and that none who regard my judgement or advice will ever separate from it."

The early arrangements made for their meetings so that they should not clash with the hours of Church Service, shew that to dissent was not in the minds of these first directors of the movement. And even down to the beginning of this century the usual expression in the writings of dissenters when they wish to couple the Wesleyan party with themselves is not dissenters only, but dissenters and methodists. So fully was the difference between the action of these men and Dissent recognized by those who had withdrawn from the Communion of the Established Church.

But in one of the quotations I have made from his writings Wesley speaks of the Church as having blemishes, and we cannot doubt that among his own followers he strove to do what he thought most likely to remove those blemishes. He would fain by his labours have freed the Church from evident faults. I have in part indicated what these faults were. The low ebb to which vital religion had fallen throughout the land, and the little effort that

* Wesley's Works, xv. 248.

+ Cf. Robert Hall's Works, vol. iii., p. 337 et passim.

was being made to revive it, provoked him and his fellow-labourers to go forth into the neglected field. The blemishes had arisen from the supineness of those who had left so much for them to glean.

We shall best judge what seemed the most crying needs of the period in which their lot was cast if we examine into the course of action which they adopted. Such an examination will also serve another end. It will demonstrate that these men deemed the Church capable of supplying all that was needed. If her powers could be roused into action no further agency would be required. First of all we see that they trusted greatly to zealous and frequent preaching of the word of God. Above everything else these men were preachers. A study of their diaries shews us that it was no unusual thing for them to be preaching once every day, and twice or thrice or even oftener on Sunday. It would be foreign to our purpose to dwell on the effects of their preaching, or to enquire how it came to pass that such a sudden change was produced in multitudes of uneducated listeners. Some have ascribed it to the personal character which pervades their addresses: the appeal being made as it were to each individual soul.

traced in the

But whatever

Others have considered it due to the vivid pictures which they drew of the Redeemer, making their hearers realize in a marvellous degree the verity of His mission, and by consequence of their message. These and other remarkable features may be sermons which they have left. we might in the end conclude to be the most powerful characteristic of their utterances, it is certain that on them they mainly depended under God for reaching the minds of sinners. They preached therefore whenever and whereever they could. Such a course of action can have but one interpretation. Those who adopted it found that God's message was being forgotten, and that there was no power like the expounding of Gospel truth in simple language, and above all the sublime lessons taught by the life and death of the Saviour for winning men from Satan's power under which they beheld the land most grievously enthralled. We have but to recur to the words of Bishop Burnet, quoted last Sunday, to know how true their estimate was of the spiritual destitution which prevailed. We can see also that they discerned how much the practice of preaching had fallen into decay. The sermon usual in

the churches had grown in most cases to be a dull philosophical essay with no appeal to the heart, and often very little to the head. It should be noticed that they were driven as it were to the sort of preaching which they adopted. It was with the utmost repugnance at first, that their leaders went out into the highways and hedges. But having been once guided to an agency which seemed likely to achieve his heart's desire, to rouse to life those who were spiritually dead, Wesley and his comrades gave themselves up to it. As in St. Paul's days this 'foolishness of preaching' did its work. They adopted the simplest style, saying they dared no more use fine words than wear fine clothes. Thousands flocked to hear them whereever they went. Thus they demonstrated that they had discovered one necessity of their time and were supplying it.

Another point in which a marked difference can be discerned between these men and the rest of the religious teachers of that day is the great use they made of lay agency. We are now beginning to recognize that they displayed great wisdom in this matter. How far they were right in the liberal use which they made of lay preaching is, I feel, a matter of debate.

There is always a danger in employing such agency lest it should be zealous without knowledge. There is a fear lest the Gospel message delivered by an earnest but untutored messenger should fail of its effect. This would ever be the case if the hearers were fitted for addresses of a more refined and cultivated character. It was however the discovery that these untrained preachers, feeling all they said, spake with effect to the hearts of untrained hearers which led the early apostles of Wesleyanism to acquiesce in this innovation of Church order. It was among the lower classes of the people that the labours of these men bore most fruit, and in the minds of those to whom they preached there was a lack even of elementary religious teaching. It was not as when St. Paul wrote and spake to educated men capable of reasoning on what they heard. There was nothing here to be pulled down, and the simplest lessons given and appreciated were so much clear gain. This may account for their adoption of lay preachers. But their utilization of the laity was not confined to this. In numberless ways they arranged to make use of as much of this help as they could get. They saw in it the strength of their new com