twentieth time as they were listened to with surprise at the first. The process of re-preaching was like that of re-writing, correcting and enlarging a composition. It might not, in the case of the ministers generally, greatly multiply the weapons of their armory, but it would render those which they already possessed more highly polished and doubly effective.

Perhaps in no other country than England could Methodism have been established in the form which it first took. In no other European country would the necessary liberty of conscience and of worship have been allowed; and in none but a European country would the requisite spirit of obedience, and habits of submission, have remained in the minds of men, who by breaking off from the established church, seemed to become the freest of the free.

The middle and later life of Wesley were spent in directing the continually increasing affairs of the circuits. In 1751 he married a shrew, and fared even worse than the majority of similar unfortunates, for, as his life was a very public one, his wife, besides opening a very vigorous domestic battery on his peace, intercepted his letters, and having interpolated them, read them openly to his enemies, and even published some in the public prints. He entertained the most ancient and approved notions on the respective duties of husband and wife, which he did not hesitate to express very explicitly. It is the duty of the husband,' he thought, to keep his authority and to use it. It is the special duty of a wife to know herself to be inferior, and to behave as such.' These pleasing propositions, which some married men are not active to discuss, he maintained and elucidated with all the prudence and ingenuity of one who daily felt their importance. Mrs. Wesley seemed to have quite a different view of the subject, and she exercised her skill in practically refuting his doctrines, with an energy and perseverance which left few discoveries in the art of teazing for the future Katharinas who may choose to exercise so estimable a calling. Wesley seems to have borne all with much good nature and inflexibility, and to have contented himself with administering reproofs and exhortations rather generously, and, when at last she left him, with briefly recording in his journal, Non eam reliqui, non dimisi, non revocabo.

Shortly after his return from Germany, Wesley had separated from the Moravians. A later period brought a more trying.

disunion between himself and his early friend Whitefield. Personal causes for a while estranged them, but such men "carried anger as the flint bears fire." In their confiding and generous hearts was no room for continued resentment, their differences were soon reconciled, and they continued warm personal friends to the last. On points of doctrine and ecclesiastical polity, however, their paths divided. Whitefield became a Calvinist, Wesley an Arminian. Whitefield, free from the ambition, as well as the ability of ruling, looked to the Countess of Huntingdon, as patroness of the Calvinistic Methodists, who then assumed the name of Lady Huntingdon's Connection. Wesley, receiving his authority as in the course of nature his and nobody's else, acknowledged no patron and gave his own name to the sect. Wesley sometimes ventured unguarded assertions respecting full assurance of faith, and Christian perfection, which Whitefield did not dare assent to. Wesley wrote against the "horrible decree of predestination;" Whitefield defended the doctrine. Hardly a passage in the whole range of theological literature can be found of such tremendous vehemence (we by no means say truth) as a portion of Wesley's sermon on Free Grace. He brought the whole concentrated energy of his mind to bear on a subject in which his heart was most deeply interested. After a course of powerful remarks, he appeals in a strain still more vivid and terrible to "all the devils in hell." "This is the blasphemy for which I abhor the doctrine of Predestination; a doctrine, upon the supposition of which, if one could possibly for a moment suppose it, call it election, reprobation, or what you please, (for all comes to the same thing,) one might say to our adversary the devil, Thou fool, why dost thou roar about any longer? Thy lying in wait for souls is as needless and useless as our preaching. Hearest thou not, that God hath taken thy work out of thy hands, and that he doth it more effectually? Thou, with all thy principalities and powers, canst only so assault that we may resist thee; but he can irresistibly destroy both soul and body in hell! Thou canst only entice; but his unchangeable decree to leave thousands of souls in death, compels them to continue in sin, till they drop into everlasting burnings. Thou temptest, he forceth us to be damned, for we cannot resist his will. Thou fool! why goest thou about any longer, seeking whom thou mayest devour? Hearest thou not that God is the devouring lion, the destroyer of souls, the murderer

of men? Moloch caused only children to pass through the fire, and that fire was soon quenched; or, the corruptible body being consumed, its torments were at an end; but God, thou art told, by his eternal decree, fixed before they had done good or evil, causes not only children of a span long, but the parents also, to pass through the fire of hell; that fire which shall never be quenched; and the body which is cast thereinto, being now incorruptible and immortal, will be ever consuming and never consumed; but the smoke of their torment, because it is God's good pleasure, ascendeth up forever.

