CHAPTER XI.

CONSOLIDATION OF METHODISM.

THE two foregoing chapters have traced the separation of Wesleyan Methodism from the Calvinistic and Moravian elements with which in its earliest stage it was combined. The description of its internal organization, with which we are now occupied, presents a task of greater difficulty. Those who know hardly anything else of Wesley are acquainted with the eulogium of Lord Macaulay, 'that he had a genius for ecclesiastical government not inferior to that of Richelieu.' Coming to the study of that government with this parallel in mind, the reader will probably be disappointed; he will expect to hear of great and original ideas brought to bear on a varied field of action, and will find only a man whose ideal was at once lofty and external, forming a natural centre for a religious movement, which was not allied with thought, and which he did not originate. This passiveness in the founder of Methodism is one of the most marked features of the movement; we are reminded of it at almost all the crises of the history, and nowhere more than in the manner in which its internal organization was evolved. In 1744 we find it a complete and well-organized

body, admirably

fitted for the work it had to do, but the steps by which this result had been attained were little more than accidents of which Wesley had taken advantage, or suggestions which he had accepted.

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When, in 1740, he separated from the Moravians, the fragment of the earlier Society which adhered to him did not form the entire body of his followers. In the autumn of the previous year eight or ten persons had come to him, and desired to form themselves into a little Society under his guidance, for directions how to flee from the wrath to come.' dilapidated foundry in Moorfields had been lately turned into a meeting-house, and afforded a convenient locality for the gatherings resulting from this proposal, which increased so rapidly that the eight or ten persons were soon increased to a hundred, while their insistence on subscription to meet the expenses thus originated introduced a fiscal system into the Society. was out of a further extension of this fiscal system that some of the most characteristic peculiarities of Methodism arose. A new meeting-house had been built at Bristol, and Wesley had been forced, by the refusal of his followers under any alternative to have anything to do with it, to discharge those he had appointed to bear the responsibility of the work, and take it upon himself. A discussion arose afterwards with some of the Society at Bristol, the date of which Wesley does not mention, concerning the means of paying off the debts which had been thus incurred ; and one of the party made the obvious suggestion that every one should give a penny a week till all were paid off. But many are too poor,' said Wesley -thus giving us an indication of the social position of

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his followers. 'Put eleven of the poorest with me,' was the reply, and I will call on them weekly, and make up their subscription if they are unable to give; and do each of you the same.' The little council thus became collectors of a shilling a week, and in the process of collection of course acquired much knowledge of the morals of the subscribers. Such a one, they told Wesley, did not live up to the ideal of the Society. Here, it flashed upon him, was the very organization of which he had often felt the want, and of which he now resolved to take advantage. Thus the number in a class was fixed at twelve, the report which had been volunteered was now requested, and the rebukes which in some cases followed were, if rejected, the preliminary to formal exclusion, for which a simple method was supplied by not renewing the quarterly tickets given out by Wesley himself. The issue of these quarterly tickets was in like manner a gradually discovered need. Wesley found, no doubt, that the reports of the leaders were not always to be relied on, and resolved on a personal interview with every member of the classes once every three months. If this was unsatisfactory, a mere omission secured the purity of the order, and cut off the offender without giving him anything to complain of. No one could feel injured at belonging to a society which conveyed no worldly advantages whatever, only so long as he kept the rules imposed on it by its acknowledged head, these rules being no more than what Wesley thought the duties of every Christian. The weekly meeting of the class was a result consequent on the inconveniences of the first arrangement-the leader visiting each member at his own house. The duties

of a leader were to 'advise, reprove, comfort, and exhort, as occasion may require,' and to receive their contributions for the poor, which they had to make over to the stewards of the Society. Thus originated a system of practical beneficence which might not at the present day appear at all remarkable, but which had then no precedent, and to which, indeed, we may probably ascribe something of the renewed zeal of the Church in this direction. Nothing could be better for the purpose than the system of poor relief instituted by Methodism. The stewards were to produce their accounts once a month, that they might be transcribed into the ledger; twice a week they were to meet in council, but nothing was to be done without the consent of the minister 'actually had or reasonably presumed,' so that the office of steward, though very onerous, was not one of great liberty; neither was it by any means lucrative: the stewards seem to have received nothing for the labours which must have occupied so much more than the two mornings a week which were devoted to them. The circumstances of the Society would preserve this little poor-law board from the faults to which such a body is naturally liable: lavishness or carelessness was hardly possible with funds needing the most exact economy in order to cover the necessity presented so vividly to those who held them; while the fact that the stewards were not collectors would save them from any temptation to an opposite error. The internal arrangement of the Society was, with some modifications, a repetition of the Moravian organization already described; the various divisions were not always precisely identical, but there was no

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substantial difference, and often the name is retained, -as for instance in the Bands, smaller and more intimate classes rendered homogeneous by the sepa ration of married and single women, and married and single men, meeting together for mutual confession; there were also divisions according to the stage reached by the members in the spiritual life. The Methodists' place of education is due to Whitefield, who suggested the erection of Kingswood School, and obtained a grant of land for it. Wesley himself supplied Methodism with its liturgy, as we may call the Wesleyan Hymn-books; for they, far more than the Prayerbook, were associated with the devotion of the early Methodists.

In the step which at this time tended most decidedly towards severance from the Church of England-the appointment of lay preachers-Wesley was not only a passive but a reluctant party. In any other point of view this step was not important. John Cennick, a layman, had expounded the Scriptures to the colliers, and was encouraged by Wesley for doing so; and the interval between expounding and preaching does not seem a large one. Slight as this transition was, however, it passed over a boundary line, and one which Wesley was reluctant to cross. The intelligence received by him at Bristol in 1742 that Thomas Maxfield, one of his 'lay helpers,' had been preaching at the Foundry, greatly disquieted him. He hurried to London in so much perturbation that, on his arrival, his mother perceived it in his countenance. 'What is the matter?' she asked. 'Thomas Maxfield has turned preacher, I find,' was the abrupt reply. His mother answered him with earnestness, 'John, you know what