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NEW FORM OF OPPOSITION.

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Washington was unanimously chosen commander-in-chief of these forces.

The centers of the Methodist movement were New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, seaports on Chesapeake Bay, and Norfolk, together with the interior of Virginia, New Jersey, and portions of Pennsylvania and Delaware not remote from the sea-coast. In this condition of actual war, the intense dislike to England, the foreign relations of Methodism, and the fact that the most influential traveling preachers were Englishmen and that the connection acknowledged the authority of John Wesley, exposed them and the societies to a prejudice speedily transformed into hostility whenever they faithfully preached against the immorality which ever accompanies war, and when, as most believed it to be their duty to do, they condemned the prevalence of the warspirit.

No Methodist preacher, especially no European, arose in America during the whole of the year 1775 without immediately dividing the congregation, large or small, into the sympathetic and the suspicious; and the opposition which Methodist preaching on purely moral or doctrinal grounds had everywhere excited was liable at any moment to be transformed into partisan fury or patriotic indignation, according to the temperament of those who perceived, or thought they perceived, any expressed or implied question of the rightfulness of the attitude of the colonies.

CHAPTER VII.

IN THE THROES OF REVOLUTION.

AT the most critical juncture in the political and religious situation of the New World, a still more serious complication was caused by the hostility of John Wesley to the measures taken by the colonists in their struggle against the exactions and impositions of the British government. This was the more offensive to the people of America because, while the struggle was confined wholly to the realm of discussion and diplomacy, he had appeared to sympathize with them rather than with the ministers of the crown and the acts of Parliament.

In the year 1768 he wrote "Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs," in which he discussed local and current questions. Speaking of the colonies, he said: "I do not defend the measures which have been taken with regard to America; I doubt whether any man can defend them either on the foot of law, equity, or prudence."

To the astonishment of all, the opposition of a large number, and the gratification of every Tory on both sides of the Atlantic, there was issued in 1775 "A Calm Address to our American Colonies, by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, M.A." The doctrine of this "Address" was that the Americans were the descendants of men who either had no votes or had resigned them by emigration; they therefore possessed exactly what their ancestors left them-not a vote in making laws and choosing legislators, but the happiness of being protected by laws and the duty of

WESLEY AND THE AMERICAN CAUSE.

obeying them.

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Wesley undertook to show that the late acts of Parliament were the occasion, but not a just cause of the outbreak, and said: "Forty years ago, when my brother was in Boston, it was the general language there, 'We must shake off the yoke; we shall never be a free people till we shake off the English yoke.'"

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Dr. Samuel Johnson had issued, just before this publication, a pamphlet entitled "Taxation no Tyranny," an answer to the resolutions and address of the American colonies. Wesley's "Calm Address" was little more than an abridgment of this essay; and, as he made no reference to Dr. Johnson, he was at once pounced upon as a plagiarist and a renegade of the worst description." Wesley was now one of the most conspicuous men in England, and perhaps no ecclesiastical personage of the realm swayed a wider influence over the masses on questions involving religious interests. Hence the publication of his Calm Address' produced an unparalleled sensation." 1

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The controversy waxed bitter, and the titles of the pamphlets, the details, and the replies, though intended to be sarcastic and cutting, seem trivial, when they are not mere vulgar abuse, at the present day. One was "A Cool Reply to 'A Calm Address'"; another, "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing; or, An Old Jesuit Unmasked"; and the youthful Toplady, Wesley's most virulent foe, author of "Rock of Ages," seized his opportunity and wrote a tract entitled An Old Fox Tarred and Feathered." In this he charged that Wesley's "Calm Address," as to both matter and expression, was "a bundle of Lilliputian shafts picked and stolen out of Dr. Johnson's pincushion." 2

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1 Tyerman's "The Life and Times of John Wesley," vol. iii., pp. 186, 187. 2 For full discussion of the subject and references to other pamphlets, see Tyerman's "The Life and Times of John Wesley," vol. iii.

Meanwhile Dr. Johnson wrote to Wesley, thanking him for the addition of "your important suffrage to my argument on the American question. To have gained such a man as yourself may justly confirm me in my own opinion. What effect my paper has upon the public I know not; but I have no reason to be discouraged. The lecturer was surely in the right who, though he saw his audience slinking away, refused to quit the chair while Plato stayed."

The first in the field and the ablest of Wesley's critics was Caleb Evans, a Baptist minister, and, by the testimony of one who had no sympathy with the American cause, "a man of good sense, a diligent student, a faithful pastor, and extensively useful, but a rampant advocate of what was called liberty." In a pamphlet he charged Wesley with having suddenly changed his opinions; with having at the late election advised the Bristol Methodists to vote for the American candidate; and further, with having but a short time before recommended a book entitled "An Argument in Defense of the Exclusive Right Claimed by the Colonies to Tax Themselves."

Wesley denied that he had seen the book; but Evans proved that William Pine, Wesley's own printer, and the Rev. James Roquet, his friend, were both prepared to attest on oath that Wesley had recommended that book to them. Evans was by this testimony convinced that Wesley had deliberately falsified, and in a new edition of his tract directed attention to "the shameful versatility and disingenuity of this artful man."

Thomas Olivers, one of Wesley's converts, came forward early in 1776 with "A Defense of the Rev. John Wesley" on the ground of pressure of business and advancing years, on account of which he had forgotten that he had recommended the book or even seen it. Olivers said that he

1 Boswell's "Life of Johnson."

WESLEY'S FORGETFULNESS.

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preached and exhorted twenty or thirty times a week and often more, answered thirty or forty letters, prepared something in whole or in part for the press, and a large variety of tracts on different subjects passed through his hands; it was not, therefore, strange that his memory should often fail. But Wesley's native frankness was his best vindicator; for on the 12th of November, 1775, he had written to the Rev. Mr. Roquet this letter:

"DEAR JAMES: I will now simply tell you the thing as it is. As I was returning from the Leeds Conference, one gave me the tract which you refer to, part of which I read on my journey. The spirit of it I observed to be admirably good, and I then thought the arguments conclusive. In consequence of which, I suppose (though I do not remember it), I recommended it both to you and others; but I had so entirely forgotten it that even when it was brought to me the other day I could not recollect that I had seen it.

"I am, etc.,

"JOHN WESLEY."

Several Methodist writers honestly and benevolently attempt to relieve the memory of John Wesley from the charge of hostility to the cause of the colonists during the Revolutionary struggle. But we are reluctantly compelled to demonstrate that the method which they adopt is without historical support, and capable of absolute disproof.

This is the case as presented by Stevens:

"Wesley's error in this publication [the "Calm Address"] afforded him a signal advantage at last-the opportunity in the same year of frankly correcting himself, and of acknowledging the right of the colonies in their stern quarrel.

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