales, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li> - <li>in London, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li> - <li>in Maryland, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li>in Moorfields, London, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li> - <li>in Philadelphia, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li> - <li>on Toriel Joss and Newton, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> - <li>Preaching of, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a></li> - <li>on Religion in America, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a></li> - <li>Orphan Asylum in Georgia, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li> - <li>Regarded as a Fanatic, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li> - <li>Ridiculed, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li>The First in the Opening of the Methodist Movement, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></li> - <li>Treatment of Those Who Opposed Themselves to Him, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li> - <li>Watts’ Blessing of, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c021'>Williams, John (Martyr of Erromanga) <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Woolston, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Work Done in the Revival, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Wyclif, John, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Xavier, Francis, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c001'>York, Wesley at, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Yorkshire, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Yorkshire, Apostles of, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li> - <li class='c021'>Young Cottager, The, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c001'>Zinzendorf, Count, Hymns of, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> -</ul> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<p class='c007'> </p> -<div class='tnbox'> - - <ul class='ul_1 c001'> - <li>Transcriber’s Notes: - <ul class='ul_2'> - <li>Several footnote references just said “See Appendix.” without specifying which (there - are 15.) The references have been resolved as well as was possible. - </li> - <li>Some footnotes had no references to them in the text. These were assumed to be - additional material for the entire page, or pages, and a reference was created. - </li> - <li>Some index entries were reformatted to be more consistent with the majority of the - entries. - </li> - <li>Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - </li> - <li>Typographical errors were silently corrected. - </li> - <li>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant - form was found in this book. - </li> - </ul> - </li> - </ul> - -</div> -<p class='c007'> </p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Revival of the Eighteenth -Century: with a supplemental chapte, by Edwin Paxton Hood - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT REVIVAL OF 18TH CENTURY *** - -***** This file should be named 61062-h.htm or 61062-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/0/6/61062/ - -Produced by Brian Wilson, Peter Vachuska, Barry Abrahamsen, -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net Last Edit of Project Info - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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