of his own. Strong fancy, and strong prepossession, may explain this, without ascribing too much to the sense of his own importance. If he escaped from storms at sea, it appeared to him that the tempest abated, and the waves fell, because his prayers were heard. If he was endangered in travelling, he was persuaded that angels, both evil and good, had a large share in the transaction. "The old murderer," he says, "is restrained from hurting me, but he has power over my horses." A panic seized the people, in a crowded meeting, while he was preaching upon the slave trade: it could not be accounted for, he thought, without supposing some preternatural influence: "Satan fought, lest his kingdom should be delivered up.” If, in riding over the mountains in Westmoreland, he sees rain behind him and before, and yet escapes between the showers, the natural circumstance appears to him to be an especial interference in his favour. Preaching in the open air, he is chilled, and the sun suddenly comes forth to warm him the heat becomes too powerful, and forthwith a cloud is interposed. So, too, at Durham, when the sun shone with such force upon his head, that he was scarcely able to speak, "I paused a little," he says, " and desired God would provide me a covering, if it was for his glory. In a moment it was done a cloud covered the sun, which troubled me no more. Ought voluntary humility to conceal this palpable proof, that God still heareth the prayer?" At another time the sun, while he was officiating, shone full in his face, but it was no inconvenience; nor were his eyes more dazzled, than if it had been under the earth. Labouring under indisposition, when he was about to administer the sacrament, the thought, he says, came into his mind, why should he not apply to God at the beginning, rather than the end of an illness?" He did so, and found immediate relief. By an effort of faith he could rid himself of the toothach: and more than once, when his horse fell lame, and there was no other remedy, the same application was found effectual. 66 Some," he observes, "will esteem this a most notable instance of enthusiasm: be it so, or not, I aver the plain fact."

This was Wesley's peculiar weakness, and he retained it to the last. Time and experience taught him to correct some of his opinions, and to moderate others, but this was rooted in his nature. In the year 1780, he began to publish the Arminian Magazine, for the double purpose of maintaining and defending those doctrines which were reviled with such abominable scurrility by the Calvinists in their monthly journal, and of supplying his followers, who were not in

*

* In the preface to the first volume he says, "Amidst the multitude of magazines which now swarm in the world, there was one, a few years ago, termed the Christian Magazine, which was of great use to mankind, and did honour to the publishers; but it was soon discontinued, to tire regret of many serious and sensible persons. In the room of it started up a miscreated phantom, called The Spiritual Magazine, and, not long after it, its twin sister, oddly called The Gospel Magazine. Both of these are intended to show, that God is not loving to every man; that his mercy is not over all his works; and, consequently, that Christ did not die for us all, but for one in ten, for the elect only.

"This comfortable doctrine, the sum of which, proposed in plain English, is, God, before the foundation of the world, absolutely and irrevocably decreed, that some men shall be saved, do what they will, and the rest damned, do what they can,' has, by these tracts, been spread throughout the land with the utmost diligence. And these champions of it have, from the beginning, proceeded in a manner worthy of their cause. They have paid no more regard to good nature, decency, or good manners, than to reason or truth: all these they set utterly at defiance. Without any deviation from their plan, they have defended their dear decrees, with arguments worthy of Bedlam, and with language worthy of Billingsgate."

These were the first religious journals which were published in England. Since that time every

the habit of reading much, with an entertaining and useful miscellany. Both purposes were well answered; but having this means at his command, he indulged his indiscriminate credulity, and inserted, without scruple, and without reflection, any marvellous tale that came to his hands.

CHAPTER XXVII.

METHODISM IN AMERICA.-WESLEY'S POLITICAL Conduct.

A LITTLE modification might have rendered Methodism a most useful auxiliary to the English Church. But if some such auxiliary power was needed in this country, much more was it necessary in British America, where the scattered state of the population was as little favourable to the interests of religion as of government.

