mirable discernment by Gambold, in a "uniform vigour" which Gambold saw in paper written whilst Wesley was in Geor- him through fifty years of an unresting gia.

life.

Certain doctrines became characteristic Mr. John Wesley was always the chief man of Methodism, and Wesley was always ager, for which he was very fit; for he not only had more learning and experience than ready to contend for them as being "Scripthe rest, but he was blest with such activity as tural and rational." But their strongest to be always gaining ground, and such steadi- attraction for him lay in their harmony ness that he lost none. What proposals he with his social idea. One of these, to made to any were sure to charm them, because which he clung with great tenacity, was he was so much in earnest; nor could they that of the attainableness of perfection. afterwards slight them, because they saw him He held that Christians might receive always the same. What supported this uni- such a gift of the Divine Spirit as to conform vigour was the care he took to consider well of every affair before he engaged in it, quer sin completely in this life. Some making all his decisions in the fear of God, members of his society told him they had without passion, humour, or self-confidence; arrived at this condition, and he believed for, though he had naturally a very clear ap- them. The belief exposed him to painful prehension, yet his exact prudence depended disappointments, and alienated many of more on humanity and singleness of heart. his Evangelical friends from him. But To this I may add that he had, I think, some- the very object of his society was to thing of authority in his countenance; though, strive after perfection; and what animaas he did not want address, he could soften tion would be lent to the effort, if it were his manner, and point it as occasion required. believed that the prize was definitely withYet he never assumed anything to himself in the grasp! Partly, therefore, from his above his companions. Any of them might habitual assumption that the whole truth speak their mind, and their words were as strictly regarded by him as his were by them.* about any one's spiritual state might be ascertained by the method of question and But the faculty thus indicated was not answer, but chiefly from his sense of the called into full exercise till the cardinal value of complete perfection as an object epoch of Wesley's secession from the Mo- of pursuit, Wesley persevered against all ravians. Then the happiness he thence- discouragement in maintaining this docforward enjoyed showed that, as the ruler trine. It is obvious, again, that the of a voluntary fellowship of religious asso- Arminian doctrine of the possibility of ciates, he had found his true work. He falling away after regeneration was far had, indeed, no pretension to originality; more in harmony with Wesley's social he had none of the vanity of invention. idea than the Calvinistic tenet of the cerHe began by copying the Moravian organ-tain salvation of the elect. Instantaneous ization, and whenever he modified it, it was under the pressure of some new circumstances, or to gain some immediate practical end. His general object was the saving of souls, or the promotion of holiness; his plan, to try what could be done, by skilfully devised discipline, towards the accomplishment of that object. His whole soul was in his society; and yet he really cared nothing for the society, except as it was engaged in the working out of Christian perfection. This was his all-engrossThe unit of the Methodist organization ing aim. His mind was filled with a conwas the class-meeting. At the very bestant vision of Christians exhorting oneginning, indeed, in 1739, the followers of another, watching, interrogating, rebuking, Wesley formed an undivided society with encouraging one another, so that lapses Wesley as their head, meeting, like the might be made less easy to them, and they Moravians, in separate male and female might be incessantly stimulated in the pur-"bands." To each member Wesley gave suit of Christian holiness. No one, in his society, was to be let alone; the whip was to be constantly applied through each grade of the Methodist hierarchy. He himself held the whip in chief, with that

Tyerman's Oxford Methodists, p. 158.

conversion, and the witness of the Spirit, served to place people at once in definite classes. The importance of the "means of grace" commended itself naturally to one who had to use these as parts of an external discipline; and there would be a similar reason for holding, as Wesley did, that all who were doing their best, though not yet children of God, were not reprobates, but objects of some real though limited divine favour.

a ticket, writing the name on it with his own hand, which implied, he says, "I believe the bearer hereof to be one that fears God and works righteousness." But in 1742, an incidental association of twelve members for the payment of a weekly shilling, which began at Bristol, led to the

division of the society into "classes" of | amazement. What a preacher had to do about that number, each superintended by to his fellow-members, and to submit to a "leader." The leader, who was chosen himself, the mind faints to realize. Every by Wesley, at first visited the members of one had to conform to a set of exacting the class at their homes; but it was soon rules; every one's character and conduct found more convenient that they should were being overhauled, week by week, meet him weekly. He conversed with quarter by quarter, with inquisitorial each singly about his spiritual state, re- rigour; and at the head of the hierarchy ceived contributions, and began and ended was Wesley, whip in hand, determined each meeting with singing and prayer. that no part of the machine should flag, But still further inspection seemed to unsparing of himself and towards others, Wesley desirable. but wielding no power of compulsion except that of excluding persons at his pleasure from the voluntary society of those who accepted him as their dictator.

