The Young People's Wesley Part 10

He represents the slave trade as exceeding in barbarity whatever Christian slaves suffered in Mohammedan countries.

Whitefield's letter to Wesley, in 1751, is a clear defense of slavery in the colonies. He quotes Abraham, who had slaves "bought with his money"

and "born in his house." The same argument was employed in later years.

Whitefield added to his approval of the slave trade the fact that he became himself a slaveholder. At the time of his death, in 1770, he was the owner of seventy-five slaves, who were connected with his Orphan House plantation, near Savannah, Ga. It is not surprising that G.o.d should have swept the whole concern, by fire and flood, from the face of the earth.

"Let it be noted," says Mr. Tyerman, "that besides all his other honors John Wesley, the poor, persecuted Methodist, was one of the first advocates on behalf of the enthralled African that England had, and that, sixty years before slavery was abolished in the dominions of Great Britain, he denounced the thing in the strongest terms it was possible to employ." Mr. Wesley's _Thoughts on Slavery_, an octavo of fifty-three pages, issued in 1774, did more to awaken England to the horrors of the African slave trade than any other work on the subject. The writer says, "No more severe arraignment of slavery than this was ever written." This American scourge, through the influence of Wesley's early American preachers, who caught their inspiration from his _Thoughts_, felt the force of his burning words until that form of slavery, which he declared to be "the vilest that ever saw the sun," was a thing of the past. For two hundred and more years it drifted down, gradually, like other forms of barbarism, into the clear light of a better civilization, to be finally put to death by the Gospel of Methodism. It is true that _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ did much, but Wesley's _Thoughts_ prepared the way for this wonderful book. Mr. Wesley must ever be known as the man through whose influence slavery found a grave, from which Heaven forbid it should ever have a resurrection!

TEMPERANCE.

In regard to the temperance reform Mr. Wesley was as fully p.r.o.nounced as on the subject of slavery. Liquor drinking was practiced by all cla.s.ses, from the archbishop to the meanest street scavenger. Ministers by the hundred drank to intoxication, and in their drunken sprees would head mobs in their a.s.saults on Wesley and his helpers. Wesley thundered away at liquor selling and drinking like a modern prohibitionist. Take the following from one of his sermons as an example:

Neither may we gain by hurting our neighbor in his body. Therefore we may not sell anything which tends to impair his health. Such is eminently all that liquid fire called drams of spirituous liquors. It is true they may have a place in medicine--may be used in some bodily disorders--although there would rarely be occasion for them were it not for the unskillfulness of the pract.i.tioner. Therefore such as prepare and sell them only for this end may keep their conscience clean. But who are they who prepare and sell them only for this end? Do you know ten distillers in England?

Then excuse these. But all who sell them in the common way, to any that will buy, are poisoners in general.

They murder his majesty's subjects by wholesale; neither do their eyes pity or spare. They drive them to h.e.l.l like sheep. And what is their gain? Is it not the blood of these men? Who, then, would enjoy their large estate and sumptuous palaces? A curse is in the midst of them. A curse cleaves to the stones, the timbers, the furniture of them. The curse of G.o.d is in their gardens, their walks, their groves; a fire that burns to the nethermost h.e.l.l! Blood, blood, is there!

The foundation, the walls, the roof, are stained with blood! And canst thou hope, O man of blood, though thou art "clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and farest sumptuously every day"--canst thou hope to deliver thy fields of blood to the third generation?

Not so! There is a G.o.d in heaven; therefore thy name shall be blotted out. Like as those whom thou hast destroyed, body and soul, thy memory shall perish with thee.[M]

He introduced into his Discipline a rule prohibiting the "buying or selling of spirituous liquors, or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity." He went for "prohibiting forever, making a full end of that bane of health, that destroyer of strength, of life, and virtue--distilling." These are his own words. He was a prohibitionist in principle, and in this respect was in advance of many would-be temperance men of these times. To one of his preachers he says: "Touch no dram. It is a liquid fire. It is a sure, though slow, poison. It saps the very spring of life."

