class, must find a re

everybody did it. But, says Wesley, "I told them plainly they must put this abomination away, or they would see my face no more." The records of the excise show that smuggling, thereafter, almost ceased on the Cornish coast. So, too, the universal practice of bribery at elections Wesley denounced as impossible for a Christian man; he had the satisfaction to learn in many instances that members of his societies would not even eat or drink at the expense of the men for whom they voted, and that the Methodists came to be recognized as almost the only incorruptible class of voters in England.

sponse in their feelings; but he never aimed to arouse crass or undirected feeling. It must be repeated that he was no enthusiast. As one of his critics says, he was intolerant of everything that had not a practical bearing. The condition of membership in his societies was always conduct. The Wesleyan movement, throughout its whole course, was singularly free from empty ardors, and fruitful in all the practical virtues of citizenship. Not only did it Not only did it diminish the more flagrant forms of vice, but it raised the standard of morals throughout society. Places like Wesley's own native parish of Epworth, once reeking with drunkenness and loud with profanity, in twenty years had grown sober and quiet. Some prevalent forms of crime had been almost eradicated. In his earlier visits to Cornwall, for example, Wesley found that nearly all the members of his societies in that shire were in the habit of buying and selling goods that had not paid the duty. It was not thought immoral;

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Even upon the manners of the English people no man of his century had so much influence. It was peculiarly fortunate that the leader of a great popular movement united with intense religious earnestness the tastes of the scholar and the instincts of the gentleman. He never felt it necessary to vulgarize his teaching or to make any concessions to coarseness. In his spotless linen, his cassock, his black hose and silver shoe-buckles, he was a model of scrupulous precision in personal attire; and his oft-quoted saying, "Cleanliness is next to godliness," well expresses the almost fastidious habit of the man. His dignified yet gentle courtesy, his refined self-possession, made his very presence an example and an inspiration.

And it should be said that Wesley used his immense personal influence with singular wisdom and liberality. He had in his hands control of the whole system of Methodist discipline; but he did not attempt to bind the members of his societies by narrow or rigid rules, still less to impose upon them arbitrarily his own judgments.

ROOM IN THE PREACHERS' HOUSE IN WHICH JOHN WESLEY DIED

He was anxious only that Methodists should be good Christians. On doubtful matters he did not prescribe or prohibit, but left the decision in such cases where it belongs-with the individual conscience. In an admirable sermon on amusements, after admitting that much may be said for the drama, he was a lover of dramatic literature himself, and used to advise his preachers to read plays that they might cultivate a natural mode of speech, -he decides that, for himself, he could not go to the theater or play at cards with a clear conscience; but he adds: "Possibly others can; I am not obliged to pass any sentence on them that are otherwise minded. I leave them to their own Master; to him let them stand or fall." His successors have not always been so wise.

Still more noteworthy was his liberality in matters of belief. Liberality is easy when you have no beliefs of your own that you are very sure of; but Wesley had a consistent set of theological opinions, which he held very stoutly. Yet the only requirement of those who sought admission to his societies was the purpose to lead a religious life. Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Quakers were welcome," and none will contend with them as to their opinions." "Where is there," Wesley asks reasonably enough,

are, and whatsoever opinions they be of." In fact, his tolerance extended quite beyond the limits of Christianity. He not only had admiration and sympathy for such heretics as Pelagius and Servetus, but was glad to think of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius as among the many who come from the east and the west to sit down in the kingdom of God. History may be challenged in vain to find another religious leader of equal prominence and equal positiveness of personal opinion who showed such breadth of charity.

THE DEED OF DECLARATION AND THE AMERICAN BISHOPS

WESLEY'S whole elaborate system of societies, as we have seen, centered in himself. As he drew near the close of life it became evident that, if this organization was to hold together after his death, provision must be made to transfer his personal control to some properly constituted body. Accordingly, in 1784, he adopted two important measures which should consolidate and secure the Methodist organization in both England and America. In England the many Wesleyan chapels were held by trustees "for the sole use of such persons as might be appointed by the yearly Conference of the people called Methodists." But this Conference had no legal status, being merely a private meeting called by Wesley; it was without power to acquire or hold property, and might cease to exist altogether at the death of Wesley. He therefore drew up a document naming one hundred of his preachers as members of the Conference, and defining its powers and duties. This "Deed of Declaration" was enrolled in the Court of Chancery, and the Conference was thus given a permanent legal existence. It was thenceforth impossible for the property of the societies to revert to private use, or for the societies themselves to fall apart and become mere separate congregations.

