The enthusiasm of such men would not be likely to be checked by the ridicule of witlings from whose society they had the courage to break off, nor even by the arguments of more sober men who had never experienced such depths of sorrow as were stirred up in their own bosoms. Their growing asceticism, however, which opposition might only have strengthened, was rebuked in a more effectual way. Whitefield became so emaciated that he could scarcely creep up stairs, and finally a fit of sickness confined him for seven weeks. Others of the company suffered in like manner, till their number, which was never more than twenty-five, was reduced to five or six. Although Wesley was not the originator of the austerities which they thought fit to practise, yet from his age, experience, learning and office, (he was at this time Fellow of Lincoln College,) no less than from his natural fitness for the place, he became the head of the company.

The father of Wesley was Rector of Epworth, a man of considerable learning, great force of character, and devout piety. His mother was a remarkable woman; well educated, at a time when to be well educated implied a knowledge of Latin and Greek, independent in her opinions, when independence required sacrifices, of strong understanding and fervent piety. During the absence of her husband froin his parish, she used to assemble her family on Sabbath evening, and read prayers and a sermon. When some of her neighbors wished. to join the circle, she did not object, for, in the absence of the proper minister," she could not but look upon every soul which he had left under her care, as a talent committed to her trust by the great Lord of all the families of heaven and earth." "If I am unfaithful," she wrote to her husband, " to him or to you, in neglecting to improve these talents, how shall 1 answer unto him, when he shall command me to render an account of my stewardship." Mr. Wesley was, however, somewhat alarmed by the report which reached hin, that a conventicle was held at his house, and he wrote to her a decided disapprobation of the meetings. She replied to him with a representation of the good effected in this humble way, and of the evil which would follow if they were broken up, and concluded in these forcible words: "If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your positive command, in such full and express terms, as may absolve me from guilt and

punishment for rejecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ." How much influence such a mother must have had on the future leader of a great sect, no one can fully estimate. The same energy, good judgment and earnestness remained with her through life, and made her the wise counsellor of her son when he was assailed at Oxford, and still later, when thousands regarded his will as law.

The early life of Wesley was attended with more than common dangers and prodigies. When he was six years old, he was rescued from the flames of their burning house a single moment before the roof fell in. He was the last of the children saved, having been forgotten in the hurry of the midnight

escape.

When he was at school, his father's house became the scene of disturbances so singular as to be considered supernatural. Although not included in the common histories of demonology, they are among the most remarkable and well attested of those events which have so frequently satisfied the credulity (not to say sober judgment) of men. The supernatural visitants made their presence known, by appealing, as usual, to the sense of hearing, rather than to that of sight. Now there was a knocking on the table, on the shelves, about the beds, a heavy footstep was heard in a room which had long been locked up. Now the sound seemed as though the pewter had been hurled into the middle of the room, but not a platter had been moved; now as though a basket of glass bottles had been shivered at once; now as though a quantity of silver fell into Mrs. Wesley's lap and ran jingling to her feet; now it was like the creaking of a saw or a windmill. The iron casements of the' windows rattled; the door-latches moved up and down, though no one was near; the hand-mill whirled swiftly, though no one touched it; the trencher danced on the table, and, on these occasions, the wind rose and whistled about the house. The elder Wesley, who had no fear of the devil, on one occasion rated their unknown tormentor soundly for his contemptible conduct in trying to frighten the children, and dared him to come into the study to him who was a man. Old Jeffrey (so they had named him) immediately gave a loud and peculiar knock, as if to say," with great pleasure, sir," and the next evening when Mr. Wesley went to the study, of which he alone had the key, the door was thrust back upon him with great violence. He pressed in, however, and

there was nothing there; but the knocking began now on one side and then on the other. Wesley adjured the imp to speak, but there was no reply. One of his daughters was with him. Nancy," said Mr. Wesley, determined to be fair with the spirit," two Christians are an over match for the devil. Go all of you down stairs; it may be, when I am alone, it will have courage to speak." They went. Wesley repeated the adjuration, but the devil remained deaf and dumb. They soon lost all fear of their mysterious visitor, and the children had no pleasanter frolic than to chase the knocking about from room to room. For two months this continued by night and by day, and no clew to its real cause was ever discovered. All the family believed it to be supernatural. The credulity which John Wesley sometimes showed in after life, may be in part ascribed to his firm belief in the agency of spirits in the affairs of men, so early and forcibly impressed upon him. Nor should we smile with too much self-complacency on the folly of that good family, when we remember their devout spirit, their serious view of life, their habitual communion with the invisible and the future, or the general belief of even many fine scholars of the time, in that last "lingering fiction of the brain."*

