The Young People's Wesley Part 9

"'There let it for thy glory burn, With inextinguishable blaze; And trembling to its source return, With humble prayer and fervent praise.'"

This may not be sufficiently definite for some, but it is quite as much so as genuine Christian modesty would approve. But it is evident that he always possessed the "pure, celestial fire," and that its "inextinguishable blaze" bore him on to deeds of heroic daring unparalleled in modern times.

CHAPTER XIII.

WESLEY AS A PREACHER.

MR. WESLEY, it has been said, "was no stormy and dramatic Luther. He was no Cromwell, putting his enemies to the sword in the name of the Lord.

He was no Knox, tearing down churches to get rid of their members. He was no Calvin; he did not burn anybody for disagreeing with him."

Mr. Wesley was styled "the mover of men's consciences." His preaching was simple--a child could easily understand him. There were no far-fetched terms, no soaring among the clouds. All was simple, artless, and clear. He declares that he could no more preach a fine sermon than he could wear a fine coat.

George Whitefield was regarded as the prince of modern eloquence. Dr.

Franklin (no mean judge) accorded him this rank. Charles Wesley was but little inferior to Whitefield as a pulpit orator; while Fletcher was not inferior to either. Mr. Wesley regarded him as superior to Whitefield.

"He had," says Wesley, "a more striking person, equally good breeding, and winning address; together with a rich flow of fancy, a strong understanding, and a far greater treasure of learning both in language, philosophy, philology, and divinity, and above all (which I can speak with greater a.s.surance, because I had a thorough knowledge both of one and the other), a more deep and constant communion with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ."

These were mighty men. The mult.i.tudes that listened to them were swayed by their eloquence and power as is the forest by a rushing, mighty wind.

Their earnest appeals drew floods of tears from eyes unaccustomed to weep.

We are not informed that Mr. Wesley often wept while preaching, and yet no such effects were produced by Whitefield's preaching as were witnessed under Wesley's. Mr. Southey admits that the sermons of Wesley were attended with greater and more lasting effect than were the sermons of Whitefield. Men fell under his words like soldiers slain in battle.

While he was calm, collected, deliberate, and logical, he was more powerful in moving the sensibilities as well as the understanding of his hearers than any other man in England. Marvelous were the physical effects produced by his preaching.

We are told that "his att.i.tude in the pulpit was graceful and easy; his action calm and natural, yet pleasing and expressive," and his command over an audience was very remarkable. He always faced the mob, and was generally victorious at such times. In the midst of a mob he says: "I called for a chair; the winds were hushed, and all was calm and still; my heart was filled with love, my eyes with tears, and my mouth with arguments. They were amazed, they were ashamed, they were melted down, they devoured every word." There must have been, in such preaching, that which seldom falls to our lot to hear. Beattie once heard him preach at Aberdeen one of his ordinary sermons. He remarked that "it was not a masterly sermon, yet none but a master could have preached it."

The account of Wesley preaching at Epworth on his father's tombstone is inspiring. He was refused the church where his honored father had preached thirty-nine years, and for three successive nights he stood upon his father's tombstone and preached to a large company of people.

"A living son," says Tyerman, "preaching on his dead father's grave, because the parish priest refused to allow him to officiate in the dead father's church." "I am well persuaded," said Wesley, "that I did more good to my Lincolnshire parishioners by preaching three days on my father's tomb than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit." During the preaching of these sermons, it is said, the people wept aloud on every side, and Wesley's voice at times was drowned by the cries of penitents, and many in that old churchyard found peace with G.o.d. On another evening many dropped as dead men under the word. A clergyman who heard Wesley preach on that occasion, in writing to him, said: "Your presence created an awe, as if you were an inhabitant of another world."

Who remembers the name of Rector Romley, that ecclesiastical pretender who arrogated to himself such authority? His name has long since pa.s.sed into comparative oblivion, while that of Wesley, whom he despised, shines as a star of the first magnitude, and shall shine on until the heavens shall pa.s.s away. A few years later Romley lost his voice, became a drunkard, then a lunatic, and thus died.