TOBACCO.

Mr. Wesley sought a reformation on the tobacco question. He believed that the use of the weed was unchristian. He exhorts his people: "Use no tobacco. It is an uncleanly and unwholesome self-indulgence; and the more customary it is the more resolutely should you break off from every degree of that evil custom. Let Christians be in this bondage no longer.

a.s.sert your liberty, and that all at once; nothing will be done by degrees."[N]

Such were the teachings of John Wesley on these subjects--teachings which we regard as very remarkable for those times, and fully up to the present.

JOHN WESLEY AND JOHN HOWARD MEET.

In 1787 Mr. Wesley met John Howard, the father of prison reform. He says: "I had the pleasure of a conversation with Mr. Howard, I think one of the greatest men in Europe. Nothing but the almighty power of G.o.d can enable him to go through his difficult and dangerous employment. But what can harm us if G.o.d be on our side?" He says again: "G.o.d has raised him up to be a blessing to mankind."

FEMALE PREACHERS.

It is true that Wesley did not believe that female preaching was authorized by the New Testament, except under extraordinary circ.u.mstances. He tells Sarah Crosby that he thinks her case rests on her having an "extraordinary call." He was persuaded, also, that every local preacher had a similar call. If it were not so, he could not countenance their preaching at all. "Therefore I do not wonder if several things occur therein which do not fall under ordinary rules of discipline. St. Paul's ordinary rule was, 'I permit not a woman to speak in the congregation;' yet in extraordinary cases he makes a few exceptions, at Corinth in particular."

Mrs. Crosby said: "My soul was much comforted in speaking to the people, as the Lord has removed all my scruples respecting the propriety of my acting thus publicly."

"I think you have not gone too far," said Wesley, though she had preached to hundreds. "You could not well do less. All you can do more is, when you meet again tell them simply: 'You lay me under a great difficulty. The Methodists do not allow of women preachers; neither do I take upon me any such character. But I will just nakedly tell you what is in my heart.' I do not see that you have broken any law. Go on, calmly and steadily." She obeyed, and went on till death. Others followed in the footsteps of Sarah Crosby. Mrs. Fletcher preached, and Hester Ann Rogers really did the same.

It is true that female preaching was never sanctioned by the Wesleyan Conference, but it was substantially practiced to the end of Wesley's life. He broke the bands which had bound women, and which in many Churches bind them still, and allowed her to be a public advocate of spiritual religion--to tell what great things G.o.d had done for the soul.

Speaking of Susannah Wesley, a recent writer of the Congregational Church says: "The Methodist Church owes its system of doctrine quite as much, I think, to Susannah Wesley as to her ill.u.s.trious son. To the instruction of a woman she added the logic of a gownsman and the love of a saint. Finer letters were never written. It is not to be wondered at that Methodists have been pioneers in the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of female speech, that they have believed in it and practiced it from the first.

They would have disgraced their origin otherwise."

It will be seen that Methodism has inaugurated, really, all the great moral reforms of the last hundred and fifty years. The great missionary movement, which has sent evangelistic agencies into all the earth, had little or no life when Methodism was born. Since that time, what hath G.o.d wrought!

CHAPTER XV.

WESLEY AND AMERICAN METHODISM PRIOR TO 1766.

THE real advent of Methodism into America is a subject demanding special consideration. It has been generally supposed that its first introduction was in 1766 by Barbara Heck and Philip Embury, who inaugurated religious services at that time in the city of New York. But it has always seemed to us that Methodism was introduced much earlier.

There had been no less than five members of the "Holy Club"--the Oxford Methodists' fraternity--preaching in America prior to 1766, namely, John and Charles Wesley, Benjamin Ingham, Charles Delamot, and George Whitefield. Whatever may be said of the four former, it is certain that George Whitefield was here, from 1740, preaching as a flaming Methodist evangelist from Maine to Georgia. These men all accepted Wesley as their leader, and looked to him for counsel.

