there. A youth had climbed a tree to hear and minnie him. Whitefield, attracted by his outrages, cried, "Come down, Zaccheus, come down, and receive the Lord Jesus Christ." The appeal was effectual, and the young man became not enly a convert but a zealous preacher.

At Tavistock he was mobbed. A bull and dogs were brought and set upon the assembly while he was praying. He prevailed over the rabble, however, and delivered his message. At Exeter a persecutor came to the field-preaching with his pocket full of stones to throw at him; he stood with one in his hand, ready for the convenient moment, but the word struck his conscience; he dropped his missiles and made his way to the preacher, contritely acknowledging, 'Sir, I came here to break your head, but God has broken my heart." He became a genuine Christian and an ornament to the Church.9

Having traversed the west of England to the extent of six hundred miles, spreading through all his course a marvelous sensation, he returned to London in March, 1749. He and Wesley now exchanged pulpits. They were bound together by their common Christian spirit, their common success, and their common persecutions. It was about this time that Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, sacrificed the dignity of his office by assailing them with merciless severity in his pamphlet, entitled, "The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compared," to which both the evangelists wrote replies. Soon after his elevation to the see of Exeter, Lavington delivered a charge to his clergy, which was said to reflect severely on the Methodists. A forgery, pretending to be this address, was printed in London. The prelate charged the counterfeit on the Methodist leaders in a public “Declaration." They denied it peremptorily, and its printer afterward confessed the fraud, and exonerated them from any direct or indirect collusion with him. Lady Huntingdon communicated this confession to Lavington, and demanded a retraction of his Declaration. He treated her appeal with

• Gillies's Whitefield, chap. 14.

silent contempt till she threatened to make public the actual state of the case, when he sent her a note "apologizing to her ladyship and the Messrs. Whitefield and Wesley for the harsh and unjust censures which he was led to pass on them, from the supposition that they were in some measure concerned in and had countenanced the late imposition on the public." He even requested them to "accept his unfeigned regret at having unjustly wounded their feelings, and exposed them to the odium of the world." 19 This acknowledgment was not, however, made by him publicly, as it should have been in order to counteract his hasty "Declaration." The countess herself gave the recantation to the public. The bishop would not pardon this necessary act, and vented his indignation in relentless attacks on the Methodists. His tracts on their "Enthusiasm" exaggerated their real faults, and imputed to them many that were monstrous fictions. The historian of the times cannot show a greater kindness to his memory than to pass these flagrant publications with the least possible allusion. They are known in our day only by the triumph of the cause they impeached, a cause whose early incidental defects the Christian world is not willing to set off against its beneficent results. 11

Whitefield could not remain long in London; he was feeble in health there, and soon unable to hold a pen. Again he started on his old routes. At Portsmouth he preached to a great assembly amid clamorous outcries; but before he closed the leader of the opposition was subdued, and “received him into his home with tears of shame and joy." 12 He passed into Wales, and had a triumphant progress

10 See his letter in Lady Huntingdon's Life and Times, chap.7. "Such," says the author of this work, "was the recantation of this wily prelate but it was only in the language of hypocrisy."

11 Wesley showed his characteristic kindness of heart when, some years later, while at Exeter, he wrote in his Journal: "I was weli pleased to partake of the Lord's Supper with my old opponent, Bishop Lavington. O may we sit down together in the kingdom of our Father!" (Journal, Anno 1762.)

12 Philip's Whitefield, chap. 16.

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through its towns and villages. "Jesus," he wrote, " rides on in the chariot of the everlasting Gospel." He preached, mostly out of doors, in eight counties, and to more than a hundred thousand hearers. Throughout eight hundred miles ne had conquered all opponents; "not a dog stirred a tongue." Magistrates and people beheld him with respect, if not with awe. Twenty thousand were sometimes present, and many prayed and wept aloud under his sermons. "I think," he says, we had not one dry meeting." Re turning, he went to Exeter, not to answer Lavington's slanders, but to counteract them by the preaching of the Gospel. He proclaimed it there in the fields with great power. At one of his sermons the prelate and some of his clergy stood near, gazing on an assembly of ten thousand of the common people, many of whom trembled under the word, while others threw stones at the head of the preacher. He went into Yorkshire and preached for Grimshaw at Haworth to six thousand hearers, and administered the Lord's Supper to a thousand. Wesley's preachers and people invited him to Leeds, where he addressed an assembly of ten thousand. Charles Wesley met him on the highway and took him to Newcastle, where he preached repeatedly in the Wesleyan chapel, but finding the crowd too great turned out into the fields. Many were his converts through all these regions, some of whom afterward laid the foundations of the Dissenting Churches which now flourish there.13

