while he was officiating, shone full in his face, but it was no inconvenience; nor were his eyes more dazzled, than if it had been under the earth. Labouring under indisposition, when he was about to administer the sacrament, the thought, he says, came into his mind, "why should he not apply to God at the beginning, rather than the end of an illness?" He did so, and found immediate relief. By an effort of faith he could rid himself of the tooth-ach: and more than once, when his horse fell lame, and there was no other remedy, the same application was found effectual. Some," he observes, "will esteem this a most notable instance of enthusiasm: be it so or not, I aver the plain fact."

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This was Wesley's peculiar weakness, and he retained it to the last. Time and experience taught him to correct some of his opinions, and to moderate others, but this was rooted in his nature. In the year 1780, he began to publish the Arminian Magazine, for the double purpose of maintaining and defending those doctrines which were reviled with such abominable scurrility by the Calvinists in their monthly journal, and of supplying his followers, who were not in the habit of reading much, with an entertaining

* In the preface to the first volume he says, "Amidst the multitude of magazines which now swarm in the world, there was one, a few years ago, termed the Christian Magazine, which was of great use to mankind, and did honour to the publishers; but it was soon discontinued, to the regret of many serious and sensible persons. In the room of it started up a miscreated phantom, called The Spiritual Magazine; and, not long after it, its twin sister, oddly called The Gospel Magazine. Both of these are intended to show, that God is not loving to every man; that his mercy is not over all his works; and, consequently, that Christ did not die for us all, but for one in ten, for the elect only.

"This comfortable doctrine, the sum of which, proposed in plain English, is, God, before the foundation of the world, absolutely and irrevocably decreed, that some men shall be saved, do what they will, and the rest damned, do what they can,' has, by these tracts, been spread throughout the land with the utmost diligence. And these champions of it have, from the beginning, proceeded in a manner worthy of their cause. They have paid no more regard to good nature, decency, or good manners, than to reason or truth: all these they set utterly at defiance. Without any deviation from their plan, they have defended their dear decrees, with arguments worthy of Bedlam, and with language worthy of Billingsgate."

These were the first religious journals which were published in England. Since that time every denomination of dissenters, down to the most insignificant subdivisions of schism, has had its magazine.

and useful miscellany. Both purposes were well answered; but having this means at his command, he indulged his indiscriminate credulity, and inserted, without scruple, and without reflection, any marvellous tale that came to his hands.

CHAPTER XXVII.

METHODISM IN AMERICA. WESLEY'S POLITICAL

CONDUCT.

A LITTLE modification might have rendered Methodism a most useful auxiliary to the English Church. But if some such auxiliary power was needed in this country, much more was it necessary in British America, where the scattered state of the population was as little favourable to the interests of religion as of government.

In the New-England states, the Puritans had established a dismal tyranny of the priesthood; time and circumstances had mitigated it; and ecclesiastical discipline, in those provinces, seems nearly to have reached its desirable mean about the middle of the eighteenth century: the elders no longer exercised an impertinent and vexatious control over their countrymen; they retained, however, a wholesome influence; the means of religious instruction were carefully provided, and the people were well trained up in regular and pious habits. Too little attention had been paid to this point in other states; indeed may be said, that the mother country, in this respect, had grossly neglected one of its first and

it

* Franklin gives a curious anecdote upon this subject in one of his letters. "The reverend commissary Blair, who projected the college in the province of Virginia, and was in England to solicit benefactions and a charter, relates that the queen (Mary,) in the king's absence having ordered the Attorney General (Seymour) to draw up the charter which was to be given, with £2000 in money, he opposed the grant, saying, that the nation was engaged in an expensive war, that the money

most important duties toward its colonies. There were many parts in the southern states, of which the frightful picture given of them by Secker, when bishop of Oxford, was not overcharged. "The first European inhabitants," said that prelate, "too many of them, carried but little sense of Christianity abroad with them. A great part of the rest suffered it to wear out gradually, and their children grew, of course, to have yet less than they, till, in some countries, there were scarce any footsteps of it left beyond the mere name. No teacher was known, no religious assembly was held; the sacrament of baptism not administered for near twenty years together, nor that of the Lord's Supper for near sixty, amongst many thousands of people, who did not deny the obligation of these duties, but lived, nevertheless, in a stupid neglect of them." To remedy this, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent out missionaries from time to time; but misdirecting their exertions, for want of proper inquiry, or proper information, they employed most of the few labourers whom they could find in the states where they were least wanted, and in places where they did little more than interfere with what was the established system.

