CHAPTER III. OTHER LEADERS OF THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. CHARLES WESLEY. As Luther's hymns helped the Reformation almost as much as Luther's doctrines, so Charles Wesley's hymns were of incalculable service in the great work that his brother inaugurated. Born in 1707, the eighteenth child and third surviving son of Samuel Wesley, he was educated by his mother, and then sent to Westminster School. He entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1726, and graduated B. A. in 1730. Here he became the center of some earnestminded young men who united zeal for religion with zeal for study, the first "Methodists." After graduating he became a tutor. He was ordained deacon by Potter, of Oxford, and priest by Gibson, of London, in 1735. He joined his brother in Savannah in 1736, but his High Churchly zeal and moral strictness made him enemies, and he soon left in impaired health. His vessel put in at Boston, where the rest restored his health, and where he preached several times in King's Chapel. He landed at Deal on December 3, 1736. Charles Wesley also owed his conversion to the Moravians. Technically, the experience of the brothers was not conversion, for they were sincere and even ardent Christians before. But the experience of 1738 might really be called a conversion CHARLES'S WITH JOHN. because they were turned from a legal and ritualistic COOPERATION piety-though perfectly genuine and sincere to a free, happy, conquering experience of divine peace and power through simple faith in Christ. As Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans was the instrument of John Wesley's conversion, so his Commentary on Galatians helped Charles Wesley into the light -the same commentary against which John subsequently turned in a moment of violent reaction as not sufficiently guarding good works.' Charles threw himself with fervor into the evangelistic work of his brother, and until 1756 itinerated throughout England and Wales, in delicate health and amid bodily infirmities, but with a zeal which hardships never abated, and with a courage which opposition never quelled. He was no muscular Iron-heart ; his spirit was gentle, his sensibilities tender; yet, near to martyr 1 See Journal, June 15, 1741. 991 dom, he many times faced mobs and held his ground "until his clothes were torn to tatters, and the blood ran down his face in streams.' His marriage, in 1749, to a pious and wealthy Welsh lady, Sarah Gwynne, made no difference with his itinerating. His wife accompanied him, riding behind him on a pillion, and her fine voice led the singing at his meetings. His marriage was singularly happy, unlike John's foolish match with widow Vazeille, of whom it is related that once, when giving her husband in Charles's presence one of her periodical scoldings, she was abruptly silenced by Charles repeating from memory, in his loud, clear voice, page after page of Virgil's Æneid. For the younger Wesley was a proficient classical scholar, and was acquainted with Hebrew and French, though he did not know also, as John did, German and Spanish. In 1756 Charles Wesley retired from the itinerancy and settled as Methodist pastor first in Bristol and afterward in London, where he died March 2, 1788. He remained earnestly attached to the evangelical movement to the last, though he was bitterly opposed to those measures of his brother John which, however intended, meant complete separation of the Methodists from the Anglican CHARLES DIFFERS IN FROM JOHN. Church. His own course, however, in relation to the Church was even more inconsistent than his brother's. Thomas Jackson states the matter admirably. "For thirty years he made more noise on the subject of the continued union of the Methodists with the Church than any other man of the age; and all this time he was beyond comparison the greatest practical separatist in the whole connection. John Wesley spent most of his time traveling throughout Great Britain and Ireland, often preaching twice every day, and two or three times on the Sabbath. Rarely, however, did he preach in church hours except when he officiated for a brother clergyman. He attended the church where he happened to be, and pressed the people to accompany him thither. Many of his itinerant preachers pursued the same course. This was the recognized plan of Methodist practice. But this was not the state of things in London under the administration of Charles Wesley. He preached twice during church hours every Sabbath, and indulged the society with weekly sacrament at their own places of worship." It was a wise providence 2 1Daniel, Hist. of Methodism, p. 326; Faulkner, art. Charles Wesley, in McClintock and Strong, Cyclopædia, x, 909, where a statement of all the aspects of his lifework may be found. Life of Charles Wesley, ii, 404, 405. that placed the control of the evangelical movement in the hands of John, who, with all his sincere attachment to the Church of his father, had a statesmanlike grasp of the situation and a discernment of the signs of the times, and therefore allowed the movement to go forward as God was leading it.' But no difference of opinion as to administration ever ruffled the strong, cordial friendship and love which the two brothers had for each other. Charles Wesley's great service was his hymns. "His least praise," says his brother, "was his talent for poetry, although Dr. Watts did not scruple to say that that single poem, Wrestling Jacob,' was worth all the verses he had written." Considering the fact that Charles Wesley was the most voluminous of all poets-having written no less than six thousand five hundred hymns'-it is almost a miracle that he did so much fine work. The fact that there are more of his hymns used than those of any other writer shows that his hymns, as a rule, reach a higher level than those 6 CHARLES WESLEY'S HYMNS. of any other poet. The ease, grace, rhythmical flow, and especially the religious power of his hymns, which all rest on a sound and positive substratum of thought, have not been excelled. Frederic M. Bird, who has made a profound study of Wesley's hymns, compares him with other hymnists in these words: "Doddridge and Steele are diluted reproductions of Dr. Watts. Montgomery, a professed and lifelong poet, is inferior to Wesley in all the qualities mentioned above, and in no respect above him in propriety, harmony, and grace of style. Heber, the most elegant and mellifluous of sacred poets, is not more polished and fluent than his Methodist predecessor, nor has he anything of his solidity, strength, and fire. Cowper is the greatest name in the hymn. books, but Cowper's best poems, which are very few, are but equal, not superior, to Wesley's best, which are many. Toplady approaches most nearly the Methodist poet, but Toplady borrowed his inspiration from Wesley, and reproduced his style; and this is the Calvinist's highest praise that his finest pieces are undistinguishable from those of his Arminian neighbor. No other name in British sacred lyric poetry can be mentioned with that of Charles Wesley. And when it is remembered that all these counted their 1 See Stevens, Hist. of Methodism, ii, 275. ? Ministers of Conference, 1788. 