A late writer, not a Methodist, gives a glowing description of Wesley and his conflicts:

He was the peer, in intellectual endowments, of any literary character of that most literary period. No gownsman of the university, no lawned and mitered prelate of his time, was intellectually the superior of this itinerant Methodist--a bishop more truly than the Archprelate of Canterbury himself in everything but the empty name. The hosts of literary pamphleteers and controversialists that rained their attacks upon his system, in showers, were made to feel the keenness of his logic and the staggering weight of his responsive blows. It is a fine sight to look upon, from this distance, that of this single modest man, an unpretentious knight of true religion and consecrated learning, beset for forty years by scores, yes, hundreds, of a.s.sailants, armed in all the ostentation of churchly dignity, shooting at him their arrows of tracts and sermons; newspaper writers pouring upon him their ceaseless squibs; malicious critics a.s.sailing his motives and his methods with innuendoes and false suggestions; ponderous professors tilting at him with their heavier lances of books and stately treatises; and he, alone, giving more than thrust for thrust, and his brother Charles furnishing the inspiring accompaniment of martial music until one man had chased a thousand, and two have put ten thousand to flight.[L]

Speaking of the physical effects produced by Mr. Wesley's preaching, the same writer says:

Wesley is in Bristol for nine months--such a nine months Bristol never saw before. No! nor England, nor the world since the day of Pentecost. Wesley's notions of propriety were destined to be still further shocked. Among the mult.i.tudes that thronged around him strange physical demonstrations began to appear. They shocked even Whitefield when he heard of them, and he remonstrated with Wesley for seeming to permit or encourage them. Men were smitten by his words as a field of standing corn by a tempest. Intense physical agony prostrated them upon the ground. They stood trembling, with fixed eyeb.a.l.l.s staring as though they were looking into eternal horror. Some, who seemed utterly incapable of anything like enthusiasm, were struck as dead. Others beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and begged for forgiveness for their sins. Others were actually torn and maimed in unconscious convulsions. The story of the demoniac in the gospels was, to all appearances, realized over and over.

And again, under his a.s.surance of full forgiveness and free salvation, the storm would give way to a calm, and these same persons would be at peace, clothed and in their right minds. Wesley was helpless; never was more honest and straightforward in generous work. He was himself amazed, almost terrified; but, "I have come to the conclusion," he says, "that we must all suffer G.o.d to carry on his own work in the way that pleaseth him. I am not anxious to account for this."

Wesley's att.i.tude was the right one. Wesley was preaching to men and women who were densely ignorant, in many cases, of the nature of sin, and of the story of G.o.d's redemptive mercy. His words to them were as truly the opening of an apocalypse as when John saw the vision of his Lord, and "fell at his feet as dead."

No wonder such signal effects moved England, Ireland, and Scotland, and, in many instances, America.

The venerable Rev. Thomas Jackson says: "No man was accustomed to address larger mult.i.tudes or with greater success, and it may be fairly questioned whether any minister in modern ages has been instrumental in effecting a greater number of conversions. He possessed all the essential elements of a great preacher, and in nothing was he inferior to his eminent friend and contemporary, George Whitefield, except in voice and manner. In respect of matter, language, and arrangement, his sermons were vastly superior to those of Mr. Whitefield. Those who judge Wesley's ministry from the sermons which he preached and published in the decline of life greatly mistake his real character. Till he was enfeebled by age his discourses were not at all remarkable for their brevity. They were often extended to a considerable length. Wesley the preacher was tethered by no lines of written preparation and verbal recollection; he spoke with extraordinary power of utterance out of the fullness of his heart."

