laborer Bradford that such had ever been the tenor of his preaching, she lamented that a separation between the Calvinistic and Arminian Methodists had ever taken place. JOHN The champion of the Wesleyan Methodists in the Calvinistic controversy was John William Fletcher (original name De la Fléchère), as saintly a man as ever lived, and one of the acutest of controversialists. It must be confessed that this controversy was carried on, especially on the Calvinistic side, with a virulence and ferocity of language unbecoming Christian gentlemen. The pens of Rowland Hill and Augustus Toplady were dipped FLETCHER. in gall. But no provocation could make the seraphic Fletcher descend to the arena of personal strife, where opprobrious epithets and harsh words were bandied about like clubs. He lifted the controversy into a purer air, and some parts of his work throb with religious fervor, over which plays the light of mystical devotion. Sections of his anti-Calvinistic polemic could be read as a means of grace. Fletcher was born at Nyon, Vaud, Switzerland, in 1729. He was educated at Geneva, taking all the prizes in his school, and becoming a fine scholar. When a young man he longed, like Frederick W. Robertson, for the army, but striking providential interferences prevented the consummation of his desires. He went over to England, was converted under the Methodists, joined them, was ordained priest in 1757 by the bishop of Bangor, declined the offer of a living at Durham with easy work and a good salary, and in 1760 accepted the church at Madeley. The parish was run down, the people ignorant, rude, and wicked, and Fletcher by his zealous ministry of preaching and pastoral work transformed the place. At first the people would not go to church. Fletcher arose early on Sunday, took a bell, and went through the streets calling the people to the sanctuary. He sometimes appeared at entertainments and among revelers, and like an angel of the Lord denounced their sins and unhallowed pleasures. No sinner could escape him. But to the needy he was most generous. He denied himself food, raiment, and furniture, that he might minister to the poor. He spent whole nights in prayer, though he afterward acknowledged that he carried his self-denial and religious exercises to an ascetic excess. Southey well says that "no age or country has ever produced a man of more fervent piety or more perfect charity; no Church has possessed a more apostolic ministry." The name of Fletcher and that of his equally devoted wife, whom he mar 1 Life of Wesley, ch. 25. 1 ried four years before his death, devout hearts will keep green forever. OTHER EVAN HELPERS. Many others must be passed over with a mere mention-both Calvinists and Arminians-who helped forward the evangelical revival men like John Nelson, the brave, great-hearted mason and evangelist, a man of heroic stature in Christ; Vincent Perronet, vicar of Shoreham, who used to welcome the Wesleys into his pulpit, though when they first appeared the people "roared, stamped, blasphemed, rang the bells, and turned the church into a bear garden," and who appreciated the GELICAL Methodist movement so highly that he said, "I make no doubt that Methodism is designed by Providence to introduce the approaching millennium;" his two sons, Charles and Edward -Charles, of whom Wesley said when he died in 1776, "He was a living and dying witness of the blessed doctrine he always defended, entire sanctification;" and Edward, who at first traveled with the Wesleys, but afterward settled down as a stanch dissenting pastor, and who was the author of "All hail the power of Jesus' name!"-glory enough for one man; William Grimshaw, curate of Haworth, Yorkshire, a natural orator, of whom Wesley said, "He carries fire wherever he goes;" Rowland Hill, a Cambridge graduate and Whitefield Methodist, an eccentric but powerful preacher, whose wit sometimes verged upon buffoonery, who loved open-air preaching and itinerated even after his pastorates at Kingston and at Surrey Chapel (which he built) in London, and who had as large audiences as Whitefield; Henry Venn, the great pastor-evangelist of Huddersfield and Yelling; John Berridge, vicar of Everton, who made that town the center of a widespread reformation, the friend of both Wesley and Whitefield, rich but liberal, who rented churches, supported lay preachers, and aided poor societies with an unsparing hand; Howell Harris, the Wesley of Wales, driven out of Oxford in disgust by its infidelity and immorality, who went through Wales, preaching from house to house and wherever he could get hearers, formed societies, suffered repeated persecution from mobs and the clergymen of his own Church, was repeatedly refused ordination, and therefore became the unintentional founder of the Welsh Calvinistic Church and the inspirer, if not creator, of Welsh dissent. 1 1 Rowland Hill was the uncle of Lord Hill, one of the greatest soldiers of his time, who was called the "right arm of the Duke of Wellington," but his namesake, Rowland Hill, the founder of penny postage, belonged to another family. CHAPTER IV. METHODISM OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THESE are perhaps the pivotal dates in the history of English Methodism until the death of John Wesley: 1738, John Wesley's conversion; 1739, the first class meeting, or the origin of the Methodists as a special body, and the beginning of open-air preaching and of lay preaching; 1740, Methodism becomes differentiated from Calvinism and Moravianism; 1744, the first Conference (six FIRST HALF METHODISM. clergymen and five lay preachers), which fixes doctrine CENTURY OF and polity on substantially the same basis as at present; 1747, a tract society formed; 1748, the first academy opened; 1763, a fund for superannuated ministers established; 1778, the Arminian Magazine started, which has continued to this day, the name changed to Methodist Magazine soon after Wesley's death, and to Wesleyan Methodist Magazine in 1822; 1784, all hope of amalgamation with the Church of England or any other denomination set to rest by Wesley entering in the Court of Chancery a deed for the permanent constitution