There are two utterances of Mr. Wesley that lie very close together in the minds of many Methodists. The first is that declaration concerning his spiritual condition which appears in his Journal on Wednesday, the first of February, 1738. He had just landed at Deal. He writes: "It is now two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity: but what have I learned myself in the meantime? Why (what I the least of all suspected), that I who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God."* The second utterance is his record of the occurrences of May 24, 1738. He says: "In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." In order to understand Wesley it is important that we should get his language into the context. Only so shall we get its real meaning, and make its inculcation sane and sound in the spiritual life of the Church. Wesley had a religious experience from the cradle. He was taught to say the Lord's Prayer as soon as he could talk. His consistency of conduct was such “that his father admitted him to the communion table when he was only eight years old. And he himself informs us that until he was about the age of ten he had not sinned away that 'washing of the Holy Ghost' which he received in baptism." He had a religious experience through all the years. He gave himself without stint to Christian works. But with all his saintly devotion, it may be asked was he a converted man? The context will show us what he thought of the Moravians, and what they thought of him, and will enable us to understand Wesley's view of his own case. On Friday, the seventeenth of October, 1735, John Wesley first made acquaintance with the * Journal, first American edition, vol. iii, p. 56. ↑ Journal, vol. iii, p. 74. Moravians. He was about to sail for America, and had been spending Wednesday and Thursday "partly on board and partly on shore." On Friday, having found twenty-six Germans aboard, he began to learn to speak German. On Monday, the twentieth, he speaks of "David Nitschman, bishop of the Germans." On Tuesday, the twenty-first, he writes: "At seven I joined with the Germans in their public service." He could not know the farreaching influence of the acquaintance he was making with these humble Christians, and it is certain that the Church has never fully appreciated the extent of its obligations to them. We note a sympathetic interest in them from the day when he went on shipboard. The first pages of his Journal are almost entirely given up to an acount of his intercourse with them. He saw in their bearing and conduct evidences of a spiritual calm which was strangely contrasted with the unrest of his own soul. On Sunday, the twenty-fifth, he writes of a terrible storm and makes it the occasion for a comment on the terror of the English passengers, and on that calm confidence of the Germans which enabled them to sing on through the storm. This contrast impressed him deeply. He gives us an account of his interview on the seventh of February with Mr. Spangenberg, and of the searching questions which Mr. Spangenberg asked him as to his knowledge that Jesus Christ had saved him. He speaks of the ceremony of the election and ordination of one of the Moravian bishops: "The great simplicity as well as solemnity of the whole almost made me forget the seventeen hundred years between, and imagine myself in one of those assemblies where form and state were not; but Paul the tentmaker or Peter the fisherman presided; yet with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power."* Having returned from America, Wesley had been in London only four days when he met Peter Böhler. He cannot keep away from the Germans. He writes that by him he was, "on Sunday, the fifth [of March], clearly convinced of unbelief, of the want of that faith whereby alone we are saved." He proposed to give up preaching faith, but was encouraged to continue to preach faith until he had it; and then because he had it he would preach it. He writes: "Accord * Journal, vol. iii, p. 20. ingly, Monday, 6, I began preaching this new doctrine, though my soul started back from the work. The first person to whom I offered salvation by faith alone was a prisoner under sentence of death."* The judgment which Wesley records against himself upon his return from Georgia must stand as expressing the belief that, during the years immediately preceding that experience which came to him on the twenty-fourth of May, 1738, in Aldersgate Street, he was not a converted man and was not a Christian. It may further illuminate the subject to ask what Peter Böhler thought of Wesley and of his religious experience during the months of their intercourse in the spring of 1738. About six years ago, while wandering about in a secondhand bookstore in Leipzig, Germany, the writer had the good fortune to find a history of the United Brethren, and in that history a series of letters from Peter Böhler to Count Zinzendorf, in which he gave a report of the work in London. The following translation of extracts from these letters will show the intimacy that existed between Böhler and the Wesleys, and also Böhler's idea of their spiritual condition: Oxford, March 2, 1738. On the twenty-eighth of February I traveled with the brothers John and Charles Wesley from Oxford to London. The elder, John, is a benevolent man; he perceives that he does not yet rightly know the Saviour, and acknowledges it. He loves us heartily. His brother, with whom you often spoke, a year ago, in London, is very much disturbed in mind, but does not know how he is to set about learning to know the Saviour. Our art of learning to believe on the Saviour is so very easy for the Englishmen that they are unable to reconcile themselves to it. If it were only a little more artful they would the sooner see their way into it. March 6. On this night Charles Wesley became very ill. At break of day he therefore sent for me, and asked me if I would pray for him; that God would give him patience in his suffering and give him relief. I prayed with him for the healing both of his soul and of his body. He fell asleep, and his sufferings were somewhat relieved. He knows that