stant topics that minute regulations were not to be despised. He regulated diet, dress, expenditure, with serious particularity. In prescribing attendance at services and the hearing of sermons, frequent communions, regular and extraordinary abstinences, he was like many other religious teachers. But upon two usages he insisted with a fondness that made them his own. One of these was the turning of the soul inside out by the process of question and answer at meetings. The other was early rising. On this latter subject he writes thus, at the age of seventy-eight, to his niece Sarah :

As the society increased, I found it required still greater care to separate the precious from the vile. In order to this, I determined, at Probably no founder of an order was least once in every three months, to talk with every member myself, and to inquire at their ever more penetrated by faith in discipline own mouths, whether they grew in grace and than Wesley was. It is not that he was in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. careless about the action of divine grace upon the soul; he held his doctrine about Every member of the society was placed the new birth and sanctification with enin a "class;" but other associations were tire sincerity and earnestness. But he atformed of a less permanent and universal tached extraordinary importance to habits character, called "bands" and "select of life as co-operating with or hindering societies," bound together by rules of as-divine grace. And it was one of his concending scales of stringency. In the Conference of 1744, it was laid down, that the general body of members, called the united societies, consisted of awakened persons; the bands, of those who were believed to have remission of sins; the select societies, of those who were walking in the light of God's countenance. A section of "penitents" was recognized, containing those who had fallen from grace. But the bands and select societies hardly belonged to the regular constitution of Methodism. Besides the class-leaders, the officers of the society were stewards, preachers, and assistants. The business of the stewards was to receive the weekly collections from the class-leaders, and to manage in each "circuit" the financial affairs of the society. The preachers were laymen, whom Wesley admitted at first with great misgivings, and against warnings from Whitefield and others, to the duty of preaching regularly in the rooms and chapels of the society, and to the spiritual governmentunder their own superiors-of the local societies. The assistants, afterwards called superintendents, were preachers to whose general charge a circuit was committed. In the Methodist discipline," wrote Wesley, "the wheels regularly stand thus: the assistant, the preachers, the stewards, the leaders, the people." All these were subject to the absolute authority of the two Wesleys, or, in the ultimate resort, of John Wesley alone. The labours, the meetings, the inspections, represented by these titles, fill one with incredulous

Shall I tell you freely what I judge to be

the grand hindrance to your attaining the spirit of adoption?... believe it is what very few people are aware of, intemperance in sleep. Lying longer in bed, suppose nine hours in four-and-twenty, . . grieves the Holy Spirit of God, and prevents, or at least lessens, those blessed influences which tend to make you, not almost, but altogether, a Christian.

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It is wonderful to see with what confident courage Wesley assumed the complete direction of souls. With great labour he composed and edited a whole library of books, in which he laid down what his followers were to think and believe on all subjects. His opinions and practices were to be, if he could bring it about, their opinions and practices. And he justified himself in his perfectly candid assertion of authority by the argument that the Methodist society was a strictly voluntary one.

"You were at liberty not to join us, you | childhood. "I profess, sweetheart," said are at liberty to leave us: but while you his father one day to Mrs. Wesley, “I continue with us you shall do what I en- think our Jack would not attend to the join, or I will have nothing more to do with you." The argument was felt to be unanswerable. But few in these days will wonder at those who claimed the liberty to exempt themselves from this discipline. We shall wonder rather at the splendid spiritual energy which induced so many to submit to it.

most pressing necessities of nature, unless he could give a reason for it." This reasoning habit was cultivated by his Oxford studies, and Wesley was conscious of it and rejoiced in it. He was the best example that could be produced of the possibility of being an acute reasoner, and at the same time ludicrously credulous and 4. Bearing in mind that Wesley em- mechanically unintelligent. He was so ployed every day for fifty years in impress- good at giving reasons for an action or an ing himself upon the institution of Meth-event that he was apt to overlook its essenodism, we should expect to see marked correspondences between the system he created and the personal qualities of the man. His plan of having the soul turned inside out at least once a week by an inquisitorial process of interrogation, is the most striking feature of the system. It is partly explained by Wesley's own nature. Not only was he essentially magisterial, but he was deficient in delicacy to an almost incredible degree.

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tial unwisdom or improbability. It was easy to him to disconnect himself at one time from himself at another time, and to be equally confident in asserting very different opinions. As Coleridge said, "Logic, successive volitions, voluntas perpetua et discontinua, and the first pronoun personal in all its cases - these were Wesley." He had a certain tenderness for the better sort of Romanism, which he had the courage to avow; but, on the whole, his religious and literary preferences were stamped with a commonplace character. His treatment of Calvinism was thoroughly superficial, and he called Barclay's "Apology" "that solemn trifle."