He returned frequently to London, where "thousands on thousands crowded to hear," and conversions were continually occurring. In the early part of 1750 repeated earth quakes alarmed the metropolis. Charles Wesley and Whitefield were in the city, and presented a sublime example of ministerial faithfulness amid the general trepidation. On the 8th of March, while the former was rising in the pulpit of the Foundry to preach, at five o'clock in the morning, the earth moved through all London and Westminster with a strong, jarring motion, and a rumbling noise like distant thunder.

13 Philip's Whitefield, chap. 16.

The walls of the Foundry trembled; a great agitation fol lowed among the people; but Wesley cried aloud to them, "Therefore will we not fear though the earth be moved, and the hills be carried into the midst of the sea, for the Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge." His heart, he says, was filled with faith, his mouth with words, "shaking their souls as well as their bodies." 14 The subterranean shocks recurred during several days. Multitudes flocked to the early Methodist service in deep alarm. The Westminster end of the metropolis was crowded with coaches and people flying precipitately, and London "looked like a sacked city." Throughout a whole night many of the alarmed people knocked at the Foundry door, entreating admittance, though "our poor people," writes Wesley, were calm and quiet as at any other time." During one of these terrible nights Tower Hill, Moorfields, and Hyde Park were filled with lamenting men, women, and children; Whitefield stood among them in Hyde Park preaching at midnight. A deep moral impression followed these events. They gave origin to many tracts and sermons, and the courage and labors of the Methodist evangelists could not fail to secure the reverence of the people.

On the morning in which Charles Wesley stood preaching within the trembling walls of the Foundry, John Wesley assembled the Conference of 1750 in Bristol-a date at which opens a new period of our narrative.

14 Jackson's Charles Wesley, chap. 17.

CHAPTER V.

DEVELOPMENT OF OPINIONS AND ECONOMY BY THE CONFERENCES, FROM 1745 TO 1750.

The Conference of 1745-Its Composition-Its Theological Discussions Is the Witness of the Spirit invariable in Conversion? - Sanctification Terrible Preaching - Church Government Wesley's High Church Views - Lord King's Primitive Church-Wesley still designed not to form a permanent Sect-The Session of 1746-Laymen admissible —- Progress of Opinion — Faith and Works - Necessity of the Lay Ministry declared — Its Divine Right acknowledged - Ordination anticipated Exhorters recognized Importance of Local Preachers and Exhorters-First List of Circuits - Session of 1747-Its Members Private Judgment and Free Discussion Relation of Faith to Assurance-Correction of Wesley's Opinion on the Subject - Cautions respecting Sanctification- What is a Church? - Divine Right of Epişcopacy denied-Session of 1748- Number of Circuits - The Formation of Societies resumed-Conference of 1749 - A Scheme of General Union - Assistants distinguished from Helpers - Quarterly Meetings ordered-Book Distribution-Session of 1750-Extraordinary Results of the first Decade of Methodism.

THE second Conference was held in Bristol, August 1st, 1745. John Hodges, rector of Wenvo, Wales, was the only regular clergyman who was present besides the Wesleys. One layman, Marmaduke Gwynne,1 and seven lay preachers, Thomas Richards, Samuel Larwood, Thomas Meyrick, James Wheatley,2 Richard Moss, John Slocombe, and, Herbert Jenkins, met with them. The deliberations related to questions of theology and church economy. As at the first conference, all dogmatic subjects not immediately concerned in personal religion were avoided; Justification, Sanctification, and the

1 See page 268.

2 Wheatley's name is omitted by Smith. (Hist. of Meth.) Myles gives it. (Chron. Hist., p. 34.)