Dr. Rigg says: "In regard to Wesley in his early Oxford days, calm, serene, methodical as Wesley was, there was a deep, steadfast fire of earnest purpose about him; and notwithstanding the smallness of his stature there was an elevation of character and of bearing visible to all with whom he had intercourse, which gave him a wonderful power of command, however quiet were his words, and however placid his deportment. But the extraordinary power of his preaching, while it owed something, no doubt, to this tone and presence of calm, unconscious authority, was due mainly, essentially, to the searching and importunate closeness and fidelity with which he dealt with the consciences of his hearers, and the pa.s.sionate vehemence with which he urged and entreated them to turn to Christ and be saved. His words went with a sudden and startling shock straight home into the core of the guilty sinner's consciousness and heart."

Dr. Abel Stevens says: "As a preacher he remains a problem to us. It is at least difficult to explain, at this late day, the secret of his great power in the pulpit. Aside from the divine influence which is pledged to all faithful ministers, there must have been some peculiar power in his address which the records of the times have failed to describe; his action was calm and natural, yet pleasing and expressive; his voice not loud, but clear, agreeable, and masculine; his style neat and perspicuous."

Cowper says he

"Could fetch the records from earlier age, Or from philosophy's enlightened page His rich materials, and regale your ear With strains it was a privilege to hear.

Yet, above all, his luxury supreme, And his chief glory, was the Gospel theme: There he was copious as old Greece or Rome, His happy eloquence seemed there at home; Ambitious not to shine or to excel, But to treat justly what he loved so well."

Dr. Rigg says: "In his more intense utterances logic and pa.s.sion were fused into a white heat of mingled argument, denunciation, and appeal, often of the most personal searchingness, often overwhelming in its vehement home thrusts."

Dr. Whitehead says: "Wesley's style was marked with brevity and perspicuity. He never lost sight of the rule laid down by Horace:

'Concise your diction, let your sense be clear, Not with a weight of words fatigue the ear.'

His words were pure, proper to the subject, and precise in their meaning."

Mr. Wesley studied human character, and sought to adapt his preaching to the ma.s.ses. One day he was pa.s.sing Billingsgate market, with Bradford, while two of the women were quarreling furiously. His companion urged him to pa.s.s on, but Wesley replied, "Stay, Sammy, stay and learn how to preach."

CHAPTER XIV.

WESLEY AS A REFORMER.

SLAVERY.

THOSE moral reforms which have shaken the nations and in some cases revolutionized governments were scarcely known in the days of Wesley. He saw the coming storm and blew a trumpet-blast which gave no uncertain sound. In some of these reforms he was a hundred years in advance of his time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WESLEY'S TEA-POT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WESLEY'S BIBLE AND CASE.]

Slavery, in Wesley's time, was strongly supported by the English government. She had enriched herself from the African slave trade. Her great maritime cities were built on the bones, sinews, and flesh, cemented by the blood, of oppressed bondmen. To oppose slavery was to oppose the government. Wesley met this gigantic evil with Christian courage. What was true of England was also true of her colonies. He united with Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others to oppose the evil.

He represented the slave trade as "that execrable sum of all villainies, commonly called the slave trade." American slavery he declared was "the vilest that ever saw the sun." No addresses delivered on the subject, during the days of the greatest antislavery excitement, exceeded in severity those which fell from the lips and were produced by the pen of John Wesley. His _Thoughts on Slavery_ was the keynote of the movement.

Wesley's last letter, written only four days before his death, was addressed to Wilberforce, urging him to persevere in the work. It is as follows:

LONDON, February 26, 1791.

DEAR SIR: Unless the divine Power has raised you up to be an _Athanasius contra mundum_ (Athanasius against the world), I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless G.o.d has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But "if G.o.d be for you, who can be against you?" Are all of them together stronger than G.o.d? O, "be not weary in welldoing." Go on, in the name of G.o.d, and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.

Reading this morning a tract written by a poor African, I was particularly struck by this circ.u.mstance--that a man who has a black skin, being wronged or outraged by a white man, can have no redress; it being a law, in all our colonies, that the oath of a black against a white goes for nothing. What villainy is this!

That He who has guided you from your youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all things is the prayer, dear sir, of

Your affectionate servant, JOHN WESLEY.