Of the bearing of John Wesley at the Charter House School in London, we have very meagre accounts. He was starved and fagged by the older boys, according to the custom of the English schools at that time, while by his quietness, regularity and application, he became a favorite with the master. At seventeen years of age he was transferred to Oxford, and subsequently became fellow of Lincoln College. It was to the discipline of the university, and especially to his duties as Greek lecturer and moderator of the logic classes, which obliged him to attend the disputations of the students six times a week, that he owed much of that thorough scholarship, and that power of clear and subtle discrimination, and expert argument, which fitted him for the great employment of his future life. Here he began that diary which acquaints us with the feelings and opinions and daily employments of one of the most active men, for nearly seventy years. Here he began to apportion his time. Every day had its fixed occupations. Monday and Tuesday were allotted to the Classics; Wednesday to Logic and Ethics;

* See Scott on Demonology and Witchcraft.

Thursday to Hebrew and Arabic; Friday to Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy; Saturday to Oratory and Poetry; Sunday to Divinity; and a good deal of time somewhere to Mathematics. He soon learned, however, the sorrowful lesson, that to know some things well, we must be contented to be ignorant of a great many more. Over his pupils he exercised a stricter control than had been common at the university, and showed the germ at least of those "disciplinary habits," for which he became so famous. He obliged them to rise early in the morning; he superintended their reading; he regulated their morals; he controlled their general conduct.

But Oxford was to be remembered by him for still weightier reasons than for the sound scholarship she gave him. His brother Charles had joined him as member of Christ-Church, and the religious feeling of both became most thoroughly aroused. Their earnest and awakening minds were deeply affected by the writings of Thomas à Kempis, Jeremy Taylor, and William Law. The Imitation of Christ, the Holy Living, and the Serious Call, left them in no doubt as to the great duty, the great labor of life, without directing them with sufficient plainness to the only means through which man can " be just with God."* The world was nothing to them; eternity, every thing. With their own hands they must painfully work out their own salvation; with their own hands they must roll up the huge Sisyphæan rock which every moment recoiled upon them with new weight. Hence their seclusion, their rigorous self-denial, their pharisaical peculiarities, which the friendship of Law and the fellowship of Whitefield and Hervey and Morgan only exasperated. It was not the age of asceticism, or Wesley would certainly have gone to the wilderness and lived a hermit: it was not an age of religious enthusiasm, or he

* "When I observe," wrote one of them, "how fast life flies away, and how slow improvement comes, I think one can never be too much afraid of dying before one has learned to live, I mean even in the course of nature. For were I sure that the silver cord should not be violently loosed;' that the wheel should not be broken at the cistern' till it was quite worn away by its own motion; yet what a time would this give me for such a work! a moment, to transact the business of eternity! What are forty years in comparison of this? So that were I sure what man never yet was sure of, how little would it alter the case!"

might have preached another crusade. England was not a country for monks, or he would certainly have founded a new and rigorous order.

In 1732, the charter of the province of Georgia was granted by George II., and in 1735 Oglethorpe, the leader of the colony, returned to England for a reinforcement. The enterprise was everywhere regarded with favor, and the trustees sought for men to go out as ministers to the colonists and the Indians. They turned their eyes to the Wesleys. Who else had so much of the missionary spirit? After some hesitation the brothers concluded to accept the invitation. Two years before, a band of Moravians, amid hymns and prayers, had left the little community of Herrnhutt, and "floating down the Maine, and between the castles, crags, the vineyards and the white-walled towns that adorn the banks of the Rhine," had embarked at Rotterdam, and settled in freedom and hope near Savannah. On board the vessel in which the Wesleys embarked, they found a number of Moravians going to join their brethren. The whole company might honestly have adopted the seal of the corporation of the colony," a group of silk-worms at their toils," with the motto non sibi sed aliis, not for themselves but for others. The leaven of selfishness was not mingled with their motives. "Are you one of these knights-errant ?" said an unbeliever to Wesley. "You havea good provision for life, must you leave all to fight windmills?" "Sir," replied the missionary, "if the Bible be not true, I am as very a fool and madman as you can conceive, but if it be of God, I am sober-minded; for he has declared, "There is no man who has left houses, or friends, or brethren, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in the present time, and in the world to come, everlasting life."

The conduct of the Moravians during the voyage, full of patience and forbearance under vexations, full of confidence in danger, exhibited to Wesley a new feature of the Christian life. A sudden storm came on as they were singing the psalm at the commencement of their worship. The sea broke over the ship and rushed down between the decks. A dreadful screaming was heard among the English: the Moravians calmly sang on. Wesley asked one of them if he was not afraid,—if the women and children were not afraid? "No," he replied, "thank God, no; our women and children are not afraid to die."

The labors of Wesley in Georgia were the least prosperous