SMITH'S HISTORY OF WESLEYAN METHODISM.* THE third volume of Mr.
Smith's History of Wesleyan Methodism will, we suspect, have but a secondary interest, even for the members of the community whose organization and action he describes, and whose triumphs he records. For those who are not within the privi- leged circle of this irregular Eeclesia, the sole interest it can offer is that which lies in an occasional statement of fact or statistical pre- sentment. There is nothing in this volume which has either a philo- sophical or biographical importance—ordinary anecdote, religious platitude common-place theology, and diffuse recital, alternate through six hundred pages, remarkable mainly for almost unexceptionable mediocrity. Such, at least, will, we suspect, be the judgment of all intelligent readers of the volume whose sympathies are not already enlisted for the events of which, and persons of which, it treats, by an immediate participation in the class interests of Wesleyan Me- thodism. They will care little for the details of the proceedings of conference, for the rivalries and feuds of the Tories and Whigs of this rel. .ous Lilliput. The old controversies of the Catholic Church may st.ll attract speculative intellects. The bold heretic Arius and Atha- nasius contra mundum still command the admiration or stimulate the antipathy of men; but we can only smile when we read of "the great Jabez" (Bunting), or "the rise and progress of the agitation" of Dr. Samuel Warren.
• History of Weskyan Methodism. Vol. III. By G. Smith, LL.D., F.A.S., &c. Longman and Co. In reviewing the action of the great Methodist Parliament, we have been struck by what has at least an appearance of dictatorial assumption. We have no intention to vindicate the secessionists of Weslevanism, or defend the conduct of its heresiarchs. "Brother J. It. Stephens" was probably a noisy, and possibly. a mischievous, orator; he may have been wrong-headed and foolish in accepting the office of corresponding secretary of a Church Separation Society; and he may have " acted contrary to his peculiar calling and solemn engagements as a Methodist preacher." A society has, no doubt, a negative right to frame its own laws and expel those who contravene them. But not the less do we object to the despotic intervention of any society to coerce opinion or prohibit its expression. The in- fluence of such an association, tending, as it must do, to suppress or limit intellectual liberty, is simply pernicious. In the national Church, no doubt this evil exists, but with such large abatements, owing to that practical inconsequence which distinguishes alike the English people and their great religious representative institution, that per- sonal liberty is seldom actually endangered by overt action, and the
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amount of individual freedom enjoyed in its pale is, for the most part, limited only by the force of spontaneous conscientiousness. In whatever degree the Church of the nation is exclusive it is anti- national ; but, precisely because of the defects and limitations in- herent in this supreme centre of religious thought, we should hesitate to multiply subordinate foci of local or sectarian opinions. Right or wrong, however, the Conference seems to have had considerable diffi- culty in restraining intellectual anarchy or checking personal ambition. Dr. Warren and Mr. Stephens were not the only recusants. Out of the pretensions of the former gentleman—the Diotrephes of consti- tutional Methodism—emanated the Grand Central Association, a sort of Wesleyan Conference once removed, and regarded as a rebel- lious, ungrateful,poor relation by its aristocratic and affluent cousin. This dissenting offshoot of Dissent claimed, among other things, "in violation of common sense," that the Conference should vote by ballot and be open to the laity, each preacher admitting a lay friend by ticket, not to speak or vote, but to watch proceedings. In 1849 "the disciplinary action" of the Conference was unusually rigorous. It was a period of the "Fly Sheets" agitation. These " Fly Sheets" were anonymous tracts circulated among the Methodists as far back, we fancy, as 1845, and believed to be the production of Wesleyan ministers. They are described by Mr. Smith as virulently slanderous. They reflected, he says, on Dr. Bunting (" the great Jabez"), his friends, and the proceedings of the Conference and its committees in the most unmeasured terms. The effect of these ministerial libels was, first, to make " Methodism as it is much less lovely and blessed than Methodism as it was;" secondly, to retard the increase of the connexion. Four suspected ministers were next summoned to the Conference, and were severally asked by the president, "Are you the writer or author, in whole or in part, of the 'Fly Sheets." On re- fusing to give a categorical reply, three of the four criminals were expelled, while the fourth, in consequence of his great age and in- firmities, escaped with an admonition from the chair. In this sum- mary way did the Conference deal with its contumacious " Suspects." These general insurrectionary movements were sometimes varied by a personal disaffection or rebellion. Mr. Pennock, for instance, in 1837, having advanced certain objections to " Methodism," " infant baptism," and "the eternal sonship of Christ," withdrew from the mission [in Jamaica] iu order to escape expulsion, and immediately began to form a new Church, which he promised would be a "model of ecclesiastical polity and doctrinal parity." Earlier still, Mr. Mark Robinson tried his 'prentice hand on a new Church Methodist system, but, unfortunately, by the time it was completed and pub- lished, all his followers had forsaken him ; " so that, as was wittily said at the time, the religious public had the ludicrous spectacle before them of a king in Zion, hawking about his constitution, but unable to procure a single subject who would bend his neck to his petty yoke.'
