Church; in which case that separation of his people from the Church, which he began to foresee as otherwise inevitable, he thought might be prevented; and this he had undoubtedly much at heart. Under the same view it probably was, that in 1764 he addressed a circular to all the serious clergy whom he knew, inviting them to a closer co-operation in promoting the influence of religion in the land, without any sacrifice of opinion, and being still at liberty, as to outward order, to remain "quite regular, or quite irregular, or partly regular and partly irregular." Of the thirty-four clergymen addressed, only three returned any answer. This seems to have surprised both him and some of his biographers. The reason is, however, very obvious: Mr. Wesley did not propose to abandon his plan and his preachers, or to get the latter ordained and settled in curacies, as proposed a few years before by Mr. Walker of Truro; and the matter had now obviously gone too far for the clergy to attach themselves to Methodism. They saw, with perhaps clearer eyes than Mr. Wesley's, that the Methodists could not now be embodied in the Church; and that for them to co-operate directly with him, would only be to partake of his reproach, and to put difficulties in their own way, to which they had not the same call. A few clergymen, and but a few, still continued to give him, with fullness of heart, the right hand of fellowship, and to co-operate in some degree with him. Backward he could not go; but the forward career of still more extended usefulness was before him. From this time he gave up all hope of a formal connection with even the pious clergy. "They are," he observes, "a rope of sand, and such they will continue;" and he therefore set himself with deep seriousness to perpetuate the union of his preachers. At the conference of 1769 he read a paper, the object of which was to bind the preachers together by a closer tie, and to provide for the continuance of their

union after his death. They were to engage solemnly to devote themselves to God, to preach the old Methodist doctrines, and to maintain the whole Methodist discipline: after Mr. Wesley's death they were to repair to London, and those who chose to act in concert were to draw up articles of agreement; while such as did not so agree were to be dismissed "in the most friendly way possible." They were then to choose a committee by vote, each of the members of which was to be moderator in his turn, and this committee was to enjoy Mr. Wesley's power of proposing preachers to be admitted or excluded, of appointing their stations for the ensuing year, and of fixing the time. of the next conference. This appears to have been the first sketch of an ecclesiastical constitution for the body, and it mainly consisted in the entire delegation of the power which Mr. Wesley had always, to a committee of preachers to be chosen by the rest when assembled in conference. The form of government he thus proposed was, therefore, a species of episcopacy, to be exercised by a committee of three, five, or seven, as the case might be. Another and a more eligible provision was subsequently made; but this sufficiently shows that Mr. Wesley had given up all hope of union with the Church; and his efforts were henceforth directed merely to prevent any thing like formal separation, and the open renunciation of her communion, during his own life, by allowing his preachers to administer the sacraments.

About this time much prejudice was excited against Mr. Wesley in Scotland by the republication of Hervey's Eleven Letters. He had three times visited this country; and, preaching only upon the fundamental truths of Christianity, had been received with great affection. The societies had increased, and several of his preachers were stationed in different towns. Lady Frances Gardiner, the widow of Colonel Gardiner, and other persons eminent for

piety and rank, attended the Methodist ministry; but the publication of this wretched work caused a temporary odium. Hervey, who had been one of the little band at Oxford, became a Calvinist; and, as his notions grew more rigid with age, so his former feelings of gratitude and friendship to Mr. Wesley were blunted. He had also fallen into the hands of Cudworth, a decided Antinomian, who "put in and out" of the Letters "what he pleased." They were not, however, published till Hervey's death, and against his dying injunction. It is just to so excellent a man to record this fact; but the work was published in England, and republished, with a violent preface by Dr. Erskine, in Scotland; and among the Calvinists it produced the effect of inspiring great horror of Mr. Wesley as a most pestilent heretic, whom it was doing God service to abuse without measure or modesty. The feelings of Mr. Charles Wesley, at this treatment of his brother, may be gathered from the answer he returned upon being requested to write Hervey's epitaph:

ON BEING DESIRED TO WRITE AN EPITAPH FOR MR. JAMES HERVEY.

"O'erreached, impell'd by a sly Gnostic's art,

To stab his father, guide, and faithful friend,
Would pious Hervey act the accuser's part?
And could a life like his in malice end?