I must illustrate a little the want of delicacy which I have attributed to him. A letter to Mr. Morgan, of Dublin, dated January 14, 1734, begins as follows:

It was

I find myself unable to agree with what Mr. Matthew Arnold says of Wesley in his "St. Paul and Protestantism." Mr. Arnold distinguishes between Wesley as a teacher and Wesley as a man. He describes him as a "most attractive man," as an "amiable and gracious spirit." He speaks of "the loveliness" of his character, and coins the special phrase "genius for godliness" to express what SIR, Going yesterday into your son's was most essential in him. So far as room, I providentially cast my eyes upon a I can understand what is meant by a paper that lay upon the table, and, contrary "genius for godliness," I should have to my custom, read a line or two of it, which been inclined to distinguish between Wes-soon determined me to read the rest. ley and other religious men by saying a copy of his last letter to you, whereby, by that this was precisely what Wesley had the signal blessing of God, I came to the not. His superficiality, which was spirit- knowledge of his real sentiments, both with ual as well as intellectual, seems to me regard to myself, and to several other points inconsistent with it. The phrase which of the highest importance. was so often on his lips, the "saving of souls," expressed the aim which swallowed up all other aims. To save his own soul, and the souls of as many other men as possible, was the object for which he lived. It is impossible to doubt that his faith in minute regulation, and his delight in laying down the law, belonged to his inmost nature. These things, and the excessively logical or rationalistic bent of his mind, surely do not constitute a genius for godliness. His logical habit, agreeable enough in the precision it gave to his style, is so obtrusive, and made him so obviously incapable of the more spiritual appreciations of thought and life, that I should have expected him to be anything but attractive to Mr. Arnold. It showed itself in his

I quote this, not to show that Wesley was once betrayed into such an act, but to show how free his conscience was from the slightest suspicion that there was anything unworthy in it. The following extract shows how he could "speak his mind freely" to a sister. It is written in reply to a letter from his sister Emily, to whom, as a widow without resources, he and his brother Charles were giving practical help, but who had complained of John's want of kindness to her.

I have now done with myself, and have only creatures, the most unthankful to God and a few words concerning you. You are, of all man. I stand amazed at you. How little have you profited under such means of improvement! Surely, whenever your eyes are

opened, whenever you see your own tempers, | recorded, in describing his amazing health, with the advantages you have enjoyed, you that he had never known half-an-hour's low will not scruple to pronounce yourself ( spirits. His nerves were indeed of iron. and murderers not excepted), the very chief of He "sat loose" to all ties, and no loss or sinners. parting seems to have caused him permanent grief.

The peculiar infelicity of Wesley's relations with women is well known. In Georgia he offered marriage to a young lady, who accepted another husband instead; whereupon Wesley heroically insisted upon continuing his pastoral care of her soul, told her freely of her faults, and, within five months of the marriage, repelled her publicly from the communion for no assignable reason. He was called to account for so doing, but "sat at home easy," and, a few days before the trial, he read a statement of the case after evening prayer to the congregation. Some time after, when he was forty-five years of age, he proposed marriage to one Grace Murray, a soldier's widow, who was a leading member of his society, and who had nursed him in a slight illness. She accepted him, and he immediately took her with him on a preaching tour. But presently Mrs. Murray desired to marry one of the Methodist preachers named Bennet, and engaged herself to him. For some time she oscillated between Bennet and Wesley, making promises to each alternately. She went with Wesley to Ireland, where they passed several months together. She was eminently successful in "praying with the mourners, more and more of whom received remission of sins during her conversation or prayer." To Wesley "she was both a servant and a friend, as well as a fellow-labourer in the gospel. She provided everything he wanted, and told him with all faithfulness and freedom if she thought anything amiss in his behaviour. The more they conversed together, the more he loved her; and at Dublin they contracted by a contract de præsenti." But the end of it all was that she married Bennet. Some two years after Wesley, in a rather precipitate manner, married a Mrs. Vazeille, and gave up the college fellowship he had held for The question can scarcely fail to occur twenty-five years. Beginning married life to the reader, "Is this the man who is on the avowed principle, "It remaineth credited with fine gifts of government, and that they who have wives be as though who actually succeeded in organizing so they had none," he naturally tried his great and enduring an institution? wife's temper by neglect, and he further believe that it was only as the head of a excited her jealousy by close pastoral re- strictly voluntary association, that Wesley lations with other women. She became had any chance of being successful. He violent; he was always cool and cutting; was too headstrong, too deficient in symand their life, an unhappy one when they pathy, tact, delicacy, humour, to govern were together, was broken by intervals of well under conditions. Where he could separation. But nothing had power to dis-say- as he was incessantly saying to the turb his delight in his work. He constantly end of his life-"I will have one thing or

