Charles Wesley, the younger brother, during John's two years' absence on his cure, seemed to have waked all at once from the religious apathy of his under-graduate course, and falling in with two or three young men of kindred feelings with his own, they associated for mutual improvement and religious exercises. They received the sacrament weekly, and practised certain very obvious but very unusual austerities in regard to food, raiment, and amusements, quite sufficient to draw upon them general observation. The world, which has a keen sense of the ridiculous, saw in all this only oddity and folly, and in sooth it is no necessary adjunct of real religion-perhaps thought it something still less worthy of respect-hypocrisy, and love of notoriety. But observers could have borne even with these defects better than with what they found in the enthusiastic objects of their dislike-earnest practical godliness, which intimidation could not daunt nor ridicule shame. They gave these parties, therefore, the names of Sacramentarians, Bible-bigots, Bible-moths, the Holy, and the Godly Club. But, from the orderly method of their life, the name Methodists, that of an ancient sect of physicians, gradually stuck to the latter party, one not altogether new in its applications to religion any more than the Puritans (Cathari) of an earlier date. This title they neither sought nor shunned. If it gave no glory, it implied little reproach. But they justified their religious views by the practical value of their measures. They could appeal to their works as their best vindication. Their acquittal were triumphant were the tree of their profession judged by its fruits. We know not where, out of the Gospels, a more successful appeal is made in favour of practical godliness, the religion of good sense and good

works, than in the document we are about to submit to our readers. Never was there less enthusiasm, fanaticism, rant, (O si sic omnia!) in any page of letter-press-never more convincing ratiocination, more clear exposition of duty, than in its dozen quiet interrogations.

"Whether it does not concern all men, of all conditions, to imitate Him, as much as they can, who went about doing good?

"Whether all Christians are not concerned in that command, While we have time let us do good unto all men, especially to those who are of the household of faith?

"Whether we shall not be more happy hereafter the more good we do now?

"Whether we may not try to do good to our acquaintance among the young gentlemen of the university?

"Particularly whether we may not endeavour to convince them of the necessity of being Christians and of being scholars?

"May we not try to do good to those that are hungry, or naked, or sick? If we know any necessitous family, may we not give them a little food, clothes, or physic, as they want?

"If they can read, may we not give them a Bible or a Prayer-Book, or a Whole Duty of Man? May we not inquire now and then how they have used them, explain what they do not understand, and enforce what they do?

"May we not enforce upon them the necessity of private prayer, and of frequenting the church and sacrament?

"May we not contribute what we are able toward having their children clothed and taught to read?

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"May we not try to do good to those who are in prison? May we not release such well disposed persons as remain in prison for small debts?

"May we not lend small sums of money to those who are of any trade, that they may procure themselves tools and materials to work with?

May we not give to them who appear to want it most a little money, or clothes, or physic?"

Such is their apology—a probe for the conscience, which searches the latent wound, but only searches to heal-a promptuary of every good word and work-a brief but weighty preface to a life of labour and of love-a whole library of folio divinity in small-the casuistry of an honest and good heart resolved in a handful of questions -the law that came by Moses, clothed in the inimitable grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ-a most Holy Inquisition of which no brotherhood need be ashamedthe beatitudes of our Lord charged home, and chambered in the heart by the impulse of an earnest query-a thema con variazione, making melody in the heart unto the Lord while breathing deep-toned benevolence toward man. If ever Church originated in an unexceptionable source it was this. If ever one could challenge its foundation as resting on the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, it was this. If ever Church was cradled, as its Lord was cradled, in supreme glory to God and good will to man-if ever Church at its birth was an incarnation of the first and chief commandment, charity, the sum and end of the law, it was this Church. This is more than can be said of any of the great moral revolutions of the world. Almost all the more remarkable changes in human opinion, the truths as well as the

errors, have been mixed with a considerable alloy of human infirmity in their origin and conduct. Envy and selfishness, and pride and ambition, have shown themselves in various degrees, as moving powers in the world of thought and religion, and though the results under divine superintendence have been overruled to good, the process has been faulty. We cannot say, for we do not believe, that there was not much of human passion at the bottom of the indignant Luther's breach with Rome, while ingenuous Protestantism must blush over the sensuality and cruelty of Henry VIII. Even the self-denying non-conformists do not show so bright, when we reflect that the majority of them, in closing their ministry in the Church on St. Bartholomew's day, did never perhaps belong to what is popularly called the Church of England, nor object so much to the imposition of a particular prayerbook, as to any prayer-book at all, being in fact Presbyterians and Independents. But here, alike free from the infirmities of Aletharch, or Heresiarch, free from selfish aim or end, unfraught with doctrinal pride, uninflated by youthful presumption, a few good men go forth, a second college of apostles, ordained with a like ordination, having the unction of the Holy One, and charged with the same divine mission, "to seek and to save that which was lost," freely receiving from heaven, and freely giving in return. Language and imagery would fail us in depicting sooner than our soul cease from admiring the purity and sublimity of the object these compassionate men sought by their personal consecration, their visits of mercy, and their prayers:—

"I can't describe it though so much it strike,

Nor liken it-I never saw the like."

Looking down, like the divine humanity of the Son of God from the height of his priestly throne, far above every feeling save that of sorrow for the sufferings and sins of men, their eyes suffused with pitiful tears, and they resolved to do what they could. Suffice it to say, that, baptized in such a laver as this, the Methodist Church, which has since attained a respectable maturity, has never renounced the principles that hallowed its early dedication, has kept the whiteness of its garments unsullied by the pollutions of the world,—has raised visibly everywhere the banner of mercy to the bodies and souls of men, and can say still, as it professed then, "I am free from the blood of all men."

John Wesley will be found to have given currency by his course of action to a set of divine ideas easily acted upon, but not always clearly apprehended, which make up the sum of personal religion, and without which, it may be added, personal religion cannot exist. This is the philosophy of his career, perhaps very imperfectly understood by himself, probably never drawn out by him in a systematic form, yet sufficiently obvious to us who look back upon his completed life, and live amid the results of his labours. Immersed in the complexities of the game, the turmoil of the storm in which his busy life was cast, the unceasing struggle of his soul with the gigantic evils of the world, he could neither observe nor analyze, as we can do, the elements arrayed against him, nor the principles evolved in the conflict that were ministrant to his success. As we are in the habit of raising instinctively the arm, or lowering the eyelid to repel or shun danger, so he adopted measures and evolved truths by force of circumstances more than by forethought, those truths and