made. Had their measures been concerted they could not more entirely have accorded.”: In a few days Wesley was proclaiming, in the pulpits of London, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature."

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to define the eloquence of Whitefield. It was the utterance of the whole man-heart, head, and person. It was more; it was the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power," the utterance of a living, exulting piety. Just before these scenes in London, while in his native county, he says his spirit would make such sallies that he thought it would escape from the body. At other times he was so overwhelmed with a sense of God's infinite majesty, that he was constrained to throw himself prostrate on the ground, and offer his soul as a blank for the Divine hand to write on it what should please God. One night he describes as a time never to be forgotten. It happened to lighten exceedingly; he had been expounding to many people, and some being afraid to go home, he thought it his duty to accompany them, and improve the occasion to stir them up for the coming of the Son of man. He preached to them warnings and consolations on the highway, while the thunders broke above his head, and the lightnings sped along his path. On his return to the parsonage, while the neighbors were rising from their beds, and terrified to see the lightning run upon the ground, and shine from one part of the heavens unto the other, he and a poor but pious countryman continued in the field, praying, praising, and exulting in God, and longing for 'the time when Christ shall be revealed from heaven in a flame of fire! "O that my soul," he wrote, “may be in a like flame when he shall actually come to call me!"

How could such a man be other than eloquent? An untutored hearer, returning from one of his sermons, significantly said, "He preached like a lion." But with this moral power he combined most, if not all other qualifications of a popular orator. He is said to have had a perfect .3 Southey's Wesley, chap. 4.

natural grace of manner out of the pulpit, and of gesture in it. Marvels are told about the compass and music of his voice. He was tall in person; his features were regular, and expressive of a generous and buoyant heart; his eyes were blue and luminous, though small, and a slight squint in one of them, caused by the measles, is said not to have "lessened the uncommon sweetness" of his countenance. His humble origin, and occupation in the Bristol Inn, enabled him to understand and address the common people, who, while admiring that natural grace which afterward rendered him at home in aristocratic circles, felt that he was one from among themselves. He had also an aptitude for illustrations drawn from common life, and a tendency to popular humor, which, without degenerating into vulgarity, drew irresistibly toward him the popular interest; so that Wesley, who was scrupu lously, though simply correct, said: "Even the little im proprieties, both of his language and manner, were the means of profiting many, who would not have been touched by a more correct discourse, or a more calm and regular manner of preaching."

His passage to America was long. The ship's company, including, besides the crew, soldiers and emigrants, were mostly an immoral class; but he preached, read prayers, catechised the children, and ministered to the sick, with such zeal, that before they reached Georgia the whole. moral aspect of his floating congregation was changed. He remained in the colony only about four months, but during that time traveled and labored incessantly among its settlements. A brief residence among the Indians, and an unsuccessful attempt to frame a grammar of their language, seem to have satisfied him that his call was not unto them. He found many orphan children among the colonists, and pro jected an asylum for them, a design which led to his early return to England. He embarked from Charleston, South Carolina, September, 1738, in time, as we shall see, for important events in the incipient history of Methodism.

CHAPTER V.

WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS.

Wesley's Return from Georgia-His Religious Disquiet-Sketch of the Moravians - Obligations of Methodism to the Martyrs of Constance -Ziska and his Peasant Heroes - Commencement of Herrnhut-Count Zinzendorf-- The Moravians in London-Peter Böhler-Conversion of Charles Wesley-Conversion of John Wesley-Wesley's Visit to Herrnhut-His Description of it-Theological Views - Obligations of Methodism to the Moravians.

THE ship which bore Whitefield from England, passed in sight of that which bore Wesley back, only a few hours before his arrival at the Downs; but neither of them knew the fact. Whitefield, liberated in spirit, and winged with zeal as with pinions of flame, was flying exultingly on his mission; but Wesley, who was to be last, and yet, in an important sense, first in the new career they had been forecasting, entered the metropolis, which was still stirred by the evangelical triumphs of his friend, bowed and broken in spirit. In placing his foot again on English soil, he repeats, with profound contrition, the record of his inward struggles: "It is now," he writes, "two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity. But what have I learned myself, meantime? Why, what I the least of all suspected, that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God. I am not mad, though I thus speak, but I speak the words of truth and soberness, if, haply, some of those who still dream may awake, and see that as I am so are they." Were they read in philosophy? he continues, with eloquent earnestness, and in language

1 The device of Whitefield's seal was a winged heart, soaring above the globe, and the motto, Astra petamus. Southey's Wesley, note 24.

which would cover boastfulness itself with shame; were they read in philosophy? so was he. In ancient or modern tongues? he was also. Were they versed in the science of divinity? he too had studied it many years. Could they talk fluently upon spiritual things? the very same could he do. Were they plenteous in alms? behold, he gave all his goods to feed the poor. Did they give of their labor as well as their substance? he had labored more abundantly. Were they willing to suffer for their brethren? he had thrown away his friends, reputation, ease, country; he had put his life in his hands, wandering into strange lands; he had given his body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness, or whatsoever God should please to bring upon him. But, he continues, does all this, be it more or less, it matters not, make him acceptable to God? Does all he ever did, or can, know, say, give, do, or suffer, justify him in His sight? If the oracles of God are true, if we are still to abide by the law and testimony, all these things, though, when ennobled by faith in Christ, they are holy, and just, and good, yet without it are dung and dross. He refuses to be comforted by ambiguous hopes. "If," he adds, "it be said that I have faith, for many such things have I heard from many miserable comforters, I answer, so have the devils a sort of faith; but still they are strangers to the covenant of promise. The faith I want is a sure trust and confidence in God, that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favor of God." 2

But the time of his deliverance was at hand. He had learned in anguish its preparatory lessons; his good works, his ascetism, his ritualism had failed him. It had been necessary, perhaps, that he should try them, in order to be a competent guide for the millions who were yet to be affected by his influence. Susanna Wesley had educated him for his great work, and in this respect was the real founder of Methodism, for with a different character he would have

2 Journal, Anno 1738.

had a different history; the germinal principle of Methodism had sprung up at Oxford; but the vital element which was to give it growth and enable it to branch out over the world, was still wanting. It was to be supplied in a manner which forms one of the most extraordinary illustrations of Divine Providence afforded by the annals of the Church.

More than three hundred years had passed since the Council of Constance had sacrificed, at the stake, the two noblest men of Bohemian history, Jerome and Huss. With Wicklif, they had initiated Protestantism a century before Luther. Though Wicklif died without the honors of martyrdom, his work was apparently yet not really defeated; and his bones, dug up from the grave and reduced to ashes, were cast on the Severn, and borne by the ocean to the wide world, an emblem, says a Church historian, of the future fate of his opinions. The Papal persecutors representing Europe at Constance, deemed that in destroying Jerome and Huss they had extinguished the new movement on the continent at least; but "God's thoughts are not as man's thoughts." A spark from the stake of Constance lit up at last the flame of Methodism in England, and is extending over the world in our day like fire in stubble.

The princes and prelates had hardly retired from Constance when the people, always truer than the great of the earth in their instinctive appreciation of great truths, rose throughout Bohemia to defend the opinions and avenge the death of their martyred teachers. Armed with flails, they marched victoriously against trained armies, for they were fighting for the right of themselves and of their children to the word of God and its sacraments. A nobleman of the court, Count Ziska, placed himself at their head, and organizing them into a formidable army, fought against the Emperor Sigismund for the independence of Bohemia. He had lost one eye; the remaining one was destroyed by an arrow in battle about a year after the war began; but, when no longer able to see, he still led his triumphant peasants from victory to victory. Mounting a cask in the