Mr. Whitefield's first visit to America was undertaken with the express purpose of a.s.sisting Wesley in his great work. But Wesley had left the field before he arrived. George Whitefield was an Oxford Methodist, a member of the Holy Club, and possessed an undying love for Wesley. He was known in Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England as a Methodist, and until, in after years, he drew away from Wesley for a time, on some doctrinal question, he was in fullest accord with him. Whatever he did in America during his first and second visits was done as a Methodist. It must be confessed that Whitefield did a marvelous work in all parts of the country years prior to 1766. He was known in New England as a Methodist, and the first Methodist chapel ever erected in this land was built in Boston, the land of the Pilgrims.

Charles Wesley stopped in Boston several weeks, on his way from Georgia to England, and preached several times in Dr. Cutler's Church on Salem Street, known as Christ Church, and also in King's Chapel. He also was known as an Oxford Methodist. When Whitefield first entered New England he had not separated from Wesley. He had been to England since his first visit, and had been led, like the Wesleys, into the experience of salvation. He at once entered into their labors, and had inaugurated outdoor preaching at Bristol. It was not until he had visited New England a second, perhaps a third, time, and had adopted the views of Calvin as held by New England divines, that he drew away for a time from Wesley. In Pennsylvania, in New Jersey, and in New York G.o.d wrought wonders by this flaming Methodist evangelist.

The Puritans, who first settled New England, held orthodox views on the subject of justification by faith and regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

This was their faith for more than half a century. But when they began to decline, legal forms were subst.i.tuted for spiritual power. The "halfway covenant," as it was called, was introduced, and under it persons became members of the Church without conversion, and it was not even deemed an essential qualification for a minister of the Gospel that he be converted. The Church and State were united, and the courts by legal enactments compelled every man, no matter what his religious faith, to sustain a Church whose creed he did not believe. The same state of things existed in Virginia, where Episcopal rule obtained. The whole land seemed a "valley of dry bones." There was one light in New England. In the obscure town of Northampton Jonathan Edwards was preaching with marvelous effect, and his influence was felt all along the valley of the Connecticut; but it had not reached Boston. There was one man in Boston who waited for the salvation of Israel--Rev. Benjamin Coleman, pastor of Brattle Street Church. He had heard of the work in Northampton, and also of Whitefield, the youthful evangelist in the South, and longed to witness the like in Boston before he went hence, for he was now seventy years of age. He wrote to Whitefield at Savannah; the latter, anxious to visit the land of the Pilgrims, came in the demonstration of the Spirit, and such a revival as attended his ministry New England had never witnessed. A writer of some note gives the following description of his coming: "At the close of a beautiful autumn day, in 1740, Whitefield had arrived within full view of the city of Boston. Its spires were gleaming in the rays of the setting sun. Its neat, white dwellings were reflected from the mirror surface of the quiet waters, which nearly surrounded the whole site. Its attendant villages loomed up around the whole horizon. Withdrawing his eyes from the first glance at the city, which lay in full view from the hill on which he stood, he looked down the road before him, and saw a mult.i.tude of people--officers of the government, ministers of the Gospel, citizens, ladies, and children--who had all come forth to meet the accomplished stranger, and conduct him, amidst smiles and blessings, to the city. It must have been an interesting hour to the youthful hero of the cross. Three thousand miles from his native land, among entire strangers, he was welcomed to the renowned city of the Puritans with demonstrations of honor which Alexander, or Caesar, or Napoleon might have coveted. He was coming among them, not the gray-haired veteran hero of a thousand battles, not the brave warrior from the fields of victory, not the monarch with patronage and power in his hand, but the sincere-hearted, pure-minded, and eloquent-tongued Methodist missionary, who had drank from the pure fountain of evangelical truth, and had now come to lead the thirsty Pilgrims of New England to the garden of the Lord,

"'Where living waters gently pa.s.s, And full salvation flows.'"

It must be remembered that this most remarkable man was but twenty-six years old, and yet England and America had been thrilled by the power of his unexampled eloquence.