*

In the New-England states, the Puritans had established a dismal tyranny of the priesthood; time and circumstances had mitigated it; and ecclesiastical discipline, in those provinces, seems nearly to have reached its desirable mean about the middle of the eighteenth century; the elders no longer exercised an impertinent and vexatious control over their countrymen; they retained, however, a wholesome influence; the means of religious instruction were carefully provided, and the people were well trained up in regular and pious habits. Too little attention had been paid to this point in other states; indeed it may be said, that the mother country, in this respect, had grossly neglected one of its first and most important duties towards its colonies. There were many parts in the southern states of which the frightful picture given of them by Secker, when bishop of Oxford, was not overcharged. "The first European inhabitants," said that prelate, "too many of them, carried but little sense of Christianity abroad with them. A great part of the rest suffered it to wear out gradually, and their children grew, of course, to have yet less than they, till, in some countries, there were scarce any footsteps of it left beyond the mere name. No teacher was known, no religious assembly was held; the sacrament of baptism not administered for near twenty years together, nor that of the Lord's Supper for near sixty, amongst many thousands of people, who did not deny the obligation of these duties, but lived, nevertheless, in a stupid neglect of them." To remedy this, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent out missionaries from time to to time; but misdirecting their exertions, for want of proper inquiry, denomination of dissenters, down to the most insignificant subdivisions of schism, has had its magazine.

*Franklin gives a curious anecdot upon this subject in one of his letters. "The reverend commissary Blair, who projected the college in the province of Virginia, and was in England to solicit benefactions and a charter, relates that the queen, (Mary,) in the king's absence, having ordered the Attorney General (Seymour) to draw up the charter which was to be given, with 2000. in money, he opposed the grant, saying, that the nation was engaged in an expensive war, that the money was wanted for better purposes, and he did not see the least occasion for a college in Virginia. Blair represented to him, that its intention was to educate and qualify young men to be ministers of the Gospel. much wanted there; and begged Mr. Attorney would consider, that the people of Virginia had souls to be saved as well as the people of England. Souls! said he, damn your souls! make tobacco m

Correspondence, vol. i. p. 158.

er proper information, they employed most of the few labourers whom they could find in the states where they were least wanted, and in places where they did little more than interfere with what was the established system.

Whitefield had contented himself with the immediate impression which he produced. The person who first began to organize Methodism in America was an Irishman, by name Philip Embury, who had been a local preacher in his own country. Having removed to New-York, he collected a few hearers, first in his own house, and, when their number increased, in a large room, which they rented for the purpose. Captain Webb happened at this time to be in America. This officer, who had lost an eye in the battle of Quebec, had been converted, not long after that event, by Mr. Wesley's preaching at Bristol, and had tried his own talents as a preacher at Bath, when some accident prevented the itinerant from arriving, whom the congregation had assembled to hear. Webb hearing of Embury's beginning, paid him a visit from Albany, where he then held the appointment of barrack-master, preached in his uniform, attracted auditors by the novelty of such an exhibition, and made proselytes by his zeal. A regular society was formed in the year 1768, and they resolved to build a preaching-house.

Wesley's attention had already been invited to America. He met with a Swedish chaplain, who had spent several years in Pennsylvania, and who entreated that he would send out preachers to help him, representing what multitudes in that country were as sheep without a shepherd. Soon afterwards Captain Webb and his associates wrote to Mr. Wesley, informing him that a beginning had been made, and requesting that he would, at the ensuing Conference, appoint some persons to come over, and prosecute the work which was so providentially begun. About the same time there came a letter from a certain Thomas Bell, at Charlestown, saying, "Mr. Wesley says, the first message of the preachers is to the lost sheep of England. And are there none in America? They have strayed from England into the wild woods here, and they are running wild after this world. They are drinking their wine in bowls, and are jumping and dancing, and serving the devil, in the groves and under the green trees. And are not these lost sheep? And will none of the preachers come here? Where is Mr. Brownfield? Where is John Pawson? Where is Nicholas Manners? are they living, and will they not come ?”

Pawson would not go; because, he said, he did not see that it could be his duty to leave his parents, who were then on the brink of the grave. He followed his heart in this, and was right. Pawson, indeed, was in his proper sphere; the fire of enthusiasm in him had settled into a steady vital heat, and there were younger men for the work. Richard Boardman and Joseph Pillmoor, volunteered at the next Conference for the service; and, as the New-York Methodists had contracted a debt by their building, the Connexion sent them fifty pounds by these preachers, as a token of brotherly love. They landed at Philadelphia, where Captain Webb had already formed a society of about a hundred members. Pillmoor proceeded to Maryland and Virginia, Boardman to New-York: both sent home flatter

66

ing accounts of their success, and of the prospect before them; so that Wesley himself began to think of following them: “but," said he, "the way is not plain; I wait till Providence shall speak more clearly on one side or the other." In 1771 he says, my call to America is not yet clear. I have no business there, as long as they can do without me; at present I am a debtor to the people of England and Ireland, and especially to them that believe.' That year, therefore, he sent over Richard Wright and Francis Asbury, the latter of whom proved not inferior to himself in zeal, activity, and perseverance. Asbury perceived that his ministry was more needed in the villages and scattered plantations than in large towns, and be therefore devoted himself to country service. In 1773, Thomas Rankin and George Shadford were sent to assist their brethren: by this time they had raised a few recruits among the Americans, and holding a Conference at Philadelphia, it appeared by their musterrolls, that there were about a thousand members in the different so. cieties,