But Wesleyanism, it appears, had its royalists as well as its ma- lignants ; its defenders of the faith, as well as its schismatics ; its sages as well as its fools ; its ornaments, as well as its disgraces. Who, saving ourselves, has not heard of "the fine philosophical character and mighty intellect of Watson, sanctified by deeper Chris- tian experience—an intellect which fitted him to meet divines of any school, or statesmen of any calibre, on terms of equality?" Or who, not excepting ourselves, has not heard of " the master mind of Jabez Bunting," with the omission of the qualifying epithet ? And here we prefer saying at once that Mr. Smith's notions of intel- lectual greatness appear to be very different from ours, Undoubtedly, there are great men, as the world estimates greatness, both in and out of the Church of England. There have been learned men, too, whose erudition has been Puritan as well as Anglican. Milton was, perhaps, a better scholar than Jeremy Taylor, and Baxter's reading might shame many a modern theologian. But, if we except Adam Clarke, we know of no Methodist divine eminent for scholarship. Mr. Smith is anxious to make out that Wesleyanism has in it some element of nationality. Perhaps it has. Yet it would not be easy to say what are the peculiar national characteristics of Wesleyanism. No one who really knows the Church of England can deny its general utilities or its small occasional heroism. The clergyman is often the active friend, the adviser, the educator of his parishioners. It is oftenest he who works hardest to build the school, restores the church, founds the club, advances the loan, informs the emigrant, and aids the parents of a young girl entering on domestic service, or i apprentices the boy who is unable to follow theplough, or whose predilections are for town industry rather than for country work. The steady, laborious, unromantic week-day work of religion belongs, on the whole, to the obscure vicar or the plodding curate, who toil on, hoping for nothing, often misconstrued, sometimes reviled, always unappreciated. Examples and even cultivators of taste, connecting, though frequently through indirect and imperceptible channels, the thought and literature of the day, as well as of all time, with the rough hands or tough sinews of country man- hood, the ministers of the English Church, after every deduction has been made for misconception, prejudice, and dereliction of duty, have some national significance and value, and stand in some definable relation to the people of England. Is there not a Maurice with much liberal heartedness to teach some truth, or shadow of a truth, that finds its way to the universal heart ? Is there not a Kingsley, who, in his large, blundering, genial dialect seems to point out a reality in the old creed, which men would very unwillingly let go ? Is there not a Thirlwall, whose History of Greece is only not the first in the language, because Mr. Grote has written a better? Is there not a Milman who has been characterized as one of our two great living historians? a French whose verses are probably as far superior to the "luscious poetry" that foolish Lord Shaftesbury praises, as the Weslevs and two or three of their coadjutors were superior to all other Methodist preachers? Sedgewick, again, has done something for neology; Adams something for astronomy ; Whewell something for the science of the tides; Archer Butler for the interpretation of Plato; Jewett for scriptural exegesis; and Dr. Hook for the elucida- tion of the ecclesiastical history of our own country. Sydney Smith, with his clear punctual common sense and faCile wit ; Heber, with his gentle, pious spirit, and fine poetic expression ; and Selwyn and MacDowal, with a missionary zeal that works, and is never wearied, are samples of Church of England efficiency and reality. Can Mr. Smith enumerate their Methodist equivalents ? We think not. But lie will say that the province of the ministers of religion is to save souls. Surely a very noble calling, if the saving of souls means the restoration of spiritual health. To make men true, and pure, and loving, and wise, and reverential ; to give them the faith that looks through death, and the hope that unites them with the future, and the courage that will never submit or yield as long as there is evil without or selfishness within to conquer, is, in our judgment, to save souls. We dare say that Methodism has often done this. Down over those wild heathery and thymy woods in Cornwall, and in its lonely mining districts, the truth that is in Wesleyanism has often sounded, sinking into the hearts of men, and waking them up to a dim sense of the grandeur and mystery of life, teaching_ them the sacredness of duty, and making them feel, if it be only for a moment, that man is greater than the elements, and that there is something in him that proclaims the non °Innis rsoriar, not of the Latin poet alone, but of universal humanity. But can we recognize this in the spiritual _experiences of Mr. Smith ? Was this the feeling of the man who exclaimed, " 0 my friends, how sweet a thing it is to die. I had no idea it was so pleasant !" What are we to say, again, of the death-bed conversion of the man "who got to heaven as by the skin of his teeth ?" "He continued so (in a state of insensibility, we pre- sume) till near midnight, when one glimmering ray of light darted into his mind, and his family clapped their hands and shouted, Glory to God! The little ray brightened into a flood of light, and the next day lie died happy in God. Thus he was saved." So says Mr. Smith : but if that be saving a man's soul, the work is easier than we thought.
