He had just been abridging the life of Mr. Haliburton: "My son," says Mrs. Hutton in a letter to Samuel Wesley, "designed to print it, to show the experience of that holy man of in-dwelling, &c. Mr. Hutton and I have forbidden him to be concerned in handing such books into the world; but if your brother John or Charles think it will tend to promote God's glory, they will soon convince my son that God's glory is to be preferred to his parents' commands. It was a very great affliction to them," she said, "to see their two children drawn into these wild notions by their great opinion of Mr. John's sanctity and judgment;" she supposed that Mr. John was about to visit his brother at Tiverton; and if his brother could then either confine or convert him, it would be a great charity to many other honest, wellmeaning, simple souls, as well as to her children.When he knew his behaviour, he certainly would not think him "a quite right man ;" and unless some stop could be put to his extravagance in exhorting people to disregard all teaching but by such a spirit as came in dreams to some, and in visions to others, the mischief which he would do wherever he went, among ignorant but well-meaning Christians, would be very great. She described her son as good-humoured, very undesigning, and sincerely honest; but of weak judgment, and so fitted for any delusion. He had been ill of a fever, and so many of these fancied saints gathered about him, that she expected his weak brain would have been quite turned.

To this letter, which represented a real and by no means a light affliction, Samuel Wesley returned such an answer as might have been expected from a good and religious man of sound judgment. "Falling into enthusiasm," said he, "is being lost with a witness; and if you are troubled for two of your children, you may be sure I am so, for two whom I may in some sense call mine*, who if once turned that way

* Mrs. Hutton says in one of her letters, " your brothers are much more obligated to you than many children are to their parents; you doing for them as a most kind and judicious parent,

will do a world of mischief, much more than even otherwise they would have done good, since men are much easier to be led into evil than from it.--What Jack means by his not being a Christian till last month, I understand not. Had he never been in covenant with God?—then,' as Mr. Hutton observed, 'baptism was nothing.' Had he totally apostatized from it?—I dare say not: and yet he must either be unbaptized, or an apostate, to make his words true. Perhaps it might come into his crown, that he was in a state of mortal sin unrepented of, and had long lived in such a course. This I do not believe; however he must answer for himself. But where is the sense of requiring every body else to confess that of themselves, in order to commence Christians? Must they confess it whether it be so or no? Besides, a sinful course is not an abolition of the covenant; for that very reason because it is a breach of it. If it were not, it would not be broken.

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Renouncing every thing but faith, may be every evil, as the world, the flesh, and the devil: this is a very orthodox sense, but no great discovery. It may mean rejecting all merit of our own good works.-What Protestant does not do so? Even Bellarmine on his death-bed is said to have renounced all merits✓ but those of Christ. If this renouncing regards good works in any other sense, as being unnecessary, or the like, it is wretchedly wicked; and to call our Saviour's word the letter that killeth, is no less than blasphemy against the Son of Man. It is mere Quakerism, making the outward Christ an enemy to the Christ within."

Having then noticed some ravings which Mrs. Hutton had repeated to him, and which, he said, looked like downright madness, he says, "I do not hold it at all unlikely, that perpetual intenseness of thought, and want of sleep, may have disordered my brother. I have been told that the Quakers' introversion of

when you had not the same obligation."-It seems probable that both John and Charles were beholden to him for the means of their education.

thought has ended in madness: it is a studious stop ping of every thought as fast as it arises, in order to receive the Spirit. I wish the canting fellows had never had any followers among us, who talk of indwellings, experiences, getting into Christ, &c. &c.; as I remember assurances used to make a great noise, which were carried to such a length, that (as far as nonsense can be understood) they rose to fruition; in utter defiance of Christian hope, since the question is unanswerable, What a man hath, why does he yet hope for? But I will believe none, without a miracle, who shall pretend to be wrapped up into the third heaven. I hope your son," he continues, "does not think it as plainly revealed that he shall print an enthusiastic book, as it is that he shall obey his father and his mother. Suppose it were never so excellent, can that supersede your authority? God deliver us from visions that shall make the law of God vain! I pleased myself with the expectation of seeing Jack; but now that is over, and I am afraid of it. I know not where to direct to him, or where he is.I heartily pray God to stop the progress of this lunacy."

Before this letter was written, John had left England. After his new birth, he had continued about a fortnight in heaviness, because of manifold temptations, in peace, but not in joy. A letter which he received perplexed him, because it maintained, that "no doubting could consist with the least degree of true faith; that whoever at any time felt any doubt or fear, was not weak in faith, but had no faith at all; and that none had any faith till the law of the spirit of life had made him wholly free from the law of sin and death." Begging God to direct him, he opened his Testament, and his eye fell upon that passage where St. Paul speaks of babes in Christ, who were not able to bear strong meat, yet he says to them, "Ye are God's building, ye are the temple of God." Surely then, he reasoned, these men had some degree of faith, though it is plain their faith was but weak. His mind, however, could not bear to be thus

sawn asunder, as he calls it; and he determined to visit the Moravians at Herrnhut, in the hope that "conversing with those holy men, who were themselves living witnesses of the full power of faith, and yet able to bear with those that are weak, would be a means of so establishing his soul, that he might go on from faith to faith, and from strength to strength."

CHAPTER V.

THE MORAVIANS.-WESLEY IN GERMANY.

Few religious communities may look back upon their history with so much satisfaction as the United Brethren. In the ninth century Christianity was introduced into Bohemia, from Greece. When Bohemia was united to the empire by Otho I. the people were brought under the yoke of Rome, and compelled to receive a liturgy which they did not understand. Their first king, Wratislas, remonstrated against this, and entreated the Pope that the church service might continue to be performed in the language of the country. The Pope replied, "Dear son, know that we can by no means grant your request; for having frequently searched the Holy Scriptures, we have there discovered, that it has pleased, and still pleases Almighty God, to direct his worship to be conducted in hidden language, that not every one, especially the simple, might understand it. For if it were performed in a manner altogether intelligible, it might easily be exposed to contempt; or if imperfectly understood by halflearned persons, it might happen that by hearing and contemplating the word too frequently, errors

*The Bohemians pleaded a miracle in support of the privilege which they claimed of having divine service performed in their own tongue. They had requested permission from Pope Nicholas, through the first preachers of Christianity in that country, Methodius and Cyrillus, who undertook the commission without the slightest hope of succeeding in it,—indeed in the expectation that they should subject themselves to the scorn of the Sacred College. But when the matter was propounded in that College, a voice was heard, saying, "Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum, & omnis lingua confiteatur eum." And the Pope, says the legend, in obedience to the text which was thus divinely quoted, acceded to the petition of the Bohemians. Dubravius, p. 26.