chambers, and talk to them. From these combined friends began a little society. Mr. John Wesley was the chief manager, for which he was very fit; for he had not only more learning and experience than the rest, but he was blest with such activity as to be always gaining ground, and such steadiness that he lost none. What proposals he made to any, were sure to alarm them, because he was so much in earnest; nor could they afterwards slight them, because they saw him always the same. What supported this uniform vigour was, the care he took to consider well every affair before he engaged in it; making all his decisions in the fear of God, without passion, humour, or self-confidence. For though he had naturally a very clear apprehension, yet his exact prudence depended more on his humility and singleness of heart. He had, I think, something of authority in his countenance, yet he never assumed any thing to himself above his companions; any of them might speak their mind, and their words were as strictly regarded by him as his words were by them.

"Their undertaking included these several particulars: To converse with young students; to visit the prisons; to instruct some poor families; to take care of a school and a parish workhouse. They took great pains with the younger members of the University, to rescue them from bad company, and encourage them in a sober studious life. They would get them to breakfast, and over a dish of tea endeavour to fasten some good hint upon them. They would bring them acquainted with other well-disposed young men, give them assistance in the difficult parts of their learning, and watch over them with the greatest tenderness. "Some or other of them went to the Castle every day, and another most commonly to Bocardo. Whoever went to the Castle, was to read in the chapel to as many prisoners as would attend, and to talk apart to the man or men whom he had taken particularly in charge. When a new prisoner came, their conversation with him for four or five times was close and searching.-If any one was under sentence of death, or appeared to have some intentions of a new life, they came every day to his assistance, and partook in the conflict and suspense of those whe should be found able or not able, to lay hold on salvation. In order to release those who were confined for small debts, and to purchase books and other necessaries, they raised a little fund, to which many of their acquaintance contributed quarterly. They had prayers at the Castle most Wednesdays and Fridays, a sermon on Sunday, and the sacrament once a month.

"When they undertook any poor family, they saw them at least once a week; sometimes gave them money, admonished them of their vices, read to them, and examined their children. The school was, I think, of Mr. Wesley's own setting up; however, he paid the mistress, and clothed some, if not all the children. When they went thither, they inquired how each child behaved, saw their work, heard them read and say their prayers, or catechism, and explained part of it. In the same manner they taught the children in the workhouse, and read to the old people as they did to the prisoners.

"They seldom took any notice of the accusations brought against them for their charitable employments; but if they did make any reply, it was commonly such a plain and simple one, as if there was nothing VOL. I.

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more in the case, but that they had just heard such doctrines of their Saviour, and had believed and done accordingly. Sometimes they would ask such questions as the following: Shall we be more happy in another life, the more virtuous we are in this? Are we the more virtuous, the more intensely we love God and man? Is love, of all habits, the more intense, the more we exercise it? Is either helping, or trying to help, man for God's sake, an exercise of love to God or man? Particularly, is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, or prisoners, an exercise of love to God or man? Is endeavouring to teach the ignorant, to admonish sinners, to encourage the good, to comfort the afflicted, and reconcile enemies, an exercise of love to God or man ? Shall we be more happy in another life, if we do the former of these things, and try to do the latter; or if we do not the one, nor try to do the other?'

"I could say a great deal of his private piety; how it was nourished by a continual recourse to God; and preserved by a strict watchfulness in beating down pride, and reducing the craftiness and impetuosity of nature to a child-like simplicity; and in a good degree crowned with divine love, and victory over the whole set of earthly passions. He thought prayer to be more his business than any thing else; and I have seen him come out of his closet with a serenity of countenance that was next to shining; it discovered what he had been doing, and gave me double hope of receiving wise directions, in the matter about which I came to consult him. In all his motions he attended to the will of God. He had neither the presumption, nor the leisure, to anticipate things whose season was not now; and would show some uneasiness whenever any of us, by impertinent speculations, were shifting off the appointed improvement of the present minute. By being always cheerful, but never triumphing, he so husbanded the secret consolations which God gave him, that they seldom left him, and never but in a state of strong and long-suffering faith. Thus, the repose and satisfaction of the mind being otherwise secured, there was in him no idle cravings, no chagrin or fickleness of spirit, nothing but the genuine wants of the body to be relieved by outward accommodations and refreshments. When he was just come home from a long journey, and had been in different companies, he resumed his usual employments, as if he had never left them; no dissipation of thought appeared, no alteration of taste; much less was he discomposed by any slanders or affronts; he was only afraid lest he should grow proud of this conformity to his Master. In short, he used many endeavours to be religious, but none to seem so: With a zeal always upon the stretch, and a most transparent sincerity, he addicted himself to every good word and work.

"Because he required such a regulation of our studies, as might devote them all to God, he has been accused as one that discouraged learning. Far from that: For the first thing he struck at, in young men, was that indolence which will not submit to close thinking. He earnestly recommended to them a method and order in all their actions. The morning hour of devotion was from five to six, and the same in the evening. On the point of early rising, he told them, the well-spending of the day would depend. For some years past, he and his friends have read the New Testament together in the evenings; and after every por

tion of it, having heard the conjectures the rest had to offer, he made his own observations on the phrase, design, and difficult places; and one or two wrote these down from his mouth.

"If any one could have provoked him, I should; for I was very slow in coming into their measures, and very remiss in doing my part. I frequently contradicted his assertions; or, which is much the same, distinguished upon them. I hardly ever submitted to his advice at the time he gave it, though I relented afterwards. One time he was in fear I had taken up notions that were not safe, and pursued my spiritual improvement in an erroneous, because inactive, way; so he came over and staid with me near a week. He condoled with me the encumbrances of my constitution, heard all I had to say, and endeavoured to pick out my meaning, and yielded to me as far as he could. I never saw more humility in him than at this time.