Wesley's other step was still more important, and involved a wider divergence from ecclesiastical order. There were in 1784 about fifteen thousand Methodists in the new United States of America, and not a single ordained minister among them. Before the severance of the colonies from the mother country, these American Methodists were theoretically members of the

Church of England, though by far the greater number of them were without the ministrations of any clergyman of that church. Wesley had twice applied to the Bishop of London for the ordination of one of his preachers who might visit the American societies; but in vain. Now that there was no longer an established church in America, and the greater number of the English clergy had left the country, the Methodists found themselves without any form of church government, and with no one to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. In these circumstances, Wesley was confronted with the alternative either of leaving the American societies in this desolate state to schism and disintegration, or of providing them with some form of discipline and ministration even at the risk of violating ecclesiastical usage.

After careful deliberation he made up his mind. He preferred the episcopal form of church government, but he had long been convinced that there was no difference between bishop and presbyter. On this conviction he now acted. He summoned to Bristol his ablest preacher, Dr. Thomas Coke, an Oxford graduate and ordained presbyter, and with him two of his lay preachers; and there, on the 2d of September, in his private room, he set apart the two lay preachers as presbyters, and laying his hands upon Coke, “set him apart to the office of Superintendent of the Societies in America." Coke was to proceed to America, and there in the same way designate as his Associate Superintendent Francis Asbury, the heroic English preacher who had been the Wesley of the American Methodists. Coke sailed in October; on his arrival he immediately consecrated Asbury, and in the last weeks of the year (1784), in a Conference of preachers held in Baltimore, the two laid the foundations of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Wesley's action in this matter has been the subject of much controversy. Doubtless, from a churchman's point of view, orders so conferred could have no validity. Wesley himself, in his account of his action, was careful to avoid the word "ordain," and some years later wrote to Asbury remonstrating with him for assuming the title of bishop. It may suffice to say that, in this case as in some others, he felt himself justified in breaking with usage

and discipline when he deemed that only so could the religious welfare of great bodies of his fellow-men be conserved. It is probable that, in the opinion of the disinterested historian, his decision will be justified by its results.

THE CLOSING YEARS

WESLEY'S last years were blessed with "All that should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends."

Opposition had almost entirely ceased. His life of devotion to the highest good of men had won the respect of all who knew his name, and the reverent love of thousands who called themselves

his

friends. In his journeyings during these later years it often happened that a company of his friends would follow him from out a town, walking beside his carriage till they met a similar company approaching to welcome him to his next station. But although venerable, he showed none of the infirmities of age. His slight, short figure was erect, his eye was keen, his step elastic, and only the crown of silver hair betokened his years. On his eighty-third birthday he wrote in his "Journal": "It is now twelve years since I have felt any such sensation as weariness. I am never tired (such is the goodness of God) either with writing, preaching, or traveling." Two years later, when his friends urged him to ride to a preaching-place six miles out of Bristol, “I am ashamed," replied this youth of eighty-five," that any Methodist minister in tolerable health should make a difficulty of this," and tramped away. On his birthday in that year, he admits that he cannot "run or walk quite so fast" as once he did, but he still feels no weariness, and has "not lost a night's sleep, sick or well, on land or sea, since he was born. In his eighty-first year he made a visit to Holland, which, as he says, opened to him a new world; and his curiosity is as eager as if he were just out of his teens. He records how one of his hosts spoke Latin excellently, and another showed an "easy openness and affability almost peculiar to Christians and persons of quality." His own conversation in those years was more vivacious and wide-ranging than in earlier life. He retained all his love for books, for music, and especially for natural sce

Crabbe Robinson, then a young man, heard him preach in the last months, and used to say that in all his after life he had never seen anything comparable to the picture of this preacher of eighty-eight, with the gentle voice, the reverend countenance, and the long white locks. To the end he showed no slackening of interest in whatever may make men happier or better. His very last letter, penned with failing hand only a week before he died, was addressed to William Wilberforce, bidding that young reformer God-speed in his great work of the abolition of slavery in the British colonies. The wish he had so often expressed, in the language of a favorite hymn, that he might "cease at once to work and live," was almost literally granted him. He preached on a Tuesday in the City Road Chapel, and the next day in the house of a friend; the following Wednesday, after five days, which seemed rather days of rest than of illness, he died, March 2, 1791. His last distinctly audible words, thrice repeated with uplifted arm, as if in triumph, have become a watchword of Methodism: "The best of all is, God is with us."

At the time of Wesley's death there were in England and America about one hundred and twenty thousand of the people called Methodists. To-day, if we include adherents as well as communicants, there