pondence between Mr. Wesley sidered as expressing his maturest

and a person who assumed the name of John Smith, (who is generally supposed to have been Archbishop Secker,) on some of the most important doctrines of Methodism. Mr. Wesley's letters contained in this correspondence will be read with lively interest; for, although they cannot be con

thoughts on the subjects of which they treat, being written at an early period of his extraordinary career; yet they will be found to comprise much valuable instruction, and the Methodistical student, especially, will be disposed to present to Mr. Moore his cordial thanks for their publication.

ANECDOTES OF MR. CHARLES WESLEY.

IN has been said, "that one born a poet, is a poet in every thing." I have often thought of this sentiment when contemplating the character of Mr. Charles Wesley. He had great eccentricity, even from a child. Divine grace soon corrected this constitutional exuberance; but something of it innocently remained throughout his whole life. When at the university, in early youth, his brother (as he informed me) was alarmed whenever he entered his study. Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit.* Full of the muse, and being shortsighted, he would sometimes walk right against his brother's table, and perhaps overthrow it. If the "fine phrenzy" was not quite so high, he would discompose the books and papers in the study,ask some questions without always waiting for a reply,-repeat some poetry that just then struck him, -and, at length, leave his brother to his regularity: but all this was soon corrected by "the wisdom from above."

His complete knowledge of the classic writers, and his high relish for their beauties, when it could be drawn from him, (for he was dead even to that kind of applause,) has often excited my surprise, how he could bring himself

* “The man is mad, or making verses."

into the bondage of regular study, which he must have done to attain such excellence. But his brother Samuel was his tutor, and kept him, pro imperio, to his books till the drudgery was over; and then the stores of Greek and Roman poetry were a sufficient stimulus. One day, after having talked on religious subjects for some time, he broke out,-"Come, I'll give you two hundred lines of Virgil.” He began, and it was Virgil indeed! I question if the great poet was ever more honoured. The prosody was as truly Roman as the language.

When he was nearly fourscore, he retained something of this eccentricity. He rode every day, clothed for winter, even in summer, a little horse grey with age. When he mounted, if a subject struck him, he proceeded to expand and put it in order. He would write a hymn thus given him, on a card, (kept for the purpose,) with his pencil, in shorthand. Not unfrequently he has come to our house in the CityRoad, and having left the pony in the garden in front, he would enter, crying out, "Pen and ink! Pen and ink!" These being supplied, he wrote the hymn he had been composing. When this was done he would look round on those

much kindness, ask after their health, give out a short hymn, and thus put all in mind of eternity. He was fond of that stanza upon those occasions:

There all the ship's company meet,

present and salute them with quarrelled with her; telling her in his usual short way, "it was unjust." The lady, after trying in vain to bend his spirit, informed him that she had struck his name out of her will; but that, nevertheless, her family should not possess the fortune." Being advised to accept the fortune, and give it to the relatives,-"That is a trick of the devil," said he; "but it won't do. I know what I am now; but I do not know what I should be if I were thus made rich."

Who sail'd with the Saviour beneath:
With shouting, each other they greet,
And triumph o'er sorrow and death.
The voyage of life's at an end,

The mortal affliction is past:
The age that in heaven they spend,
For ever and ever shall last!

It seemed to me that he could
never study regularly after he was
delivered from tutors and govern-
ors. His hymns and sacred poems,
which will be admired beyond any
thing of that kind, when the age
shall have a truly religious taste,
perhaps owed much of their
strength and excellence to that
circumstance. His feelings were
strong, his affections warm, and
his imagination ardent; and, as
he was a master of language, the
subject flowed from him in an
order that no study could supply.
But he seldom, if ever, wrote a
line upon any subject that was
He admired Mr.
given to him.
Fletcher beyond all men; but he
never, I believe, wrote a line upon
his death. His brother requested
him to write an elegy upon that
occasion, "which," said he, "I
will print with my funeral sermon."
He made no reply, but seemed to
nod assent. Some time after, I
asked Mr. J. Wesley if he had re-
ceived the elegy. He replied,
"No: my brother, I suppose, is
waiting for a thought. Poets,
you know, are maggotty." The
thought, I believe, never came.

I have now before me the strongest testimony that can be given at this day, that he refused a living of five hundred pounds a year, choosing to remain among the people that he loved. He also refused a large fortune offered him by a lady whose relatives had

In the three or four last years of his life, he visited the prisoners under sentence of death in Newgate. Having become acquainted with the Rev. Mr. Villette, the ordinary, he had full liberty for this work, and frequently preached what is called "the condemned sermon." I attended him upon one of those occasions, and witnessed with feelings which I cannot describe, the gracious tenderness of his heart. I saw the advantage of proclaiming the gospel to those who knew they were soon to die, and who felt that they had greatly sinned. many hymns, most strikingly suit. ed to their unhappy condition; and used to come, as before mentioned, to the Chapel-house in the City-Road, and after reading those hymns to us, he used to call us to unite in prayer for these outcasts of men.

He composed

When we arose, something of that peculiarity would sometimes appear, which I have He would ask, already noted. "Can you believe?" And, upon our answering, "Yes, sir," he would flourish his hand over his head, and cry out, "We shall have them all!" and immediately hasten away to the cells, to hold out life to the dead.