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Oh, how would the enemy of God and man rejoice to hear these things were so! How would he cry aloud and spare not! How would he lift up his voice and say, To your tents O Israel! flee from the face of this God, or ye shall utterly perish. But whither will ye flee? Into heaven? He is there. Down to hell? He is there also. Ye cannot flee from an omnipresent, almighty tyrant. And whether ye flee or stay, I call heaven, his throne, and earth, his footstool, to witness against you; ye shall perish, ye shall die eternally! Sing, O hell, and rejoice ye that are under the earth! for God, even the mighty God, hath spoken, and devoted to death thousands of souls, from the rising of the sun, unto the going down thereof. Here, O death, is thy sting! They shall not, cannot escape, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Here, O grave, is thy victory! Nations yet unborn, or ever they have done good or evil, are doomed never to see the light of life, but thou shalt gnaw upon them forever and ever. Let all those morning stars sing together, who fell with Lucifer, son of the morning! Let all the sons of hell shout for joy: for the decree is past, and who shall annul it ?"

This fearful passage illustrates Wesley's power better than his general spirit. He was not eager for controversy, and for many years after his opinions were fixed, wrote very little on the subject, and Whitefield still less. Indeed an agreement was entered into between the most distinguished of the two parties, to avoid the disputed points as much as possible in their sermons, and when speaking of them to adopt a temperate phraseology, if not the express language of Scripture. It was vain, however, to expect a permanent peace when the differences were so radical, and some unguarded expressions in the minutes of the General Conference of 1770, fanned the smouldering embers into a vehement flame. Fletcher and Berridge,

Toplady and Thomas Oliver, exhausted their store (and it was not small) of sarcasm and irony and argument and entreaty, and Wesley himself now and then hurled an anathema and appeal, but little less powerful than what we have already quoted from him. A great deal of acrimony, and some wit was shown on both sides, on a subject where Christian courtesy and charity would have availed much more to heal the breach, or, if that were impossible, calmly to define and settle the differences. One unlearned in the history of theological controversies, would suppose that a knowledge of many of them would tend to assuage the violence of religious parties, especially when remembering the extremes to which almost any doctrine may be driven by a partisan theologian, when that theologian, at the best, is an erring and short-sighted mortal.

Another disunion still was before Wesley, more marked and more trying, the separation of the sect from the established church. On this point Charles Wesley could not agree with his brother, jealous although he was of his honor. Men of foresight had long seen to what the previous measures must necessarily lead. The schism was not fully accomplished till after Wesley's death. An urgent demand was made in America. for men to administer the sacrament to the widely spread community of Methodists. That community had once elected three of the elder brethren to ordain others by the imposition of hands, though the conference afterwards declared this ordination to be unscriptural. The moment was critical. It was evident that all the Methodists in the colonies would become independent, unless their reasonable wants were supplied. No ordination could be obtained in England from the bishops, or, if any were ordained, they would be under the control of the bishops. Wesley had studied Lord King's account of the primitive church, and now became convinced that bishops and presbyters were the same. He was himself a presbyter. The next step followed of course. "The apostolical succession was a fable," the "Wesleyan succession," of the utmost importance. With the assistance of one or two others, he ordained presbyters for America. What was done for America was done soon after for Scotland; but Wesley refused still to ordain presbyters for England, moved by a love of peace, and a desire not to violate unnecessarily the order of the church to which he belonged. Even after this time, the conference voted

not to separate from the establishment; but the radical step was already taken.

Never since the days of Paul, was a man more assiduous in labor than Wesley. Not a day was given to repose, not an hour to unnecessary leisure. For more than sixty years, he rose at four in the morning, preached at five and frequently in the evening. In his eighty-fifth year, he speaks of that day as a day of rest, in which he preached only twice. Before the latter years of his life, he usually journeyed on horseback, and read poetry, history, and philosophy as he rode, having no other time for such employments. "Leisure and I," he said, "have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to me," and fortunately he was always well. For seventy years, he did not lose a night's sleep. He attended the conference; he directed the preachers; he kept a steady eye on Scotland and Ireland, on the West Indies and America; he founded schools; he inspected the circuits; after his eightieth year we hear of him in Holland, in Guernsey and Jersey, in Wales, in Scotland, in Ireland, and every considerable town in England; he systematized the rules of his order, and established that discipline which shows his foresight and energy and wisdom; he purchased ground and erected chapels; he wrote sermons, and essays, and tracts, treatises on Primitive Physic and on Theology, memoirs of good men, and notes on the New Testament, besides his numerous letters and copious diary. Sixteen octavo volumes of his works were published some time after his death. Always calm and cheerful, curious and acute, he read new books, and looked upon novel and strange things to the very last with all the interest of youth. At the age of eighty-five, we find him criticising new works in his brief and acute manner, visiting the wax-work at the museum in Spring Gardens and "the man who played so wonderfully on the glasses."

Amid these complicated labors the solemn drama of that earnest, cheerful, and laborious life drew to its serene close. Already had one and another of his earliest and best friends lain down to his eternal rest. The affection of Charles Wesley for John was most sincere and profound. It never lost the freshness of youth. " My heart is as your heart," were his words in a letter ; "what God hath joined, let no man put asunder. We have taken each other for better, for worse, till