OF THE Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century, CALLED METHODISM, CONSIDERED IN ITS DIFFERENT DENOMINATIONAL FORMS, BY ABEL STEVENS, LL.D. VOLUME II. From the Death of Whitefield to the Death of Wesley. ELEVENTH THOUSA N D. New Vork: PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. LONDON: ALEXANDER HEYLIN, 28 PATERNOSTER ROW 1859. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by CARLTON & PORTER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. PREFACE. THE present volume concludes the most important part of my task-The Life and Times of Wesley. It was promised in the preface to the first volume, that this work should be "the fullest Life and Times" of the great Methodist Founder yet published; the reader must judge of the spirit and style with which the promise has been fulfilled; but I have hope that he will acquit it of presumption, so far as the extent of research and of details is concerned. The present volumes form, then, a work which is complete. in itself. They will be independent of the subsequent volumes, though the latter will be dependent upon them. They are issued as a distinct publication, for readers who may wish only the "Life and Times of Wesley," though they form but a part of the entire work. As I have proposed to write a complete history of Methodism, that is to say, exhaustive of all facts essential to its history, details of its statistics and Conference proceedings are given from year to year, except such as could be referred, for better classification, to the concluding book of this volume which will be found to contain not so much general remarks or dissertation as important historical facts reserved from the course of the narrative for more summary treatment. No adequate estimate of Wesley or his cause can be formed without the materials of the last five chapters. I must particularly bespeak the attention of the reader to the last chapter. I have labored to make the work a standard for reference, in respect to all important |