Charles Wesley in Cornwall... 219 Triumphs of Methodism....... 220 His Views of Irish Character... 274 Charles Wesley in Ireland..... 274 THE CONFERENCE OF 1750. The first African Methodist.... 351 Prominent Preachers secede... 395 396 The Parson and the Quaker... Fletcher joins the Methodists.. 365 Wesley's Address to the Clergy 373 His unfortunate Marriage. His Sickness and Epitaph.... 371 CHAPTER III. CALVINISTIC AND MORAVIAN METHOD- Wesley's large Congregations.. 410 Cudworth's Letters of Hervey.. 411 Sketch of Thomas Taylor.... 411 His Adventures at Glasgow.... 413 Sandemanianism.. 391 Ingham's Success and Failure. 392 Death of Lady Ingham.. 393 Ingham's Death and Character. 393 Fletcher's Trials at Madeley... 422 His great Piety and Success.... 424 Condition of Methodism in 1770 426 Its Introduction into America.. 427 HISTORY OF METHODISM. BOOK I. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. STANDPOINT OF METHODISM IN THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. Christianity is Spiritual Life-The Church an Organic Form of this Life - The Philosophical Standpoint of the History of Methodism - Process of Corruption in the Early Church-The Reformation incomplete--Condition of the English Church prior to Methodism-Literary and Moral Aspects of England - Popular Degradation - Characteristics of Methodism. 1 HAD a studious heathen sought to ascertain the nature of the Christian religion, immediately after the completion of its canonical records, and solely from those records, he would have been surprised by its contrast with nearly all prior religious systems, in its suggestion rather than prescription of ecclesiastical arrangements, its general abstinence from ritual forms, and its total abstinence from dogmatic definitions. He would have discovered what modern Protestantism, emancipated from traditional influence, has found, that the purifica tion of the individual man, pursued in his individual freedom, and on the responsibility of his individual conscience, is the characteristic design of Christianity-rites and creeds, as aids to faith, being left discretionary, however necessary. Christianity is spiritual life. "The words that I speak unto you," said its Founder," they are spirit, and they are |