"Mr. Wesley had not only friends at Oxford to assist him, but a great many correspondents. He set apart one day at least in the week, to write letters, (and he was no slow composer,) in which, without levity or affectation, but with plainness and fervour, he gave his advice in particular cases, and vindicated the strict original sense of the Gospel precepts.

"He is now gone to Georgia as a Missionary, where there is ignorance that aspires after Divine wisdom, but no false learning that is got above it. He is, I confess, still living; and I know that an advantageous character is more decently bestowed on the deceased. But, besides that his condition is very like that of the dead, being unconcerned in all we say, I am not making any attempt on the opinion of the public, but only studying a private edification. A family picture of him, his relations may be allowed to keep by them. And this is the idea of Mr. Wesley, which I cherish for the service of my own soul, and which I take the liberty likewise to deposite with you."

THE LIFE

OF

THE REV. JOHN WESLEY.

BOOK THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

HIS MISSION TO AMERICA.

MR. HAMPSON, in his Memoirs of Mr. Wesley, expresses no small surprise, when he comes to treat of his mission to Georgia, at what appears to him a strange and unaccountable change of mind in one who had just before evinced such unshaken firmness. "We imagined," says he," that nothing less than stern necessity could have induced him to quit his beloved retirement." Had he enjoyed any intimacy with Mr. Wesley, he would have been able easily to account for it.

We have seen how deeply Mr. Wesley's mind was impressed with religious sentiments; and that he had devoted himself entirely to God. It has appeared also from his own words, how exceedingly painful to him was all commerce with the world; and that he had deeply imbibed even that undue love of retirement, which all good men have felt, more or less, from the Egyptian Hermits of the second century, down to the elegant and pious Cowley. But this was not all. He was at that time an admirer of the Mystic Writers; and though he had not embraced the peculiar sentiments of those who were grossly unscriptural, (from the time that he was homo unius libri, as he terms it himself, "a man of one book," valuing none comparatively but the Bible,) yet he still believed that many of the Mystics were, to use his own words, "the best explainers of the Gospel of Christ, chiefly because they taught the necessity of crucifixion to the world." And every one knows, as he has remarked, how continually those that are supposed to be the purest of them, cry out, "To the desert! to the desert!" What wonder then, if, at this time, when having only attained to what St. Paul calls "the Spirit of bondage unto fear," when every company, and almost every person, discomposed his mind,—when he found all his senses ready to betray him into sin, upon every exercise of them,—and when all within him, as well as every creature with whom he conversed, tended to extort that man that I am! who shall deliver me?"—what wonder, I say, that he "O wretched cry, should accede to a proposal, which seemed at one stroke to cut him off from both the smiling and the frowning world, and to enable him to be “dead to the world" and "crucified with Christ,"-blessings which he then thought could be only thus secured. This is the account which he himself has given of his views and motives at that period. It will appear therefore, that his consent to go as a Missionary to Georgia only mani

tested a continuation and higher exercise of that determined resolution of being separate from the world, which he had evinced in his refusal to solicit the living of Epworth. But that he did not hastily agree to leave his pupils, friends, and country, is to be inferred from his own Journals, and has been fully explained to me by himself in several con

versations.

Before I enter upon the narrative of his voyage and mission, it will be needful to state a few particulars. We have already seen his full determination, evinced in many instances, to be not almost, but altogether a Christian. His predilection also in favour of those writers who explain the gospel in a way of ascetic mortification, has been mentioned. A mind like his, impressed from his childhood with the fear of God, and a body unsubdued by sloth, intemperance, or even delicacy of any kind, admirably fitted him to bear all the severities, into which his sentiments naturally led him. Thus prepared" to tread the world beneath his feet," he issued from the retirement of a College, to embrace whatever he might meet with in the new and untried scenes which lay before him.

That he was, as every real minister of Christ is, in some sense and degree, “led into the wilderness to be tempted," will appear in the following sheets: And indeed he always considered his American Mission in that point of view. Speaking, in one of his Appeals, of his ministry in Georgia, he adds,-" where God humbled me, and proved me, and showed me what was in my heart.”

But he was not suffered to depart without many remonstrances from his friends. One, who he knew did not believe the Christian revelation, said to him, “What is this, Sir? Are you turned Quixotte too? Will nothing serve you, but to encounter windmills ?" He calmly replied, "Sir, if the Bible be not true, I am as very a fool and madman as you can conceive. But if it be of God, I am sober-minded. For he has declared, 'There is no man that hath left house, or friends, or brethren, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in the present time, and in the world to come everlasting life."

To a friend who expostulated with him, he wrote his reasons at large. The substance of them has already been given; but the following letter, in which the whole question is detailed in order, exhibits his views in so strong a light, that I cannot withhold it from the serious reader. It has never before been published.

"October 10th, 1735.

"DEAR SIR,-I have been hitherto unwilling to mention the grounds of my design of embarking for Georgia, for two reasons,-one, because they were such as I know few men would judge to be of any weight;-the other, because I was afraid of making favourable judges think of me above what they ought to think: And what a snare this must be to my own soul, I know by dear-bought experience.

"But, on farther reflection, I am convinced, that I ought to speak the truth with all boldness, even though it should appear foolishness to the world, as it has done from the beginning; and that whatever danger there is in doing the will of God, he will support me under it. In his name, therefore, and trusting in his defence, I shall plainly declare the thing as it is.