The history of the school established by Wesley at Kingswood illustrates at once his dauntless self-confidence, and his incapacity to understand the nature of children, or the feelings of parents. This was to be a model Christian school for children, who were to be admitted between six and twelve years of age. The curric ulum of study was to be a liberal one. One of the rules was that the parents were not to take a child from the school, "no, not a day, till they take him for good and all." All play was strictly forbidden, because he that plays as a child will play as a man. All were to rise at four, and spend an hour in private devotions, to which also the evening hour, from five to six, was assigned. Every child, if healthy, was to fast on Fridays till three o'clock. Some parents or guardians were found to send children to such a school, for it opened with twenty-eight scholars. But in three years the number was reduced to eleven. Wesley then writes: "I believe all in the house are, at length, of one mind; and trust God will bless us in the latter end more than in the beginning." But he continued to be tried by troubles at Kingswood. And after it had existed eighteen years we find him recording: "I rode to Kingswood, and having told my whole mind to the masters and servants, spoke to the children in a far stronger manner than ever I did before. I will kill or cure. I will have one or the other, a Christian school or none at all." At the age of eighty, Wesley again gives a sad account of the school "with regard both to religion and learning," and adds, “How may these evils be remedied, and the school reduced to its original plan? It must be mended, or ended, for no school is better than the present school."

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the other, either what I approve or noth- | distinctive qualities of intellect and occu ing at all," his magnificent qualities made pation than the English themselves; but their way freely and with effect. Though as yet there are no distinctively English wilful he had considerable shrewdness and Jews. There has not been time. It is a practicality on which he prided himself, not two hundred and twenty years since and knew how to bend to circumstances the first community of "Sephardim," and to learn from experience. In all word which is simply modern Hebrew for questions of comfort or ease, if he was "Spaniards," but in its usage includes all stoically exacting, he was substantially the Jews of the Mediterranean, Spaniards, kind, and was always harder towards him- Portuguese, Italians, and Levantines, all self than towards others. From his youth of whom thought in Spanish or Portuguese, onwards, he kept his heel down so firmly and kept accounts and wrote their letters on sensual appetite that he can scarcely in those languages-settled in England, be said to have had a temptation from and of them scarcely any remained permathat quarter. He had a perfectly even tem- nently. With one or two exceptions, their per. And he was eminent in the qualities very names have disappeared. It was not which have special power to win devoted till the days of Queen Anne, when Sir followers. No more perfect example is Solomon Medina was the leading capitalist to be found in history, of absolute fear-on 'Change, and paid Marlborough £6,000 lessness, moral and physical; of transparent sincerity; of lofty indifference to money and rank; of utter devotion to an unworldly cause. Wesley was continually repelling people from him, and sifting or "purging" his societies down to half their number; but he inspired respect wherever he was known; and the men and women who adhered to him were of the strong moral stuff which rejoices in so hardy a leader. And as he grew older, and had his own way without question, he was able to show himself affectionate, gracious, and reverend. His figure in old age, with his calm face and his long white locks, was a fair picture. It is certain that he was the object of a genuine love and enthusiasm. And as soon as he was gone Methodism became a different thing from what it was when he was the head

and soul of it.

a year for early information and profitable contracts, that the Jews became at all numerous; and even then they were almost all-not quite-Jews of the South, mainly Portuguese, Levantines, or Italians, men bearing names like Mendez, Gomes, Rodrigues, Miranda, Lopes, and the like. It was not till the end of the seventeenth century that the Jews from whom the English idea of the race is usually derived, the “Ashkenazim,” the German and Polish Jews, in spite of great discouragement from their forerunners, began to settle in any numbers; and not till 1722 that they were enabled, by the liberality of Moses of Breslau, calling himself in England "Moses Hart," to establish a synagogue of their own. Since then the Ashkenazim have far outnumbered their rivals, till, indeed, Englishmen scarcely know of any other Jews; but both parties, factions, septs, or whatever word we may use to describe them, have prospered and been protected here, till England is one of the lands in whose welfare the entire community feels an eager interest, and both have shown a tendency to merge into a single class of English Jews, as distinctive THERE are no English Jews, properly as the German or French. The division so called. That is to say, there are no between them, however, has been very Jews in England - less than a hundred bitter, and still colours all the history of families possibly excepted - who have the community. Mr. Picciotto, one of the been here long enough to have lost all contributors to the Jewish Chronicle, trace of a nationality other than English from whose extremely curious and interand other than Jew. There are two colo-esting book, "Sketches of Anglo-Jewish nies of Jews who have settled in the cities of Great Britain who, having once differed violently in language, in civilization, and in all that civilization superinduces, are gradually becoming welded together, and will in time create a community of English Jews who, after the manner of the race, will probably become more English in all

J. LLEWELYN Davies.

From The Spectator.

THE ENGLISH JEWS.

History," we are taking most of our facts, hints that its origin was a real difference of grade; that the Sephardim, bred among the races of the South, accustomed to high office, proud of rank as well as lineage, despised the Ashkenazim, or Jews of the North, who had been forced by circumstances to be hucksters and little mer