What, again, are we to say of the following " graphic description" of the toils of an illustrious minister :
" I had been told that the Lincoln congregation consisted of very still sort of people, who were incapable of excitement, &c. &c. Caution, caution would be necessary. Well, pondering took place in my mind. The result was, I will strike next Sunday.' I did so: execution was done. God saved four; and He has saved, I should think, at least fourscore since in Lincoln. Hallelujah 1 Hail to the Lord's Anointed I The royal diadem belongs to him ! We will crown him Lord of all! The floods are coming! If our people continue in agonizing believing prayer, which bas fast hold of them at present—and why not?—nothing can stand before them. Satan will fall like lightning from heaven. Hardness, levity, &c., are as chaff before the wind, &c."
Mr. Smith's conversion cases are very numerous. The Spirit is often poured out from on high : after which the wilderness naturally becomes a fruitful field. At one time that prayer meetings were filled every night in the week, and upwards of seventy persons were either made happy in God, or were earnestly seeking his mercy ; at another time we are told that the Rev. Miles Martindale, " in very early life, had deep convictions of his sinfulness; and often in dreams and visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, the Lord opened his ear to instruction !" And once, we are informed, that a glorious harvest of twenty-eight thousand converts had been gathered from the wastes of heathenism into the garner of the Church, by the united and continued labourers, we believe, of one hundred Methodist missionaries.
We do not mean to speak disrespectfully of the exertions, the hopes, or aspirations of the Wesleyan community. Methodism was once a reality and power; it supplied, however inadequately, an ex- planation of the great problem of human life, and the feelings, the thoughts, the imagination of thousands of poor men and women were called out of torpor and listlessness into strange excited activity. This stimulation, unwholesome as it often was, prepared and edu- cated, after a fashion, the dormant mind of English peasants and artisans, when the Church of the nation had well-nigh entirely abandoned its high function. When it was specially the religion of the poor, and had to struggle for life, Methodism, he repeats, was a power. It has long since become respectable. It has "a status," and well-to-do persons support and patronize it. We are willing to allow that in its more affluent members it is a very "genteel" and well- behaved religion. Conference Methodism is, we hope, a very different
ging from the kind of religionism scmetimes taught and practised among its rebellious ramifications in the West of England. That there are good, honest, pious men to be found in all the divisions and subdivisions of Christians that owe their existence to the original scheme of salvation propounded by Wesley. and his associates, we shall not deny; but we are afraid there is little doubt that the ignorant, fanatical, and self-sufficient may be found in about an equal proportion. Preaching is too often a trade; the saving of souls too often a kind of imaginary avocation out of a prospective Tartarus, conducted by men who "do their holy oily best" to frighten their hearers into convulsions of piety; " Who' du believe in special ways
0' prayin* and convartin', Whose' bread comes back in many days,
An' buttered, tu, fer sartin."
We have no wish that the "cure of souls" should be practised in this way, either in or out of the Church. Mr. Smith places in an Appendix a table of the number of mem- bers in " the Connexion," at home and abroad, from 1816 to 1860. The maximum, 477,245, seems to have been attained in 1850. Ten years after; the number fell to 396,075. Methodism, also, it appears, has 533 circuits, 1500 accredited ministers, probably 15,000 local preachers, and 28,000 or 30,000 class readers. Our author antici- pates its further extension, and has a special chapter on the Methodism of the Future.
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