I must mention the remarkable gift which he possessed, of prompt

ness in answering attacks, or re- around him. One day he was
preaching in Moorfields, and ha-
ving mentioned those things, he
added, "You may know one of
these zealots by his bad temper."
A person in the crowd immedi-
ately vociferated, "You lie!"
"Hah!" said Mr. C. Wesley,
"have I drawn out leviathan with
a hook?"-Moore's Life of Mr.

plying to the remarks of those who
attempted to hedge him in. Soon
after the work of God began, the
question of absolute predestination
was introduced among the people,
and was soon followed by Antino-
mianism. Mr. Charles Wesley
was roused to the most determined
opposition against this evil, which
was making havock of the people Wesley, Vol. it.

NATURAL AND MORAL Abilities.

THE Editor of the "Western think our discrepancy is not slight. Recorder," a religious newspaper In the first place, we think that printed at Utica, introduces to his he misrepresents (without doubt, readers an extract from a sermon unintentionally) his antagonists, of the REV. MR. BEMAN, because, when he says they believe that he says, it contains "one of the a sinner's "obligations to repent choicest exhibitions of the doctrine and believe the gospel are created of natural and moral inability” he by the fact, that God communihas "lately seen." Now we have cates assistance and grace to him, no objection to this: it may be, without which these obligations for aught we know, the choicest would not exist." We know not, exhibition of this doctrine ever indeed, but that Mr. Beman may before given to the public. But have found a people who hold this against the doctrine itself, as it strange and inconsistent notion; stands connected with other parts but, as far as we are concerned, of a creed universally adopted by and we have reason to think he Calvinistic and Hopkinsian minis- directed his censure at us, we beg ters, we have many objections. leave to say that we hold to no We, however, agree with the such thing. On the contrary, we author of the sermon, that the think, that the obligation of man only reason why sinners do not to love his God with all his heart, repent and believe the gospel, is be- arises from the relation in which cause they will not; and we have man stands to his God, as his no objection to his calling this ob- Creator; and that neither the fall stinacy of the sinner's mind, a of Adam, in which is included our "moral inability :" nay, we go far- own apostasy, nor any state of ther still, and agree with him in guilt into which we may plunge asserting, that while sinners per- ourselves, annihilates this obligasist in their wilful obstinacy they tion. It is as lasting as eternity, cannot repent; for who is so in- and as comprehensive as intelliconsistent as to suppose that a gent existence: and the extent of sinner has an ability to will in two this obligation is described in that contrary directions at the same immutable law which is founded time! in the nature and fitness of things. An inability, whether it be physical or moral, to obey this law, by no

But, though we so far agree, there are other points in which we

means exempts the sinner from
the obligation.

But while we freely grant this point to Mr. Beman,-not, indeed, as conceding any thing in favour of his system, it being a truth we always held sacred,- -we affirm that God does not, nor cannot, while he remains just and good, and while the gifts of his grace to man are not withheld, require any probationary sinner to fulfil this obligation without the communications of his grace and Spirit. Waving, for the present, all other considerations in support of this position, we say he cannot do this, because this grace and Spirit are given to every man during his probation. You might as well say that a man can see without the light at mid-day, as to say that God requires a sinner, during his merciful visitation, to repent and believe the gospel without gospelgrace, although the obligation to do so antedates with man's apostasy. While the light shines I cannot see without it, any more than I can write without the use of my pen while I am actively employing it for that purpose. The blessings of the gospel, among which are included the power to repent, believe in Christ, and to love God with all the heart, are in the hands of every man whose sins have not thrown him beyond the reach of mercy; and while this is the case, how can God require him to do these things without them?

According to the new divinity advanced by Mr. Hopkins,-and this notion of a "moral inability” belongs to that divinity,—it is, "according to the wise constitution of God," derived from Adam, as a consequence of his sin and fall. And how came he to sin and fall? Because God from all eternity decreed that he should. And why is it that this disinclination to good is destroyed in one sinner and not in another? Because God, according to his sovereign pleasure, selects whomsoever he will as objects of his love, operates directly on their hearts by an irresistible influence, and changes them from sin to holiness; and leaves all the rest under the domineering influence of an inability to do good, that they may thereby fulfil the original, unalterable, and eternal decree of God. Now, according to this doctrine, which is professedly believed in by every Hopkinsian minister, we ask, and we should rejoice to have a satisfactory answer in the negative, can the sinner be blamed consistently with justice and goodness, for the want of a disposition to return unto God, and to love him? This inability has been induced by causes as completely beyond his control, as are the movements of the luminaries of heaven. It is, according to the notion above stated, an effect resulting entirely fron causes which operated in conformity to, and under the immediate agency of the "decretal," as it has been Another objection against the called, "will of God." How idle theory, as explained in this ser- is it then for a man who believes mon, is, that it is advanced in in a doctrine so absurd and shockconnexion with the belief that all ing, to say that the "difficulty in things happen, not only according the way of a sinner's returning to to God's decree, but according to God, is wholly of a moral and not the efficient operation of Divine of a physical character." Though agency on the heart. From whence we fully believe this assertion, yet springs this disinclination to good, on the principle of universal and this "hatred to God and his ways?" eternal decrees, we see there is a