thought this an exaggeration, and contrary to the teaching of the Gospel, especially to the text, " If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me." Wesley afterwards admitted that he had possessed saving faith before; but Bohler certainly touched his heart with an electric spark, and Wesley had henceforth a far larger share of the Holy Spirit than in his former life. It was on May 24th. He attended St. Paul's Cathedral in the afternoon, where the anthem was "Out of the deep I have called." In the evening, at a Church society for reading the Bible, while he was studying the Epistle to the Romans, a deep peace fell on his soul. Bohler recommended him to preach as often as he could. But his sermons were too unconventional and burning for the London clergy; invitations became fewer; and he resolved to visit Herrnhut, the headquarters of Moravianism. "The witness of the Spirit," he said at this time, "I have not, but I wait patiently for it." The Moravian "full assurance" he disclaimed, "but felt sure of "a measure of faith."

The visit to Herrnhut and Zinzendorf was full of interest and encouragement, and Wesley returned refreshed to London in September.

"If by

mean an

On his arrival he preached at St. St. George'sin-the-East, St. Antholin's, and the Savoy. To some the teaching of the brothers seemed strange doctrine, and they had an interview with Gibson, Bishop of London. assurance," said the Bishop, “you inward persuasion whereby a man is conscious in himself, after examining his life by the law of God, and weighing his own sincerity, that he is in a state of salvation do not see how any good without such assurance." very kind, and promised to listen to no prejudiced stories against them. At a second interview he was still friendly and fatherly, speaking of Whitefield as "pious and wellmeaning, but too enthusiastic." Archbishop Potter, formerly Bishop of Oxford, now become Primate, also gave them sympathetic advice.

and acceptable, I Christian can be The Bishop was

The Wesleys now preached frequently in London-John especially at Islington Church. The religious club to which they belonged, which was somewhat under Moravian influences, met in Fetter Lane. The brethren there sent him to preach in Bristol. The Bristol visit led to the first erection of a " preaching-house" (that was the name used), and to Wesley's first

sermon in the open air. Then came a crisis. The Moravians began to make light of worship, ordinances, even the study of Holy Scripture. Separation between them and the Methodists. was only a question of time. On July 20th, 1740, Wesley read a paper of differences between his views and the Moravians, and then left the room. In 1763 he wrote: "I have not for many years thought a consciousness of acceptance essential to justifying faith." His opinions of the Moravians were greatly changed. Some were simple and artless," their teachers "no better than Protestant Jesuits; Zinzendorf half an impostor, potent for mischief"; even Bohler was guilty of "profane balderdash." Before Bohler's death in 1775 he received an affectionate letter from Wesley.

The visit to Bristol (the year 1739 was chiefly spent there) brought him to him to the Kingswood collieries in its neighbourhood. Here he con

tinued a mission to the colliers begun by Whitefield (who had gone to America), and started open-air preaching. This raised the question as to his future life. Was he to settle down in one place, or journey about evangelising wherever the Spirit seemed to call him? Church order, he decided, which forbade in

trusion into other parishes, must be disregarded at a time of prevailing wickedness, with which the Church was quite unable to grapple: "God commands me, according to my power, to instruct the ignorant and reform the wicked. . . . I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far, I mean, that in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear the glad tidings of salvation."

The state of the masses in England at this time was deplorable. Nothing that the Wesleys and Whitefield could do would be too much to bring them back to a sense of religion and the fear of God. Oliver Goldsmith wrote thus: "No person who has travelled will contradict me when I aver that the lower orders of mankind in other countries testify on every occasion the profoundest awe of religion, while in England they are scarcely awakened to a sense of its duties, even in circumstances of the greatest distress. This dissolute and fearless conduct foreigners are apt to attribute to climate and constitution. May not the vulgar being pretty much neglected in our exhortations from the pulpit be a conspiring cause? Our divines seldom stoop to their mean capacities; and they

who want instruction most find least in our religious assemblies." A committee of the House of Lords sat to inquire into the present notorious immorality and profaneness. The evidence was such that some of it could not be printed. They found a greater neglect of worship and a greater desecration of Sunday than had ever been known in England. Idleness, gambling, intoxication, had increased alarmingly. Beyond a full measure of crimes of the kind found all over Europe, England had special disorders of her own-luxury, profanity, open apostasy from the Christian faith.1

The phenomena of violent agonies or convulsions which accompanied the fervent sermons of the three great mission preachers certainly alarmed the bishops. Bishop Butler expressed his disapproval to John Wesley at Bristol, Bishop Gibson gave a warning against certain extravagant utterances of Whitefield in London, and other learned men grew alarmed. But the work was steadily developing. It drew into itself the religious societies scattered up and down the country, and so merited the name commonly

i Tyerman's Wesley, pp. 174, 503.