Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/196

186 METHODISM some of his principles and opinions, but nevertheless his ritualism was dead at its roots. This experience also made Wesley an evangelist. He had a forgotten gospel to preach, the gospel by which men were to be converted, as he had been, and to be made " new creatures." And this result, this new birth, was not dependent on any churchly form or ordinance, on any priestly prerogative or service, or on any sacramental grace or influence. To raise up, accordingly, by his preaching and personal influence, a body of converted men, who should themselves become witnesses of the same truth by which he had been saved, was henceforth to be Wesley s life-work. This was the inspiration under which he became a great preacher ; this also made him an organizer of his living witnesses into classes and societies. In the pulpit was the preaching power ; in the class-room was the private and personal influence. The vital link between the pulpit and the class meeting was the doctrine and experience of " conversion." Thus Wesleyan Methodism is derived, not from Wesley the ritualist, but from AVesley the evangelist. Wesley s doctrines offended the clergy. His popularity as a preacher alarmed them. The churches were soon shut against him. He attended the religious meetings on a Church of England basis which had existed in London and elsewhere for fifty years, so far as these were still open to him, the Moravian meetings, and meetings in the rooms of private friends, but these were quite insufficient for the zeal and energy of himself and his brother, who had been " converted " a few days before himself. Accordingly, in 1739, he followed the example set by Whitefield, and preached in the open air to immense crowds. In the same year also he yielded to the urgency of his followers and to the pressure of circumstances, and, becoming possessed of an old building called " the Foundery," in Moorfields, transformed it into a meeting house. Here large congregations came together to hear the brothers. About the same time, in Bristol and the neighbouring colliery district of Kiugswood, he found him self obliged, not a little against his will, to become the owner of premises for the purpose of public preaching and religious meetings. Here was the beginning of that vast growth of preaching-houses and meeting-rooms, all of them for nearly fifty years settled on Wesley himself, which, never having in any way belonged to the Church of England, became, through Wesley, the possession of the Methodist Connexion. The religious societies through which the Wesleys, after their conversion, exercised at first their spiritual influence were in part, as has been intimated, Moravian, that in Fetter Lane, of which the rules were drawn up by Wesley himself in 1738 (May 1), being the chief of these, and in part societies in connexion with the Church of England, the successors of those which sprang up in the last years of the Stuarts, as if to compensate for the decay of Puritanism within the church. In 1739, however, a strong leaven of antinomian quietism gained entrance among the Moravians of England (Bohler himself having left for America in the spring of 1738) ; and Wesley, after vainly contending for a time against this corruption, found it necessary formally to separate from them, and to establish a society of his own, for which a place of meeting was already provided at the Foundery. This was the first society under the direct control of Wesley, and herein was the actual and vital beginning of the Wesleyan Methodist Society, that is, of Wesleyan Methodism. Hence the Wesleyans celebrated their centenary in 1839. It was not, however, till 1743 that Wesley published the Rules of his Society .By that time not a few other local societies had be^n addd to that at the Foundery, the three chief centres being London, Bristol, and Newcastle. Hence Wesley called his Society, when he published the " Rules " in 1743, the " United Societies." His brother s name was joined with his own at the foot of these Rules, in their second edition, dated May 1, 1743, and so remained in all later editions while Charles Wesley lived. Those Rules are still the rules of Wesleyan Methodism. Since Wesley s death they have not been altered. During his life only one change was made of any importance. In 1743 the offerings given weekly in the classes were for the poor, there being at that time no Conference and no itinerant preachers except the two brothers ; after a few years the rules pre scribed that the weekly contributions were to go " towards the support of the gospel." The Society is described as " a company of men having the form, and seeking the power, of godliness, united in order to pray together, to receive the word of exhortation, and to watch over one another in love, that they may help each other to work out their salvation." " The only condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies " is " a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins." The customary contribution was a minimum of a penny a week or a shilling a quarter. In 1739 these societies were not divided into "classes." But in 1742 this further step in organization was taken, and the change is recognized in the rules of 1743. Leaders were appointed to these classes, and became an order of spiritual helpers and subpastors, not ordained like lay elders in the Presbyterian churches, but, like them, filling up the interval between the pastors that " labour in the word and doctrine" and the members generally, and furnishing the main elements of a council which, in after years, grew up to be the disciplinary authority in every " society." In every society there was from the beginning a " steward " to take and give account of moneys received and expended. After a few years there were two distinct stewards, one being specially appointed to take care of the poor and the " poor s money," the other being, in general, the "society steward." And, finally, though hardly, perhaps, during Wesley s lifetime, in the larger societies there came to be two stewards of each description. The leaders and stewards together constituted " the leaders meeting," of which, however, the complete circle of func tions grew into use and into recognition only by degrees. The Rules of the Society, which are strict and searching, relate to worship, to conduct, and to the religious life, but do not once mention or refer to the Church of England, the parish church, or the parish clergy. The only authority at first was the personal authority of the two brothers, exercised either directly or by their official delegates. After years had passed away the leaders meeting came to have an important jurisdiction and authority, but its rights and powers were neither defined nor recognized until after Wesley s death. From first to last there is no trace or colour of any Anglican character in the organization. Moravians or Dissenters might have entered the fellow ship, and before long many did enter it who had either been Dissenters or, at any rate, had seldom or never entered a church. What would to-day be called the " unsectarian " character of his society was, indeed, in Wesley s view, one of its chief glories. All the time, however, this " unsectarian " society was only another " sect " in process of formation. Wesley for many years before his death had seen that, unless the rulers of the church should come to adopt in regard to his society a policy of liberal recognition, this might be the outcome of his life-work. And it would seem as if in his private confidences with himself he had come in the end at times to acquiesce in this result.

Still more decisive, however, was the third step in the