but Wesley seems never to have looked back with melancholy upon the days that were gone; earthly regrets of this kind could find no room in one who was continually pressing onward to the goal." (Southey's Life.) When he had attained his seventeenth year, he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, "where he pursued his studies with great advantage, I believe under the direction of Dr. Wigan, a gentleman eminent for his classical knowledge. Mr. Wesley's natural temper in his youth was gay and sprightly, with a turn for wit and humor. When he was about twenty-one years of age, he appeared,' as Mr. Babcock has observed, the very sensible and acute collegian; a young fellow of the finest classical taste, of the most liberai and manly sentiments.' (Westminster Magazine.) His perfect knowledge of the classics gave a smooth polish to his wit, and an air of superior elegance to all his compositions. He had already begun to amuse himself occasionally with writing verses, though most of his poetical pieces, at this period, were, I believe, either imitations or translations of the Latin. Some time in this year, however, he wrote an imitation of the sixty-fifth Psalm, which he sent to his father, who says, 'I like your verses on the sixtyfifth Psalm, and would not have you bury your talent."" (Whitehead's Life.)

Some time after this, when purposing to take deacon's orders, he was roused from the religious carelessness into which he had fallen at college, and applied himself diligently to the reading of divinity. This more thoughtful frame appears to have been indicated in his letters to his mother, with whom he kept up a regular correspondence; for she replies, "The alteration of your temper has occasioned me much speculation. I, who am apt to be sanguine, hope it may proceed from the operations of God's Holy Spirit, that, by taking off your relish for earthly enjoyments, he may prepare and dispose your mind for a

more serious and close application to things of a more sublime and spiritual nature. If it be so, happy are you if you cherish those dispositions; and now, in good earnest, resolve to make religion the business of your life; for, after all, that is the one thing which, strictly speaking, is necessary: all things beside are comparatively little to the purposes of life. I heartily wish you would now enter upon a strict examination of yourself, that you may know whether you have a reasonable hope of salvation by Jesus Christ. If you have, the satisfaction of knowing it will abundantly reward your pains; if you have not, you will find a more reasonable occasion for tears than can be met with in a tragedy. This matter deserves great consideration by all, but especially by those designed for the ministry, who ought, above all things, to make their own calling and election sure, lest, after they have preached to others, they themselves should be cast away.”

This excellent advice was not lost upon him; and indeed his mother's admirable letters were among the principal means, under God, of producing that still more decided change in his views which soon afterward began to display itself. He was now about twenty-two years of age.

The practical books most read by him at this period, which was probably employed as a course of preparation for holy orders, were, "The Christian's Pattern," by Thomas a Kempis; and Bishop Taylor's "Rules of Holy Living and Dying;" and his correspondence with his parents respecting these authors shows how carefully he was weighing their merits, and investigating their meaning, as regarding them in the light of spiritual instructors. The letters of his mother on the points offered to her consideration by her son, show, in many respects, a deeply-thinking and discriminating mind; but they are also in proof that both she and her husband had given up their acquaintance, if they ever had any, with works which might have been

recommended as much more suitable to the state of their son's mind, and far superior as a directory to true Christianity. This to him would have been infinitely more important than discussing the peculiar views, and adjusting the proportion of excellency and defect, which may be found in such a writer as Kempis, whose "Christian's Pattern" is, where in reality excellent, a manual rather for him who is a Christian already, than for him who is seeking to become one.

A few things are, however, to be remarked in this correspondence which are of considerable interest, as showing the bearings of Mr. Wesley's views as to those truths of which he afterward obtained a satisfactory conviction, and then so clearly stated and defended.

The son, in writing to his mother on Bishop Taylor's book, states several particulars which Bishop Taylor makes necessary parts of humility and repentance; one of which, in reference to humility, is, that "we must be sure, in some sense or other, to think ourselves the worst in every company where we come.” And in treating of repentance, he says, "Whether God has forgiven us or no, we know not; therefore, be sorrowful for ever having sinned." “I take the more notice of this last sentence," says Mr. Wesley, "because it seems to contradict his own words in the next section, where he says, that by the Lord's supper all the members are united to one another, and to Christ, the head. The Holy Ghost confers on us the graces necessary for, and our souls receive the seeds of, an immortal nature. Now, surely, these graces are not of so little force as that we can not perceive whether we have them or not: if we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us, which he will not do unless we are regenerate, certainly we must be sensible of it. If we can never have any certainty of our being in a state of salvation, good reason it is that every moment should be spent, not in joy, but in fear and trembling; and

then undoubtedly, in this life, we are of all men most miserable. God deliver us from such a fearful expectation as this! Humility is, undoubtedly, necessary to salvation; and if all these things are essential to humility, who can be humble? who can be saved?"

The mother, in reply, suggests to him some good thoughts. and useful distinctions on the subject of humility; but omits to afford him any assistance on the point of the possibility of obtaining a comfortable persuasion of being in a state of salvation, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, which he already discerned to be the privilege of a real believer, though as yet he was greatly perplexed as to the means of attaining it. At this period, too, he makes the important distinction between assurance of present, and assurance of future, salvation; by confounding which, so many, from their objection to the Calvinistic notion of the infallible perseverance of the saints, have given up the doctrine of assurance altogether. "That we can never be so certain of the pardon of our sins as to be assured they will never rise up against us, I firmly believe. We know that they will infallibly do so if ever we apostatize; and I am not satisfied what evidence there can be of our final perseverance, till we have finished our course. But I am per

suaded we may know if we are now in a state of salvation, since that is expressly promised in the holy Scriptures to our sincere endeavors; and we are surely able to judge of our own sincerity."

The latter part of this extract will, however, show how much he had yet to learn as to "the way to the Father." Mrs. Wesley also corrects a defective definition of faith, which her son's letter had contained, in the following sensible remarks, which are just, as far as they go, but below the true Scriptural standard, and the proper conception of that saving faith after which her son was inquiring: "You are somewhat mistaken in your notions of faith. All faith

is an assent, but all assent is not faith.

Some truths are

self-evident, and we assent to them because they are so. Others, after a regular and formal process of reason, by way of deduction from some self-evident principle, gain our assent. This is not properly faith, but science. Some again we assent to, not because they are self-evident, or because we have attained the knowledge of them in a regular method by a train of arguments, but because they have been revealed to us, either by God or man; and these are the proper objects of faith. The true measure of faith is the authority of the revealer, the weight of which always holds proportion to our conviction of his ability and integrity. Divine faith is an assent to whatever God has revealed to us, because he has revealed it."

Predestination was another subject touched upon in this interesting correspondence. Mr. Wesley was probably led to it by his review of the Articles of the Church previous to his ordination, and he thus expresses himself on this controverted subject: "What, then, shall I say of predestination? An everlasting purpose of God to deliver some from damnation, does, I suppose, exclude all from that deliverance who are not chosen. And if it was inevitably decreed from eternity that such a determinate part of mankind should be saved, and none beside them, a vast majority of the world were only born to eternal death, without so much as a possibility of avoiding it. How is this consistent with either the Divine justice or mercy? Is it merciful to ordain a creature to everlasting misery? Is it just to punish a man for crimes which he could not but commit? That God should be the author of sin and injustice, which must, I think, be the consequence of maintaining this opinion, is a contradiction to the clearest ideas we have of the Divine nature and perfections." (Whitehead's Life.)

From these views he never departed; and the terms he