The next day he preached in Brattle Street Church, then in other churches, hoping to afford the people an opportunity to hear. But the mult.i.tudes were so great that no church could accommodate them, so he resorted to the open field, as usual. Boston Common was thronged with thousands, while three times each day he preached to them with an eloquence which Boston had never before heard. Hundreds were won to Jesus, and many ministers were aroused and made clearly conscious of their need of salvation. He visited some of the adjacent towns, especially Cambridge. His eloquent appeals aroused Harvard College from its sleep of a century, and there occurred in that inst.i.tution what never happened before or since--a genuine revival of religion. It was a wonder then; it would be more so now! Dr. Coleman, a graduate of Harvard, wrote at the time: "The college is entirely changed. The students are full of G.o.d, and will, I trust, come out blessings to their generation. Many of them appear truly born again, and have proved happy instruments of conversion to their fellows. The voice of prayer and of praise fills their chambers; and sincerity, fervency, and joy, with seriousness of heart, set visibly upon their faces. I was told yesterday that not seven out of the hundred in attendance remained unaffected."

"That was," says one writer, "a strange day for Harvard."

This was the introduction of Methodism into New England, and Whitefield at the time was a Methodist evangelist.

We have said that the first Methodist chapel ever erected in America was built in Boston. Where is the proof? We submit the following facts: While attending the Methodist Ec.u.menical Conference in London, in 1881, Rev. Dr. Allison, of Nova Scotia, had occasion to examine the archives of the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,"

under whose auspices both Wesley and Whitefield came to America. Dr.

Allison tells us that, in the course of his examination, he found letters written by John Wesley while in Georgia. He discovered, also, a most important letter written by Dr. Cutler, of Boston, dated "Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony, July, 1750," in which he says: "There are in Boston at this time fourteen independent chapels and one or two churches." He further adds: "There is, in an obscure alley, a Baptist chapel, _and just now there has been built a Methodist chapel, a form of religion which I think will not soon die_" (Conference report, p. 93).

But who was this Dr. Cutler who wrote the letter from Boston in 1750? He was Rev. Timothy Cutler, first rector of Christ Church, Salem Street, Boston. He was president of Yale College as early as 1720. In 1722 he, with six others, mostly Congregationalists, withdrew, and united with the Episcopal Church. He immediately sailed for England, where he received Episcopal ordination and the t.i.tle of Doctor in Divinity, and was sent by the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" as a missionary to Boston. It was under his ministry that Christ Church was erected, and it was in this church that Charles Wesley, an Oxford Methodist, preached in 1736 several times, during his detention here while on his way from Georgia to England. He speaks of preaching in Dr. Cutler's church as well as in King's Chapel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH AT EPWORTH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EPWORTH MEMORIAL CHURCH AT CLEVELAND, O.]

Here is this Episcopal rector, in 1750, eighteen years before a Methodist chapel was erected in New York or Sam's Creek, Maryland, reporting there was then a Methodist chapel in Boston! Dr. Cutler says it "had been built."

Who built this chapel, whether English Methodist soldiers or some of Whitefield's followers, who might have been pressed out of the dead churches, we do not know, but it was a _Methodist_ chapel. It might have been the former; it may have been the latter. We admit the work did not abide. But that was not the first time that Methodism failed in Boston.

Boardman came to Boston, and is said to have formed a cla.s.s here in 1770, or near that time. But when Freeborn Garrettson visited Boston, in 1787, no trace of Boardman's cla.s.s could be found. When William Black came, a few years later, he found no trace of Freeborn Garrettson's work; and though Mr. Black had a great revival, when Jesse Lee came, in 1798, no fruit of Mr. Black's labors were found. It still remains true, on the authority of Dr. Cutler, who wrote from personal observation, that there was a Methodist chapel in Boston in 1750; and, if so, it was the first ever erected in America.

CHAPTER XVI.

WESLEY AND AMERICAN METHODISM.