Whitefield had contented himself with the immediate impression which he produced. The person who first began to organize Methodism in America was an Irishman, by name Philip Embury, who had been a local preacher in his own country. Having removed to New-York, he collected a few hearers, first in his own house, and, when their number increased, in a large room, which they rented for the purpose. Captain Webb happened at this time to be in America. This officer, who had lost an eye in

was wanted for better purposes, and he did not see the least occasion for a college in Virginia. Blair represented to him, that its intention was to educate and qualify young men to be ministers of the Gospel, much wanted there; and begged Mr. Attorney would consider, that the people of Virginia had souls to be saved as well as the people of England. Souls! said he, damn your souls! make tobacco !" Correspondence, vol. i. p. 158.

the battle of Quebec, had been converted, not long after that event, by Mr. Wesley's preaching at Bristol, and had tried his own talents as a preacher at Bath, when some accident prevented the itinerant from arriving, whom the congregation had assembled to hear. Webb hearing of Embury's beginning, paid him a visit from Albany, where he then held the appointment of barrack-master, preached in his uniform, attracted auditors by the novelty of such an exhibition, and made proselytes by his zeal. gular society was formed in the year 1768, and they resolved to build a preaching-house.

Wesley's attention had already been invited to America. He met with a Swedish chaplain, who had spent several years in Pennsylvania, and who entreated that he would send out preachers to help him, representing what multitudes in that country were as sheep without a shepherd. Soon afterwards Captain Webb and his associates wrote to Mr. Wesley, informing him that a beginning had been made, and requesting that he would, at the ensuing Conference, appoint some persons to come over, and prosecute the work which was so providentially begun. About the same time there came a letter from a certain Thomas Bell, at Charlestown, saying, “ Mr. Wesley says, the first message of the preachers is to the lost sheep of England. And are there none in America? They have strayed from England into the wild woods here, and they are running wild after this world. They are drinking their wine in bowls, and are jumping and dancing, and serving the devil, in the groves and under the green trees. And are not these lost sheep? And will none of the preachers come here? Where is Mr. Brownfield? Where is John Pawson? Where is Nicholas Manners? are they living, and will they not come?"

Pawson would not go; because, he said, he did not see that it could be his duty to leave his parents, who were then on the brink of the grave. He followed his heart in this, and was right. Pawson, indeed, was in his proper sphere; the fire of enthusiasm in him had settled into a steady vital heat, and there

were younger men for the work. Richard Boardman and Joseph Pillmoor, volunteered at the next Conference for the service; and, as the New-York Methodists had contracted a debt by their building, the Connexion sent them fifty pounds by these preachers, as a token of brotherly love. They landed at Philadelphia, where Captain Webb had already formed a society of about a hundred members. Pillmoor proceeded to Maryland and Virginia, Boardman to New-York: both sent home flattering accounts of their success, and of the prospect before them; so that Wesley himself began to think of following them: "but," said he, "the way is not plain; I wait till Providence shall speak more clearly on one side or the other." In 1771 he says, "my call to America is not yet clear. I have no business there, as long as they can do without me: at present I am a debtor to the people of England and Ireland, and especially to them that believe. That year, therefore, he sent over Richard Wright and Francis Asbury, the latter of whom proved not inferior to himself in zeal, activity, and perseverance. Asbury perceived that his ministry was more needed in the villages and scattered plantations than in large towns, and he therefore devoted himself to country service. 1773, Thomas Rankin and George Shadford were sent to assist their brethren: by this time they had raised a few recruits among the Americans, and, holding a Conference at Philadelphia, it appeared by their muster-rolis, that there were about a thousand members in the different societies.

In

These preachers produced a considerable effect; and Methodism would have increased even more rapidly than in England, if its progress had not been ▾ interrupted by the rebellion. At the commencement of the disputes, which led to that unhappy and illmanaged contest, Mr. Wesley was disposed to doubt whether the measures of government were defensible but when the conduct of the revolutionists became more violent, and their intentions were unmasked, he saw good cause for altering his opinion, and

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