These preachers produced a considerable effect; and Methodism would have increased even more rapidly than in England, if its progress had not been interrupted by the rebellion. At the commencement of the disputes, which led to that unhappy and ill-managed contest, Mr. Wesley was disposed to doubt whether the measures of government were defensible but when the conduct of the revolutionists became more violent, and their intentions were unmasked, he saw good cause for altering his opinion, and published " A Calm Address to the Americans," examining the question, whether the English parliament had power to tax the colonies. In this little pamphlet he pursued the same chain of reasoning as Dr. Johnson had done, and maintained, that the supreme power in England had a legal right of laying any tax upon them, for any end beneficial to the whole empire. The right of taxation, he argued, rested upon the same ground as the right of legislation: and the popular argument, that every freeman consented to the laws by which he was governed, was a mere fallacy. A very small part of the people were concerned in making laws; that business could only be done by delegation; those who were not electors had manifestly no part; and of those who were, when their votes were nearly equally divided, the minority were governed, not only without, but against their own consent. So much with regard to the laws which were enacted in their own times; and how could it be said that any man had consented to those which were made before he was born? In fact, consent to the laws was purely passive, and no other kind of consent was allowed by the condition of civil life. The Americans had not forfeited the rights of their forefathers, but they could no longer exercise them. They were the descendants of men who either had no votes, or who had resigned them by emigration. They had, therefore, exactly what their ancestors left them; not a vote in making laws, nor in choosing legislators, but the happiness of being protected by laws, and the duty of obeying them. During the last war, they had been attacked by enemies whom they were not able to resist; they had been largely assisted, and, by that means, wholly delivered: the mother country, desiring to be reimbursed for some part of the

great expense she had incurred, laid on a small tax, and this reasonable and legal'measure had set all America in a flame. How was it possible that such a cause should have produced such an effect?

"I will tell you," said Wesley. "I speak the more freely, because I am unbiassed. I have nothing to hope or fear on either side. I gain nothing, either by the government or by the Americans, and probably never shall; and I have no prejudice to any man in America: I love you as my brethren and countrymen. My opinion is this we have a few men in England who are determined enemies to monarchy. Whether they hate his present Majesty on any other ground than because he is a king, I know not; but they cordially hate his office, and have for some years been undermining it with all diligence, in hopes of erecting their grand idol, their dear commonwealth, upon its ruins. I believe they have let very few into their design, (although many forward it, without knowing any thing of the matter,) but they are steadily pursuing it, as by various other means, so, in particular, by inflammatory papers, which are industriously and continually dispersed throughout the towns and country. By this method they have already wrought thousands of the people even to the pitch of madness. By the same, only varied according to your circumstances, they have likewise inflamed America. I make no doubt but these very men are the original cause of the present breach between England and her colonies. And they are still pouring oil into the flame, studiously incensing each against the other, and opposing, under a variety of pretences, all measures of accommodation. So that although the Americans, in general, love the English, and the English, in general, love the Americans, (all, I mean, that are not yet cheated and exasperated by these artful men,) yet the rupture is growing wider every day, and none can tell where it can end. These good men hope it will end in the total defection of North America from England. If this were effected, they trust the English in general would be so irreconcileably disgusted, that they should be able, with or without foreign assistance, entirely to overturn the government.'

Mr. Wesley afterwards perceived, that the class of persons, whom he had here supposed to be the prime movers of this unhappy contest, were only aiders and abettors, and that the crisis had come on from natural causes. "I allow," said he, " that the Americans were strongly exhorted, by letters from England, never to yield, or lay down their arms, till they had their own terms, which the government would be constrained to give them in a short time.' But those measures were concerted long before this,-long before either the tea-act, or the stamp-act, existed, only they were not digested in form. Forty years ago, when my brother was in Boston, it was the general language there, we must shake off the yoke ; we never shall be a free people till we shake off the English yoke :' and the late acts of parliament were not the cause of what they have since done, but barely the occasion they laid hold on." That the American revolution must, in great part, be traced to the puritanical origin of the New-England states, is indeed certain; but colonies are naturally republican, and when they are far distant, and upon a large scale, they tend necessarily, as well as naturally, to separation.