3 Overton, in Julian, Dict. of Hymnology, p. 1258. 4 Alex. Gordon says that five hundred are in constant use.-Art. Charles Wesley, in Dict. of Nat'l Biog., lx, 301. The number is doubtless much less. poems by the dozens and hundreds, while he by thousands; and that his thousands were in power, in elegance, in devotional and literary value above their few, we call him, yet more confidently, great among poets and prince of English hymnists. GEORGE Of Charles Wesley's eight children five died in infancy. Charles (died 1834, aged seventy-seven) and Samuel (died 1837, aged seventy-one) were eminent musicians,' and Sarah, a woman of great culture, died, unmarried, in Bristol in 1828, aged sixty-eight. The greatest preacher of the evangelical revival was George Whitefield. His father was a tavern keeper, and his grandfather and great-grandfather were Anglican clergymen. His early surroundings were not conducive to either piety or morality, and he gives in his journals an account of his youthful indiscretions, which, like Bunyan, he unconsciously exaggerated WHITEFIELD. into crimes. But he early felt the power of religious impression, which his brief experience as bartender did not destroy. When he went to Oxford in 1732 he resolved to live a pious life and joined the "Holy Club" of the Wesleys. He was the first among the Methodists to experience the joys of salvation (1735). He was ordained in the Church of England in 1736, and at once leaped into notoriety for his preaching. He joined the Wesleys in Georgia, and preached there with great acceptance. He soon returned to England, and then followed that marvelous life of itinerant preaching from 1739 until his death at Newburyport, Mass., September 30, 1770. He crossed the Atlantic thirteen times (seven visits), and his preaching poured new life into the Baptist, Congregational, and Presbyterian Churches from Georgia to Massachusetts. Similar results appeared in England. In one week he received a thousand letters from persons awakened by his sermons. He had a musical voice of great compass and power, over which he had perfect control. His spiritual intensity was overwhelming, and his dramatic gift was unexcelled. He once described a sinner as a poor blind beggar led by a dog. The dog escapes and the blind man is left only with his staff. He wanders to the edge of a precipice. His staff drops from his hand and falls down the abyss too far to send back an echo. He reaches forward to recover it, poises on the edge of a precipice, and— “Good 1 Bibliotheca Sacra, Jan. and April, 1864, p. 318 (April). Bird was a Lutheran, but is now an Episcopalian, and professor in Lehigh University, South Bethlehem, Pa. See arts. by H. Davey and F. G. Edwards in Lee, Dict. of Nat'l Biog., vol. lx, and Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley Family, Lond., 1879. God," shouted Lord Chesterfield, as he sprang up in his place in Lady Huntingdon's pew, "he is gone!" Benjamin Franklin went to hear Whitefield in Philadelphia. He said that Whitefield intended to finish with a collection for his favorite charity, the orphanage in Georgia. But the frugal Franklin resolved to give nothing, though having gold, silver, and copper in his pocket. But as he came more and more under the power of the preacher, "I began," he says, "to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory determined me to give the silver, and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly in the collector's dish-gold and all." Whitefield was a strong Calvinist, and the Calvinistic controversy which broke out between him and Wesley estranged them, but only temporarily. They soon came together again in love and fellowship, and when Whitefield died no one paid him a more hearty tribute than Wesley.' LADY The name of Whitefield recalls that of Selina Shirley, daughter of Washington Shirley, Earl of Ferrers, and, by marriage, the Countess of Huntingdon. Under the influence of illness and bereavement she received the Gospel, while HUNTINGDON. attending the meetings of the Methodists at Fetter Lane, London. She became the special patroness of Whitefield, whose theology she adopted. At her house he was wont to preach to dukes and duchesses and other titled dignitaries, and some of them received the faith. It was through her that the results of Whitefield's labors were garnered. She built churches for his converts, the first one by selling her jewels, appointed and partially supported pastors for them, and thus the Whitefield Methodists came to be called the Lady Huntingdon's Connection. In 1768 she founded Trevecca College in South Wales for the education of ministers, which later became a Congregational institution, and soon after her death in 1791 was removed to Cheshunt, Herts. At the time of her death there were sixty-four churches in communion with her, Congregational in polity, Calvinistic in doctrine, evangelistic in spirit. When she had read Wesley's dying ascription of his salvation to the blood of the Lamb, and learned from his fellow 1 See sermon 53, On the Death of the Rev. George Whitefield, Lond. ed. Works, vi, 167 ff. In this sermon Wesley speaks of his “indefatigable activity, zeal, frankness, and openness, courage, intrepidity, great plainness of speech, steadiness, and integrity. Have we read or heard of any person since the apostles who testified the Gospel of the grace of God through so widely extended a space, through so large a part of the habitable world? Have we heard or read of any person who called so many thousands, so many myriads of sinners to repentance?" |