of the Conference; 1784, Wesley ordains Coke superintendent and Whatcoat and Vasey elders-the climax to a long series of acts inconsistent with his identity with the Church of England; 1785, Wesley ordains Pawson, Hanby, and Taylor as presbyters to officiate in Scotland; 1786, ordains Keighley and Atmore for England and Warrener and Hammett for missions abroad, and consents to holding services in church hours; 1787-1789, ordains several presbyters and Mather as superintendent; 1788, death of Charles Wesley (his widow survived until 1822); 1790, further plans for the consolidation of Methodism-Wesley still presiding in the Conference session; 1791, death of John Wesley.' The ensuing Conference provided by districts and district chairmen for the oversight similar to that which was exercised by their late founder. The Methodism of the nineteenth century has moved forward in many special directions. We have first its independent move ments. 1 The late George J. Stevenson, of London, gives an admirable chronological history of British and Continental Methodism in his articles in McClintock and Strong, Cyc., x, 921-953. DISTS. Wesleyan Methodism has been peculiarly unfortunate in dealing with her children. The lack of statesmanlike concession and large-minded consideration in critical junctures has repeatedly driven out many of her most earnest, pious, and progressive people. These have gone into the Established or Nonconformist Churches, or have built up independent Churches which have done a great work for England. Doubtless vastly deeper NEW CONNECeffect would have been produced on the life of the TION METHOnation if the conciliatory and practical wisdom of Wesley had been given to his successors. The first trouble was in dealing with the natural and just demand for the sacraments and for the rights of the societies and of the laymen, which resulted in the expulsion of Alexander Kilham in 1796 and the formation of the Methodist New Connection in 1797. The new Church started out with four ministers and five thousand members from the old body, and has had an honorable, though not a markedly successful, history. It introduced the principle of lay representation, thus setting early a noble example which other Methodist bodies in England and America have-though late-followed. The Wesleyan Methodists have gradually adopted most of the features of the New Connection, and the union of these two Churches would be a happy consummation. THE PRIMI DISTS. Another act of the same kind was the excision of William Clowes and Hugh Bourne on account of their zeal in holding open-air meetings and camp meetings, which latter they had borrowed from America. The parent Conference condemned all such meetings in 1807, and in 1810 Clowes, Bourne, and TIVE METHOothers formed a Church fittingly called the Primitive Methodist Church. Its aim was to be true to the evangelistic and revival traditions which had been the glory of the old Methodism, and heroically has it carried out that program. The spirit of Wesley and his brave companions has passed into the Church of Bourne, which with apostolic zeal has preached the Gospel to the poor and evangelized the forsaken and the godless. Nor has this Church forgotten learning-another ideal of Wesley. Protestant Churches in England and Scotland cannot support a theological review, this noble band of Methodists still publish one of the best-the Primitive Methodist Quarterly. The Primitive Methodists have also been true to total abstinence. Wesley's excoriating words on the traffic in drink were the first notes of the modern temperance reformation.' When great I See his sermon (50), The Use of Money. Works, Lond. ed., vi, 128, 129. Another independent movement followed-that led by William O'Bryan, 1815, a zealous local preacher, who used to travel from BIBLE CHRIS- place to place seeking the lost and outcast. He was TIANS. expelled by his pastor, and formed the Bible Christian Society, which has done excellent work in the west of England. The Leeds organ dispute-forcing an organ on the congregation against the wishes of a majority of the leaders and stewards-led to the formation in 1828 of the Wesleyan Protestant Methodists. The Wesleyan Methodist Association, 1835, was the result of the PROTESTANT LEYAN ASSO- dominating influence of Jabez Bunting, who led an educational scheme for young ministers. Samuel Warren, pastor in Manchester, fearful of the transformation of the Conference from a spiritual brotherhood into a coterie of personal followers of Bunting, and for other reasons, led an opposition to the scheme. He was supported by some of the oldest and most pious of the ministers. Dr. Warren was tried and expelled in 1835. This left Bunting and those who stood for him in greater power than ever. The free expression of opinion and the unhindered play of intellectual forces, the action and interaction of independent men, became impossible. While freedom was not specifically forbidden, in the atmosphere of an undefined absolutism it could not live. This led to METHODIST the great disruption of 1849, when a system of inquisitorial questioning led to the expulsion of three of the best and ablest ministers, James Everett, Samuel Dunn, and William Griffith, Jr., followed by others. One hundred and twenty thousand members left the Wesleyan Methodist Church. In 1857 these amalgamated with the Protestant and Association Methodists in forming the United Methodist Free Church, one of the noblest Churches of England. All these offshoots from Wesleyan Methodism were organized on democratic principles. UNITED FREE CHURCH. The first emphasis of Methodism was on the salvation of men. But education was not forgotten. In the first Conference, 1744, we read: "Question. Can we have a seminary for laborers? Answer. If God spare us till another Conference." At the next Conference the question was put : "Question. Can we have a seminary for laborers yet? "Answer. Not till God gives us a proper tutor." As early as 1739 Whitefield began a school at Kingswood, Bristol, which he immediately turned over to Wesley, who collected money for it and started it in 1740. Its object was to teach both the |