his suffering, as well as his relief from the same, comes from God. . . At night [the ninth] I watched with Charles Wesley, who is yet sick unto death. The next day I met Pastor Gambold there, who wished to administer the holy communion to him. Wesley desired me to assist in the service, and I did so. There were several present. He was much gratified and said, if he died, he would at least come to the Saviour as a hungry and thirsty soul... * Journal, vol. iii, p. 62. On this night [the thirteenth] I watched again with Charles Wesley, who is not yet out of danger. On the evening of the sixteenth I took a walk with the elder Wesley, and asked him about his condition. He said: "Often I am very certain, but often very fearful. I can say nothing more than this: if that is true that stands in the Bible, then I am saved." I spoke very particularly concerning this matter, and besought him earnestly to go to the fountain that had been opened, and not to spoil the matter himself. I also spoke with him concerning the condition of souls in this place, and offered many suggestions as to how, as I thought, one might come nearer to them. March 21. I traveled from Oxford back to London. The elder Wesley gave me six shillings for my journey. On the fourth of May I heard John Wesley preach. I then understood all, but it was not as I wished. . . . I took four of my English brethren, and among them Wolf, of whom I have already spoken, in order that they might relate to him how they were led, and how quickly and deeply the Saviour is moved to compassion and to receive the sinner. They related, one after the other, how they had come to this experience; and Mr. Wolf especially, to whom the experience was quite new, spoke very earnestly and powerfully. . . . John Wesley and those that were with him were astonished at these testimonies. I asked Wesley what he then thought about it. He answered that four examples did not make out the case and could not convince him. I replied saying I would bring eight others who were here in London. After a little time he arose and said, "We will sing the hymn, 'Here lay I myself before Thee down.'" During the singing he frequently wiped the tears from his eyes, and immediately took me alone into his room, and said that he was then convinced of what I had said of faith, and that he would ask for nothing more; that he saw very clearly that as yet it was not his, but asked how he could help himself, and how come to such a faith. He said that he was not a man who had been guilty of the coarser sins, as other people had. I replied that he had sinned enough in that he had not believed on the Saviour; that he was not to allow the Saviour to depart from the door until he had helped him. I was deeply moved to pray with him. I therefore called upon the Crucified One for mercy upon this sinner. He said to me, “If he will have mercy upon me, I will certainly preach of nothing else than of faith." May 6. Two Presbyterians who had heard me preach yesterday came to see me early this morning. They spoke with me of the righteousness of Jesus Christ and of faith in him. I must translate for them several hymns from our hymn book, which pleased them very much and which treat of this subject. Immediately thereafter I had a very hearty conversation with John Wesley. He told me of the opposition he had yesterday experienced from certain pious pastors whom he had met, and that because he had taken occasion to explain to them what he now understood and wherein he was yet lacking. He is not concerned about the opposition, but asked me what he should do in this respect, whether he should tell the people just how it was with him or not. I replied saying that I could give him no rule in this matter, but to do whatever the Saviour should teach him to do. Nevertheless I wished very much that he would not put the grace of the Saviour so far away from him, but would believe that it was very near, that the heart of Jesus stood already open to him, and that his grace toward him was very great. He wept bitterly as I spoke with him of this matter, and I was constrained to pray for him. I can say this of him: he is verily a poor sinner who has a broken heart, and who hungers for a righteousness better than that which he has had hitherto, namely, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We come back to the question raised in the earlier part of this paper: Was Wesley a converted man during the years in Georgia and the early months of 1738? According to his own judgment as recorded in his Journal, he was not. Peter Böhler, who was his spiritual mentor during these months, also says he was not. But it is an interesting fact that in later years Wesley modified this judgment concerning his spiritual condition. As a matter of fact, these modified opinions appear in parentheses, in the text of the American edition of Wesley's Journal, published in 1850, but are found in a footnote in the eleventh edition, published in 1856, and are not found at all in the fifth edition, published in London in 1775. He modifies the statement made in the Journal upon his return from Georgia, where he says that he had gone to Georgia to convert the Indians but had learned that he himself had never been converted,* by adding, "I am not sure of this." He explains the statement that Böhler had convinced him "of the want of that faith whereby alone we are saved" by adding, "with the full Christian salvation." On Friday, the nineteenth of May, he writes: "O, let no one deceive us by vain words as if we had already attained this faith! (that is, the proper Christian faith.)" Here again the modifying sentence found in the American edition is a footnote in the eleventh edition, and is wanting in the fifth edition, published in 1775. Why not permit Mr. Wesley to be a little more human? Allow him to correct himself. He showed very little sense in his judgment of women; he had a tendency to asceticism which discloses another comforting weakness; he believed in a kind of magic use of the Bible, deriving guidance and consolation by opening it *Journal, vol. iii, p. 56. † Ibid., vol. iii, p. 62. + Ibid., vol. ili, p. 70, |