No: by redeeming love the snare is broke;
In death his rash ingratitude he blames;
Desires and wills the evil to revoke,

And dooms the unfinish'd libel to the flames.

Who then for filthy gain betray'd his trust,

And show'd a kinsman's fault in open light?
Let him adorn the monumental bust-

Th' encomium fair in brass or marble write:

Or if they need a nobler trophy raise,

As long as Theron and Aspasio live,
Let Madan or Romaine record his praise;

Enough that Wesley's brother can forgive!"*

The unfavorable impression made by Hervey's Letters, * Mr. Charles Wesley, however, afterward wrote and published some verses upon Mr. Hervey's death in which the kind recollections of old

surcharged by Cudworth's Antinomian venom, was, however, quickly effaced from all but the bigots; and with them, judging from Moncrief's Life of Erskine, it remains to this day. In his future visits to Scotland Mr. Wesley was received with marks of the highest respect, and at Perth he had the freedom of the city handsomely conferred upon him.

CHAPTER XI.

METHODISM having begun to make some progress in America, in consequence of the emigration of some of the members of the society from England and Ireland, Mr. Wesley inquired of the preachers of the conference of

friendship are embodied, and the anticipations of a happy meeting in heaven are sweetly expressed. The following are the concluding stanzas · "Father, to us vouchsafe the grace,

Which brought our friend victorious through;
Let us his shining footsteps trace,

Let us his steadfast faith pursue;

Follow this follower of the Lamb,

And conquer all through Jesus' name.

Free from the law of sin and death,
Free from the Antinomian leaven,
He led his Master's life beneath;

And, laboring for the rest of heaven,
By active love and watchful prayer,
He show'd his heart already there.

O might we all, like him, believe,

And keep the faith, and win the prize'

Father, prepare and then receive

Our hallow'd spirits to the skies,

To chant with all our friends above,
Thy glorious, everlasting love.'

[* Ireland seems to have had the special honor of furnishing the chief instruments of forming the first Methodist societies in America. Mr. Philip Embury, who formed the first permanent society in the city of New York, in 1766, and Mr. Robert Strawbridge, in Frederick county Maryland, in the same year, were both from Ireland.-AMERICAN EDIT.

1769, whether any of them would embark in that service. Messrs. Boardman and Pilmoor, two excellent men, of good gifts, volunteered their services, and were sent to take the charge of the societies. From this time the work spread with great rapidity; more than twenty preachers had devoted themselves to it previously to the war of independence; and societies were raised up in Maryland, Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania. During the war they still prosecuted their labors; though as several of them took the side of the mother country, they were exposed to danger.t Others, with more discretion, held on their way in silence, speaking only of the things of God. The warm loyalty of Mr. Wesley led him to publish a pamphlet on the subject of the quarrel, entitled, "A Calm address to the American Colonies;" but the copies which were shipped for America were laid hold of by a friend, who suppressed

[* New Jersey, and we think Delaware, ought to be added here; and in 1776 a circuit was formed in North Carolina also. Delaware especially ought ever to be honored by us for her generous and early protection to Methodism in the time of its greatest trial. It was within that small state, where the laws-to quote the words of Mr. Cooper-were more favorable, and the rulers and influential men more friendly, that Mr. Asbury, when the storm of the Revolutionary war was at its hight, and persecution raged furiously, found an asylum in the house of his neverto-be-forgotten friend, Judge White.-AMERICAN EDIT.]

[+ Some of the English preachers did act imprudently in this respect, and were under the necessity, in consequence, of leaving America. Mr. Asbury's course was marked "with more discretion;" which we are happy to perceive is also Mr. Watson's view of the subject. Of the American preachers, there is no evidence within our knowledge that any of them "took the side of the mother country;" although some of them, as well as of the members, were subjected to suspicion and persecution in consequence of their connection with Mr. Wesley, a known loyalist, and of the imprudence of some of the English preachers above mentioned; and also on account of their own conscientious scruples in relation to the spirit and practice of war in general, and particularly in regard to the nature of the oaths required of them in some of the states, and which they refused to take. For a fuller account of those times and scenes, the reader may consult the Life of Garrettson by Dr. Bangs, and a small volume entitled Cooper on Asbury, by Rev. Ezekiel Cooper.--AMERICAN Edrr.]